“Raelene takes care of the housework for us. We are responsible for the shop, so this is your job, young lady.” Grace pointed to the laundry bin. “When you get done with those things, then you can have the rest of the day to do whatever you want.”
“What... ever!” Audrey said with a head wiggle.
Sarah decided that maybe the universe had been good to her after all in not giving her children back when she was in her early twenties. Sometimes she wanted to wring Audrey’s neck for being so disrespectful, especially to Grace, but she had to admire her sister for the way she handled her daughter.
Audrey can say what she wants about her and her little buddies. They really are mean girls, and Audrey is getting more and more like them. I liked her better before she got tangled up with Crystal and Kelsey,she thought as she added her apron to the bin and headed outside.
She took a moment to breathe in the fresh spring air before she got into her truck. She put all the drama going on at home out of her mind and enjoyed looking at the minty green leaves popping out on the trees as she drove seventy-five miles an hour toward San Antonio. A deer ran across the road far enough ahead of her that it made it safely to theother side. Dark clouds gathered in the southwest, promising rain and possibly a thunderstorm.
“An omen for sure,” she said as she drove through congested traffic to the supply house. The clouds looked even angrier as they rolled toward San Antonio. When she hopped out of the truck, she saw the first streak of lightning and heard the distant rumble of thunder.
She handed her order to the salesclerk, and two young men quickly loaded what she needed into the back seat of her truck. Drops of rain almost the size of saucers splatted on her windshield at the first red traffic light, which seemed to take forever to turn green. Her windshield wipers were going so fast and furious that every form of vehicle—cars, semis, and even motorcycles—seemed to blur together as they crawled to the next red light.
At the sixth one, she slapped the steering wheel and glanced over to the left to see the entrance to the underground parking lot for the hotel where Neal worked as assistant manager.
“Well, well, well!” she grumbled, and on impulse whipped into the underground parking garage. Beezy had said that they should check him out. What better place to start than the place that he managed—or said that he did?
“Why didn’t I think to do this before now?” she asked as she got out of her truck, glad to be out of the downpour and hoping that the storm would have passed on by the time she got through with her little job. She made her way through the parked vehicles to the hotel entrance.
Her mother’s voice popped in her head:Because you were raised to trust people, and he has been so sweet and romantic to Macy this whole time.
“You are so right, Mama, but after this past week, my trust is gone,” she said and then realized that she was talking out loud again. “That’s one good thing about all this technology. Everyone is talking on their phones so much that no one realizes when someone is talking to themselves.”
She caught the first elevator going up and got off on the lobby floor. People wearing lanyards and badges that identified them as members of a technical convention were everywhere. She made her way between the groups and went straight to the check-in desk, got in line, and waited for her turn to talk to someone.
That someone turned out to be a middle-aged lady with gray hair slicked back into a bun at the nape of her neck and a name tag identifying her asLinda. “Checking in?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, I’m here to talk to the assistant hotel manager. We have some issues to resolve,” Sarah answered.
“We don’t have an assistant manager, but our manager was just here a few minutes ago.” Linda scanned the lobby and then pointed. “Maybe he can help you find the person you need. There he is, talking to Edward—our technical guy—over there by the elevators. He’s the one with the blue shirt and red tie. You could probably catch him if you hurry.”
Sarah followed the lady’s finger and saw Neal talking to a bald-headed man who looked to be about sixty years old—the only one of the two wearing a tie. She whipped around to face the lady again. “That’s Edward with him, right?”
“Yep, he lives here at the hotel and is on call for any techie problems we have. If that’s what you need to talk to the manager about, you can bypass Mr.Anderson and go straight to Edward. He’ll get you fixed right up,” she said.
“What’s Edward’s last name?” Sarah asked.
“Carlson,” Linda snapped. “Now, if that’s all, I have more customers to take care of. This is a busy time of day.”
“That’s all, and thank you so much.” Sarah made a hasty retreat to the stairs that led down to the parking garage. She whipped out her phone and googled the hotel, pulling up pictures of the staff. There was Edward Carlson, only the name appeared under a picture of Neal. His title—just like the woman had said—wastechnical engineer.
This should be enough to take to Macy as a start,Sarah thought and took a screenshot of the image. But she took no satisfaction in what she’d found out. To her, it was just proof that Macy’s heart would be shattered, and thinking of that made Sarah want to cry or go back in the hotel and do bodily damage to whoever Neal really was. She wondered how many other aliases the man had had—or, for that matter, how many Darla Jo had burned through since they started on their ten-year mission to buy her dream house on her own private little island. Was Macy’s money supposed to be the final deposit in their account? She got into her truck and drove out of the garage and into the bright sunshine.
The roads were still wet from the downpour, but traffic was light once she cleared San Antonio. Sarah made the thirty-minute drive home without noticing anything around her. Aliens could have dropped out of the sky, and she wouldn’t have even seen them. One scenario after another played out in her head as she thought about how she was going to tell Macy what she had found out. Finally, she turned the radio on to her favorite country station and hoped that the music would soothe the roller coaster of emotions going through her mind.
The DJ said that it was time to start the five-for-five contest. He would play five songs in a row, and the fifth person who called the station with the names of the five artists would win tickets to a Blake Shelton concert in San Antonio. “And to start you off,” he said, “we’ll give you the first one with ‘Goodbye Time’ by Blake himself.”
“Well, that’s an omen for sure.” Sarah kept time to the slow music by tapping her thumbs on the steering wheel.
When she arrived in Devine and parked behind the shop, she still hadn’t figured out a way to start her conversation with Macy. Every breath tightened up her chest even more. The anger she’d felt at the hotel was nothing compared to what was boiling in her heart right then. She carried all the supplies for the next week into the shop, then went on up to the house. Macy was on the porch, with her Bible beside her and her Sunday school lesson-plan book in her lap.
The time had come, but Sarah wished she were back in the truck. She wanted to put it in reverse and simply drive away without even looking back. The storm that had dumped a deluge on their area was nothing compared to the emotional hurricane about to shatter Macy’s heart.
“Like Humpty Dumpty,” Sarah muttered.
Grace came out of the house and sat down on the chaise longue and then waved at Sarah.
“Got to do it,” Sarah muttered and slowly walked up to them.
