Uncross My Heart Read Free

“And will she know what this is about?”
    “No,” I said, enjoying the brevity.
    She paused. “I believe she just walked in.” Joyce offered the polite lie and was off the line for a while. I took the next exit and pulled into a parking lot to quiet the wind.
    “Hello.” The rich alto voice reverberated. “Dr. Westbrooke, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I was actually here but I don’t take many calls.”
    “Well, nice you admit it. I’m on the faculty at Claridge and would like you to come to campus as my guest and learn a bit more about the seminary.”
    “Dr. Hightower must have put you up to this.”
    “He did.”
    “Nice you admit it,” she echoed me. “And the tour is to do what precisely?”
    “Offer you a fuller appreciation of the positive aspects of Claridge. I’ll have to hunt some up between now and then.”
    “But your true mission is to shut down my scurrilous scribbling.”
    I remained silent. “You’re an academic, you say?”
    “I am.”
    “If I decide to come, I should speak with one of the clerics on campus—”
    “I’m also an ordained priest.” I envisioned her pausing to suppress a smile. I filled the silence. “Next Monday at ten, would that work?”
    “Let me check my schedule.” A clicking of computer keys.
    “Yes, Perfect. So do people call you Father?” The tone was slightly mocking.
    “Only if I’ve slept with their mother.”
    A pause. “See you Monday.” She sounded amused as she hung up.

Chapter Two
    The rock driveway scattered stones as we flew down its winding contours to the gray-and-white clapboard cottage at road’s end. Ketch jumped over the top of the car door and was on the front porch before I had turned off the ignition. His enthusiasm at being home always made me smile.
    I balanced books and papers in my left hand as I pulled the key out of the lock and pushed the door open with the toe of my shoe, revealing the irregular woodwork of the hundred-year-old farmhouse.
    An old oxen-harness mirror dangled from a large hook on the wall over a leather couch. The side table, consisting of a metal-strapped barrel, sat next to the large tartan-plaid doggie bed whose soft, circular surface lay next to the fireplace and was Ketch’s first stop—or flop—after getting inside.
    Given to me when my mother died, my grandmother’s original homestead was my haven when I was young and now my home, with its wraparound screened porch, huge country kitchen with tall window-paned dish cabinets, wide wooden countertops, and an ancient but excellent gas stove. The old farm was beautiful in its simplicity, an elusive commodity these days. Having loved it as a child, I wasn’t letting go now even though I had to drive an hour to and from my work.I was about to exit through the squeaky screen door down the steps to the lopsided wooden horse gate to greet my two old trail horses when the phone rang. The voice on the line belonged to Sylvia Slaughter, the new neighbor to the north who’d recently moved from the city to the country, buying the Browns’ farm after Mr. Brown died.
    “I’m so glad you’re home. Ralph is away on business and there’s something loose in my kitchen. At first I thought it was a snake, which completely freaked me out. Now I don’t know. I hate to ask, but…”
    Like any new country people, she and her husband were alarmed over things most folks out here had learned to handle decades ago. Sylvia’s voice was calm, but her words sounded urgent. “Could you just come over and…if it’s a rat or a possum I’ll just die.”
    “Okay, give me a few minutes.” I hung up and dashed to the bedroom, changed into a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt, and threw on some ankle-high boots. Not certain what Sylvia would have available to assist in the search, I grabbed a flashlight, walking stick, and a towel.
    The first item was to find it, the second to fend it off, and the third to subdue it so we could get it out of the kitchen.
    I left the