LITMIR.BIZ

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Gideon manages to convince the city board of directors to support a hospital designation for the clinic.” He glanced at Noelle. “You’re still a nurse. Why ignore the skills you worked so hard to learn?”

      “Don’t start with me. I’ve had enough of that from Jill.”

      “Have you ever considered the possibility that she’s right once in a while?”

      “Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re a nag?” Noelle teased. “Besides, you’re the one who can’t settle on a career. From preacher to pharmacist in four years. You never told me why you made that giant leap.”

      He gave up. She wouldn’t be pinned down, and if he tried, she’d just change the subject again. “Not much of a leap. After Natalie died, I felt overwhelmed by the pastorate, so I gave the church my resignation and went back to school to follow in my mom’s footsteps.” It was an oversimplification of a very complicated and painful time in his life, and her prolonged silence told him she knew it.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “Your wife was so young to be taken like that. It must have been awful for both of you.”

      “I tried to be there for her as much as I could, while still trying to shoulder all the responsibilities of the church myself.” And Hideaway Community Church had become his undoing, especially after the aggressive ovarian cancer took Natalie in such a short time. “It became too much for me during her illness. I couldn’t cope with the needs of so many, and even though the church was supportive, I guess I felt like a failure.” As always, he had an uncomfortable tendency to spill his guts to Noelle.

      “I was so caught up in my own problems at the time, I wasn’t there for you,” she said.

      “I brought it on myself, with my inability to delegate responsibility in the church. I had the erroneous attitude, thinking of myself as God’s anointed, who should be able to do it all. I was wrong.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

      “I knew what a rough time you were having then, with Joel,” Nathan said. “I’ve heard the comment that a divorce is more painful than a death. In a way, not only is divorce the announcement of the death of a relationship, but it’s also, in the eyes of many, a sign of rejection.”

      “For me it was a sign of failure,” she said quietly. “By the time the judge pronounced us no longer husband and wife, I felt as though I’d been released from prison.”

      He gave her a quick glance.

      She shrugged. “The drugs, the abuse.” She pressed a forefinger against the small scar beside her left eye. “This is just the most visible scar he gave me. I kept thinking I could hold out and see him through all of it, that I was the one person who could rescue him from himself.” She gave a bitter snort. “I discovered I wasn’t so special, after all.”

      “Then I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, either.” Nathan risked another glance at her; she was staring out the window again. “And so you changed professions because of the experience, just as I did.”

      “I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t find a job after I was dismissed from the clinic. No one wanted to take a chance on a proven drug abuser.”

      Nathan’s foot involuntarily eased from the accelerator and the truck slowed. He couldn’t keep the shock from his expression.

      “I did offer to drive if you need me to,” she said dryly.

      “That’s okay.” He regained his composure. “I guess there are some things I still don’t know about you.”

      “There are some things you won’t want to know. Let’s just say I made a mess of things once too often, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”

      “But you shouldn’t have to keep paying for it for the rest of your life.”

      “Maybe I should. Get over it, Nathan. I have.”

      “But you always wanted to be a nurse.”

      She returned to her brooding.

      Time for yet another subject change. Amazing how they’d once been able to discuss anything together, and now they had to tiptoe around so many areas of their lives.

      She pointed to the first outlying buildings of the town of Hideaway, the breathtaking view of the lake to their right and the picturesque town square to their left—a square on which the brick storefronts faced the street that encircled it on all four sides.

      Nathan drove past the clinic, general store, feed store, bakery and bank, then followed the curve in the road through a charming residential district, lush with trees and shrubbery and lined with a variety of homes, from colorfully painted Victorian houses to neat brick Colonials and ranches and small lake cabins. This early in the morning, all was quiet. Nathan and Noelle passed Jill’s two-story Victorian on their way out of town.

      “Nothing stirring in town yet,” Noelle said.

      “Which means everyone’s probably still out at Cedar Hollow.”

      “Which means they haven’t found Carissa yet.”

      Nathan returned his attention to the road as he picked up speed.

      The first sight to greet Noelle as Nathan sped along the paved country lane toward Cooper land was the trees—lush, green and tall, except for a narrow swath of twisted and stunted growth to the right of the lane for about a quarter of a mile that followed the curve downhill into Cedar Hollow. It was the only remaining evidence of the tornado that had torn through the hollow two years earlier. This was the Coopers’ very own tornado alley—with the tops of the trees ripped off and scattered for miles, along with the roof of the old barn behind Cecil Cooper’s house.

      Turning in her seat, away from the window, Noelle watched Nathan drive. His muscles rippled in his bare forearms as he steered to miss a pothole. Due to the number of logging trucks that came this way, the county road crew had to struggle to keep this road repaired.

      Nathan’s face seemed to brood in the flickering shades of light and shadow as he drove under an arching tunnel of trees.

      Noelle’s gaze returned to the road. A few hundred feet ahead, she saw the sturdy cedar stand that supported four mailboxes, belonging to Cecil and Melva, Great-Aunt Pearl, the Cooper Sawmill and the last in the line to Nathan. Forever a country boy at heart, he had returned to his roots when he moved back to the farm where he’d grown up, in the house that was hidden from view to their right, behind a thick stand of lodgepole pine.

      Nathan turned left into the paved driveway on Cooper land. The sawmill was a quarter of a mile along this wooded lane.

      “Did you hear Harvey Sand died?” Nathan asked.

      “Jill told me.” Harvey had done the monthly and annual accounting for Cooper Sawmill for the past fifteen years. His secretary had found him unconscious at the bottom of his staircase at home last Friday morning. “Did he ever regain consciousness?”

      “Not that I heard.”

      “So they still don’t know what happened for sure. Is the sheriff continuing to investigate?”

      “Probably. You know Greg, always suspicious.”

      Noelle peered around at the growing gloom as the clouds seemed to congregate over Cooper land. How appropriate today, with Carissa missing. Obviously, some rain had already fallen, judging by the dripping leaves on the trees and the damp pavement. “Nathan, Jill said you were still doing some counseling for the family.”

      “She did?”

      He sounded hesitant, and Noelle glanced at him. Once more, his posture was perfectly correct, his grip on the steering wheel precise, his gaze straight ahead at the road. Interesting.

      “Are you trying to get to the bottom of the Cooper family psyche?” She was only half joking.

      He looked away. “You

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