Homecoming (Sweet Hearts of Sweet Creek Book 1) Read online

  Now the familiar words and tune created a desire for that comforting closeness with the God from her past.

  She sighed and cut that thought off. God required something she could never afford to give Him, or anyone else —vulnerability and love.

  Mark’s deep baritone struck out beside her. He held the book loosely in one hand, his other tucked casually in the front pocket of black pants. He sang the words with enthusiasm, and Sheryl felt jealous of his faith and security.

  As if he sensed her scrutiny, he glanced sidelong at her, and in between stanzas quirked a half grin at her. An answering flutter of her heart surprised Sheryl, and she turned ahead.

  The song wound down to the “Amen,” and Sheryl looked ahead, thankful that it was over.

  The organist paused a moment then segued into the post-lude, and Sheryl steeled herself to face the knowing looks of people who remembered her as a young and willful girl and Jason Kyle’s girlfriend.

  “Auntie Sheryl,” Crystal called out, slipping through the people as they gave way. “Auntie Sheryl, wait for us.”

  That name again. Auntie. So easily they used it to claim a relationship Sheryl knew wouldn’t last longer than the few days she stayed.

  But being with them was preferable to facing curious glances and the usual valley nosiness. So Sheryl waited for them as they worked their way through the exiting worshippers.

  “Did you see us looking at you,” Crystal whispered, as she caught Sheryl’s hand in hers.

  “I waved, too,” Marla put in, trying to wiggle past Crystal to get to Sheryl’s other hand.

  “Hey, girls,” Mark’s voice came from behind them, sounding wounded. “Doesn’t anyone want to hold my hand?”

  “You can carry me,” Marla offered just as she got a solid grip on Sheryl’s hand.

  “Thank you. Your Majesty.” Mark swung Marla up in his arms with a laugh.

  Marla still clung to Sheryl’s hand and because of that, Mark ended up walking close beside Sheryl, his proximity unnerving. Her shoulder bumped his arm, and her hip hit his, but Marla wouldn’t release her grip.

  They made their way out of church this way, looking for all the world like a little family. Sheryl wondered how the people of the valley would look upon this little scene.

  They stepped out into the warm sunshine, people of all ages and sizes milling about below them on the grass surrounding the church.

  “Sheryl.. .Sheryl Kyle?” A woman the same age as Sheryl came up to them, shoulder-length dark hair framing a pleasant face.

  Sheryl stared at her blankly, feeling like her mind had shut down.

  “Lainie Saunders,” the woman prompted. “You, me and Nadine Laidlaw used to skip out of Mr. Kuric’s class and go floating down the Elk River.”

  “I remember.” Sheryl smiled as happier memories intruded, brushing aside the darker ones from the church service. “I flunked biology because of it.”

  “So did I.” Lainie laughed, glancing curiously at Mark. “My parents were so mad. I ended up taking summer school.”

  “I spent the entire summer cleaning out calf pens by hand,” Sheryl commented dryly, surprised at the quick stab of anger that accompanied the recollection. It had happened almost ten years ago.

  “Remember that time we floated all the way down to the lake?” Lainie went on. “And that young Fish-and- Wildlife officer caught us...”

  “Anthony Jesperson.”

  “I think that meeting was meant to be. We’ve been married four years this spring.”

  The conversation hit a pause. “And you’re expecting?” Sheryl asked, glancing at Lainie’s obviously protruding midriff.

  “In two months,” Lainie said, with pride tingeing her voice. “I feel like a beached whale, and I’m only seven months along.” Lainie smoothed a hand over her stomach self-consciously. “What about you? Did you and Jason...” “No. No kids.” Sheryl withdrew her hand from Marla’s and Crystal’s, the warmth of their fingers suddenly burning.

  “And where is Jason?”

  “He passed away about eight months ago.” Sheryl felt a tightening around her temples.

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s okay.” She swallowed, her throat suddenly thickening.

  “Do you want to come over for coffee and catch up?” Lainie asked, laying a gentle hand on Sheryl’s shoulder, her face expressing concern. “I can call Nadine. We could re-hash old times.”

  Sheryl shook her head, glancing behind her at Mark who still held Marla. “I.. .I.. .should get going. I got a ride with Mark, and I think he wants to leave.” Sheryl shot Mark a pleading glance, and thankfully he picked up the cue without a pause.

  “Sorry, Lainie. My brothers and sisters are coming for the day, and I think we’re already late.”

  “Let’s make it another time. I’m sure we’ve lots to catch up on,” Lainie replied, her expression one of concern.

  “Sure. I’ll give you a call.” Sheryl took a step down the stairs, then another and, with a quick wave at her old friend, turned and almost ran to Mark’s truck.

  * * *

  “Don’t spill, now.” Elise handed Marla and Crystal each a cup of juice and added a frown for good measure. Mark leaned an elbow on the counter of his mother’s kitchen, tracing a pattern in the spilled sugar on the gray arborite. “So, Elise, how do you read Sheryl?” he asked.

  “Like a closed book.” Elise opened one of the many containers on the counter and began arranging cookies and squares on a tray. “You’ve spent more time with her than I have.”

  “She seems like a different person in each different place.” Mark pushed the sugar into a neat pile with his pinky, frowning at it. “Lainie talked to her after church today, and I thought I caught a glimpse of what she used to be like. Then it’s like someone hit a switch, and she’s the girl I met in the bar.”

  “She lost her husband only eight months ago. A person’s emotions are very unstable for almost a year after a death.”

  “Probably,” Mark said, rearranging the sugar again. “But I get the feeling that she’s not too sorry her husband’s gone.”

  “Well I know Nate isn’t. He’s hated Jason for years.” Elise set out some cups on the tray, her lips pursed. “From what I’ve heard he was a pretty hardened character before Sheryl went out with him.”

  Mark shrugged, pressing a finger on the pile of sugar he had created, still frowning. “What have you heard?” “He was wild, rough, drank, got into plenty of trouble...” Elise shrugged. “Even if half of the rumors I heard are true, he wasn’t husband material.”

  “So why did Sheryl take off with him and stay with him for eight years?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Mark curled his lip. “Good idea, ‘Lise. She’s so talkative.”

  She flashed him a mischievous grin. “Well, get Mom to ask.” Elise closed a sugar container and pushed it aside. “Do you know how long she’s going to stay around?”

  “I think she’s going to make the visit as short as possible.”

  “What does she have to go back for?”

  “Nothing, unless you want to count a run-down apartment.” Mark brushed the sugar into his hand and reached over the counter to dump it into the sink. “I guess what she does shouldn’t matter.”

  “Probably not, but I get the sense it does.” Elise winked at him. “She’s good-looking enough.”

  “Well as Marla said this morning, ‘Grace is defeatful and beauty is a pain’...”

  Elise looked puzzled, and as comprehension dawned, she burst out laughing. “That’s cute.” She pushed the tray of mugs across the counter to Mark. “Anyhow, big brother, here’s your chance to show Sheryl what a progressive and liberated man you are. Don’t spill, now,” she added with a wicked grin.

  “Cute, ‘Lise.” He picked up the tray and headed from the relative peace of the kitchen to the din of the living room and another Andrews family gathering.

  The two couches facing each other
were full of bodies, others sat on the floor braced against them, chairs from the kitchen were pulled up, and in one comer of the spacious room a group of teenagers were sprawled on the floor playing an unusually noisy game of Monopoly.

  Empty, the room had grace, elegance and style. The fireplace that dominated the center of one wall was built of soft, sand-colored brick and flanked by two floor-to-ceiling windows draped with lace curtains.

  Mark almost groaned when he spied Sheryl seated at the opposite end of the living room on a kitchen chair between his parents, Lenore and Dale. As soon as he was done his duties, he would head over and rescue her. Once Lenore got hold of her she wouldn’t rest until she got Sheryl’s birth weight and grades in school.

  “Ah, coffee.” Mark’s brother, Allen, disentangled himself from his wife and his nephew Benjamin and reached up for the cup that Mark offered him. “You are almost an angel.”

  “If that’s all it takes I should have more than one set of wings,” his wife, Diane, said with a laugh. She took a cup and flashed a thankful smile at Mark.

  “Saying ‘I do’ to Allen was enough for you to earn them Diane,” Brad, Mark’s younger brother, said with a laugh. “Anyone who can live with a banker has more than earned her feathers.”

  “At least he knows how to budget,” Diane shot back.

  “Nasty word.” Brad shuddered then turned to his brother. “Say Mark, we don’t have to tip you do we?”

  “Just leave donations in the cup when you’re done. I’ll put them towards the Nate and Mark Eternal Debt Fund.” Mark returned.

  “You really need to talk to Allen about cutting you a deal.” Brad shook his head. “I can’t believe your own brother isn’t willing to give you a bulk discount.”

  “Ignore him little brother,” Rick, Mark’s other brother put in. “And you can give me a cup of that stuff too.”

  “I don’t know how you can still call him ‘little,” Brad sang out. “He’s at least five inches taller than you.”

  “Two,” Rick held up two fingers as if to emphasize the point. “Two lousy inches, brat.”

  “Must be all that hair that makes you think that,” said Allen.

  Mark shook his head and bent over so Rick could get a cup off the tray. His brother glanced past him toward Sheryl. “Is she the reason you’re lowering yourself, brother?”

  Mark turned the tray half a turn. “Cream or sugar?” was all he said.

  “Right,” Rick replied, settling back on the couch with a smirk.

  Mark ignored him and worked his way past the younger nieces and nephews leaning against their parents legs, toward the chairs that flanked the fireplace. He felt sorry for Sheryl—she looked a little dazed. And for good reason. Mark had two sisters and three brothers, all married. Only Elaine and Drew had no children. An Andrews gathering was something you eased into, one family at a time, not dived into on a day when all the members were together.

  “Noisy enough for you. Mother?” Mark set the tray down on the table, pushing a couple of books out of the way. He spooned some sugar into her cup, poured in some cream and handed it to her.

  “It’s like music, don’t you think, dear?” Lenore asked of her husband as she took her cup from Mark.

  “I prefer Bach, myself,” Dale grumbled, and raised his eyebrows as a cry went up from the corner of the living room where the teenagers were.

  “I’ve got two hotels on Park Place. You’re toast, Jennifer,” one of the nephews crowed.

  Mark handed his father a cup, offered the tray to Sheryl who shook her head. He took the last cup and eased himself down at his mother’s feet.

  “How are you feeling, Dad?” he asked, leaning his head back against his mother’s chair.

  “I got to slow down, doctor said,” Dale retorted dryly. “I’m retired. How slow am I supposed to go?”

  “He’s grumpy because he’s not allowed to help you and Nate with the haying,” Lenore said, stroking her son’s head.

  Mark quirked his mother a lazy grin. “I don’t know if he’s that much help anyhow...”

  “Watch what you say, Mark,” Lenore admonished, giving his long hair a tug. “You’ll goad him into coming out anyway. And when are you going to get your hair cut?”

  “I’m trying to save money,” returned Mark, winking at Sheryl. “Allen told me I had to be more thrifty.”

  Her only response was to take another sip of coffee. Seemed she didn’t like his act.

  Elise and the girls set trays of sandwiches and squares on the already-full coffee table, and the noise level immediately decreased.

  “How is the ranch doing, Mark?” Brad asked. “Nate was saying that you landed a decent hay contract with a guy in Langley?”

  “Yeah, Thomason up at Jaffray put me on to him. He supplies a lot of hobby farmers and will take all we can give him: If the price is as good as he says, irrigating that hay land will more than pay for itself this year.” Mark popped a cookie in his mouth, and the talk turned toward the weather, loan payments and cattle futures.

  Nate wandered into the room and joined in the conversation. Mark glanced at Sheryl who ignored both Nate and him, concentrating on the sandwich she held. Someone asked him a question, but as he answered it, he listened with half an ear to the conversation going on behind him, wondering if the dry wit of his father or the nosiness of his mother could draw Sheryl out.

  Her replies were quiet, her manner self-contained, and after half an hour the only new thing Mark discovered was that she’d had chicken pox when she was nine, that she usually didn’t have time for lunch and that her visit with her father went fine.

  If you could call standing against the wall, arms crossed across her stomach, “fine.” Mark knew her answer was an evasion, but with Sheryl, what else did he expect?

  The afternoon wore on, and the guys took the kids outside to play volleyball. Diane and Elise were cleaning up in the kitchen, and his dad was reading to Crystal and Marla.

  Mark felt relaxed, comfortable, the welcoming ambience of his mother’s home working its familiar magic. Wherever they had lived, Lenore had made each house a home, each place a focal point for their family to gather, talk and share fellowship.

  Sheryl had moved to one of the couches, and as the room emptied, he dropped himself down on the one across from her.

  “Oh, honey,” his mother said suddenly, spying a red-cheeked Benjamin in the doorway of the living room, blanket tucked under one arm, book under the other. “Couldn’t you sleep?”

  He shook his head and toddled over toward his grandmother. But when he spied Sheryl, he veered off course and clambered up beside her, slapping his book on her lap.

  “Read,” he demanded, dragging his blanket up alongside, leaning against her.

  Sheryl pulled away, then as she looked down on Benjamin’s tousled head Mark could see her soften.

  Her hand slowly lifted and touched a wayward lock of hair, straightening it, and a look of such yearning came over her it hit Mark deep and low.

  The stern lines of her face smoothed, the hardness drifted away, and she was transformed into the same beautiful girl that had fussed over Marla’s seat belt this morning.

  Mark was inexplicably jealous of Benjamin. Jealous of the way Sheryl’s delicate fingers drifted over his head, the soft smile she bestowed on him when he looked up at her. Why was it that this young child brought out this soft part of her, a part she never showed to any adult?

  Mark wondered if he would ever know.

  Chapter 4

  The sun was up; however, the air wafting into the cabin was still cool and laced with the scent of fir and moldering underbrush.

  The smell of the mountains. Sheryl stopped sweeping and closed her eyes. Effortlessly she drifted back over the years, remembering walks with her mother as they had discovered this new place. It had been so different from the prairies and the grain farm that Sheryl’s first father had worked. These mountains, cradling wide-open valleys, held an elemental fascination for them.
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br />   Sheryl smiled as she relived those moments of discovery, happiness and a mother’s love.

  A quick shake of her head brought her back to the bleak present. Love was a scarce commodity, she reminded herself. God parceled it out in small portions, and it seemed she used up her share as a young child.

  She bent over to sweep under the bed, and her broom hit something solid. Puzzled, she got down on her knees. A box.

  Sheryl dropped the broom, pulled the box forward and opened the flaps. Loose papers, old scribblers and dogeared paperback novels filled it. With a rueful grin Sheryl drew out a hard-cover journal that lay on the top. It had been a gift from her mother for her tenth birthday, the first one she’d celebrated here.

  Sheryl sat back on her heels, running her fingers over the figure of the old-fashioned lady embossed on the cover. How she’d hated to ruin the clean, white pages when she’d first gotten it. But a need to express herself had overcome her reluctance and soon she’d written in it every day.

  Sheryl opened the cover and saw the first words on the page, remembering again what it was like to be ten years old, confused and missing her father:

  I dreamed me and Mom and Dad still lived in Alberta.

  I dreamed Daddy was still alive. But then I woke up.

  I had to cry. I miss him so much.

  Sheryl smiled ruefully, touching the childish writing with her finger, remembering the pain of a loss she didn’t dare express. Her tears made her mother sad which would bother Ed.

  Mr. Ed Krickson wants me to call him Dad. He’s really my stepdad but it sounds funny to call him that.

  And that had been the beginning of the conflict, thought Sheryl.

  She flipped past long and rambling descriptions of the cows, horses, plants and mountains. She remembered a young girl impressed with her surroundings.

  “I like living here now.” She had written this a few months later.

  I don’t miss Daddy as much. But there’s so much to do. I have to feed the orphaned calves, and my hands get so cold. I lost a mitten and Mr. Ed Krickson says I can’t have another one for at least a month. So I stole one from Nate. Just when I feed the calves, though. Then I put it back.