Small-Town Dreams (14 page)

“But—” Cassie started to protest.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Henry said, interrupting Cassie. “You ladies don’t mind waiting so this young fella can get home to his wife, do you?”

Irma settled back in her seat. “Oh, not at all. Just see that you don’t tire him out. We still want to see him. We have something to celebrate.”

What could Cassie do but smile graciously and say, “Go ahead. Josh and I have the rest of our lives to be together.”

Please, Lord, let it be true,
she prayed, as the men left the waiting room.

W
hen he heard footsteps echo through his doorway, Josh turned his head from a study of the view out his hospital room window. He knew it was Cassie. For the first time he dreaded seeing her. For the first time, he didn’t want to know anything about his past.

“Hi. How’s the patient?” she asked as she peeked in. She looked unsure, and his heart ached for what he had to do to her.

“I’ve been better.” He wasn’t talking about physical pain. He supposed that was beyond him. His heart hurt too much for anything else to register. Causing Cassie the same kind of pain that he felt was the last thing Josh wanted to do. But he had no choice.

She walked to the bed and gently pushed his hair off his forehead as she had done so many times last night when fever had racked his body. “Are you in much pain?” she asked, and leaned down to feather a kiss on his cheek.

He blinked away tears that had nothing to do with physical pain and everything to do with what he was about to lose. “Pain seems to be one of those relative things. The leg’s nothing.”

Cassie looked puzzled by his answer, but asked, “So what does Mike Howard think?”

“That there’s a good possibility he can track down the idiot who shot me. I don’t care for me, but that fool shouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of anything more dangerous than a cap gun. It’s hunters like him who give them all a bad name.”

“Dr. West said the bullet shattered your bone and that he had to fix the damage with a plate.”

She took his hand and he closed his eyes, trying to capture the feel of her for the lonely days ahead.

“But he seemed hopeful for a full recovery. I’ll help all I can while you’re getting back on your feet,” she added. He could hear her anxiety and knew he had to end it right then. A clean break.

“I understand you met Jim Dillon,” he said. She nodded, apprehension darkening her eyes.

“He knows me, Cassie. He knows a lot about where I came from and what was going on in my life when I disappeared. He knows where I was living, the names of my parents and—” He broke off, his stomach tightening. That was the wrong way to say it. He tried again. “There’s no easy way to say this. We can’t get married, sweetheart. I’m already married.”

She blinked and her back stiffened a bit. “Oh?” she said, and other than that quick reflexive flinch, she showed no other sign of distress.

“I’m sorry,” he rushed on, afraid if he paused he’d lose his resolve. “I remember what you said about how I’ve probably changed, and how she’s probably changed but I still have to find her and try to work it out with her. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what I have to do.”

“Does Jim Dillon know why she never looked for you? Why your parents never looked, either?”

She wasn’t acting as he’d expected, but then Cassie never had been like the other women he’d met in his limited experience. “He said that the last time he talked to David—” He stopped. The name felt foreign on his tongue. Josh wasn’t sure he’d ever be David Chernak again, but that was who he’d been. He started again. “The last time he talked to
me
there was trouble with the corporation I helped run. It was a construction firm. I was their architect. I guess building things is a talent that survived the head injury.

“Anyway, there was a problem with the company, and I was trying to find out who was responsible for it. Apparently, many of the homes we’d built had been destroyed by a hurricane and substandard materials were to blame. Jim said it was in all the Florida papers and even as far north as Philadelphia at first. He tried to call me at my home a few weeks after the last time we’d talked, but my wi—” Again, he stopped. He couldn’t hurt Cassie by saying the word
wife
in her presence. Not when it was a place in his life that he’d already asked her to take.

“But when he called he was told,” he continued, “that I had left Florida and no one knew where to find me. He got the same answer a week later. He called back about a month later and the number was disconnected.”

It boggled Josh’s mind that according to Jim Dillon he’d once adored the woman whose existence he couldn’t even remember now.

“So you’ll go to Florida,” Cassie said, her tone studiously even.

He nodded. “Jim Dillon didn’t know how to get in touch with my parents and felt a little strange even trying since he didn’t know them. So he followed the story as best he could from so far away, figuring I’d get in touch when I was ready. It turned out that my brother was apparently responsible and has gone to prison over it. That’s all he knows, except that an old paper he managed to get hold of said my father and I had a falling-out over the problems. Mike Howard promised to get their address and phone number for me.”

“Will you contact them right away?”

“No. I don’t want them showing up here. I’ll go there to see them when I’m well enough to travel and I’m ready. As you said, they haven’t looked for me.”

“You’re sure this is the way you want it?” she asked, her eyes and voice flat, her face expressionless.

He could have been talking to a computer for all the emotion she showed. Josh just couldn’t figure her out. “It isn’t what I
want,
Cassie. It’s what has to be. It kills me to hurt you like this.”

“I’m fine. Really. I don’t want you to feel guilty. You aren’t hurting me as badly as you obviously think.” She bit her lip and her eyes rose to stare at something just over his shoulder. He almost looked to see what had her rapt attention but her knotted fingers drew him, then she started talking again.

“On the hike back out from the cabin, I’ve never known such terror. I realized that I can’t live up here so far from civilization where weather like that is a common occurrence all winter. And what do all of you
do
all year? There’s only so much green a person can take—and we won’t even discuss white! Josh, what I’m trying to explain is that even if you were free, I couldn’t marry you. You belong here, and I belong in the city where I can see a movie without planning the excursion, and where there are plays, the opera and art museums.”

She bent down and kissed his forehead. “So the Lord worked it out, after all. Thank you for helping me find Him. I’d like it if we remained friends. Perhaps write and keep up with what we’re doing. And of course, if you or Irma and Henry ever need anything, just call.”

She backed away and looked down at her watch. “Goodness, I’d better get going before I tire you out. I’ll be by to see you tomorrow unless the roads are clear to Philly tonight. My grandfather’s expecting me as soon as I can get there.”

Josh stared at her. This just didn’t add up. “Cassie—”

“Goodbye, Joshua Daniels. Be happy.” She gave him a sad smile and turned away. She was out the door before he had a chance to say another word.

And he knew he’d never see her again.

Josh dropped his head back on his pillows and gave in to the tears and pain she apparently did not feel. Nothing had ever hurt like this. At least, nothing that he could remember. And the worst part was that he didn’t know what hurt more—losing her or knowing she hadn’t really cared to begin with. Then he realized that he was glad she hadn’t cared as much as he had. He didn’t want to think of her hurting the way he now was.

He closed his eyes and prayed for the pain to ease and for peace and the assurance that he was doing what was right. Long minutes passed before the truth about the scene with Cassie struck him.

She had lied.

That morning she’d gone back out into the blizzard to save him with resolve and a quiet bravery only she could show. She’d made light of any fears, saying that it was the possibility of an avalanche that frightened her—not the snow itself.

Everything she’d said made perfect sense in a new context. She’d wanted to set him free. To ease his guilt for hurting her. And he loved her more than ever for hiding her pain for his sake. But now he could only lie here with a hole in his life where she should have been, and imagine her pain and how she would hold it in until she was alone where she would let it spill forth and consume her.

Cassie walked down the hall, counting her steps, hoping her shaking legs would carry her out of the building, hoping to keep the tears at bay until she reached the privacy of her car. But she realized she’d failed when several people looked at her as she passed them with sympathy in their eyes.

When Cassie saw an exit sign over the stairway door, it looked like a haven. She threw it open just in time, because at that moment the clawing pain in her chest overwhelmed her. She pushed the door shut behind her and leaned her back against the cold plaster wall. Her shaking legs gave out then and she sank to the cement floor, simply drowning in an agony beyond measure.

She huddled there, muffling her tears to keep them private until a hand settled on her head. She looked up and blinked, sure her eyes were playing tricks on her. But her grandfather’s image only grew clearer.

“Grandfather?”

“Come home now, Cassidy. You tried your best. That’s all you can do.”

“How did you know?”

“I heard about the shooting on the news and came immediately. When I got here, I met Irma and Henry. They told me everything that’s happened. I know you two planned to be married, and that Joshua’s old friend arrived with information about his past. I admit I don’t understand what Joshua feels he has to do with the information, but I can certainly see what it has done to you.”

Cassie heard the edge of anger in his voice. She didn’t want him thinking ill of Josh. His memory was too precious to her. She pushed herself to her feet. “Believe me, he’s hurting just as much I am. Maybe more. He felt so guilty, so I told him it was no big deal because I didn’t want to marry him, after all. Then he looked…Oh, Grandfather, I didn’t mean to hurt him worse. I love him so much.”

Her grandfather stepped forward and put his arms around her. “So tell him why you said what you did. He’ll understand. And maybe if he sees how badly he’s hurt you, he’ll change his mind about finding this other woman.”

Cassie shook her head. “No. I can’t do that and neither can he. I said what I did to free him, and it has to stay that way. Josh has to follow his conscience. And I have to accept that our not being together is the Lord’s will. Henry would say He’s trying to teach us something. I just wish I knew what. It would make it all so much easier.”

“But—”

“No, Grandfather. You were right. Let’s go home.”

And they did. Cassie didn’t return to her cold high-rise but to a rented carriage house on a Main Line estate. She finished her portfolio, and her talent impressed Maria Prentice’s agent, who then became Cassie’s agent, as well. Within months she’d have her first show. But it was hard to care about anything when her heart had been shattered. She was able to lose herself in her painting, which passed the time and made her agent happy, at least.

Portraits continued to trouble her, though. Joshua’s big, long-lashed, brown eyes continued to show up in each and every one. Sometimes they were merry. Other pictures showed them sad and haunted. But they were always there. Her agent thought it might be an interesting gimmick. For Cassie, who was trying not to think of those eyes, it was downright frustrating.

She started attending services at The Tabernacle, the church Jim Dillon pastored. She made some friends among the congregation and found comfort in the Lord. Jim tried to comfort her, as well, and he kept her up on Joshua’s progress. But he obviously felt responsible for a measure of her pain so Cassie put up a brave front for his sake. It was not his fault, after all, that he’d tried to be the bearer of glad tidings and had become a messenger of doom instead.

He approached her after the service three months after she’d left Mountain View to tell her that he was going to accompany Joshua to Florida in a week. She decided that with Josh gone she could visit Irma, Henry and Maria, and not run the risk of seeing him. She left for the Poconos the day Josh and Jim flew out of LVI for Fort Myers.

Josh stood alone outside his parents’ home after Jim Dillon drove away, wondering what they were like. The house was a huge one-story dwelling built of gray brick and trimmed with dramatic accents of black and white. It had arched windows, a peaked slate roof, and an imposing set of stained-glass front doors, and it sat atop the gentle rise on a lushly landscaped two-acre lot. The home was grander than anything in Mountain View, and the neighborhood was as upscale as the most luxurious Pocono resort. The extent of their wealth was evident in every square inch of the property.

But money had never meant anything to him. Nothing meant much to him lately. The pain of losing Cassie had even overshadowed the torture of the intense therapy sessions he’d had to undergo to get on his feet again.

Jim Dillon, who he’d learned was a fellow pastor, had offered to accompany Josh to Florida, and Josh had taken him up on the offer. On the trip south, Jim had shared a multitude of stories from their mutual past. Some were funny, but several were tragic and heartbreaking. Jim’s own past, which included the breakup of a brief marriage to a young New Zealander, was perhaps the saddest of all.

Jim had suffered from a drinking problem and it had caused the couple to clash, and then Jim had shipped out to the South Pole. The assignment had taken six months, and he’d lost his wife and his son as a result. He’d returned to civilization to find divorce papers and an address for her that was no longer current. They had disappeared and he’d been searching for them whenever he could afford it.