Hearts Unfold (73 page)

There were times when she thought Jack
had guessed the truth.
 
He knew her too
well to miss the signs of her restlessness.
 
He asked too often if she was okay, if she needed anything.
 
Or maybe her uneasy conscience just imagined
it.
 
Jack had always seen to her
well-being, even when her parents were alive.
 
He had been there for every crisis of her life, and she felt slightly
guilty about keeping things from him.
 
Jack wanted her to be happy, she knew, and she was.
 
Happier than she’d ever dreamed she could
be.
 
And lonelier.
 
Somehow all the wonderful people who had
supported her all those years, all the smiling faces that greeted her on the
square and came to her door to visit, could not make up for the absence of that
one face now missing.
 

True, she could conjure him in her mind
at will.
 
The deep auburn of his hair
shining in the sunlight, the warm, dark brown of his eyes smiling across the
table, each finely chiseled feature and every expression she’d observed on his
wonderfully mobile face..
 
She could hear
the echo of his voice; feel the phantom touch of his hand.
 
The longer they were apart, the less
comforting and the more painful those ghostly visions became.
 
And the more tempting John’s suggestion
seemed to grow.

She wondered if she could really be so
daring.
 
Could she go to an airport, fly
across an ocean, and get to a hotel in a strange and foreign city?
 
Of course, John would be there to help her.
 
She imagined going backstage after the
concert, seeing the look on Stani's face, feeling his arms around her after
almost two months apart.
 
For that
moment, she finally admitted, she could be daring. John had said a telegram
would set everything in motion.
 
She had
prayed about it, asking as always for a sign.
 
Stani's first letter, in which he wrote of the hours he was spending
working on the Mozart project, made her somehow anxious.
 
He was composing on the train, in the car, in
the hotel rooms, he said, working in snatches of time wherever he was.
 
He sounded driven, almost feverish.
 
This was something new; she'd certainly never
seen him in this mood, although John had described times when he pushed too
hard.
 
She finally accepted her
uneasiness as the sign she needed.
 
She
would go to Berlin, spend four wonderful days with him, and see for herself
that Stani was really able to keep up such a pace.

About the Author

Karen
Welch was born in Richmond, Virginia and grew up in nearby Amelia County.
 
After a twenty year sojourn in North Florida,
she now lives in Southeast Kansas with husband John and children and grandchildren
nearby.

Contact
Karen at [email protected] and follow her on Facebook at Author Karen Welch
for updates on the
Miracle at
Valley Rise Series
.