The Search The Secrets of Crittenden Cou - By Shelley Shepard Gray Page 0,1
blessed to live in such a pretty place, you know. Why, we are surrounded by trees and hills and valleys.”
He laughed softly. “Frannie, you need to get your head out of the clouds. The English come here to gawk. To take our pictures with their camera phones.” His voice deepened. “You’re not going to make any money. You ought to leave that place.”
“And do what?”
His mouth opened, then shut again quickly. Like he was having difficulty forming his thoughts.
She waited. As she stood there, her toes began to burn from the cold ground. Her eyes watered from the brisk wind.
Oh, how she wished Perry would act like himself again. When they’d begun to court, she’d been well aware of his problems. But since they’d known each other all their lives, she’d been sure that she could change him back to how he used to be.
If he’d only try just a little bit.
“The guys I’ve been working with, they’ve promised me big things,” Perry finally said, his voice strained tight with emotion. “You . . . you could come with me. If you changed.”
If she changed? Frannie knew that the men he’d been working with were Englischers. Englischers of the worst sort. They weren’t local. They only came to their area with the intent of causing trouble, of encouraging more people to take the drugs Perry was now so fond of.
“I don’t want to be different, Perry.” Feeling her way through the conversation, she looked beyond him, looked into the dense, lush woods on the outskirts of the Millers’ property. “I like it here. And I like how I am.”
And though she didn’t want to be prideful, she felt disappointed that he didn’t see her attributes. Most boys had found her pale blue-gray eyes and auburn hair pleasing. Most people found her effort to take over the bed-and-breakfast once her aunt got sick to be commendable.
It was obvious he did not.
“Let’s be honest, Frannie. You are stuck in an old boardinghouse in the middle of a county down on its luck.”
She gritted her teeth. “Perhaps.” And smiled slightly, determined not to let him see how nervous she was becoming. “But I don’t think it’s so bad. I mean, I like to look on the bright side of things, for sure. I’m still the same Frannie I’ve always been.”
For a moment, his gaze softened. Just like he, too, remembered how they’d once played tag in each other’s yards after church. How they’d been friends before he’d ever courted Lydia. Before he’d finally looked her way with a new appreciation, as if she hadn’t been there all along just waiting for him to notice.
But then he blinked. “You aren’t the same. Just like me, you’ve changed over the years. Don’t deny it. Change always happens. It can’t be helped.”
“People do change, that is true.” She bit her lip. How much did she want to say when he was in this condition?
But she was tired of tiptoeing around him. Didn’t her heart mean anything? Didn’t her soul and desires count just as much as his feelings did?
“Perry, I don’t want you to move away. And I don’t like the men you’ve been keeping company with. I wish you’d move on—” She ached to tell him more, to beg him to seek help.
But his thunderous response stopped all that.
“What are you? My mother?”
“Of course not,” she said quickly.
His gaze darkened. “I don’t need another mother, Frannie. One nagging woman in my life is more than enough.”
“I know. I mean, I know that, Perry. I’m only offering my opinion. That’s all.”
“Don’t.”
There was a new anger in his voice, and she knew she’d put it there. It was time to go. Perry had chosen his path and he certainly wasn’t going to change it for her.
He wasn’t going to tell those Englischers goodbye. Maybe the drugs weren’t ever going to loosen their grip on him.
She stepped backward. “I’m going to go home now.”
“Alone?”
“Jah. I . . . I think it’s best. I mean, I don’t think we have much more to say to each other.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then held up his hand. “Hold on. I . . . I brought something for you.” He fumbled in a pocket in his coat, then pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “These are for you.”
Walking to his side, she took his gift. “You brought me sunglasses?” She couldn’t imagine a more peculiar thing for him to give her. Especially on such a cloudy, wintery day.