Christine Johnson - All Roads Lead Home

Anna groaned again. “What is wrong with you two?”

Neither of them bothered to answer the preposterous question. Hendrick started the car, and Mariah stared straight ahead. His elbow practically butted into her side. No more than six inches separated them on the seat. She couldn’t last two thousand miles that way. At the next stop, she’d drive and insist that Hendrick sit in the back.

She plastered herself against the door and kept her gaze straight ahead while they drove through Pearlman and past Hendrick’s garage. Mrs. Simmons waved to them from her yard.

“Goodbye, Mama,” Anna called out.

“God be with you,” she called back, and Mariah hoped she didn’t know the true reason for their trip.

She glanced at Hendrick. “Does she…?”

He must have understood, because he shook his head.

Soon they left town, driving up the little rise before passing through a tunnel of ancient maples that had somehow missed the lumberman’s ax. On this warm July morning, the dappled shade created an oasis of coolness in the midst of the hot fields.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Anna mused, her chin on the back of the front seat between Mariah and Hendrick. “Hendrick comes here all the time. It’s his favorite spot in the whole world.”

Anna pointed out every barn and unusual tree. Ordinarily the chatter would have driven Mariah to tears, but today it passed the miles and ensured that she didn’t have to talk to Hendrick. Though they couldn’t go much over thirty miles an hour on the rutted road, within a couple hours they reached the West Michigan Pike, the highway that ran along the shore of Lake Michigan.

“Can we stop to see the lake?” Anna queried from the backseat.

“May we,” Hendrick corrected.

Mariah lifted an eyebrow. Hendrick Simmons correcting grammar?

“May we stop?” Anna sighed.

Mariah hated to waste time on sightseeing, but she couldn’t deny Anna this little pleasure. She asked Hendrick to pull over at the first place he could park. When he finally stopped the car on a grassy spot alongside the beach, the view startled her. Lake Michigan wasn’t like any lake she’d ever seen. Why, it stretched unbroken to the horizon, exactly like the ocean.

“It doesn’t smell like the ocean, though.” She sniffed the air. “No salty odor.”

No one listened to her musings. Anna raced to the shore, where she peeled off her shoes and stockings. Within seconds, she’d waded into the crashing surf. The waves rolled over her feet and dampened the hem of her skirt.

“You’re getting wet,” Mariah called out, but Anna either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

“Sounds good to me.” Hendrick kicked off his shoes and socks and followed his sister.

Anna laughed, running out when each wave ebbed and racing back to shore when the next one arrived. Her giggles were infectious, and, since everyone else was taking a break, Mariah removed her shoes and stockings, too.

The sand blazed beneath her feet, and she gingerly hopped to the water’s edge. The wet sand cooled her blistered soles. When a wave rolled over her feet, the icy water made her shriek. “It’s freezing.”

“It’s wonderful.” Anna ran down the shore, splashing water with every step.

Within minutes, Mariah grew accustomed to the chill water—or perhaps numb to it. She walked a few steps, but the sand gave way beneath her feet, making her stagger. The wash of the waves tugged at her feet, burying them deeper in the soft, pebbly sand.

“It’s like quicksand,” she exclaimed.

Hendrick bent over laughing.

“It’s not funny. My feet keep sinking, and my skirt is getting wet. I can hardly walk.”

“Hold still.” In an instant he swept her off her feet and into his arms. “There, you’re safe now.”

Safe? He was holding her. Holding her. Goodness, he’d lifted her as easily as if she were a child. His heart thudded against her side. His shoulders loomed at eye level. He smelled so masculine that she couldn’t think straight. She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder, to sink into his arms and stay there forever.

“Put me down,” she squawked, terrified at the rush of emotion. She couldn’t fall for him again. She couldn’t.

He didn’t listen. Instead of setting her on her feet, he carried her toward the car.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “I told you to put me down.”

But he didn’t. He just kept walking, carrying her away from the shore. She had no choice but to hold on.

“I know how to walk.”

“I know, but the sand’s hot,” he explained when they reached her abandoned shoes. He gently set her down and smoothed the collar of her middy shirt before turning to call for his sister. “Anna, it’s time to go.”

Mariah sat, embarrassed by her reaction to him. “I could have walked.”

He sat beside her. “I didn’t want you to burn your feet.”

She grabbed a stocking. “How could they burn when they’re blocks of ice?” To demonstrate that she hadn’t been affected by the way he held her, she tried to pull the stocking over one of her damp, sandy feet. It went nowhere.

“Here, let me help.” He scrunched up the other stocking so it would fit easily over her toes. “Brush off the sand, and I’ll slip this on.”

She yanked it away from him. “I think I can put on my own stockings.” But the gritty sand clung to her feet as if it had been glued on.

“I’d be glad to help,” he said again.

“I don’t need help.” She yanked on the stockings, even though they bunched in the wrong places and she hadn’t gotten all the sand off her feet. She shoved on her shoes and stood. “There, see?” She strode toward the car, the sand rubbing against her toes with every step.

Hendrick hurried after her. “Let me get the door.”

She’d had quite enough of his help. She was an independent, fully capable woman, not an invalid.

“I’m driving,” she stated, whipping open the driver’s-side door.

He halted, either surprised or dismayed.

She didn’t care. They’d had a deal. No romance. He’d broken it. This was the last time she’d let down her guard around Hendrick Simmons.

Didn’t she feel a thing? Hendrick watched Mariah, confused by her reaction. When he first picked her up, she’d clung to him and even laid her head against his shoulder, but then she’d tensed, as if she realized she wasn’t supposed to enjoy being carried by him. Then she got all defensive when he was just trying to help and stomped off to the car, insisting she had to drive. She didn’t even wait for him to open the door.

He would never understand women.

They ate lunch in silence and reached Chicago that afternoon. Anna hung her head out the window and gawked at the buildings.

“That one has ten stories,” Anna cried out as they entered downtown. “And that one, oh, my.” She drank in the traffic signs and policemen at the street corners, the elevated railway and the crowds of people. “Thousands must live here. How do they know each other?”

“They don’t,” Hendrick said. “Cities have lots of people, but they’re all strangers. I’d rather live where everyone knows each other.”

“Like Pearlman,” Mariah said tartly as she slowed the car for an intersection.

“What’s wrong with Pearlman?” Though he planned to move to Garden City if his interview with Curtiss went well, he rose to his hometown’s defense.

“I didn’t say anything was wrong. Pearlman’s a lovely town. Gabe adores living there.”

“It’s a good place to raise a family,” Hendrick said softly.

She visibly tensed.

So that was it. The woman who helped place orphans didn’t want children of her own. Of course. That’s what she’d tried to tell him at the bridge, that her career came first. What a shame. She’d be a wonderful mother. He’d seen her with Luke, especially, but also with Peter and the other orphans she’d placed. She was a natural parent. Maybe she didn’t want children now, but given time, was there any hope she might change her mind?