A Promise Kept Page 4

  She’d failed at marriage.

  She’d failed as a wife.

  She’d failed as a believer.

  She’d failed. Period.

  The dirt and gravel parking lot at the side of the simple brick church building was filled with an odd assortment of vehicles, ranging from an enormous 1950s Cadillac, seemingly held together with duct tape, to a bright red, late-model Ferrari convertible. Mostly there were beat-up pickup trucks, primer but no paint, and monster four-wheel-drive diesels that must have cost as much as she earned in a year.

  Allison had arrived on the late side, perhaps five minutes after the start of the worship service. She slipped into the last row of padded chairs while the congregation sang a contemporary worship song. The woman at the opposite end of the row smiled and nodded in her direction. Allison returned it before training her eyes on the overhead screen. Not that she needed to read the words. She knew the song by heart. It was one that had comforted her countless times as she walked through the desert place.

  The worship team on the stage—the lead singer, a young woman with a guitar, another woman on the keyboard, and a teenage boy on the drums—moved smoothly into another song and then one more before ending in a word of prayer.

  Allison anticipated the time of greeting that would follow the prayer, and she was prepared for everyone who shook hands with her to welcome her and say how nice it was to meet Emma Carter’s niece. Everyone would know who she was. It was hard to stay anonymous in a small church just as it was hard to stay anonymous in a small town. What surprised her was that she felt welcome.

  After the greeting time the offering was taken and announcements given, and then the pastor came to the pulpit. He was a tall beanpole of a man, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties. He had a pleasant speaking voice, and his teaching style drew Allison into the text. By the time the sermon was over, she was convinced she would return. Not that she was ready to commit herself to attending every Sunday. It was too soon for that. Still, her spirit felt lighter as she left the sanctuary.

  Gizmo—who went almost everywhere with Allison, as long as the weather allowed—was glad to see her when she got to the car. She snapped on his leash, and the two of them walked down to the creek that ran behind the church building.

  “Cute dog,” a deep voice said.

  Allison sucked in a gasp of surprise as she turned toward the speaker.

  Standing back from the bank was an Idaho cowboy in all his glory, complete with boots, jeans, and black Stetson. He grinned as he dipped his chin in hello. “First time at Meadow Fellowship?”

  “Yes.” She hadn’t noticed him inside the church. Had he been there? Must have since he seemed to know she’d been there.

  “I’m guessing you’re Allison Kavanagh, Miss Carter’s niece.”

  See, everyone knew at least that much.

  She answered, “Yes, but you have me at a disadvantage.”

  He removed his hat, revealing thick black hair with just a touch of gray at the temples. “Chet Leonard, ma’am. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Allison felt her eyes widen. Did people still talk that way? Apparently up in these mountains they did.

  “Actually, I had some help. Susan and Ned Lyle are friends of mine. Susan said she met you the other day when you came to town.”

  “Yes, we met. Does she go to this church? I didn’t see her inside.”

  Chet Leonard shook his head. “No, the Lyles are Methodists. But I still hold ’em as friends.”

  She smiled, liking his sense of humor, but the smile felt awkward. How seldom she smiled these days. How seldom she laughed anymore. Really laughed. Tony used to make her—

  “What’s your dog’s name?” Chet asked.

  “Gizmo.”

  “Because of the ears?”

  “Because of the ears.”

  He chuckled. She could barely hear it above the sound of flowing water.

  “Dad?”

  Chet looked up the incline toward the parking lot as a teenager—a younger version of Chet Leonard—stepped into view.

  “You comin’?” the boy asked.

  “I’m coming.” Chet turned toward Allison again. “That’s my son, Rick. I imagine he’s starved and eager to go eat.”

  A wave of familiar loneliness washed over her. She ached for those times in the past when she’d been a part of a family. She’d loved going out to eat after church with Tony and Meredith. She’d loved being one-half of a couple, finishing Tony’s sentences because she knew what he thought before he could say it.

  Chet bent his hat brim in her direction. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kavanagh.”

  “And you, Mr. Leonard,” she answered softly, then turned to stare at the creek again, the good feelings she’d felt at the end of the church service forgotten.

  Emma

  1925

  Alexander Monroe leaned across the table in the diner and took hold of Emma’s hand. As usual, his touch caused her heart to beat faster. If only he wasn’t oblivious to her feelings.

  “Come on. Be a sport, Emma. Put in a good word for me with your sister.”

  Liza. Always his thoughts were on Liza. For three years it had been that way, Emma wanting Alexander and Alexander wanting Liza.

  “It won’t do any good. Liza’s sweet on Matthew Steward.” This month, anyway.

  Alexander sighed as he released her hand and slouched against the back of the booth. “She drives me crazy, and she knows it too.”

  Yes, Liza knew she drove Alexander crazy. She drove lots of boys crazy. Alexander wasn’t unique in that regard. Emma’s sister loved to toy with boys the same way their tomcat loved to toy with mice. It was all a game to her, although she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. Liza hadn’t a mean bone in her body.

  But Emma wouldn’t toy with Alexander. Not even by accident. She would treat him with tenderness. She would do anything to make him happy—even help him win Liza over. Emma loved Alexander Monroe. She’d started loving him on the night of the Hudsucker party and she’d learned to love him more with the passing of time, despite his indifference. He barely knew she was alive, let alone that she was a girl. Only enough to call her a sport and ask her to put in a good word for him with Liza.

  Their mother liked to remind Emma and Liza that she was praying for their future husbands. “God has just the right man in store for you. Be patient and watch for him. He’ll turn up, and you’ll know it when you see him. That’s how it was for me with your father.”

  Her mother was right. When Emma had first seen Alexander, she’d known he was the one for her. Apparently God hadn’t told Alexander yet that she was the one for him. How could He tell him when Alexander never went to church? He had no time for God, he said.

  Three months earlier Emma had graduated from high school. Fifteen of her female classmates had gotten married since then. Fifteen. There’d been fewer than fifty girls in the graduating class, and fifteen were married already. Two were expecting babies next year. And in those same three months, Liza had received two proposals of marriage even though she was only seventeen and had another year of schooling ahead of her.

  Alexander intruded on Emma’s thoughts. “Will you at least try? You know me. You like me. Tell her I’m a nice guy.”

  “I have told her.” She looked out the window rather than let him see tears well in her eyes. It was bad enough he didn’t care for her. It would be worse if he pitied her.

  “Tell her again,” he said.

  “I will, but I can’t promise it’ll do any good.”

  Allison

  Allison reached into the steamer trunk and, for the second time since discovering it, removed the bridal gown from the tissue paper it had been wrapped in. Then she dropped it over the dress form, carefully, as if clothing a bride on her wedding day.

  The champagne-colored silk satin skirt was shin-length. Just right for the twenties. Matching champagne-colored beads and pearls embroidered the bodice and short puffy sleeves.
Lovely and stylish, collectors of all things vintage would love to have it. But Allison had no intention of selling it. Something about it spoke to her heart.

  Irrational, she supposed. She no longer had her own wedding dress. About ten years ago she’d given it away in a fit of anger. She’d wanted to hurt Tony. She should have known he wouldn’t see the significance in her gesture. By that time he hadn’t noticed much about her no matter what she did.

  Allison and Tony had been married five years before she discovered how heavily he drank—a long time to keep that sort of secret. A few months later, at her insistence, he’d entered a thirty-day, in-patient recovery program, and she’d thought she would never have to worry about “that problem” raising its ugly head again.

  How naive she’d been.

  Two decades and the roller-coaster ride that was part and parcel of a marriage to an active alcoholic had thoroughly disabused her of naiveté in that regard.

  After Tony’s first stint in rehab, Allison went on loving him, even when others thought her crazy to put up with him. Even when he lost another job and then another and another. Even when he landed in the hospital. Again and again. Even when he broke her heart and disappointed her and abandoned her emotionally. With his every new attempt at recovery, she took hold of hope and expected to see him overcome the desire to drink. She believed again and again that he would get sober and stay sober. Only to see him fail. Again.

  One good thing came out of her troubled marriage: Allison had been driven to the foot of the cross. Her faith in Christ had been born and then challenged and deepened. A Bible study leader once said to her, “A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.” Well, Allison’s faith had been thoroughly tested. She’d gone through the refiner’s fire more than once.

  And then, at long last, had come God’s promise to save her marriage. Or at least she’d believed it was His voice, His promise at the time.

  Tears sprang to her eyes at the memory. Disillusionment pierced her heart like the sting of a scorpion.

  She’d been so certain God would heal her marriage, but it was clear that she’d misunderstood. For Allison’s marriage was over and God did not lie.

  She turned away from the bridal gown and the memories it had stirred to life and left the attic.

  Taking a break from designing a logo for a client, Allison checked her e-mail, then opened her browser to the local Chamber of Commerce’s website and began reading:

  Kings Meadow, elevation 4,625 feet, is located in a long, wide valley surrounded by rugged mountains of southwestern Idaho. In the 1800s, the farmers and merchants who settled in this valley north of Boise City sold their produce, hogs, cows, and milk to the miners panning for gold throughout the Boise Basin. Eventually, the gold rush ended and most of the miners left the territory. But a good number of the farmers and merchants remained, and many of their descendants still live here today.

  As she read, Allison pictured Chet Leonard, standing on the bank of the stream the previous Sunday. She wondered if his ancestors had settled in the valley over a hundred years before. He looked and sounded like a lifelong resident.

  She shook her head, ridding herself of the image. She had no interest in men. Cowboys or not. Period. And that one had a family.

  A glance at the clock told her it was time to take the dog for a walk. She slipped a sweatshirt over her head, put on her athletic shoes, and headed toward the door, leash in hand. Gizmo was waiting for her there.

  In the two weeks since moving into the log house, Allison and Gizmo had explored several paths on their daily walks. Allison’s favorite was the one that followed the river. And today, with wildflowers blooming everywhere—an abundance of pinks and blues, yellows and oranges—she felt a lifting of her spirit. It was so pretty. God’s handprints were everywhere.

  Thank You.

  Her spirit lightened a little more.

  Thank You that I had this place to come to. Thank You that I wasn’t completely ruined in the divorce. I might’ve been. Other women have been. But I’m okay.

  The simple prayer of thanksgiving broke through a barrier in her heart, and something she couldn’t quite define began to heal.

  You’ve been with me every step of the way. Through the separation. Through the divorce. You were there all the time.

  She didn’t doubt for a moment that God had been with her. Still, she’d been shattered all the same, and the end of her dreams, the end of her marriage, had caused her to grow silent, to distrust her ability to hear God’s voice.

  Help me hear You again, Lord.

  She stopped walking, giving Gizmo time to sniff the underbrush and explore each rock and cranny while giving her time to enjoy the scenery.

  On this stretch of the river the water flowed by swiftly, its surface smooth, but behind her and around the bend was some of the best whitewater in the world. Rafters and kayakers flocked to this river every summer from around the globe. When Meredith was young, the family had gone on a rafting trip at least once every summer. More often if they had guests from out of state. Tony had loved to put “flatlanders,” as he called those who were not from a mountainous area, in the front of the raft so they would get sprayed with the icy-cold water, drenching them before the trip downriver was over.

  Tony’s mischievous sense of humor was one of the things Allison had loved about him. He could make her laugh as no one else could. He’d also made her cry like no one else.

  Not liking the direction of her thoughts—the second time today—she resumed walking.

  Grieving was a process one had to go through—Allison knew this. It took as long as it took. But she didn’t want grief to morph into self-pity. She’d never been that sort of person, not even at the worst of times. She didn’t want to become that sort of person now. There was too much to be thankful for. She had a snug home in a gorgeous region. She had plenty of clients and a successful business. She had good health, and her parents and daughter were all well too.

  But God hates divorce. The words pierced her heart—as they always did.

  A month or so ago, when Allison had been in the deepest period of mourning, her mother reminded her that while the Bible said God hated divorce, He did not hate the divorced. God loved her and wanted His best for her. Her life was not over. God still had a purpose and a plan for her. All she had to do was trust Him.

  She knew all of that in her mind. It was getting it into her heart that was so hard. She supposed, like grief, belief took time too.

  Allison

  On Friday evening a storm blew through the area, causing trees to dance like whirling dervishes and the wind to whistle beneath the eaves. It was a perfect night to sit before the living room fireplace, listening to the wood crackle and pop, while she sorted through more things from Aunt Emma’s trunk.

  It was the photographs that interested Allison the most, and there were lots of them. Far more than she’d first thought. Some of them had writing on the backs, identifying the people in the photograph, but others didn’t. Of course, many of them were of Aunt Emma and Allison’s grandmother, Elizabeth Hendricks, and their parents; she recognized all those family members easily enough. There were a lot of her mother as a baby, including some naked ones on a bear rug. Those shots made Allison laugh out loud. Wait until she told her mother about them.

  After about an hour of looking, she decided organization was needed before anything else. She had some empty shoeboxes in the spare room upstairs. She would get them and start sorting photos into different boxes. One for photos of people she could identify. One for photos of people she couldn’t identify. And one for photos that piqued her curiosity, made her want to know more.

  “I wish I’d seen these before Aunt Emma died,” she said aloud.

  Gizmo lifted his head and stared at her.

  “If I’d seen them then, I could have asked her. Especially about this guy.” She held up another photo of her aunt with that same young man, the one she’d asked her mother about. Whoever he was, he
was devastatingly handsome. Although the photograph was black and white, she was certain his eyes must have been a piercing blue, and there was a broodiness in his expression that made her think of Douglas Fairbanks, a silent film star from the twenties.

  “Who was he to you, Aunt Emma?”

  A gust of wind rattled the windows, startling Allison. She dropped the photo, and it drifted dangerously close to the fireplace before landing on the floor. She got up and retrieved it, then headed upstairs for the shoeboxes.

  Emma

  1926

  Liza’s June wedding to John Hendricks, eldest son of one of Idaho’s leading—and wealthiest—citizens, was the social event of the summer. The pews of the church were filled with friends and family, successful businessmen and powerful government officials, both city and state. Everybody who was anybody had been invited to the wedding, and from the looks of the packed sanctuary, most had accepted the invitation.

  Emma was delighted to serve as her sister’s maid of honor, although she felt awkward and gauche whenever she stood next to Liza, who was even more stunning than usual in her long white satin gown and exquisite veil. Emma was thankful when, at last, she was able to slip away from the spotlight and observe the reception from a dim corner of the banquet hall the Hendricks had rented for the occasion. She wasn’t surprised when Alexander joined her there.

  “Well, she did it,” he said, his gaze locked on the bride. “Landed herself a rich husband.”

  “She loves John.”

  “Does she?” Alexander turned his eyes on Emma. “I’ve started to believe Liza only loves herself.”