Among The Tulips

Amy shrugged. “They’ll handle it.”

“They’ll have to,” Cynthia added and then, seeing the hesitation on Annie’s face, added, “If they need you, you can always give them your number. Besides, their mom lives in town.”

Annie knew the kids would be worried without her there. She met with her daughter at least once a week and her son usually stopped by on weekends with his laundry and had lunch with her. He still didn’t do his own laundry.

A month or so without laundry. Now that would be odd.

“I can tell you’re considering it,” Amy said with glee in her voice. “Come on. Cynthia, can you take an extra hour or so before going home? I say we go look at brochures at the travel agency. We’ll have her on that plane by next week.”

“That soon!” Annie said, worry in her voice.

Amy laughed with enthusiasm. “Sure. Why not? The sooner the better.”

“I agree. I know you, Annie. If we don’t rush you out the door and onto the plane, then you’ll end up staying put.”

Annie sighed. “You’re right about that.”

“We have a surprise for you.” Cynthia reached into her purse, which was set next to her feet on the elegant carpeted floor.

Annie lifted her napkin and folded it neatly before releasing it. “You’ve already bought me lunch. What else are you planning?”

These two women really were her dear friends, but they knew how to keep her off balance.

Amy grinned. “It’s our gift. We had to make sure first that you’d use it.”

Annie glanced from one to the other, her cheeks warming. “I’m too old to get gifts. Just going out to lunch was enough.”

“Oh, no, honey,” Cynthia said and then presented her with a small gold oblong box. “We wanted to make sure about our plans before we gave this to you. Open it.”

Annie smiled and obediently opened the checkbook-size box. When she pulled out the piece of paper her jaw dropped open. “This is a gift certificate from a travel agency.”

Amy chuckled. “It’s enough for a ticket just about anywhere in the world, and if you choose Holland, then it will even cover most of the hotel cost.”

“Oh, dear.” Annie stared in shock at what she held.

Cynthia smiled. “You can choose anywhere.” She hesitated and then added, “If you don’t use it, you can roll it over until next summer.”

“Yeah,” Amy added and accepted the receipt from the waiter. She quickly scanned the price and pulled out some money, tossing it on the table with the check. She then stood. “Come on. Let’s go to the travel agency and we’ll see what we can find.”

“I’m not certain I’m going yet.” Annie gripped the unbelievable gift in her hands, staring at it, still in shock.

Talking about it was one thing—but actually leaving Louisiana and the kids?

Cynthia grinned. “That’s okay. We’ll just look.”

Annie knew that against the two of them she had no defenses. She didn’t with her kids either. That was one of her big problems; she enjoyed going along with life and, unfortunately, that could have bad as well as good results.

In this case she wasn’t sure which it would be.

But the idea of a month away…

How bad could it be?

Especially since they were only looking.

Chapter One

Haut, Holland: One week later

Tires screeched. Metal boomed against metal. All forward motion in the car stopped, except for Annie who suddenly flew forward, still propelled by Newton’s Law. Her hands lost their grip on the steering wheel. Pain erupted in her legs, her chest, her head as she met the resistance of the abrupt cessation of the vehicle.

Stars danced in brilliant colors before her eyes.

A wreck.

She’d been in a wreck.

Vaguely she heard noises around her, but as for focusing, that wasn’t possible.

Drums pounded in her ears as she sat trying not to pass out.

Her first day in Holland.

Her entire body throbbed in pain. Forcing her eyes open, she groaned as the bright light from the sunny day increased the throbbing agony in her head. Absently she reached for her head but stopped as she saw people coming toward the car—including an angry looking man who was stalking his way to her, looking for all the world as though he was going to tear her apart as soon as he got close enough.

Short, round and wearing an apron, he shook his meaty fist before pounding on her window. With each slap to her window, her head pounded out a cadence of objection to the noise.

He shouted, loudly, in Dutch.

Her head nearly exploded.

She had to calm him down, had to apologize, make him understand that she hadn’t meant to hit his car. What was she doing? Why had she come here? Did they arrest foreigners for auto accidents?

Lifting her hand to her aching head, she felt something wet and sticky. Glancing at her fingers, she saw her hand come away with blood. Oh dear. She felt dizzy and turned her head away from the sight.

She couldn’t help her eyes from slipping closed. Her hands went to her eyes and pressed gently as if to relieve the headache. “Do you speak English?” she asked.

Alarmed at how weak her voice sounded she tried to speak up. “Does anyone speak English?” When no one answered, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes.

Her window was still up. No one could hear her—and the man still screamed.

Fumbling, she reached for the knob to the window and proceeded to roll it down. “Does anyone speak English?” she repeated, her voice still sounding weak. She hurt from head to toe and didn’t think she could move.

The man ignored her question and jerked the car door open.

She gasped as she realized she could move—but it caused her a lot of pain. The throbbing noise in her head increased, drowning out some of her attacker’s unintelligible words. He pointed at his car and then back at her.

Had she been in the wrong lane? She tried to remember, but everything was fuzzy. All she could remember was she had been driving down the street on the way to the hotel just outside of town…