“Yes.”
“Can you reach the hands on the clock?”
“I don’t know. Gran, we need to get closer to the clock.”
“Closer to the dynamite?” Winifred’s eyebrows winged upward.
“If we don’t find a way to disarm it, it’s not going to matter how close we are. The whole tower will be gone and us with it.”
Winifred nodded, clutching the phone in her bound hands, and rolled across the short expanse of bare wood floor after Chloe. Panting, both women struggled to their knees, their heads and shoulders even with the low window ledge where the clock sat.
“Gran, see if you can open the glass face.”
Winifred lifted her hands, set the phone carefully on the ledge and slipped the little brass hook free to swing open the round glass face.
“Done,” she murmured, her brow dotted with nervous perspiration. She picked up the phone and held it to Chloe’s ear.
“We have the glass open, Jake, and we can reach the hands.”
“This sounds too simple to work, Chloe, but it’s the only chance. I want you to tell Winifred to slowly move the minute hand back thirty minutes.”
“That’s it? Are you sure it’ll work?”
“I’m betting your life on it. And, Chloe, before you tell Winifred…I just want you to know, I love you.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “I love you, too, Jake.”
“Tell Winifred to move the hands slowly.” His voice was rough with emotion.
“Gran, Jake wants you to move the minute hand backward—thirty minutes. Do it slowly.”
Winifred barely hesitated, drew a deep breath and, without a tremor in her fingers, lifted her bound hands and carefully, slowly, reversed the minute hand.
Both women held their breaths, waiting for an explosion. But the clock merely ticked steadily on.
“Chloe? Chloe!”
“I’m here, Jake. Gran did it—and the dynamite didn’t go off.”
“Good. Now, get the hell out of there, as fast as you can. We’re in the parking lot. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Right.” Chloe looked at her grandmother. “Jake says to get out if we can.”
Winifred nodded, dropped the phone and clambered to her feet beside Chloe. Hampered by the hobbles on their ankles, they could only take tiny steps. They managed to reach the door, fumble it open and step onto the landing before they heard the sound of a car below. Doors slammed, feet pounded on the stairs.
Jake reached Chloe first, swinging her off her feet and slinging her over his shoulder. Gray picked up Winifred and followed close on Jake’s heels as he ran back down the stairs and out of the building. Sirens screamed; police cars and fire trucks drove across the lawn to join the campus police and surround the building.
Jake lowered Chloe to the grass and knelt beside her to run his hands over her face, down her arms, testing to be sure she was whole. Ignoring the many onlookers, he retrieved his knife and cut her bonds.
“I’m fine, Jake, honestly.” With difficulty, Chloe sat up. “Did the police catch Dodd?”
He lifted his head, looking swiftly at the surrounding chaos. “I doubt it.”
“He might still be here. He said he was going to watch the explosion from the tower at McGyver Hall.”
Jake’s eyes flared, and his face grew hard.
“Go, I’m fine.” She pushed at his arm, reading his unwillingness to leave her. “Gran’s here—and so is half the campus and most of the police and fire departments.”
“I’ll be back.” Jake pressed a quick, fierce kiss to her mouth and stood. Gray joined him and they ran toward McGyver Hall.
Moments later, Chloe and Winifred—whose ties had been released by a paramedic—were in the back seat of a police car. An officer had provided them with paper cups of hot coffee from a machine. They sat in semi-isolation, each cradling a cup while the organized chaos of a crime scene unfolded outside.
“Honey, I told you I wouldn’t mind a little excitement in my life, but this wasn’t exactly what I meant,” Winifred said, her eyes twinkling.
“Sorry, Gran.” Chloe studied her grandmother’s crumpled linen pantsuit and silk blouse. Her white curls were disheveled, but her eyes gleamed with energy. “Gran, I need some advice.”
“About what?”
“I think I’m in love with Jake.”
“And?” Winifred waited, clearly expecting more.
“I know he’s not active military anymore, but he’s a soldier at heart and he looks at life from a warrior’s viewpoint. And his job is dangerous.”
“And that’s a problem for you?” Winifred asked gently.
“I’m not sure. I’ve always chosen a quiet life.” Chloe waved a hand at the campus around them. “I picked an academic career filled with books and study. How will Jake and I manage to blend our lives?”
“My Richard was a warrior.”
Chloe felt her eyes widen. “Granddad? He was a sweetie.”
“Yes, he was,” Winifred agreed. “But he was also a warrior. I was a soldier’s bride, as you know, and he went away to war when we’d been married for just two months. I thought we knew each other so well—after all, we grew up together. But war changes a man, or maybe it’s fairer to say that war strips a man down to his very core. Richard was steel, solid steel. The bravest man I’ve ever known. But with me and the rest of his family, he was a teddy bear.” Winifred’s voice wavered and she paused, sipping her coffee. “We had a wonderful marriage, Chloe. More than fifty years, and though he’s been gone for six years, I miss him every day.”
“Oh, Gran.” Chloe hugged her, moved beyond words at the wisdom and love apparent in her words and expression.
The door of the squad car opened and Chloe looked over her shoulder. Jake stood there, a frown growing as he searched her features. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She glanced at her grandmother.
“Did you arrest that awful man?” Winifred asked, leaning forward to look past Chloe at Jake.
Jake nodded. “A UW janitor saw Dodd toss his gun into the bushes outside Liberty Hall and followed him to McGyver Tower. When Dodd went into the tower room, the janitor locked him in and called the campus police to report Dodd for littering.”
Chloe laughed out loud. “That must’ve been Fred.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Fred tends to view any littering at Liberty Hall as a personal affront.”
Jake lifted an eyebrow in query, but Chloe just smiled at him without explaining further. He turned back to her grandmother. “The Seattle PD have Dodd in custody. He confessed to assaulting the limo driver and forcing him to strip off his uniform before making him climb in the trunk. I’m guessing Dodd used the gun butt or a tire iron to knock the man out so he couldn’t make any noise and alert passersby. All of which happened before Dodd picked you up at the cruise dock, Winifred.”
“The poor driver!” Winifred exclaimed. “Was he badly injured?”
Jake shook his head. “He’s been taken to Harborview Hospital, but the paramedics checked him out after the police removed him from the limo trunk. They seem convinced he wasn’t hurt beyond a few bruises.”
“Thank goodness.” Winifred heaved a sigh of relief and made a shooing gesture with her free hand, the other occupied with balancing her cup. “Scoot, Chloe. I’ll be fine here, drinking my coffee and contemplating my nice, quiet life.”
Chloe slid across the seat and into Jake’s arms. “I’m so glad you showed up at the tower when you did,” she whispered. “To put it mildly…”
“Me, too.” He nudged the car door shut and drew her away from the crowd to the far side of an empty ambulance. Then he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her breathless. Chloe kissed him back with all the emotion generated by the chaotic, terror-filled day.
He raised his head and stared at her, breathing harshly. “Marry me.”
Stunned, she couldn’t get her vocal cords to work.
“That’s right, marriage. I realize we’ve only known each other a couple weeks, but we’ve been through more in these past days than most couples go through in a lifetime.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He sounded as stunned as she’d felt earlier.
“Yes.”
He looked at her warily. “You’re not shell-shocked from stress? You’re not going to claim battlefield memory loss later on?”
Chloe laughed. “No. But I’m warning you, my grandmother wants great-grandchildren. And soon.”
“I think we can manage that.” He smiled lazily, his eyes hot. Then he bent his head and took her mouth with his once more.
Professor Weds Warrior, she thought blissfully. And then she stopped thinking and gave in to emotion.
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
Sent: May 25th
Subject: Good morning—
Dear Clara,
So much has happened since we said good-bye and I left you at the Seattle docks yesterday. I hardly know where to start! I was kidnapped by the horrible man who’s been following Chloe. He trapped her with me in the Liberty Hall tower with a dynamite bomb he’d set to explode. I swear, Clara, I thought I was going to have a heart attack from sheer fright before Chloe spoke with Jake on her cell phone and he told us how to defuse the bomb. I had enough excitement yesterday to last the rest of my life—from now on if I ever think my life is getting dull, I’ll watch a good British mystery on television!
All is well this morning, however. The villain is locked up in the King County Jail in downtown Seattle, I’m drinking tea while writing my daily e-mails, and Chloe and Jake will soon be planning a wedding. I can’t wait to see her walk down the aisle. Now if I could only find suitable husbands for my other two granddaughters, I’d be completely content….
Have a wonderful day, Clara—we simply must get together soon. I miss seeing your smiling face.
All my love,
Winifred
THE APPLE ORCHARD
Katherine Stone
Dear Reader,
What a pleasure it’s been working with Debbie and Lois on Hearts Divided! We’ve enjoyed sharing our grandmothers and granddaughters with one another, and creating a novel in which their lives intertwine. We’ve cared about them all, and rooted for them all.
Now it’s Clara and Elizabeth’s turn. So…welcome to The Apple Orchard. To those of you who’ve read The Other Twin and Another Man’s Son, the charming town of Sarah’s Orchard will be a familiar one. To those of you who are new to my stories, I hope you’ll find the fictional locale, and its characters, a pleasant place to visit. I’ll probably return to Sarah’s Orchard in the future. I love the setting and can envision a wedding, with all the trimmings and intrigues, at the Orchard Inn.
In the meantime, I’ve wandered off to Chicago for The Cinderella Hour, which will be published in paperback in August. It was the right place, I thought, to tell the love story of Snow Ashley Gable and Luke Kilcannon. I hope you agree!