Small-Town Dreams (13 page)

“Upsa
who?
”

“Our daughter and son. Upsadelia and Throckmorton. Those were the names of my dolls. But if you have an objection to those names, I’ll certainly consider your input.”

His smile was weak. His next words were a dream come true.

“How about Rachel and Daniel?”

She smiled back, tears welling up in her eyes. “Daniel Daniels? I don’t think so. But Joshua Daniels Junior has a nice ring to it. I’d strongly consider that. Especially,” she added softly as she trailed a finger lightly down his warm cheek, “if he has his father’s beautiful face and big brown eyes. Sometimes when you look at me, I feel as if I could just fall into those eyes and live happily ever after.”

“I love you, Cassie.”

“Then promise me you’ll take the Lord’s gift and live the life He’s given you.”

“If only I could be sure.”

“How much surer do you need to be? He sent me to Mountain View. And I believe He sent me here for you. I told you about the penny and how it brought me to town. And then when I would have driven right on through, because I had my mind set on staying at a big fancy resort, He made my car act up. Then when I would have left, Earl couldn’t find out what was wrong with it. The Lord gave us time, Josh. Time for us to get to know one another. Time for you to tell me about Him. Time for us to fall in love.

“It’s been His hand directing all of it. And then this morning I was painting a picture of an old man from a sketch I’d done. But it was wrong. When I tried to decide what was wrong, I realized that it didn’t match the sketch. Do you know why?”

Josh shook his head, those brown-black eyes of his intent on her face though they were glazed with pain and fever.

“Because I’d given the old man the eyes of a much younger man. Dark eyes. Your eyes, Josh. I thought they looked the way yours had that last morning. All sad and hopeless and in terrible pain. But now, looking at you, I know that the eyes I painted looked a way I’d never seen your eyes look. I thought at the time the pain I saw was sadness because you thought we could never be more than friends. I was wrong. What I saw was physical pain. He sent me back here today so I’d be here to help you. I’d been wrestling with the idea of returning since Thanksgiving when my grandfather told me to come back and fight for what I wanted. I couldn’t make myself come back until today. Then today I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Why couldn’t you come back sooner?”

“Because I had to be sure it was the right thing to do—and I wasn’t. I prayed and prayed for His guidance. I asked Him to send me a sign that He wanted us to be together. And this morning he sent it when I looked at the painting.

“This is in
His
will, Josh. He sent me here this morning to help you before you ever left Irma’s.” Cassie took his hand in hers—his big well-muscled hand that was so weak right now that he couldn’t lift it himself—and showed him their clasped hands. “He gave us this and it would be
wrong
not to accept it. Promise me, Joshua Daniels, that you’ll accept the gift of love that the Lord sent to you.”

A tear leaked out of the corner of his eye and ran into his hair. “Will you marry me, Cassie?”

“Y
ou’d better believe it,” she whispered, and kissed his hand.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to concentrate. “Your grandfather told you to fight for me? I thought he’d be against the idea of you marrying a penniless mountain preacher. I have nothing to offer you.”

“Your love is all I need. But I thought he’d object, too. I was so wrong about him. He wants me to be happy. He thought working at Jamison Steel would make me as happy as it did him. Then he heard me discussing my job and its effect on my stomach with my doctor. He decided that the vice presidency was the last thing I needed. It all went wrong for him when we started to argue and I stormed off before he could explain why he did what he did.”

“Then you still have him.” He looked around the cabin, his fevered gaze falling on a picture of a much younger Irma and Henry. “Cassie, if something…if for some reason I don’t make it out of this mess…”

“No. Josh. Don’t say that.”

“Take care of them,” he demanded. “Please. Henry’s going downhill fast, and Irma’s not as tough as she acts. They were so good to me. So patient. And Bear. He’s—” His voice broke.

As she had done once before, she silenced him with a finger on his lips. “Shh. Everyone is going to be fine. You included. We haven’t come this far to lose each other now. At dawn, blizzard or no, I’m going for help. In no time at all they’ll be landing a rescue chopper in that meadow below the cabin. All I have to do is head downhill. Downhill leads to town.”

“You have to be careful, anyway. If you take a wrong path, it’ll lead you right to a dead end. It isn’t much of a cliff by some standards but a thirty-foot drop can kill. That’s why I marked the trail.”

“I’ll be careful. But I
am
going.”

“But you’re so afraid of this kind of weather,” Josh protested.

Cassie arched her eyebrow the way she’d seen Irma do. “You have to agree that with all these trees an avalanche isn’t likely. In fact, I think it’s unheard of in the Poconos.”

He nodded, his eyes unfocused. “Tell me about when you were growing up. And about Philadelphia,” he said, and his heavy eyelids closed.

She talked to him for a while until she was sure he was asleep. Then she settled in for a long night.

Cassie dozed off but woke often. She stayed by his side and prayed for him—and with him in his more lucid moments. Those became fewer and farther between as the hours marched on toward morning. Out of desperation she cut him out of his shirt, hoping that by sponging the larger area of his chest and arms she’d control the fever. It didn’t work. By dawn his fever had risen to one hundred and five.

Dangerous by anyone’s standards.

And Cassie knew she had no choice but to leave. Josh needed help and he needed it immediately. In a last-ditch effort to bring down the fever or at least keep it from getting worse while she was gone, Cassie packed plastic bags of snow around him. He never woke.

She got her coat and boots on and stood looking down at him. At his side, Bear whined and looked up at her with sad eyes. Even he seemed to know how serious the situation was. She reached down and ruffled his fur. “You take good care of him,” she ordered.

“Take him,” Josh whispered, his throat rough, his voice weak.

She went down on her knees next to him. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“And I don’t want my wife-to-be falling off a cliff or being afraid. He can’t help me, but he can help you.”

“But the hunters,” she protested.

“Put the leash and his vest on him. You wear mine. It’s bigger than yours. More noticeable. I’ll be fine here.” He grinned weakly. “Probably sleep till you get back,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Fear suddenly swamped her. Fear of leaving him. Fear of getting lost and not getting him help in time. Fear that she’d never again hear his laughter or see his eyes sparkle with mirth. Cassie took his hand and closed her eyes.
Protect him, Lord. Calm this infection. Keep him alive till I can get help. And give me strength to face this task.

Cassie stood and did as Josh asked, knowing that the dog would increase her chances of getting help more quickly. She looked around the room and took a deep breath before taking Bear’s leash and heading out into the storm.

Josh had been right. Bear never let her go astray. Each time she would have made a wrong turn, the big dog would whimper and scamper in the right direction. She always followed because to her every tree and path looked the same and all seemed to lead downhill. Though the snow had slowed, the wind still howled, blowing the falling snow and stirring up what had already fallen into treacherous drifts and a swirling curtain of white. She found a few of Josh’s markers but most must have been covered over by the heavy wet snow that had blown horizontally all night.

An hour into her trek the snow stopped, the wind stilled, and the sun came out. Within minutes the sun turned the wet snow even wetter, soaking her to the skin by the time she struggled the last quarter mile.

When they broke through the trees, Bear lunged forward, breaking the hold Cassie’s freezing fingers had on the leash. He lumbered through the deep snow, dragging his leash behind him and barking wildly to announce their arrival.

Tears of relief and worry tracked down Cassie’s face as she slogged across Irma and Henry’s backyard and up the wooden back steps where Bear stood on his hind legs, pawing at the door. The dog fell inside when Irma pulled the door open, and Cassie made nearly the same entrance.

“What on earth?” Irma gasped as she steadied her.

Cassie gripped Irma’s forearm with a shaking hand, too breathless to speak.

“Child, what’s happened?”

Cassie sank into a chair Irma almost dragged her to, as Bear continued to raise a ruckus, his paws slipping and sliding on the linoleum floor. She’d made it, she thought as she sucked in a deep breath and looked up at the clock. Though her legs trembled so much that they no longer supported her, she’d made the trek in under three hours.

“It’s Josh,” she croaked, her throat raw. “A hunter shot him yesterday. I had to leave him alone at the cabin. He needs help.”

The next hours were long periods of tense waiting punctuated by moments of intense activity. The hospital chopper pilot landed in the meadow to pick up a map to the cabin, then he and two paramedics took off to rescue Josh. The pilot suggested that Cassie and the Tallingers start out and meet them at the hospital.

Though the Tallingers and Cassie rushed, they still arrived after Josh, and were told that he was already in surgery. Barring complications and resistant infections he would be fine, according to a resident who came to speak to them.

Mike Howard, one of the state policemen assigned to the area around Mountain View, arrived next, but there was nothing Cassie could tell him other than what Josh had told her. There were two men. The hunter who shot him had been addressed as Buck by another man, and they’d known they were on posted land.

Then the media, hot on the trail of a story, descended upon the waiting room. Irma slid smoothly into her schoolteacher mode and controlled the mob scene. She also played the reporters like an expert, telling them of Josh’s earlier accident and resulting amnesia. It made a wonderful human-interest story, and before she was done, Josh once again had the kind of media exposure he needed to uncover the mystery of his past.

It was seven in the evening when a tall blond man cleared his throat from the doorway of the waiting room. He wore faded scrubs and a weary expression. “Reverend and Mrs. Tallinger?”

Henry pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head. “It’s just Henry. This is Irma and Cassie. So tell us about our boy. How’s he doing?”

The doctor smiled. “Sit. Please. I’m Doctor West. I’m chief of orthopedics here. Dr. Bennington called me in on this. Joshua is very special to him. I wanted to stop by and advise you on his condition.

“He’s doing very well. He responded well to the anesthesia and to a broad-spectrum antibiotic we had the paramedics start intravenously on the chopper. I had to use a plate to repair the bone because the bullet shattered it. That’s why the surgery took so long. In the long run, he’ll be just fine, but he’ll need time to heal and extensive physical therapy. I understand he’s used to that. He should be in his room within the hour, and then all of you can visit for a while.”

Half an hour after that, while they still waited anxiously to see Josh, the state policeman returned. This time he had another man with him. The stranger fit the old movie image of tall, dark and handsome—as close to a version of Agent 007 as she had ever seen in the flesh. But this man wore jeans and a flannel shirt, which lead Cassie to assume he wasn’t another policeman. He wasn’t.

“Folks, this is Pastor Jim Dillon from down near Philadelphia. He thinks he has some information about Josh.”

“You know who shot our son?” Irma asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said, sounding confused as he turned to Officer Howard. “I was under the impression that he had no family and was suffering amnesia. Maybe I have the wrong man.”

Mike Howard shook his head. “This is Irma and Henry Tallinger. They sort of adopted Josh when we couldn’t find his family. And this is Cassidy Jamison.”

Cassie felt her heart start to pound. Had Irma’s little gambit with the reporters actually paid off? Could this man know Josh from before he arrived in Mountain View? A sudden feeling of dread settled over her as Henry asked that very question.

“I think I may know him, sir. I had a friend in the Navy who would have to be his twin not to be the man you call Joshua Daniels. We stayed in touch after getting out of the service, but I lost contact with him a few years ago.”

“Where was this man from?” Irma asked, and Cassie wondered why she’d ask that and not his name, or whether he had family—a wife.

“He was from the South. Florida.”

Cassie couldn’t keep quiet for another second. “What was this man’s name?”

“Dave. Lieutenant David Chernak. I drove up here after seeing his picture on the noon news. Officer Howard tells me he’s going to be all right. A phone call didn’t seem right, especially with him hurt and all alone.”

“Josh hasn’t been alone for over five years,” Cassie felt compelled to inform him. “Irma and Henry found him hurt and nearly dead. They saved his life and have been there for him every day since.”

His hazel eyes softened when he looked at Irma and Henry. Cassie wanted to hate him, but he made that impossible because he projected a sense of caring and genuine compassion with every word.

“I’m glad he’s had you. I’d hate to think of such a nice guy not having people to care about him. Of course, I can’t be sure Joshua is my old friend. But if I see him, talk to him, I’ll know.”

“I’d hate to see him get all hopeful, then get let down,” Henry said. “What can you tell us about this David Chernak?”

Cassie didn’t like the way Jim Dillon’s eyes darted to her and narrowed before he answered. “We were in the CBs. That’s the Naval Construction Batallions. The man could design and build anything. And loved animals. We’d arrive somewhere to build temporary housing and before you knew it he had every stray dog in the vicinity trailing after him.”

“That sounds so much like Josh,” Irma said, her tone hopeful. “And Cassie, remember right after you met him, you mentioned that he says ‘y’all.’ You remarked that it was a Southern expression.”

“That doesn’t mean…” Cassie let her objection trail off. She felt selfish, but she was terribly afraid that this man was about to destroy all her hopes and dreams for a life with Josh.

A nurse stuck her head in the room. “Mr. Daniels is in his room now and awake. You can have some time with him. Two at a time.”

Cassie wanted desperately to see him, but Irma and Henry had waited long enough. “You two go ahead. I was with him all last night.”

Grasping Cassie’s hands, Irma leaned forward and said, “Thank you, dear. We won’t stay long. I just need to see that he’s okay. Oh! What am I thinking? In all the upset I forgot to ask.” The older woman’s pale blue eyes twinkled now. “How goes the battle?”

Irma’s lighthearted mood was contagious. Cassie smirked. “City girl—one. Mountain man—zero.”

“He finally listened to reason! Well, hallelujah!” Irma exclaimed. “Oh, now I really am excited. You two didn’t happen to decide on a date for the wedding, did you?”

Cassie chuckled and shook her head, but noticed Jim Dillon whisper something to Mike Howard. Her spirits plummeted. There was something about the stranger’s presence that just stole her joy.

“If you don’t mind,” Mike said, standing and checking his watch, “I really have to get my report filed and I need to get Joshua’s statement. I also have to make sure this really was an accident. He was violently attacked before, and that’s still an open file.”

“But I told you he heard the other hunter,” Cassie protested.

“I still need to get a statement directly from the victim,” he explained, then turned to Jim Dillon. “And on the off chance that you could jar his memory and help solve the mystery of the first case surrounding him, I’d really like you to come in with me. I think that would be the easiest way for him in the long run, anyway,” he said, directing this comment to Irma and Henry. “If Mr. Dillon doesn’t think Josh is his Navy friend, Josh won’t have gotten his hopes up. I know how much his lost identity bothers him.”