“Now, that surprises me. Your being here doesn’t, but that does.”
“Whatever.” Skylar gazed down the street, wondering how to politely disengage from the conversation with her least-favorite Beaumont. Why she even considered propriety when it came to Wally, she had no clue. It probably had something to do with that fishhook.
“Cops are here. And news vans.”
She said, “Guess that means it’s a gathering of note. Well, it’s been fun, but I’m going to—”
“There’s Rosie.” Danny waved an arm.
Skylar peered between shoulders and saw a policewoman head their way. She never would have recognized the woman she’d met at the hacienda in the reflective sunglasses and navy-blue uniform, hair pulled severely back in a bun. Suddenly Erik’s girlfriend was an honest-to-goodness
cop
.
Skylar’s jaw went rigid. She rubbed it, searching behind her own dark lenses for an exit route through the crowds.
Rosie reached them. “Hey, Danny. Skylar. I half expected to see you two here.”
Danny turned to Skylar. “Officer Delgado should make detective any day now.”
Rosie laughed. “Danny, you’ve shared your opinions often enough. And Skylar, take no offense at my profiling here, but you’ve got ‘peacenik’ written all over you.” She quickly sobered. “Do you guys know what’s going on here?”
He held up two fingers in a peace sign. “We do this at passing cars. It’s a regularly scheduled program.”
“Not this time. The demonstration organizers got a permit to march.” She pointed over Danny’s shoulder. “Down there, to a church.”
“That’s different.”
“We thought so.” She paused. “There’s a funeral scheduled to start soon inside that church. For a Marine. Not to be overly dramatic, Danny, but put Kevin in the coffin. Put Jenna and your family on the sidewalk, going inside to pay last respects. Would you want to read these signs and listen to the shouting?”
“I . . .” Danny chewed his bottom lip. “That’s . . .”
Skylar felt sick to her stomach. “That’s really ugly.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rosie scanned the crowd, her face in profile. “It could get uglier. Somebody’s got an agenda. Somebody wants to agitate things. Did you notice the television crews? They got wind of something.”
Danny said, “They’re not usually here. Nor the police in full force.”
She nodded. “Listen. I totally respect your right to disagree with the government’s foreign policy, but do you really want to be a part of this?”
Skylar cleared her throat. “You got me with the coffin visual. I’m out of here.”
“Yeah.” Danny shrugged. “Me too.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Rosie.”
“No problem, Skylar. You owe me some spinach-artichoke dip.”
“Anytime.”
With half nods and waves, the three of them parted in different directions.
She heard Danny call out, “Skylar?”
Pausing, she looked back. He made a tipping motion at his mouth, as if inviting her for a drink, and mouthed the word “coffee.”
With a brief shake of her head, she scurried the opposite way. She’d spent enough time with Danny for one day . . . or month.
The entire city lay before her, ready to be explored via a fancy car. She’d packed books, swimsuit, and blanket. Reading at the beach sounded great. Not Danny’s beach, though. Where exactly was it Lexi said he lived? Just her luck, she’d plop down in the sand right outside his door.
Actually, he wasn’t that bad of a guy, not nearly as deplorable as she’d first thought. As a protestor, he couldn’t be too saintly.
As she wove her way between people, her mind registered a familiar movement . . . a lanky arm bent in a gesture of urgency.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Not ten feet away stood a guy. He was in profile, but there was no mistaking his identity. Finley Harrod. A fictitious name, of course. He’d told her it meant “blond-haired soldier and conqueror.” Ironic how the violent nature of that name found its way to this demonstration, this sublime whimper for peace.
The sight of Fin chilled her to the bone. Heartbeat hammering in her throat, she struggled frantically for a coherent thought.
Her sudden halt on the sidewalk was a stupid,
stupid
move.
Okay. Okay. Think, Skylar, think.
The ability to disappear in plain sight was ingrained in her. Like an adoring puppy she had learned the tactics from this master. Time and again since leaving him, she had used them. She knew how. She
knew
.
If only she could breathe.
If only she had not begun to let go of the past, to let down her guard, to believe she’d arrived at last in Kansas.
Slowly, so as not to draw attention to herself, she hunched her shoulders and moved sideways, melding into a nearby group, angling herself behind a cardboard sign.
Peace now!
Shortening her typically long strides, she made her way back around to where she’d talked with Danny. Resisting the urge to peek over her shoulder, she doddered along, staying close to people.
Advantages raced through her mind. Eighteen months was a long time. She looked different. Although her last dye job was several months old, the telltale auburn roots in her hair were covered by the ball cap. A trendy So-Cal ponytail bounced through the cap’s opening. She wore—thanks to Lexi—blue jeans that did not bag and a nondescript light-brown shirt that did not scream “flower child.”
And, if she could catch up to him, her new best friend Wally Cleaver just might buy her a cup of coffee. Even the most annoying Beaumont seemed to know how to offer a safe harbor.
I
have to say, Wally—I mean
Daniel
.” Skylar smiled. “That is one major scowl you’ve got going there.”
Danny relaxed facial muscles that had instantly contorted at the sound of her annoying nickname. Whatever had possessed him to invite her to have coffee? Every time the woman spoke he felt like hives erupted all over his body.
She said, “You don’t like the moniker?”
“It’s probably more the tone than the name.”
“You’re kidding. This is my teasing tone.”
“Hmm. What does your derogatory tone sound like?”
“Like this.” She slouched, sneered, and exhaled huffily. “Wally sod-ding Cleaver.” Straightening, she smiled again. “Hear the difference?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Got it.”
She laughed and eyes the color of sunlight through a Perrier bottle twinkled. The splash of freckles across her nose danced.
He steeled himself against another stab of attraction. Green eyes, intriguing face, and common pro-peace grounds were not why he’d invited her. No way. It was solely because he did not trust her. Better to know an enemy than not.
But her looks were appealing.
She made him laugh.
And . . . okay . . . hives aside, her personality was growing on him. Why wouldn’t he want to tango with her over a cup of coffee and explore the recesses of her wacky mind?
He said, “You started to say something?”
“Yes. I was saying that I have to say, you surprise me to no end.” She held up her mug in salute. “Funky nonchain coffee shop. Antiwar demo. Total acceptance of your uncle’s illegitimate Vietnamese daughter. Not in the office on a Friday.”
“My apartment is my office. I’ll be working tonight. Probably tomorrow too.”
“You get my drift.”
“Not exactly.”
“The bona fide nerd who is also an in-your-face Jesus freak doesn’t do funky. He doesn’t do anti. He doesn’t do out-of-wedlock.”
“For all your freethinking, Skylar, that really is a narrow-minded attitude.”
She pulled off the billed cap, ruffled her hair, undid her long ponytail, reassembled it, and slid the hat back into place. Her eyes reflected its green. “Yeah, I agree. It is shockingly intolerant.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to argue with me.”
She flashed the grin again, the one that crinkled her nose and set the freckles in motion.
He said, “What makes you think I’m an in-your-face Jesus freak anyway?”
Skylar opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it.
Danny took a wild guess. “My twin didn’t used to talk so much.”
“Lexi didn’t use those exact words. She just confirmed what I already assumed. I mean, you haven’t hit me up with the plan of salvation—yet—but you did give me a spiel on forgiveness the other day.”
Danny leaned back in the overstuffed chair and crossed his legs, ankle to knee. “I don’t understand the world’s problem with forgiveness. There’s such a commonsense side to it. I mean, if everyone extended and received forgiveness, wouldn’t that lead to world peace?”
“Maybe, if we didn’t have to include Jesus. He’s the divisive factor.”
He wasn’t going there with her. “Did you grow up going to Sunday school?”
“Hasn’t every American over a certain age?”
“Then what?”
She frowned. “Then what, what?”
“Then you stopped going to Sunday school, to church. You stopped wanting to hear about Jesus.”
“Why would I want to hear?”
“Because He was real to you or real to someone close to you.”
She shook her head.
“You want to see my surf shop?”
“See your—Danny, you just jumped in one breath from world peace to Sunday school to your business. I’m getting whiplash here flipping over the segue gaps.”
He grinned. “I promise not to hit you up with the plan of salvation. Unless you want me to.”
“Uh, no thanks.”
“No thanks to the speech?”
She nodded. “Heard it once or twice.”
“How about the shop tour?”
“We just got our coffee.”
“In to-go mugs.”
“I’m trying to imagine you sitting still at a computer.”
“Baffles the mind, doesn’t it?” He wondered at her hesitation. She didn’t seem the type to weigh a lot of consequences in her decision-making process.
The resemblance between Skylar and his old friend Faith kept knocking him off balance. It went way beneath a similarity in outward appearance. It went to the core.
And he knew Faith’s core. She’d rejected everything he believed in, everything she had said she believed in the first twenty-one years of her life. Despite the day’s momentary connection with Skylar, he suspected she, too, at her core, rejected not only God but all that was good and hopeful in the world. If so, there was no reason she would choose to work at the Hacienda Hideaway.
His grandmother would say Skylar behaved as she did because of wounds, hurts that God wanted to heal, pain through which He would call out the true Skylar Pierson. The thing Nana didn’t get was that Faith Simmons refused to receive from God. There was no reason to believe Skylar would not do likewise.
“Danny.”
He blinked and saw that Skylar was standing, mug and sunglasses in hand.
“Let’s go see your Ro-Bo Shop.”
He uncrossed his legs and slowly got to his feet, surprised she would accept his invitation. “You don’t have anything better to do than hang with Wally Cleaver?”
“Of course I do.” She shrugged. “But making points with the bosses’ son is a priority.”
There was more truth than joke in her remark. He really did not trust her. She was all about herself.
Meeting her eyes, he forced a smile. After all, it was the honey that attracted the bear. “I didn’t drive here. You don’t mind a bus ride, do you?”
“No.”
“I’ll drive you back later to the garage where you parked Mom’s car. After what Rosie told us, I’d rather avoid the protest area and that church.”
“Yeah, me too.” The typically confident voice warbled. Skylar spun abruptly on her heel and headed toward the door.
Danny followed, reminded that despite their current teasing rapport, despite her good work at the Hideaway, Skylar Pierson was an unknown.
As they walked along the sidewalk, he glanced at his watch. “It’s one-thirty-six. The bus should be—”
A rumbling noise cut off his speech. It was distant, but he immediately comprehended that it did not belong. In the vicinity of airstrips for F/A18 Hornets and commercial airliners, it did not belong. Near rails for the Amtrak, it did not belong. In an area familiar with earthquakes, it did not belong.
Something was terribly awry.
T
here was no warning, just an abrupt, thunderous boom that shook every inch of the old church.
Before Jenna’s eardrums registered the explosion, a glass sliver pierced through the sleeves of her polyester black suit jacket and white silk blouse and embedded itself into her left forearm. The splinter came from the huge stained-glass window at the end of the pew, a colorful depiction of a dove, a rainbow, and the ark.
Before her mind registered the injury, the world slid into a state of suspension. Her thoughts wandered backward, over the events that led to her being in that particular place at that particular moment . . . on a Friday afternoon with hundreds of mourners and a flag-draped coffin flanked by Marines in dress blues and gloves so white they almost glowed in stark contrast to the surrounding dark-stained woods of paneling, altar, rail, and pulpit . . .
A
mber had been at her all week to attend the funeral. Not a lunch, prep period, or hall sighting went by without an Amber exhortation.
“Come on, Jenna,” she had said. “Keep me company, please, please. It’s not like I know the widow either. Except we did attend that book club last month and shared similar views about
Empire Falls
. By the way, did I mention how much you with your literary background would add to the group? I hope you can make it next time. This woman is a sweetheart. Not that it matters if she’s sweet. She lost her husband. I’d go anyway, as a show of support. We’re all in this together, you know? All us military families.”
Jenna might have withstood Amber’s onslaught if not for other forces at work.
Cade was one of those forces. On Wednesday he’d asked her to step into his office. “Jenna, Friday afternoon is a professional half day.” That meant no classes, just faculty business. “If you need to do this thing with Amber, don’t worry about missing a department meeting.” His eyes did their ice melt.
Via e-mail, she poured the dilemma out to Kevin and, on Thursday, he replied.