The Awakening (6 page)

Chapter Nine

Afterward, Diana Friessen hurried back to the grocery store and could have kicked herself for not asking Laura for her phone number or where she lived. She’d only made arrangements to pick her and her son up in the morning outside the grocery store, which Diana did find odd, but then, she hadn’t been able to pull much personal history from the girl.

Diana hadn’t been hungry when she’d taken Laura and her unusually quiet son to the restaurant. In fact, she’d just left the ranch and her husband, Jed, with their eight-month-old baby, Danny. They’d shared a breakfast of ham and eggs before she headed to town to get groceries early, arriving before the store opened and being let in by the clerk. When she’d pushed her shopping cart filled with groceries down the dairy aisle, she’d spotted the young mom with a little boy wearing a look of desperation she’d recognized, all because of what she’d lived through as a child, growing up dirt poor. She couldn’t help overhear the young girl pleading with Mr. Harris, the uptight older man who owned this grocery store and who’d been one of many people who’d shunned Diana when she first returned to North Lakewood, all because of who her mother was. The girl needed work, fast. She recognized the look of hunger, the look of someone who had to go without eating because there wasn’t enough money to buy food. The way the little boy had reached for the cheese, whining and carrying on, Diana knew there was something about him that wasn’t quite right.

She’d been glad, though. The girl looked pitiful, holding the menu and glancing awkwardly, ordering toast and water only, but pancakes for her son. It took Diana urging her to order something larger before she’d do it. She was pale, blonde, and thin, with enticing blue eyes that should have belonged to someone far older than her twenty years. Her name was Laura Parnell, a single mother. That was all Diana had managed to drag out of her, along with the fact that she knew Andy Friessen and had, in fact, been fired by his mother a few days earlier.

Diana had no idea what she’d have the girl do, and she worried what Jed would say. But she couldn’t turn her back, so she told her about the therapeutic riding she and Jed were starting for children with special needs. Diana thought that maybe her son could be part of it while she was working, since Laura would be needed at the ranch. They needed someone to help out with phones and general things to get their business off the ground.

Simply put, there was a desperation about this girl that Diana had recognized and at one time lived through, so, until she knew more, her conscience wouldn’t let her walk away.

Diana parked Jed’s truck beside her SUV, in front of their older home, which Jed was slowly renovating with a recent addition for all the kids he hoped they’d have.

“What’d you do, drive to Marysville?” Jed scowled as he strode out of the house, carrying Danny, who grinned and cooed at his mother.

“No, but I did hire a young girl to come and work for us.”

Jed stared at Diana in that hard way of his and handed her their baby. “He’s hungry and doesn’t like the bottle. He wants the real thing.” Jed lifted two bags of groceries and started toward the house. Then he stopped and smiled at his wife. “And what is this girl going to be doing?”

Diana followed her husband inside their warm and cosy house. Unzipping her coat, she lifted her sweater to nurse her son. She sat in the rocker as Danny sucked noisily, making it clear to his mama that he’d been put out. Diana toed off her boots and gazed up at the one man who still had the power to scramble all her reasonable thoughts with just a look. She loved this man more than her next breath. “I don’t know, Jed. But she’s got a little boy, and I overheard her in the grocery store, with a desperation I know, looking for a job. And she looked so hungry. I took them for breakfast.”

Diana held her breath, waiting for Jed to shout at her because, right now, they didn’t have a plum nickel to spare. It was so tight, and Jed used everything extra to outfit the necessary repairs to the barn, adding in three extra stalls.

He set the bags on the table and strode to her until he looked down on her. He took off his ratty cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair. “Diana, I know you better than I think you know yourself. You may as well tell me all of it, because I also know that once you’ve made your mind up about something, nothing will change it. You’ve got a good heart, but you can’t save the world, baby.” The way he said it had her eyes filling with tears.

Jed sat on the stool in front of her and reached over, shifting her and the baby onto his lap. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I love you. I’m sorry… I know we can’t afford it, but I couldn’t leave her… Who was going to help her?” Her voice caught when her husband sighed.

He tilted up her chin, the baby still latched on, and kissed her. “So, when does she start?”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a good thing, since we’re well on our way to the poor house.”

Danny took that opportunity to squeal and smack his lips, milk dribbling from his mouth.

“Jed, I’d go anywhere with you, as long as we’re together.” She leaned against her husband and gazed at her baby, unable to shake her worry for a young girl named Laura and her child.

Chapter Ten

Andy sat in his truck until one of the hired hands tapped on the window. He cranked it down.

“Everything okay, boss?” asked Ben, the young stable hand.

Instead of replying, he opened the door and stepped out, staring at the back door of the house the servants used. “Fine, Ben. Did you get those stalled cleaned out?”

“Almost done, sir,” he said eagerly.

“Well, get to it,” he snapped at Ben, heading toward the back door and dreading each step. He wondered how much worse things could get.

He stood outside the kitchen and then took a breath. He pushed open the door and took in the chaos. Jules, Aida, and three other servants all stopped and stared.

It was Jules who spoke first. “Sir, is there something I can get for you?”

“Everyone, out. I need to talk to Aida.” Andy didn’t really care how he sounded, because the fact was he was worried about Aida. Any person with the gumption to stand up to him for anyone the way she did… Well, that person mattered.

The other servants left, but Jules stopped in front of him, wringing her hands. “Sir, your mother is entertaining through the holidays, and this is not the time to lose the cook…”

“Jules,” Andy interrupted in a sharp voice filled with irritation, “leave us now!”

Jules’ face tinged pink, and she nodded, skirting around Andy and leaving the kitchen. Aida glanced up at Andy and then continued rolling out pastry dough. She said nothing but pursed her lips, her face taking on a hardness he didn’t want to see.

“Aida, I went to Laura’s today. And she was gone.”

“Gone where?” She kept rolling the dough and then lined a pie plate. There were seven lined up.

“I don’t know. That dump she lived in, the scumbag who owns it was there. He threw her out, said she couldn’t pay the rent. The lady upstairs said Laura loaded her car last night and she hasn’t seen her since.” Andy rested his hand on the counter, waiting for the woman to start yelling, to say she quit, to call him a pig. Anything.

But instead, she calmly laid down the rolling pin and looked up at Andy with a hint of sadness in her eyes. “Did you know that girl is from Arlington? She got herself in trouble at fifteen, pregnant. Her parents threw her out when they found out, as they didn’t want her influencing her siblings with her seedy behavior, as they worded it. They said she was a bad influence, and they didn’t want her around as a role model. But all that girl did was have a momentary lapse and, unlike many teens, she got pregnant. The boy, the father, treated her like a leper and would have nothing to do with her or the baby. So, with no money, she lived in a shelter in Arlington during the day, working part time at a fast food restaurant until the baby was born. But the social workers were sniffing around, looking to take her baby, and when she went into labor, the hospital notified social services because she was so young, and the social workers flocked in like vultures.

“She called her parents, but her mother said to her that if she wanted to come home, she’d have to give up the baby. Less than twelve hours after she gave birth, she walked out of the hospital with her baby and never looked back. She’s been living here ever since. Do you know what that kind of fear whispering in your ear does to a person? Gabriel is hers. She is young. She is honest. And that girl works harder than anyone I know and don’t complain about nothing. Working for a pittance, barely getting by, I think. Oh, she’d not speak of it. But I knew. I had eyes and could see the strain, the stress that she’d always cover up with a smile. But she was also beaten down. She had to shake off your daddy’s advances more than once.”

Aida watched him closely, but Andy was speechless and didn’t know what to say. Hearing that his dad had hit on Laura had a rage building to a slow boil inside him. He wanted to hit something. Maybe that was what she saw when he swiped his hand roughly over his face.

“Andy Friessen, maybe there is hope for you. But there is a difference, too, between being angry about someone wronged and doing something about it. So what do you plan on doing?”

She watched him closely, her arms crossed, and at any moment Andy half expected her to toss her apron and stomp out the door, telling him to shove this job. He could see the stubborn stance written all over her. All the years she’d worked for his family, he’d never really known her, which was a pity. He liked her and all of her “Right is right, and wrong is wrong” stance. It was refreshing.

“I’ll find her,” he promised. Unsure of where to start and unwilling to admit it even to himself, he needed to find her for his own peace of mind.

Aida nodded. “Then you’d best go find her.” She picked up the rolling pin and set about making her pies. “Now get out of my kitchen, Andy Friessen.”

Chapter Eleven

It had been a long, cold night. Gabriel had whimpered off and on as the rain pounded the roof of the car. After their breakfast with Diana, Laura had been overwhelmed by her generosity and the fact that she had a full stomach. But that wouldn’t keep Gabriel satisfied for long. As far as food, she didn’t have much left. Gabriel had finished off the last of the bread and crackers. Laura nibbled on a cracker, hoping that would keep the hunger at bay. It was difficult finding places to use a bathroom and get a drink of water. Laura had only one water bottle, which she kept refilling from the gas station bathroom. In a town as small as North Lakewood, it was difficult finding different public bathrooms, and maybe that was why, the fourth time she went into the gas station and asked for the restroom key, the middle-aged guy behind the counter said, “That your car parked around back?”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice had been shaking even though her senses were numb.

He jerked his thumb sideways. “Move it. This ain’t a hotel.” He did, though, slide the key across the counter. “This is the last time you use the bathroom, too.” He stared at her with a hardness in his eyes, and she truly understood his meaning.

“Thank you” was all she could say as she accepted the key and slunk around the outside of the old concrete building to the locked door of the filthy bathroom. After she was done, she pulled out her wallet, fingering ten dollars and handing it to the attendant.

“I need gas,” she said. He took the money, and she was soaked from the rain by the time it was done. She started the car and drove to the large mall outside town, parking at the far edge of the parking lot for the night. By this time, the temperature had dropped, and their clothes were damp, even what was in the trunk. Laura shivered while holding her son, wrapping him in blankets throughout the night.

Now, as daylight crept up, filling the gray skies, the rain had finally turned to a light drizzle. It would be hours before the mall opened, before she could find a bathroom, and, with the food gone, Laura realized she would have to use the rest of her money to buy some. With just over thirteen dollars in her pocket, it wouldn’t go far.

There was something about being cold that was humbling and brought her down to a level she never expected. But poor was poor, and she wondered through the long night as she slept in fits, her legs cramping where her son lay across her lap, her neck pinched and stomach growling from hunger, how she’d dig them out of this mess. But there was a light on the horizon, and her name was Diana, and she’d meet her this morning outside the grocery store. So, with that thought to comfort her, she closed her eyes, pushing away the discomfort. Before the mall opened, Laura would move her car.

There was a tapping on the window that had Laura nearly jumping out of her skin. Gabriel was still asleep, and Laura blinked and glanced up at the large figure outside her fogged-up window. She opened her door and lifted Gabriel off her lap, letting him settle in on the seat. A man wearing a black coat and a deputy’s hat rested a large hand on the door and peeked in. Laura stepped out and shut the door.

“You been sleeping in your car, ma’am?” He didn’t appear that old, with his light complexion, and there was a hint of concern in his eyes.

“Yes, sir. We just stopped here tonight.” Laura was trembling inside and wondered if she’d get in trouble for parking where she did.

“How old’s your boy?” He gestured with a slight tilt of his head.