She led the way to the nearest exit, suppressing a smile that would betray her thoughts. Preston knew her well. How easy it would be to capitulate right now. “Just the Jeep, please.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh.
In spite of her misgivings about the subject and their relationship at the moment, she laughed, needing to allow herself the pleasure of his company for a little while. It was his presence that had helped her banish the past back to where it belonged—both the recent history with her late husband, and the distant, more disturbing history that was the true origin of this sense of loss that seldom left her in peace.
He pushed the door open and stepped into sunshine, then escorted her out, his attention on her even more focused than usual. With Preston, she couldn’t help herself; not only did he make her heart pound, he made her laugh, and made her think more deeply about her faith—because he asked so many questions that challenged her beliefs.
And yet, this time she had to draw the line. Shielding her eyes from the morning light, she looked up into Preston’s calm, gray-blue eyes, framed by brown-black waves of hair that were due a cut.
She had to face the fact that if she left him here, there was Doris Batson, the new comptroller, a beautiful woman, as accomplished as he in the intricacies of finance, who might be waiting in the wings for him. But Preston would have to make his own decisions about that.
“I promise to miss you,” she said, then saw the sudden flash of pain in those eyes.
His jaw muscles flexed as he obviously resisted the urge to restart the argument. “Then it’s definite.”
She nodded. She hadn’t realized it until this moment, but she was going to Arizona. Twin Mesas’ Christian boarding school desperately needed help, and she wanted to help it.
It was also the place that held the secrets of her past. Others might be able to put the past behind them and move forward, but she felt stranded there, still searching for her mother. And now there were more children at that school, who had lost not only a mother, but a father, as well.
She knew it was illogical to think that she might have something in common with those children after twenty-four years…but what if she did? What if she could help them in some way? She couldn’t bear thinking about other children facing the same night terrors she was now facing.
She also could not endure the nightmares much longer. It was time to find some answers, once and for all, so she could move on with her life.
Chapter Two
Preston Black had never wanted so badly to break a promise. This was one argument he needed to have with Sheila, and she refused to argue. Why hadn’t he been able to make her use that characteristic logic of hers?
She and her father had fled from Arizona for a good reason. They hadn’t been back since, and now, when there suddenly seemed to be some unexplained epidemic of deaths at Sheila’s former school, she had no business tempting fate—particularly since one of the deceased had worked in the very clinic where Sheila would be working if she returned.
Wasn’t it enough that Sheila’s mother, who’d also been a nurse, had died at that same school?
But he didn’t say any of this. He even resisted reminding Sheila that she wasn’t a missionary, and if she returned to the mission school for a few weeks, she would fall even further behind in paying off her late husband’s debts. Besides, she wasn’t trained in testing patients for the plague…or any of the other diseases that were endemic to that area of the country.
He gazed down into her feminine face with the gamine features, hazel eyes, firm chin. Like other important women in his life, she had a stout heart. His sister had combated threats from a stalker for years. His mother continued to battle a wicked mental illness with a brave spirit that had been bruised and wounded again and again, but never broken.
That was why Preston had recognized Sheila’s courage when he’d seen it…and fallen in love with her. Now, sure, he admired her spirit, but she wasn’t being reasonable about this. Why not?
He reached up to brush several strands of her thick, dark brown hair from her shoulder and to look at those lush lips, usually so quick to smile. At this moment, they seemed as weighted with sadness as her eyes.
“This is what you feel you have to do?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. He could tell she was expecting him to continue to protest.
“I’m keeping my promise,” he said. “I meant it. I have no right to tell you what you can and cannot do.” They’d made no promises to each other about their relationship—or rather, at this point, nonrelationship.
He was learning to use that word more often. Relationship.
She gave a soft sigh and reached up to touch his chin, gently. “Yes, Preston, I feel I need to do this.”
He braced himself. “Are you doing it to get away from me?”
The soft touch became a sharp tap on his shoulder, and the tender glance disappeared. “I told you the reasons. You don’t seem to listen.”
He raised his hands. “Okay, that’s fine, I realize this isn’t all about me, but I just don’t think you’ve been completely forthcoming. If even part of the reason you’re doing this is to escape me, there are many safer ways than hauling yourself alone across country to a desolate—”
She raised a hand. “Finish that sentence, and you’ll be forking over your Jeep for my trip.”
“Sorry.” He forced a smile. “Of course, my Jeep has air-conditioning, and yours doesn’t. You probably should use mine.”
“Who needs air-conditioning? It’s barely May.”
“You know how hot it gets out there in the summer? May becomes June becomes July, and you don’t know how long you’ll be there.”
She slid a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her tiger-print scrubs, her slender hands graceful as she unfolded and scanned the letter.
Preston studied her face as she read. He knew the contents of the letter, of course. She’d shown it to him Saturday after she found it on her father’s desk in his home office.
Buster Metcalf was an agricultural engineer who had moved with his family to the Navajo reservation in Arizona when Sheila was five. Five years later, when Sheila was ten, her mother had died suddenly, mysteriously. And that was all Preston had learned in the year he had known Sheila. He’d marveled at the lack of information he’d been able to get out of her about Evelyn Metcalf.
Sheila looked up and caught him watching her. “What?”
“Since we’re not arguing now, I’m just asking a question for the sake of information, but I don’t want you to bite my head off.”
Her eyes narrowed once more.
“Honestly,” he said, holding up his palms. “I’m just curious. How close were you to the victims of that fire?”
“Those victims have names. Tad and Wendy Hunt.”
“Right. It’s just that I’ve heard you speak in glowing terms about your other friends, but Tad and Wendy never came up.” Though Sheila’s father had kept in touch with some old friends from the reservation from time to time, Sheila hadn’t seen anyone from her past in all these years, but now that the school’s clinic suddenly needed emergency staffing, she was ready to drop everything and hurry to be of help?
Granted, selflessness was a part of her character, but Preston thought that she was also responsible to a fault. And right now, her own life was in such flux, she couldn’t afford the time or the emotional energy.
“I