Pocketful of Pearls (3 page)

She swept up more dry balls of manure and tipped them into the bucket. “It’s none of my business.”

“I feel as though I owe you something. If not labor, then at least an explanation.”

Eyebrows with the shape and tilt of bird wings drew together over her eyes, which he now saw were brown and devoid of makeup.

“You don’t owe me anything. All I ask is that you keep yourself out of sight until you get on the main road.”

Hints didn’t come much broader than that. “You don’t want anyone to know you harbored a vagrant?”

“No. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Why? I would think giving a homeless man a bit of food and a bale of hay would be seen as admirable.”

She shot him a quick glance and bent to pick up the bucket. “Your blood sugar must be rising or you’d never be able to talk
like that.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not one of us. The Bible says to help a brother, which would be one of the Elect.”

“Elect?”

“Yes. The Elect of God. His chosen people. Us.”

Not just a cultural anachronism, then, but possibly a cultic one as well. And yet, she had fed him. The red peppers were still
sweet on his tongue.

“I see. So you would be consorting with publicans and sinners, then.”

“Yes. Not keeping myself separate.”

“You must come in contact with the outside world occasionally.”

“Of course. But you were going to tell me how you got into this position.”

He rolled the paper plate into a tube, and she took it from him and stuffed it into the bucket.

“I thought I didn’t owe you anything.”

“I changed my mind.”

He rather thought she wanted to talk about her church less than she wanted to hear about him.

“It started out as a . . . well, as a quest of sorts. To find myself.”

Another dry look. “That’s very California. Were you lost?”

More like thrown away. He got up and paced slowly to the wall and back. With two square meals, the muscles in his legs no
longer trembled with the effort to hold him up. “Yes, you could say so. Very lost. People do walking tours of Cornwall all
the time, so I thought I would do the same, starting in the Pacific Northwest.”

“At the tail end of winter? Not very sensible, Mr. Nicholas.”

For a woman who put so much stock in being sensible, she seemed to have some odd beliefs about the nature of believers in
God. He shook off the thought and answered her question.

“In February, actually. After . . . an event that precipitated my course of action. But I didn’t count on that wretched transmission
going out about a hundred miles north of here. So my walking tour became a reality, especially after my wallet was stolen.”

“Oh, dear. Couldn’t you get a job? Or call someone to ask for help?”

“No.” He looked away. Somehow the lack of someone to call made him feel poorer than ever.

“Anyone can get a job,” she said. “You could check groceries. Clean motel rooms. Until you get some money for the next leg
of your tour.”

“And where would I sleep and eat while I waited the week or two before my first check? It’s not as simple as it looks. What
do you do for a living, Ms. Traynell?”

The hurt cascaded over her face like a bucket of cold water, and he regretted the impulse behind the question, though it had
been phrased kindly.

But before he could apologize for the impulse, not the words, a voice carried over the yard outside.

“Dinah! Where are you?”

The rake clacked against the bucket and she gathered both into her hands. “I’m in the barn,” she called. To Matthew, she said,
“Hide somewhere. That’s my mother.”

“What are you doing in there?” the voice demanded. “Phinehas is down and waiting for his breakfast.”

“Everything is on the counter, Mom.” The woman—Dinah—went to the barn door. “All you have to do is heat up the pan and pour
the eggs in. The biscuits are in the oven.”

Her mother made an impatient noise that Matthew could hear from behind his hay bale. The little gold hen called Schatzi hadn’t
moved from the niche between the bales that was her nest, despite his abrupt arrival. She glared at him and covered her newly
laid egg protectively, spreading her wings low. He returned his attention to what the unseen woman was saying.

“Phinehas would like his breakfast from your own hands, dear. I suggest you get in here now so you don’t keep him waiting
any longer. The work of God comes first.”

The kitchen door slammed and Matthew peered above the hay to see Dinah silhouetted against the light.

“I’ll be back,” she said. “To hear the rest of it.”

“I thought I was supposed to go,” he whispered.

“There might be leftovers. Phinehas is a holy man, but his appetite is a little on the picky side.”

“I’ll be right here.”

Her hands gripped her thighs for a moment, as if she were willing her legs to move, and then she walked out the door. Each
step looked so painful she could have been walking on ground glass.

That was odd. He had been talking with her for fifteen minutes and hadn’t seen any sign she was in that kind of pain.

But then, he was notoriously bad at reading body language. Which was part of the reason he was sitting in an empty barn, his
only companions a chicken and a strange woman, both of whom wanted him gone.

H
ERE SHE IS,
Phinehas. Honestly, I don’t know what was so important out there that it would keep you waiting.”

Dinah hung up the flannel shirt and edged into the kitchen. Through the archway, she saw the two of them sitting at the dining
room table with the good Royal Albert china mugs in their hands. “Good morning, Phinehas. I’m sorry I—”

He waved her apology away with genial grace. “No apologies necessary, Dinah. I’ve been enjoying your mother’s excellent coffee,
and I’m sure you had chores to do before breakfast.”

She’d made the coffee before she went out, but it would draw attention to herself if she said so. Dinah scrubbed her hands
at the sink, turned on the gas under the skillet, and pulled the beaten eggs out of the fridge.

“I’m glad I could spend this first morning with you. The loss of husband and father, even though we’ve been expecting it since
they diagnosed the cancer, is always tragic.” Phinehas watched as Elsie Traynell bowed her head and sniffed. “But he’s in
a better place now, worshipping at the throne of God, and we are left to make our way as best we can. What will you do now,
Elsie?”

Dinah handed her mother a tissue and turned the eggs with a spatula.

“I don’t know.” Elsie blew her nose.

“Did Morton leave you provided for?”

“Yes. He was very clever with the stock market, though it’s a mystery to me. And of course, there’s his pension.”

“Strange how the devil’s playground can be turned to the good of the kingdom, isn’t it?” Phinehas mused. “Microsoft and General
Electric will never know how God’s work has been promoted through your father’s gifts.”

“You can be sure they will continue,” Elsie said hastily. “Dinah has the head for figures. I don’t.”

“She does, does she?” Dinah felt his gaze on her back. “I am much comforted by that.”

She got two biscuits out of the oven, put them on his plate, and spooned eggs beside them. As she leaned over to put the plate
in front of him, he reached for his coffee cup, and his sleeve brushed her breast.

She had been schooled in discretion, though every cell in her body leaped and the muscles in her jaw flexed.

Her father’s brother and his wife came out of the downstairs guest room just then, and as Elsie’s mouth quivered and Aunt
Margaret bent to hug her, Dinah caught Phinehas’s eye.

Just as quickly, she glanced away. Maybe it had been accidental. But with Phinehas, it seemed, nothing ever was. Every word,
every physical movement, every item of clothing, he’d once told her in a private Visit, was examined for effect, for correctness,
for suitability under scrutiny. It was probably second nature by now. God watched them constantly, it was true, but Dinah
often felt she’d prefer that to the vigilance of the Elect on the subject of their example. One’s example to a lost world
included dress, speech, possessions, entertainments—everything, in short, that was visible from the outside.

That was why her own was beyond reproach, and why, she supposed, none of the other girls in the Hamilton Falls area liked
her. Even Julia McNeill, who came from as favored a family as the Traynells, which you would think would give them something
in common, hadn’t been all that friendly. She and Julia and Claire Montoya were all around the same age, but even in school
Claire and Julia had been chums and Dinah had followed them around feeling left out. Last summer Julia had shocked everyone
by dumping Derrick Wilkinson, to whom she had practically been engaged, going Out, and then running off with a biker who had
an illegitimate child. So her judgment was obviously flawed to begin with.

“Dinah?”

She came out of her thoughts with a jolt. “Yes?”

“Phinehas asked you for more coffee.”

“Sorry,” she apologized with a smile. She had to pay attention. It was important that everything be done just right, that
everything be perfect for the Shepherd of her soul.

She handed him his cup, filled with the special blend they kept for his visits and made strong and black the way he liked
it. As he reached for it, he murmured a word of thanks and the back of his hand again brushed the side of her breast. This
time there was no escaping it or rationalizing it away.

She knew.

He caught her eye a second time, over a conversation about the many ways money could be used in the service of God.

Crippling pain in her knees made her stagger, and she fell into a vacant chair at the table. Her mother blinked at her.

“Try not to be so clumsy, dear. When you bump the table, it spills the coffee.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

Dinah bottled the urge to run, to lock a door, to set off down the road and never come back. Instead she stayed at the table,
toying with a slice of orange and pretending to listen to her aunt and uncle encouraging her mother to be strong for the Kingdom’s
sake.

If only Tamara were here.

She and her little sister were seven years apart in age, and a thousand years apart in experience. Tamara had had to leave
when she started to show, of course. You couldn’t have a family member in the house when they were shunned, anyway. It was
just too difficult, not to mention the sheer logistics of trying to communicate over meals and laundry. Better that Tammy
had gone to Spokane to Aunt Evelyn’s. Dinah had never met her father’s sister because she’d gone Out years ago, but Evelyn
had taken the girl in with only a minimum of argument and invective hurled at Dinah’s parents over the Elect’s method of dealing
with sin.

At least it was dealt with. Real sins were, anyway. And you couldn’t get much more real than Tamara’s. It wasn’t just the
fornication that had resulted in the pregnancy. It was the disgrace she’d brought on an Elder’s house. Dinah knew there were
people who wondered if there was some flaw in their upbringing, some fault in Morton or Elsie that had made their daughter
turn out so badly.

If they only knew how strict that upbringing had been. How little room there was for flaws of any kind.

Gradually Dinah became aware that the gaze of Phinehas lay on her, as tangible as a shadow and as cool.

She got up, despite the pain, and began to clear the dishes. She ran hot water into the kitchen sink, squeezed some dish soap
in, and buried her shaking hands in the clouds of bubbles.

“Would you like me to come with you to the lawyer’s office Monday, Elsie?” her uncle asked.

“Thank you, John.” Her mother’s dress rustled as she took Uncle John’s hand. “You’re the executor, of course, and I know what
the will says, but it would be nice to have someone there with me.”

“What does it say, Elsie?” Phinehas inquired.

“Why, that the ranch is mine, of course. Nothing will change, Phinehas. You’re as welcome to use our home as your refuge as
ever you were.”

“You’re a marvel,” he said affectionately. “Always putting the servants of God first.”

“Of course.” Elsie sounded a little surprised.

“There are those who don’t, I’m afraid,” he said. “Those who are unwilling to give. What they don’t realize is how their behavior
affects their reward in heaven.”

“Isn’t it the truth,” Aunt Margaret sighed.

Dinah kept her back to the dining room, submerged the skillet, and began to scrub it. He’d seen her unwillingness in her face.
But her father had been dead only four days, and he’d come the moment he’d heard how vulnerable she was. She was a vessel
of love. He’d come to give her comfort.

That was all it was.

Comfort.

She finished the dishes and wiped up the counters, then dumped the remainder of the eggs into a bowl to feed to the chickens,
who were partial to red bell peppers. As she pulled her quilted jacket off its hook, her mother gave her a puzzled look.

“Where are you going, dear?”

Where was there to go? Nowhere.

“Out to the barn,” she said instead. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Elsie turned to the people at the table and extended her hands. Three people reached to take them, and she chose the warm,
patrician clasp of Phinehas. “I declare, that girl spends more time in the barn than in the house,” she complained. “If it
isn’t the chickens, it’s some project she’s got going. She should have been a boy, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about
the heavy work.”

Dinah closed the door on Elsie’s querulous voice. She really should be more charitable toward her mother. She wasn’t being
very comforting, it was true. But Elsie had three people there to comfort her. All Dinah had was Sheba.

Pain shot up her legs as she struggled to get across the yard without collapsing. In the chickens’ area of the barn, she sat
heavily in the plastic chair. All was quiet. Schatzi still nested in her little niche in the hay. The hen would have been
too agitated to settle if the vagrant were still behind the bales, so that meant he’d probably gone.