Take Me Home (9781455552078) (19 page)

“I don't know what to say,” he said.

“How about that you'll take it?” John chuckled as he tossed the key to Peter, who reflexively caught it.

“Thank you,” Peter answered.

“You're welcome. Although I reckon that I'm going to be completely honest, there's another reason for this.”

“What's that?”

“My wife,” he replied a bit sheepishly. “You see, Elizabeth is the sort of woman who worries about what others say. Ever since you arrived, she thinks that everyone in town is talking about the stranger staying in her house. She thinks it's some sort of scandal. It keeps her awake most nights, clenching the sheets so tight you'd think she was trying to strangle them. Now me, I don't mind tongues wagging. Heck, I've heard more than enough gossip to last me the rest of my days. I've never paid it much mind, but Elizabeth…”

“I get it,” Peter said. “The last thing I want is to cause you and your family any trouble.”

“You haven't, no matter what my wife might imagine. Still, I appreciate your understanding all the same.” With a chuckle, he added, “Besides, with the way she's been carrying on, I was starting to lose some sleep of my own.”

“You were?”

John nodded. “I was wondering when those strangling hands of hers were going to make their way from the sheets to my neck!”

They both laughed heartily at the joke. But then the sheriff's smile faded and his expression grew serious.

“You know, I've been thinking about what you said last night,” he explained. “When we were all in the kitchen…”

“Yes, sir,” Peter answered.

“Your words were wise beyond your years. It was the sort of thing I've only ever heard from men who've served, who know firsthand what war is really like.”

Peter's mind raced. John was right; the reason he could talk that way was that he knew exactly how brutal war was. He'd seen men die, suffer from their wounds, starve, freeze in the middle of an unforgiving winter, and face every calamity that combat brought. He'd also seen the lives of civilians ruined, German and otherwise, with everything they'd built gone in an instant. But he could never tell this to Olivia's father. John was a veteran of the First World War, a man who hated Germans. If Peter told him the truth, the sheriff's smile would disappear for good.

And then he'd never see Olivia again.

“I have friends who've fought,” Peter replied. “I saw how it changed them, made them into different men than they'd been when they left. So while I believe that war is necessary in order to rid the world of evil, it's not something I'll be rushing into with blinders on. I'll face it for what it is.”

John nodded. “Billy was out of line,” he said.

“He just doesn't know what he's talking about. I, for one, hope that he never finds out how wrong he is.”

“Amen to that,” Olivia's father agreed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now how about we get something to eat. I'm starving!”

As John headed down the stairs, Peter took one last look into his new apartment. Part of the reason he'd been given it was the lies he'd spun, an intricate web that threatened to trap him and all those he'd begun to care for. No matter what, he vowed to find a way to cut them all free.

B
Y THE TIME
O
LIVIA RETURNED HOME
, the sun had nearly set behind a wall of dark clouds to the west. She'd walked for hours, from one side of Miller's Creek to the other, meandering as she went. She'd passed children playing stickball in the street, waved at Clyde Kirby as he peeked out from beneath the hood of his automobile, and even helped Eunice Martin raise her flag up its pole. With every block she traveled, she kept expecting to see Billy round the corner ahead of her, or hear the honk of her father's horn as he idled up behind her in his police car, but on and on she'd walked, alone. Now, she was back where she'd started. Surprisingly, even though she was tired and her feet ached, she was still restless.

Her head churned. All day, she'd thought about Billy and his proposal, her mother's unrealistic expectations and demands, and even the strange, wonderful way Peter made her feel. She'd turned the past week around and around, looking at it from every angle, but she still couldn't find a way to make everyone she loved happy. And that included herself. No matter what decision she made, someone would end up being hurt.

Inside her house, lights were on in the dining room and kitchen. Her father's car sat in the drive. Right now, all of them, including Peter, were probably sitting down to dinner and wondering where she was; Olivia could hardly guess what excuse her mother had come up with to explain her absence. She knew that she should go inside, stop running away from her problems, but a combination of pride and fear wouldn't let her.

“You can't stand out here forever,” she muttered.

While trying to figure out what to do, Olivia heard a door open. She turned to see Ruth Pollack step onto her porch and slowly make her way to her favorite chair; even though the older woman was blind, she'd traversed the path so often that she knew just where to go. Seeing her made Olivia think that she could put off confronting her family a little while longer.

As carefully and quietly as she could, Olivia started up Ruth's walk toward the porch. Ever since she and Grace had been little, they'd often come to speak with their neighbor, for conversation as well as lemonade and a candy or two. Whenever they went for a visit, they tried to be as quiet as mice, sneaking up not out of childish mischievousness or because they wanted to scare Ruth, but because they'd never made it closer than a few feet before being caught. This time, Olivia didn't even make it to the second step.

“Just because I'm blind doesn't mean that I'm deaf,” Ruth suddenly said. “You might as well have called out to me from the sidewalk.”

“How could you possibly have known I was coming?” Olivia asked in amazement; she thought she hadn't made a peep.

“Clearly, I did, though,” she answered with a bright smile. “Though I have to admit that I wasn't sure if it was you or your sister until just now. Come, sit for a while and talk with an old woman.”

Olivia grabbed another chair and pulled it over next to Ruth's. Just as soon as she'd sat down, the blind woman said, “So tell me what's the matter.”

“What makes you think that something's bothering me?”

“Probably the fact that its suppertime and your whole family is sitting down to eat, while you're over here with me.”

“You don't miss much, do you?”

“When your whole world is black, you learn to pay awfully close attention to it. It's the only way to keep from falling on your face.”

Olivia laughed easily and then sighed. “My life's become something of a mess,” she explained. “Even with the war and all the changes it brought, my days didn't have many surprises. One wasn't all that different from the next, and that was all right with me. Then, all of a sudden, it got all jumbled up, like a puzzle that's been knocked to the floor.”

“And you're having trouble putting it back together?”

“And then some.”

“It has to do with love, doesn't it?”

Olivia nodded her head for a moment before realizing that Ruth couldn't see her. “Yes,” she said instead.

“And your engagement to Billy Tate?”

She was about to ask the older woman how she knew about that, but stopped; there was no doubt in Olivia's mind that word of her relationship with Billy had raced around town like wildfire; she could only guess how long it would take for news of their breakup to spread. For someone like Ruth, a woman who paid close attention to the world around her, it wasn't much of a surprise that she knew.

“I ended it yesterday,” Olivia answered, seeing no point in holding back the truth. She told Ruth all about what had happened; her shock when he'd asked her to become his wife, how she'd accepted out of the fear of breaking his heart right before he left for the service, and about how that decision had weighed on her like a stone ever since. “I love Billy so much, I always have, but as a friend, not as a husband. In the end, I just couldn't go through with it.”

“You did the right thing, my dear,” Ruth soothed; tentatively, she reached out and placed her wrinkled hand into Olivia's, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Marriage isn't the sort of thing to enter into lightly. Sure, it's normal to have doubts, butterflies in your stomach, that sort of thing. I know I did. But those are nerves of excitement, the thrill of facing the unknown with someone you love completely, with all of your heart. Billy's a good man, but he's not the one for you.”

“That's not what my mother thinks,” Olivia said sourly. “The only thing she cares about is the money Billy stands to earn. The fact that his family is both wealthy and connected is more than enough reason for her.”

“She's only trying to look out for your best interests.”

“She told me I'm making a mistake.”

“That's because she doesn't want you to struggle,” Ruth explained. “Elizabeth may not say it the right way, but deep down in her heart, she's doing what any good mother would. She's trying to protect you. She sees Billy as a way for you to make your way through life easier than she did. No parent wants to see their child suffer. Unfortunately, she's forgotten to take your happiness into consideration.”

“Marrying Billy
wouldn't
make me happy. I'm sure of it.”

“And you're starting to think that being with the other man would?” the blind woman asked. “That maybe Peter is the one you've been waiting for?”

Olivia looked at Ruth, dumbstruck. The older woman stared forward, her expression expectant, as if she was waiting for an answer. “How…how do you know about him…?”

“I spoke with him a couple days ago,” she answered matter-of-factly.

“You did?”

Ruth nodded. “He came over and we shared a few words,” she said. “I didn't get to talk to him for very long, but he seemed like a good young man. Strong, although it seemed like something was weighing on him. A burden, perhaps.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Call it a blind woman's intuition. A hunch. I've spent so many years unable to see the look that crosses people's faces that I have to interpret the sound of their voices. His sounded strained. He has a lot on his mind, that one.”

Olivia thought about the times she'd spent with Peter. On a number of occasions, when he was still lying in bed, recuperating from his injuries, she'd noticed him staring out the window, lost in thought. It made her wonder if Ruth wasn't right, that maybe something was troubling him, some problem he was trying to figure out.

“Are you in love with him?” Ruth asked and then shook her head. “Goodness sakes, I shouldn't be asking you that. It's really none of my business.”

“It's all right,” Olivia reassured her; after all, the blind woman's question was one she'd been asking herself for a while. “The thing is, I've never been in love before so I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm supposed to feel. All I know is that Peter is unlike any man I've ever known. Just thinking about him causes something inside of me to change. So if I haven't fallen in love with Peter already, I'd say that I'm well on my way.”

Ruth smiled warmly. “That sounds lovely.”

“I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do now.”

“Go to him and tell him the truth. That's usually a good place to start.”

“You seem awfully sure of him.”

“I am,” Ruth admitted.

“Why? You said that you didn't talk with him for very long.”

“It doesn't have much to do with me,” the blind woman answered. “But I notice the way he makes
you
feel. I pay attention to people's voices, remember? When I listen to you talk about Peter, it's so clear to me that there's something special between the two of you that I imagine I can see it as plain as day.”

Tears filled Olivia's eyes. Squeezing Ruth's hand, she said, “Thank you.”

“You're quite welcome, my dear.”

“I think there's someone I have to have a long talk with.”

“There most certainly is.”

But then, just as Olivia was rising from her chair, she suddenly stopped. There, walking down the sidewalk toward her, was Peter. He hadn't noticed her yet as his eyes roamed the streets, peering into the space between houses. He looked concerned, even a bit worried.

“It seems that your opportunity has arrived,” Ruth said.

Olivia stared at her.
How could she possibly know?
Then she smiled and headed down the porch steps.

For almost an hour, Peter had walked the darkened streets of Miller's Creek. Earlier, just before sunset, he and John had loaded his meager belongings and taken them to the apartment; other than the clothes Olivia had procured from her father, there'd been almost nothing to pack. When they'd finished, John invited him to continue taking his dinner with the family, an offer Peter had accepted. But when they'd gotten back to the Marstens' home, he'd been surprised to find that Olivia wasn't there. He'd expected her to arrive at any moment, but by the time dinner was ready, she was still missing. When pressed, Elizabeth had been vague, saying that her daughter had gone out and would be back shortly. Still, Peter hadn't felt right about it. All throughout dinner, he'd struggled to pay attention to the conversation, worrying that something had happened to the woman he loved. The thought of Otto watching Olivia made him so uncomfortable that he'd excused himself from the table and gone outside. Once there, he'd paced back and forth, too wound up to remain still. So instead, he had gone to look for her. Up one side of the street and then down the other, he stared into the dark shadows between houses, peered into vehicles as they drove past, and fought the urge to shout her name. He was trying to figure out what he would say to John, how he might convey his worries without giving himself away, when he saw her.

Watching Olivia come down her neighbor's walk made Peter's heart pound; plenty of it was on account of how beautiful he found her to be, but more of it was because he was relieved that she was safe. He struggled to resist the urge to take her in his arms.

“Where have you been?” he asked. “I've been looking e
ver
y­where for you.”

“I went for a walk,” she answered. “I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to come back so late. I lost track of time, is all.”

“I was starting to worry,” he admitted.

Before Olivia responded, she looked back over her shoulder; Peter followed her gaze and saw Ruth staring at them. Without another word, Olivia took his arm and led him away, not stopping until they were standing by the walk that led to her family's porch. Though Peter found it strange that she would be so concerned about a blind woman watching them, he didn't argue, impatient as he was to know where she'd been.

“Didn't my mother tell you what happened between us?” Olivia finally asked, her voice soft, as if she still worried about being overheard.

“No,” Peter replied. “All she said was that you'd be back soon.”

She frowned. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised,” she said.

“Did something happen between you?”

Olivia nodded. “I made a mistake…I told my mother the truth…”

“You told her about us?” Though he felt frustrated at having to pull each bit of information out of Olivia, as if he was sifting through a haystack in search of a needle, Peter tried to remain calm; he knew that if he were to seem too anxious, it would only make matters worse.

“Yes…no…” she struggled. “It…it all started because I told her that I broke off my engagement to Billy…”

Peter's pulse quickened. “You…you ended it…?”

In answer, Olivia held up her hand. Her engagement ring was missing. Peter remembered the way it had pulled at his attention the first time he'd seen it, how Olivia had tried to hide it, the way that it seemed to weigh upon her as if it was an anchor. But now it was gone.

“I told him that I couldn't marry him,” she said, her eyes searching his. As she lowered her hand, Peter took it, lightly holding her fingers in his own.

“How did he react?” he asked.

“Badly,” Olivia answered. “I hurt him last night. Worse than I ever would've thought possible.”

“You didn't have a choice.”

“I know. It's just that, seeing him so angry…” she said, her voice trailing off into silence.

“My father used to tell me that sometimes, doing the right thing is the hardest of all.”

“I never should've accepted his proposal in the first place.”

“But you did,” Peter explained as gently as he could. “What did he do when you told him you wanted to break it off?”

“At first, he tried to talk me out of it, but then, when he realized that I wasn't going to change my mind, he grew angry.” From her pained expression, Peter understood that she was reliving every horrible moment that had passed between them. “I ended up running away in tears. That was why I went straight to my room when I came home. I know you wanted to see me, but I just couldn't. I needed to be alone for a while.”