Gina Wilkins - Faith, Hope and Family

“Let me see,” Deborah repeated patiently.

Sighing, Lenore held out the paper. “It’s trash, of course. Nothing at all to worry about. I shouldn’t have even given it a second thought, much less let it upset me.”

Deborah scanned the terse paragraphs with a hard knot of anger forming in her chest. “When did you get this?”

“It was in today’s mail. No return address, just an Honesty postmark, dated Saturday.”

“And this is the first time you’ve gotten anything like this?”

When Lenore didn’t immediately respond, Deborah looked up with narrowed eyes. “Mother?”

“It’s not the first,” Lenore admitted reluctantly. “But it’s the most unpleasant.”

“How many?”

“Three—maybe four. I don’t know. I threw them away.”

“Has there been anything else? Phone calls? Any other personal contact?”

“No. Just the letters. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You’re probably right.” But she agreed only to ease the lines around her mother’s mouth. Deborah was furious and, no matter what she’d just said, she was worried.

As much as she hated it, there was only one person she could think of to turn to for advice.

Dylan’s mobile home was old but in good repair, and he kept it relatively neat, for a bachelor. It sat on three partially wooded acres that backed up to a small fishing lake just outside of town, giving him a nice view of the water from the wooden deck he’d built across the back of the trailer. He’d bought the place two years ago with vague plans of building a house here someday. When he was ready.

He had the money to build now, if he wanted. But, as he told all those who asked what he was waiting for, he wasn’t ready. There never seemed to be any urgency to build a house just for himself, and he hadn’t met anyone in the past few years he wanted to ask to share it with him. His dogs were company enough for now.

It was the barking of the dogs that let him know he had company Monday afternoon. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was just after two, an unusual time for anyone to come calling. Putting away the lunch dishes he’d just finished washing, he wiped his hands on a dishtowel, tossed it on a counter and headed for the front door just as someone knocked.

If there was one person he would not have expected to find on his top step, it was Deborah McCloud.

Seeing her at his door, her blue eyes meeting his with the direct challenge with which she had always faced him, her dark-blond hair tossing in the spring breeze, it suddenly occurred to him exactly what he’d been waiting for all this time.

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