The Wedding Arbor

“Too soon for what?” She frowned at him.

Adam scowled back at her. “It’s going to be at least two or three days before anybody can negotiate the roads up here, even with a four-wheel-drive truck like mine.”

“Meaning?” Sara mirrored his stance, her arms folded, her back stiff.

“Meaning, we’re stuck here. Just you, me and the dog. A real happy family.”

“That’s impossible. Surely, you can call me a tow truck or something.”

Acting far more nonchalant than he felt, Adam shrugged. “Look. Tell you what we’ll do. I don’t have a phone. As soon as I’m sure the weather will hold, we’ll hike down to the mom-and-pop grocery store at Flatrock and see if we can get somebody to come up and pull you out.”

“Somebody professional? I’d hate to damage my rental car, even though it isn’t new.”

“You should have thought of that before you drove it off the road,” he countered.

“Actually, I was trying to see if it would float,” she quipped dryly. “But it got stuck on the berm before I could make it all the way to the river, below.” Sara saw her rescuer’s countenance darken.

“Don’t make jokes like that,” he warned. “Life-threatening situations aren’t funny.”

“I never said they were. I was just…” The look in his eyes kept her from continuing. Something or someone in Adam’s past must have contributed greatly to his negative response. That wasn’t her fault. However, she could tell he was clearly beyond accepting any innocent attempts at humor so she backed off and faced him soberly.

“Look, I’m sorry if I offended you. All my life, I’ve tended to make jokes out of all kinds of situations, even the most desperate ones. I guess it’s my way of coping. I don’t mean anything bad by it.”

She paused, studying his closed expression and trying to guess what made him tick. “Before you came up here and shut yourself away like this, were you a doctor or an ambulance driver or something?”

He shook his head slowly, his blue gaze capturing hers and holding it as securely as if he’d taken her hands and was forcing her to look at him. “No,” he said, voice low and rumbling. “I was a cop.”

The rain resumed by lunchtime. Sara had insisted they start the generator long enough for her to run a load of laundry through the washing machine perched on the narrow back porch. Her rationale was flawless. One more slide in the red clay of the yard and she’d be out of wearable clothing, not counting the unmentionables she had stuffed in her pack.

Using the dryer, however, was impossible in the wind-driven downpour, so they’d carted the damp, clean clothes inside and rigged up ropes as clotheslines to dry the wettest articles. By the time the laundry was hung, the tiny cabin reminded Sara of a soggy, ramshackle maze.

“I feel like a mouse,” she called, ducking a stiffening pair of jeans located close to the stove’s radiating heat and making her way toward Adam.

He threw a last bath towel over the rope and looked in the direction of her voice. “A what? Where’s a mouse?”

Sara laughed lightly. “No. Not a real mouse. I mean, this arrangement feels like we’re stuck in some kind of a bizarre maze.”

“It’s not normally this crowded in here when I have to resort to this method,” he explained. “A pair of jeans and maybe a few towels by the stove is usually all I hang. It’s a good thing the weather’s stayed cold or we wouldn’t have the heat from the stove to help dry this stuff.”

She lifted the lower corner of another towel and peeked past it to smile up at him. “I really am sorry I inconvenienced you and disturbed your solitude.”

“I’ll live.”

She swept aside the towel and stepped into the confining space between the row of laundry and the edge of the sink where Adam stood. “Don’t you get lonely way out here? This is beautiful country and all, but I just think, I’d miss people.”

Adam stared at her. The already humid air seemed suddenly rarified. The hanging laundry had enclosed the two of them in such a small space he couldn’t help noticing everything about Sara. His oversize sweatshirt had never looked so good. She was attractive. Appealing. Almost endearing. He would have turned away and fled if there had been anywhere else to go. He finally found his voice. “I don’t miss people at all.”

“But you did, once, didn’t you?” Sara’s words were soft, gently spoken. Without realizing it, she’d drawn on her internal resources to express the spiritual love Adam needed. The love that he’d banished from his wounded soul.

He stiffened. Mentally withdrew. “I don’t know how we got on this subject but let’s drop it, okay? My life is none of your concern, so don’t try fixing it.”

That statement acted like a bucket of ice water in Sara’s face, negating the compassion blossoming in her heart and refocusing her mind. If anybody’s life needed fixing, it was hers. For the first time in hours she thought of Eric, remembered her earlier fear, wondered where he was and if she had truly escaped his uncalled-for interest.

She huffed. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about. If I could fix any life, I’d start with my own, thank you.”

“Yours?” Adam was surprised. “From the things you’ve said and the way you’ve been kidding around, I’d have thought for sure you were happy.”

“That’s a subjective term,” Sara countered. “If you’d asked me the same question six months ago, I’d have told you everything was perfect.”

“And now?”

Her glance darted past Adam to the window above the sink. Eric could be out there in the woods. Watching her. Hidden by the rain. Just waiting for his chance to get her alone, again. To scare her to death with his cool assurances that they were meant for each other no matter how many times she told him no.

Why God had allowed that charlatan to fool her—to fool everyone—so completely, was a mystery Sara still hadn’t figured out. Maybe she never would. At this point, all she wanted was to be free of Eric Rydell. To be able to go to bed at night and not worry that he was stalking her.

She shivered, wrapped her arms around herself. “Now,” she said quietly, answering Adam’s query, “I just want to get to Grandma Stone’s homestead. I need time to think.”

“Alone?” Adam asked perceptively.

“Yes,” Sara said. “Alone.”

It was later in the day before Adam decided to broach the subject of his guest’s uneasiness again. The laundry had dried, thanks to the added heat from the wood stove, and the cabin was no longer so crowded it felt claustrophobic. He’d noted that Sara had relaxed appreciably, though she probably wouldn’t stay that way for long. Not once he started asking questions. He fully intended to cross-examine her until he found out who or what she was afraid of.

She’d found a paperback mystery to read and was curled up comfortably by the fire, apparently ignoring him. If Adam hadn’t been trained to notice nuances of body language and details of his surroundings he might have actually believed she wasn’t paying attention to anything but her reading.