A Soldier's Promise

“Could it have been Langston?” Brenna suggested.

“Could have been.” Diana lifted her spaghetti to her mouth. Her eyes widened as she chewed. “Wait a minute.” She swallowed, took a drink of water. “Langston? Isn’t that the name of your new student, the one who came to your house?”

“Exactly. This family, the mysterious mechanic and his daughter, must be related to old Mrs. Langston somehow.”

“And they’re living in her place.”

“Away from town, out of sight,” Brenna said.

“Do you still suspect the worst about the father?” Diana asked.

“No, not the worst. He’s not hurting his daughter, at least in the way I thought when he picked her up at my house on Friday. But something is going on. That girl is unhappy. She’s lonely. She needs...” Brenna couldn’t say the words. They were still alien to her vocabulary.

Diana grinned. “You, Brenna? The girl needs you?”

Brenna sighed. “Yeah, she needs me.”

“Well, holy cow. Look who’s suddenly getting involved. I thought your volunteering to chair the renovation of the Cultural Arts Center for teens was the only extracurricular activity we’d get out of you this year.”

Brenna smirked. “Yes, and it’s a monumental activity, you must admit. I have you to thank for matching me up with that little job.”

What Diana said was true. Maybe Brenna had seen too much of herself in Carrie Langston. Maybe she’d seen just enough of the girl’s reticent, brooding father. Maybe she was ready to move on from her past. Whatever the reason, she was becoming emotionally involved with a student again.

“I’m thinking I need to go to the farm stand on White Deer Trail,” Brenna said.

“I don’t suppose your longing for fresh, local vegetables has anything to do with the fact that the old mill is on White Deer?”

Brenna pretended surprise. “It is? What a coincidence.”

Diana smiled. “You should know, Bren, it’s a little hard to do a drive-by of Mrs. Langston’s cabin. As I recall, once you drive in, the only way out is to turn around and leave the same way.”

Brenna smiled. “I’ll figure something out. I just have to go. I’m developing quite an interest in one of Mount Union’s pioneer cabins.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, seven days after Brenna first met Mike Langston, she called the garage and asked to speak to him. One of the other mechanics told her to hold on, and he shouted Mike’s name. At that point Brenna said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Someone’s at the door. I’ll call back.” She had gotten the info she needed. Mike wasn’t at his cabin.

She checked her watch. School had been dismissed an hour ago. The buses had all left within ten minutes. Carrie would be home, but if Brenna were careful, she wouldn’t run into her. And now she knew Mike was at work, so there was no chance of running into him. She’d see old Mrs. Langston’s cabin and draw her own conclusions about its livability.

She drove into the country, past the Montgomerys’ house, the farm stand and the old mill, one of Mount Union’s most historic buildings and a favorite field trip for elementary students.

Slowing her car just after the mill, she noticed a narrow drive winding into a stand of live oak and magnolia trees. The rutted path was overgrown. Brenna debated the wisdom of navigating it in her Mazda but decided her trusty little car could make it.

She progressed slowly, holding her breath at each bump in the drive. She’d gone about three hundred yards when she saw the roof of a house and a brick chimney covered with ivy and moss. There being no place to pull over, she stopped in the middle of the path and got out of her car. She hadn’t gone too far into the trees that she couldn’t back out safely and return to White Deer Trail.

Since she’d known she was going to make this trek after work today, Brenna had chosen to wear black jeans, a black-and-white sleeveless knit shirt and sensible sneakers. Her hair was caught up on her head with a tortoiseshell comb. She trudged ahead, keeping watch for tree roots that could trip her.

Hiding behind low branches, she approached the cabin. Getting her first look at Mrs. Langston’s “pioneer homestead,” Brenna was pleasantly surprised that the first settlers of Mount Union lived so well. The simple log structure was far from luxurious, but it appeared sturdy. The logs showed signs of wear, some splitting in places that glistened with some sort of patching material. At least someone had maintained the place. The porch had a substantial roof that extended across the front of the house. Two rocking chairs and an assortment of folksy implements sat on the wooden floor.

Brenna crouched down so she couldn’t be seen from either of two windows on each side of the centered front door. A patch of gravel served as a parking area. The cabin’s solid front door was open and a steady hum came through the screen door, indicating an air conditioner was working hard to keep up with the heat coming inside. She smiled, thinking the thoughtless gesture typical of a teenager who didn’t have to pay the bills.

Carrie suddenly appeared in front of one window. Cords hung from her ears as she waved her arms over her head and danced to a tune only she could hear. The girl didn’t appear nearly as miserable as she’d sounded the other night, and Brenna imagined Justin Bieber or Katy Perry blasting from those earbuds.

A slight stinging sensation on her arm drew Brenna’s attention from the cabin. A mosquito the size of a Chihuahua hovered near her shoulder, and Brenna swatted it away. It returned with two or three of its buddies, who flew away with an ample supply of Brenna snack.

“Enough of this,” she said. “I’ve stalked this child sufficiently to know she’s not living in squalor.”

Waving her hand in front of her face, Brenna returned to her car, got in and closed the door after swatting furiously to make sure none of the winged invaders had made it inside. She started her engine, slid the gearshift into Reverse and stepped on the accelerator.

And stopped with a jolt and a resounding thud.

She cringed. Had she hit a rock? A tree? An animal?

No. Unfortunately, she’d crunched into a blue pickup truck she’d seen most recently in front of her house.

Oh, no. Brenna thrust the shift into Park and slid down in her seat. She closed her eyes briefly. The primary rule of backing up an automobile punched into her brain with the force of her driver’s ed teacher’s gravelly voice. “Always look over your shoulder to make sure...”

She was still struggling to calm her pounding heart when a knock on her driver’s-side window made her jerk upright. She stared into Mike Langston’s aviator sunglasses before her gaze slid down to the thin line his lips made.

She mouthed the word Hello through the glass.

He made a twirling motion with his hand, and she rolled her window down a couple of inches. He continued to twirl.

She shook her head. “Mosquitoes,” she said, pointing to her arm, where itchy pink welts had formed in the past few minutes.

“That’s a shame,” he responded. He lifted his glasses long enough to stare into her eyes before performing a cursory check of the items on her car seats. What did he expect to find? A half-empty bottle of wine? There was nothing incriminating there. Her phone, her purse, a Diet Coke.

The glasses dropped back to his nose. “You just ran into me,” he said needlessly.

Common sense should have made her hold her tongue. But apparently common sense had just flown out that two inches of window space. “You’re not even supposed to be here,” she said. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He frowned. “That’s funny. Since I live here, I thought I had every right to be here.”

“What I meant was...” There was no way out of this. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

He nodded once. “That makes more sense. But seeing as you obviously are here, you might want to pull up a little. Right now my front bumper is close to riding the trunk of your dandy little foreign automobile. I’m thinking that’s not good—especially since you seem to have so much trouble with this car anyway.”

Well, that comment wasn’t at all necessary.

“I expect we ought to exchange insurance cards,” he added. “Though I doubt you need mine.”

She definitely wasn’t going to roll her window down more and invite blood suckers inside. She’d be a mass of swollen spots within minutes. “Can’t you reverse?” she suggested. “We can both back onto White Deer from here and discuss the situation away from these insect-infested woods.”

“I’m not going to let you back your vehicle up anywhere in the vicinity of mine,” he said. “Go forward to the house.”

To his house? She didn’t think so. She rubbed her hand over a bite, hoping to illicit his sympathy.

“I have a bug zapper on the porch,” he said. “You’ll be fine.” He leaned on the side of her car. Only a thin layer of glass separated her from those honey-brown eyes she could imagine staring at her through the dark shades.