HIDDEN MOTIVES - "Watcher in the Woods" by Carol Cox

HIDDEN MOTIVES

Barbour Publishing
ISBN: 1-59310-257-7
August 2004

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HIDDEN MOTIVES

"Watcher in the Woods"
by Carol Cox

The change in pitch of the plane’s engines drew Laurel Masters’s attention from the letter she’d been reading. She glanced out the window and saw the thick belt of forest below. They’d be landing at Pulliam Airport in a few minutes.

She looked again at the letter in her hand. Over the past few weeks, its message had become embedded in her brain, but she needed the tangible reassurance of the words written in clear, flowing script. She picked up where she left off:

We can’t make up for a lifetime of separation in the course of a mere day or two. I hope you will consider coming to Capstone for an extended stay.

Your grandmother,
Millicent Reed

Laurel folded the letter along its well-worn creases and tucked it into her purse. Her grandmother! After all these years, she would finally have contact with a member of her mother’s family.

Snippets of memory tumbled through her mind: Herself as a child of seven, staring at her mother in dismay. “Megan and Amy both have two grandmothers. Why don’t I?”

Her mother pulling her into her lap and holding her close while she explained, “The one you have loves you enough for twenty grandmothers. You don’t need another one. Trust me on this, Darling.”

And that had been that. No amount of cajoling dislodged so much as a morsel of information. Given her mother’s usual forthright behavior, Laurel never understood her reticence concerning her side of the family. All future questions were met by a noncommittal answer, then silence. Laurel didn’t doubt that her mother had her reasons for such evasiveness; she’d just never been convinced she would agree with them.

The pilot’s voice filled the cabin. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing momentarily. Thank you for flying with us, and we hope to see you again soon.”

Laurel offered the passing flight attendant a bright smile while she struggled with the twinge of guilt that beset her every time she thought of how coming here violated her mother’s wishes. But she needed closure, needed to understand. Why couldn’t Grandmother have found us six months sooner, before Mom died? Surely her mother would have relented and welcomed the opportunity for reconciliation.

Buoyed by that thought, Laurel braced herself for the landing. She waited until the plane stopped rolling to gather her belongings and stand in line with the twenty or so other passengers to exit the plane. Quite a difference from the crowded 737 she’d taken from Dallas to Phoenix before catching this commuter flight to Flagstaff.

She stood at the top of the steps and gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the intense Arizona sunlight before descending to the tarmac. The other passengers streamed ahead of her and went their various ways. A lone man remained at the gate. Laurel lifted her hand in a tentative greeting.

The man removed his Stetson and walked out to meet her. “Miss Masters? I’m Garrett Harper. Your grandmother asked me to pick you up.” His deep blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

“She said someone would meet me, but didn’t tell me who. Please call me Laurel.” Garrett’s smile deepened and she felt warmed by more than the summer sunshine. She pointed out her luggage then followed him to a gleaming white SUV where he swung her bags into the back with ease. The pungent scent of pine tickled her nostrils, and she drew in a deep breath.

Garrett maneuvered the heavy vehicle out of the parking lot and onto the interstate. “Is this your first visit to Capstone?” he asked minutes later when he left I-17 and joined the westbound traffic on I-40. At Laurel’s nod, he grinned. “I thought so. If you’d been around during my time here, I would have remembered.”

Laurel felt her cheeks flush at the compliment and tried to change the subject. “What do you mean ‘your time here’? Do you live near Capstone?”

“Not near. . .at. Didn’t your grandmother tell you? I work for her.”

“Oh.” Apparently, she would have to revise her image of a lonely grandmother in her cottage in the woods. “I just hadn’t thought of her needing an employee.” Her lips stretched wide in an unexpected yawn and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Excuse me.”

Garrett chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. At seven thousand feet, most people feel the difference in altitude the first day or so.”

Laurel stared out the window at the scenery rolling by. “I keep thinking of Arizona as desert. I never dreamed there’d be so many trees.”

“We’re driving through the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world,” Garrett said. “It stretches out for miles on end.”

Laurel settled back and watched the towering trees flash by. Her eyelids drifted shut. She roused briefly when the SUV slowed and bumped across a cattle guard then changed direction.

“We’re turning off the interstate,” Garrett explained. “The road won’t be quite as smooth the rest of the way.”

Laurel murmured acknowledgment and dozed until a series of turns woke her again. She sat up, her mind fuzzy from sleep, and tried to take stock of her surroundings.

The SUV wound up a steep hill through more of the forest giants. “My grandmother said she lived out of town, but I didn’t expect anything quite this remote.”

“It is pretty secluded,” Garrett agreed. “But it suits her purpose.”

The vehicle emerged from the pines at the top of a broad mesa. Laurel caught her breath and stared at the scene before her. Gone was the rustic cottage of her imagination, replaced by a massive log structure with wings angling off on both sides. The soaring A-frame roof crowned the central part of the building and framed the towering windows that dominated the entrance.

“This--is Capstone?”

“Home, sweet home.” Garret slowed when he drove beneath the entrance sign and pointed overhead.

Laurel craned her neck to make out the words carved in the wooden arch: The Capstone Center for Spiritual Studies.