Small-Town Dreams (4 page)

When he was finally able to wrap his arms around the dog’s neck to hold him still, Joshua heard Cassidy ask, her tone understandably and utterly incredulous, “Hurt him? He pushed
me
down.”

“Bear. Sit,” Joshua growled as the dog tried to backpedal away from Cassidy and Henry. “Are you all right?” he asked Cassidy, holding on to Bear and looking up from where he knelt next to the dog.

Cassidy brushed off her jeans and nodded. “Is he always so erratic? I’m not used to dogs but—”

Joshua chuckled. “Bear has two problems. He’s too friendly, which is all he was trying to be when he knocked you down. And he’s chicken. All it took to send him running was for you to scream. He’s yellow as they come. Don’t let the black coat fool you,” he said, ruffling that same pitch-black fur.

Joshua let out a laugh when Bear leaned into him, forcing him to sit in the mud again. Then Bear climbed into his master’s lap. A considerable amount of dog didn’t fit. But he kept trying, spreading the mud farther over Joshua’s clothes.

“Three. He has three problems, Josh,” Henry put in, deadpan. “He weighs a hundred and fifty pounds and thinks he’s a lap dog.” The old pastor frowned. “Well, we have to be honest. He also eats too much, is dumb as a post about what animals it’s not safe to chase, and as a guard dog he’d make a better ambassador of goodwill. Probably lick a burglar to death if one ever came ‘round. Guess that makes six faults. Major ones.”

“You’re a real mess,” Cassidy said as she reached out slowly to pet the soft black fur on the dog’s ruff.

Joshua took her wrist and put her hand on Bear when the dog started whining again. “This is Cassidy,” he told Bear, trying to ignore the feel of Cassidy’s fine-boned wrist beneath his fingers. “She’s a friend.
Friend.
But no jumping. Got it?”

Bear abandoned Joshua’s lap to sit at Cassidy’s feet. His tail thumping, he handed her his paw, his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

Joshua chuckled at the stupid love-struck look on the dog’s face. “I think you’ve got a friend for life,” he said, and stood, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. Mud streaked his clothes while Cassidy looked as fresh as a spring rain. Bear could be a real ego buster.

Cassidy looked up at him. “Oh, you’re a mess, too,” she sputtered, trying not to laugh.

Joshua looked down at himself and chuckled. “Yeah, I’m a mess, all right,” he admitted, shooting Bear a what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sort of look.

“Son, you’d better run and clean up before Irma gets breakfast on,” Henry told him.

Joshua almost used the mud as an escape from eating with them, but then he looked at Cassidy. She was smiling down at Bear. And this time the smile was in her eyes.

Maybe he could help her get her life back on track. “I’ll see y’all at the table.”

Cassidy tossed the book she was reading aside and stared up at the ceiling above the bed. She was at loose ends, with nothing but a book she’d read as a child to occupy her mind. Joshua had gone to help a family whose roof leaked. She imagined Irma was running her diner and Henry had gone to the thrift shop after breakfast. She would have gone to talk to him, but he was working on his sermon for a Wednesday evening service.

She’d really stuck her foot in her mouth when that subject had come up at breakfast. She’d remarked that she’d thought people only went to church once a week—on Sunday. Joshua explained that many churches had a second Sunday evening service, and one on Wednesday night, as well. And yes, there were those who attended all three. He’d also explained that everyone referred to Henry as “Pastor Henry,” not Reverend Tallinger.

Joshua was a compelling man. He was physically a big man, yet he treated his parents with a visible gentleness that was both touching and heartwarming. He had a strength of character that he projected in everything he spoke about during the meal, yet he seemed to depend on his parents in some indefinable but very tangible way. And though he treated his parents with the utmost respect, he called his father “Henry,” which was the biggest contradiction about him of all.

Cassidy sat up and stared at herself in the mirror over the dresser. “Stop thinking about him!” she ordered herself. So his touch disturbed her. So he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. He was also a hayseed preacher who fixed roofs and had an ill-mannered dog. And since when was she so curious about an unsuitable stranger? she thought stubbornly.

She needed to do something to get her mind off him and onto the things she needed to think about. A walk. She’d take a walk. Commune with nature. That was it.

Irma was in the kitchen when she walked by, so Cassidy stuck her head in the door. “I thought I’d take a walk. Which direction would you suggest?”

“There’s a nice trail through the woods out behind the house. Joshua marked it and keeps it cleared. When you come to the fork in the trail, follow the sign that points to town. It’s written right on the sign. The other way is to our cabin, and that’s not a walk. It’s a six-mile hike up the mountain.”

“Town sounds perfect. Did Josh mark it for your summer guests?”

Irma chuckled. “Goodness, no. We don’t get that many. He marked it for himself. That boy has no sense of direction whatsoever.”

“Did he go to school in the south?” Cassidy asked, and could have bitten her tongue. What was wrong with her?

Irma frowned. “What’s that got to do with his sense of direction?”

“Nothing. Forget I asked, please.”

“But why would you think that?” Irma pressed.

Now she was really sorry she’d let her curiosity get the better of her common sense. “’Y’all.’ He said ‘y’all’ earlier,” she explained. “It’s a southern expression.”

Irma walked to the center island and started shelling peas, a worried and thoughtful expression on her lined face. “He does say that now and again, doesn’t he? Hmm. Now there’s food for thought.”

“Thought about what?” Cassidy asked before she could stop herself.

“Oh, about where he’s from,” Irma said matter-offactly. “He could have heard it in a movie or on TV, and it might have felt familiar on his tongue.”

Now it was Cassidy’s turn to frown. How could his own mother forget where Joshua was raised? Irma was up there in years and she seemed hale and hearty, but perhaps her mind wasn’t as sound as Cassidy had assumed. She walked over to Irma, leaning her elbows on the island so she could watch Irma’s expression.

“Josh is from Mountain View,” Cassidy replied carefully, and waited for a reaction.

Irma smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no, dear, he isn’t. Joshua didn’t grow up here. He isn’t our blood son.”

Cassidy’s eyes widened. “But he calls you ‘Ma.’ I will admit his calling your husband ‘Henry’ surprised me but—”

“Joshua is the child we never had. He’s become our son since he came to us, but we never laid eyes on him till almost five-and-a-half years ago.”

“He came here to be your husband’s assistant, and you still don’t know where he grew up?”

Irma patted her hand, then pushed the bag of peas to rest between them. “No, we found him, dear. He was lying beside the road in a ditch, all broken and beaten. Henry and I—we just couldn’t forget that face of his once the ambulance came and took him to the hospital. We went to see him and just kept going back. He had no identification on him, you see. We were all he had. I’ve never prayed as hard for anything in my life as I did that that boy would live and wake up whole. The doctors didn’t give him much of a chance, but we just kept praying over him. He’s a miracle, that boy of ours.”

“You got your wish,” Cassidy said, smiling.

Irma shook her gray head. “It wasn’t a wish, child. It was a prayer. And no. I didn’t get all of what I asked for. I got more and less. The Lord works in strange ways. Joshua’s proof positive of that. You see, when he finally did wake from the coma six months later, he couldn’t talk or walk. We all soon realized that he had no idea who he was or where he’d come from. It was gone—his whole life. The doctors guessed that between twenty-five and thirty years were just…gone. And he was completely alone in the world.”

Cassidy felt as if a hand had reached into her chest and had a choke-hold on her heart. She looked down and realized that she was automatically opening the pea pods and dumping the peas in a bowl that Irma must have put in front of her. “But he doesn’t seem brain damaged.”

“The doctors thought that he was at first, but he relearned language so fast that they decided he had severe amnesia.”

“And his past has never come back?”

“Just little impressions and vague knowledge that he doesn’t remember learning.”

“But his past could still come back to him?” Cassidy asked.

Irma pursed her lips and shook her head. “After this long, that isn’t likely according to his doctor. He came to live with us when he was discharged. I was a teacher and I was the most qualified to teach him all he needed to know. Besides, we loved him already.”

Then his attachment to the Tallingers was almost like that of a child for his parents. “So he calls you ‘Ma’ because you became his mother, but why doesn’t he call Henry ‘Dad’ or ‘Pa’?”

“Joshua isn’t sure. He said it doesn’t feel like a compliment to him. Maybe he didn’t have a good relationship with his real father. It’s one of those vague feelings Joshua gets—and Henry doesn’t care what Joshua calls him. He just loves his Josh the way he is and is grateful to have him with us.” Irma picked up both bowls, moved toward a pot on the stove and dumped in the peas for cooking. “Besides,” she continued, “he didn’t start out to call me ‘Ma.’ He just couldn’t get his tongue around ‘Ir-ma’ at first, and it came out ‘Ma.’ He laughed. I laughed. And he just kept calling me ‘Ma.’”

“This is all so incredible. Like a movie of the week or something.”

“No. It’s a miracle is what it is,” Irma said. “Those doctors didn’t give him a ghost of a chance to live, let alone thrive the way he has.” Irma turned back to Cassidy, her pale eyes lit with pride, though her expression was serious. “His mind’s so quick, all he has to do is read something once and he knows it. I taught school for thirty years and I never had a brighter student. And there’s nothing he can’t fix if it’s broken, either. The only two problems he’s left with are the loss of memory and the fact he just says whatever pops into his mind. Of course, there’s that sense of direction of his, too.” Irma laughed. “But who knows if he wasn’t always like that. He’s a special man, and we’re proud of him.”

Cassidy could see that they were, but wouldn’t his real family have felt the same way? Cassidy could only imagine their suffering. “Hasn’t anyone tried to find out where he belongs?”

“I’ve thought from the first that he belongs right here, but we did try. We had people from that TV mystery show come up here and take his picture and film an interview with him about nine or ten months after he came to live with us. They did a whole story on him.” She snorted in derision. “He was terribly embarrassed, and all for nothing. Nothing ever came of it. It’s like he appeared out of nowhere. I like to think that the Lord meant for us to find him and bring him into our home. And Joshua has gone on to built a satisfying life for himself in the Lord’s service.”

He seemed to have, but Cassidy couldn’t help but wonder about the people he’d spent those first twenty-five or thirty years with. She knew what their grief felt like. She remembered back to when she was eight years old. She’d awakened in a hospital to find her grandfather by her bed, telling her that her parents were dead. A wall of snow had come crashing into their vacation home while they’d sat snuggled around the fire, and had swept them from her life. The people in Joshua’s life would have felt the same tearing grief she had. That she still did feel twenty years later.

She was glad that at a time when Joshua was all alone in the world he had found the kind of unconditional love parents give. Because though Cassidy’s grandfather had raised her, she still felt she had to earn his love—one day at a time.

C
assidy wandered aimlessly along the marked trail through the woods. She’d put off her walk until after lunch, having continued to help Irma in the kitchen. Taking the time to cook from scratch was something she rarely did, and she found it, and the time with Irma, strangely soothing.

Soon after sharing a noon meal with the older couple, she’d returned to her room and had fallen into a deep sleep. When she’d awakened, refreshed but no more settled, she’d set off for the walk she’d planned that morning.

After hearing about all Joshua had endured, she felt selfish and childish for dwelling on what were minor problems in her own life. She would eventually take over the presidency of Jamison Steel, so what did it really matter if she hadn’t been given the vice presidency? Why was she so unhappy and tense? She could only hope this vacation, impetuously taken, would put her disappointment and hurt into perspective.

Irma had told her the trail would lead her to the far end of Mountain View. Though she was sure there was little to see in the small town, at least it would give her the opportunity to observe the town up close and personal. She could even check to see if Earl was closer to looking at her car.

The sharp
crack
of a breaking branch to her left stopped Cassidy in her tracks. She moved only her head, and was left breathless by the sight of a doe standing almost as still as a statue. It stared unblinkingly at her. The only sign of life the animal revealed was a quivering muscle high on its haunch.

At that moment a powerful need to recreate the scene on paper gripped Cassidy. Her fingers fairly itched to hold a sketch pad and pencil. In her mind’s eye she could already see the finished picture. The doe would stand frozen in time, surrounded by the stark November woodlands—and fear. It would be in charcoal, she decided—a little sad and a little edgy.

But Cassidy shook her head and banished the vision. The dream. Her sudden movement freed the deer, who bounded away. And once again she said goodbye to her heart’s desire. It was not for her. She had taken a different path. One devoid of creativity and art.

For if there was one thing she
did
know about herself, it was that she couldn’t devote only half her soul to something that consumed her. And where art was concerned, she always reacted the same way. Whenever she picked up a pencil or a brush, the rest of the world simply faded away—ceased to exist. She became her talent. And her talent became her. It took all her energy. All her heart. And she’d learned it the hard way when she’d tried to split herself in two during college. She’d felt just that—split. Torn. After a near breakdown late in her senior year, she’d made her decision.

She had put away her youthful dreams and passion for an unstable, nearly unattainable success in art, and had marched into adulthood at her grandfather’s side, fulfilling her destiny. She was a Jamison.

She hadn’t painted since graduation. She hadn’t even let herself doodle on her ink blotter. She could not open that door again. It would be ungrateful. Grandfather was counting on her.

But then the memory of yesterday in his office pierced her thoughts. Her heart. And his betrayal made her soul cry out once again. He hadn’t seemed to need her at all when naming Jon Reed his vice president. Remembering her last angry words to the old man who’d been her anchor in life left Cassidy feeling at sea. As domineering and gruff as he was, Grandfather had truly been her port in a storm since she was six and that wall of snow had wiped out her world in one blinding minute.

She forced her mind from the painful past and the embarrassing scene at Jamison Steel. Hadn’t she already decided that it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things? Instantly, Joshua and all she’d learned about him from Irma filled her thoughts. Aside from being kind, gentle and handsome, he was a strong, courageous person, not only to have survived but to have flourished as he had. He would laugh at her whining over the loss of her dream of a fulfilling career in the art world. At least she could
remember
the dreams she’d put aside. As misty as her memory of her parents was, she did remember her mother’s soft voice soothing her and her father’s big strong hands holding her.

What must Joshua’s life be like? He must live only in the present. Maybe for the future, too. Because anything else would be fruitless and painful.

She recalled his low comment to Irma the day before when the older woman had noticed him stare off into space.
“Just knew something I shouldn’t,”
he’d muttered. Did that mean snatches of his past came back to haunt him? An ever-present reminder of all he’d lost?

Sunshine broke through the trees, and Cassidy looked up into the sun-drenched sky. She’d arrived at the end of the trail.

The first building she came to was a large, three-story, boarded-up Victorian with a half-attached, weather-beaten sign hanging from the gatepost. Swenson’s Bed and Breakfast, the faded letters declared on the sign that bobbled in the breeze. The fence the gate was attached to was a wobbly picket-type that had even less paint than it had stability.

The house fired Cassidy’s imagination, though it was every bit as weather-beaten as the sign and fence. It had once been lovely. She visualized its faded, peeling colors crisp and bright again, its windows shining in the sunlight, and the fence restored to its once stalwart position of authority. The upstairs tower room with its circle of tall windows would be unbelievably perfect as a studio. There was something about the house that struck a cord deep inside that said family and security.

“Wouldn’t you love to get your hands on the place?” Joshua asked from behind her. “I know I would.”

Cassidy whirled around. He sat in an old beat-up truck that he’d pulled to the side of the road. She smiled. “You’d get a ticket in Philadelphia for parking facing the wrong way.”

Joshua set the brake and opened the door. He chuckled. “But this is Mountain View. In a town with probably fewer than thirty cars in a ten-mile radius, with three of those in the shop, and the rest parked at job sites, it hardly matters.”

Cassidy glanced away from his charming grin and looked around town, wondering how he kept his sanity in such an isolated place. “I see your point. Do you even
have
a sheriff or a policeman around here?”

“The state police patrol the area. Their barracks is out on the interstate.”

So even the state police hadn’t been able to find Joshua’s origins. “Are you finished with that roof you were fixing?”

“For now, till it leaks again.”

“Why not just put on a whole new one?”

“Because they can’t afford it and they won’t accept charity. Patching is neighborly. Replacing isn’t. You see?”

Embarrassed, Cassidy nodded and turned back toward the house. She would never have thought of that. Grace and intuition must be inborn, she decided, because she didn’t see how he could have learned that kind of insight into the delicate feelings of others in only five years, especially with all the other things he’d had to relearn. Her admiration for him grew dangerously.

“Does anyone own this?” she asked to distract herself from risky thoughts of him and his apparently stellar character.

“The Swensons still own it but they don’t live here anymore. They moved to Georgia to live with their son about ten years ago. The place apparently got too much for them to handle. It’s been for sale for years, but it hasn’t sold.”

Joshua stepped by her and inside the gate. His movement set the sign swinging. “Summer people don’t usually want anything this big, and we don’t get many year-round families moving into the area,” he continued. “It’s actually pretty stable. The roof’s sound. Henry and I boarded the windows up when some summer kids thought it was funny to break them out.”

“That was kind of you.”

He shrugged. “Just being a good neighbor. I check on the place every now and again for the real estate people. That’s what I was about to do. Want to see the inside? I’m sure no one would care if you tag along.”

Cassidy stared up at the house and realized what it was that called to her. It reminded her of her home—the one in suburban Philadelphia that she’d shared with her parents until that fateful vacation when she’d lost them. She didn’t think she’d really had a home since. “I’d love to see it,” she said automatically. Then she remembered his ever-present companion. “Where’s Bear?” She really wasn’t up for another of the dog’s greetings without ample warning.

“You’re safe from his adoration for now. He’s asleep in the back of the truck. He spent the day chasing kids, rabbits and a bunch of barn cats. He’s been out like a light since I pulled away from the Wilsons’.”

Joshua stepped back, holding the gate open, and swept his arm toward the front door in a gesture that reminded her of a piece of Shakespearean stage direction. “After you, fair lady,” he said, doffing his baseball cap.

Cassidy laughed at the silly gesture, and Josh laughed, too. “Is there any furniture left?” she asked as they sauntered along the walk to the house.

“Almost all of it. Ma dusts the place up every now and again, hoping that if we keep it nice for the Swensons, it’ll sell.”

“And why don’t you dust it? Not men’s work?”

“No. She says I don’t see the dust. I think she’s being a fanatic about a few specks.” He shook his head and grinned that killer grin of his. “She says I suffer from what she calls ‘male blindness.’ Ma’s a real ego bruiser, I’ll tell you.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed how cruel she is to you.”

“Hey, she can be one tough lady,” he protested as he vaulted up the porch steps. “Don’t let that fairy-godmother face fool you.”

Cassidy was helpless to contain the giggle that bubbled up from somewhere inside her. “That’s exactly what I thought when I first met her.”

“Cinderella’s fairy godmother come to life. That’s Irma,” Josh said over his shoulder as he unlocked the door.

“All she’s missing is the wand,” Cassidy agreed as she followed him toward the front door. He had it unlocked and opened before she reached it. Though boarded up, there was a beautiful frosted glass panel in the door that remained undamaged. Unconsciously she ran her fingers over the expertly etched flowers. “Beautiful,” she whispered to herself.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This place is a gem just waiting to be polished.”

Cassidy stepped inside the foyer as Joshua flipped on the lights. She immediately understood the love for the old house that she’d heard in his voice. If the rest of it was as wonderful as the sweeping staircase and oak wainscot panels, this house really was a gem. “So why don’t you buy it and polish it to your heart’s content?”

He shook his dark head. “Because even though they aren’t asking much and I could afford it on my salary, it’s too big for one person. This old place deserves a family. Or at least to be turned back into a B & B so a lot of people can enjoy it. I don’t have a family or the inclination to run a B & B. But I’d love the process of watching it come alive again. Can you understand that?”

“Maybe you ought to rethink your profession. You sound more like a carpenter than a country preacher.”

Joshua chuckled. “Well, that’s kind of appropriate, since I serve a carpenter who became a preacher. I like to build things, fix things up—but it’s a hobby, not a calling like my work with Henry.”

“I just meant that carpentry and cabinet-making is a more lucrative profession.”

“But it wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling. I really think that has to be the most important thing in choosing your life’s work.”

“I suppose. It’s a shame we can’t all be as fortunate as you’ve been in finding both a profession and a hobby.”

Joshua stood in front of a set of floor-to-ceiling doors with his thumbs hooked in the front belt loops of his jeans. He stood casually, but the look in his eyes was anything but. “If you’re so unhappy in what you do, then why don’t you look for another job that won’t give you ulcers.”

His comment cut a little too close to the bone for comfort, and Cassidy stiffened. “It isn’t my job. I’m where I belong. I just need to find a way to cope with stress better. That’s all.”

“So what exactly is all the stress from? What kind of work do you do?”

“Until yesterday I was acting vice president of Jamison Steel. I’ve been running the Information Systems department.”

Josh heard a note of hurt in her voice. He narrowed his eyes, watching for her reaction to his next question. “Why until yesterday?”

“My grandfather appointed someone to the position permanently.”

“But not you,” he said, “even though you’ve been doing the job?”

“No. I was hurt at first, but I realize now that it wasn’t all that important. After all, I’ll be running Jamison someday. This will just give me a chance to learn other areas of the company in more depth.”

“But you still have to be deeply hurt.”

“No,” she snapped, needing desperately to believe that she was indeed over her hurt. “I understood. It was a business decision.”

“You’re still hurt. I hear it in your voice. You shouldn’t deny your feelings. No wonder you have ulcers if you hold all your emotions inside you like this. I know it hurts most when it’s a family member who deals the blow that—” Joshua cut off the thought, his eyes widening in what looked like shock. He looked upset, but at that moment she didn’t care. She couldn’t let her grandfather’s decision matter because then she’d never be able to return to work. And returning to Jamison Steel was her duty.