Глава №1. Огородная слобода и Чистые пруды – между двух царских дорог. Андрей Монамс

equipment he’d purchased two weeks ago. Dad had pulled Mom’s car around back to a shed where he wouldn’t have to look at it every time he stepped to the kitchen window. He refused to drive it. Instead, he continued to rattle around in the twenty-year-old Ford pickup he’d always driven. Small-town pastors didn’t bring in millions from their congregations.

      Nick’s thoughts returned to Sarah and the stress evident in her voice, her sorrow over the loss of her parents, the love he’d heard between the lines for her younger sister. Nothing felt quite real tonight. Except for Sarah.

      Like Dad, Nick was still grieving hard over Mom’s death. After the shocks in life these past couple of years, he was still scrambling to catch up with a lot of things. Maybe he was grasping for something from the past—something of comfort. If nothing else, Sarah’s presence, even over the airway, had served to take him back to a gentler time when she was his friend and confidante, solid and serene and capable of gentle humor. Her twin had the infectious giggle and quips that kept everyone else laughing, but sometimes it was at the expense of others. Sarah never did that.

      He was turning the rotary to the next blade when he heard the unique murmur of a Volkswagen Beetle engine pull to a stop outside the house. The engine died. He frowned. He’d neglected to ask Sarah what kind of car Emma drove.

      A car door closed, and he was waiting for the chime of the doorbell when a knock against the garage door three feet away startled him.

      “Dr. Tyler?”

      Young. Feminine. Sounded a little shaky. And he couldn’t ignore the title. Respectful, as she’d seemed online and on the phone. Emma. He hesitated, relieved beyond expectation that she’d arrived safely, but for Sarah’s sake unwilling to make her entrance an easy one. She must have seen his work lights seeping out from beneath the big door. It was why she hadn’t gone to the front.

      “Hello?” she called.

      “Yes?” He drawled the word slowly.

      “Um, I’m Emma? You know, Russell?”

      He waited for more explanation.

      “We emailed and talked to each other a few times about our mothers?” she continued. “They were friends. And you went to school with my sisters. The twins? Do you remember Shelby and Sarah Russell?”

      Shaking his head, amazed she’d think he wouldn’t remember, he grabbed a slightly stained work rag and wiped as much grass and oil as he could from his hands. “Don’t you live in Sikeston?”

      “Well, yeah, but I came here to see you.”

      Sarah was right: this one was a handful. “And Sarah’s waiting for you in the car?”

      “Um, no. I’m by myself.”

      “What! How old are you, young lady?” He allowed disapproval to reflect in his voice and made her wait and wonder, the way Sarah was waiting and wondering.

      “I’ve got my license.”

      “You don’t say.”

      “I’ve been five hours on the road—well, okay, six, no, wait, seven, because I got lost a couple of times trying to find Jolly Mill—and I didn’t stop. I thought I’d run out of gas before I could find your place.” She giggled nervously. “You people sure like to keep to yourselves, don’t you? You got a bathroom? I really have to—”

      “Does Sarah even know where you are?” He was tempted to keep stalling. Sweet and genuine as she seemed, the kid could use some discipline.

      “Um, yes?”

      “You don’t sound so sure of that.” He reached for the button to raise the door but didn’t push it. “You’re trying to tell me she sent you driving across the state all by yourself? I would never have believed the Sarah Russell I knew would be so irresponsible.” He silently apologized to Sarah.

      “Um, well, no, she didn’t. But she knows where I am now, anyway. I’m sure she does, because I sent her an email.” There was a soft moan.

      Nick grinned, relenting at last, though Dad was still gone and it was totally against the unwritten rules of preacher-kid conduct for a teenager to visit a single, grown, male nonfamily member alone in a house.

      He pushed the button that started the garage door’s slow and noisy ascent. Light from the garage revealed bare legs to the knees—though the temperature certainly didn’t warrant shorts this late at this time of year—and bare arms. He could practically see goose bumps from twenty feet away.

      Then her shoulders and head came into view. Long, dark brown hair; deep, familiar brown eyes; the slight curves of a girl younger than sixteen. Those curves were covered demurely enough. She had the wide, uncertain gaze of a teenager who knew she was probably in trouble and was having second and third thoughts about acting out. She was the image of her older sister, Shelby—would be the image of Sarah at that age, as well, of course, if Sarah had kept her natural hair color and wiped the glop from her face.

      He sucked in his breath as memories accosted him—fuzzy memories of a party and of Shelby Russell and once again a haunting at the back of his mind over Emma’s birth nine months later, despite being assured she belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Russell. He’d seen pictures of her and wondered, but Shelby had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Had that night even happened? Maybe Sarah could clear things up.

      “You wanted to talk to me, remember?” Emma rushed into the garage, hugging herself and doing the girly dance of urgency. “You said so in your last post.” She sounded like Shelby, too, and her voice held that breathless, excited quality that Shelby had used when she was cheerleader their sophomore and junior years.

      “I said I wanted to talk to you and Sarah. Big difference. You should have waited until she could come with you. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming when you called?”

      She continued to dance and hug herself, the dainty lines of her face making it clear she was struggling with guilt and agony. “I’m sorry. If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have let me come. And I know Sarah wouldn’t have come. She always has some excuse to stay home. A-always better to do the deed and then apologize later than to ask for permission first and then disobey, r-right?” She was trying to sound so blasé, and failing so prettily.

      He suppressed a grin. “Really? I always heard that was the coward’s way out. You couldn’t have learned that from the Sarah Russell I knew.”

      “From a cousin in Sikeston. You got a jacket or something? You didn’t tell me you lived on the North Pole.” She was still trying to brave it out, though he could read her emotions from the quick blinking and sniffing, the wobbling of her dimpled chin.

      “I live on the same latitude as you, so you should have known better.” He grabbed his sweatshirt and tossed it to her, then glanced out the door. Every resident along Capps Creek would know about this visit before breakfast in the morning, not that any of their neighbors would think ill of him—not that he even cared for his own sake. He did care about Dad, however. As good and kind as most folks were in this town, at least one sin dwelt in abundance in this place: gossip.

      “B-bathroom?”

      He nodded toward the door to the house. “Down the hall and to the left.”

      She crashed through the door before he finished talking. “Thank you!”

      He stood where he was for a moment, amazed, charmed, far too curious and somehow, beyond all else, comforted, and he didn’t even know why. Time to share some of that comfort with someone who needed it more than he did. He picked up the receiver and dialed Sarah’s number.

      * * *

      Sarah’s eyelids pulled downward as if ten-pound barbells weighted them. She forced them open for at least the fiftieth time and was jerking the car back onto the road when her cell rang. It awakened her only slightly. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw a wall of semitrucks coming from behind. Her foot had slid off the accelerator and she had slowed