Deceived: Lured from the Truth (Secrets) (4 page)

Friday at Nadine’s is as hot and miserable and busy as the previous day. Maybe even worse. And despite my second plunge into the cold lake during my lunch break earlier, I feel like a nasty, smelly dishrag as I finish my shift at six thirty. It doesn’t improve matters to know that no one is sad to see me go as I drop my time card into the slot. Seriously, it’s starting to feel like my coworkers have all turned against me. And simply because I like doing a good job — and they don’t seem to care.

If Belinda wasn’t Nadine’s niece, I think I would report all of them as lazy and worthless. Oh, Alistair would probably be an okay employee, except that he’s so easily influenced by Lorna and Belinda. But even if I did tell, it would probably just wind up being my word against Belinda’s in the end. And although my mom and Nadine are friends, I’m sure Nadine’s allegiance would rest with her own flesh and blood. So why bother?

As I trudge back toward the dorm, which should be pretty quiet on a Friday night, I wonder why I even care about keeping Nadine’s clean and sanitary in the first place. Why not just turn into a slacker like the rest of her employees? Who cares?

“Rachel!”

I turn to see a guy jogging down the boardwalk toward me. I am pleasantly surprised when I realize it’s Josiah! And instead of wearing his usual dairyman delivery uniform, tonight he’s got on a madras plaid shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals.

“Hey.” I wave happily, hurrying to meet him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

Now I’m painfully aware of my messy appearance, not to mention I probably smell like a cow. But he works at a dairy, so maybe he won’t notice. “I, uh, I just finished my shift at the ice cream shop.”

“I know.” He nods. “My aunt told me you called and that your phone’s on the blink.”

I hold out my hands as an explanation for my shoddy appearance. “I was just heading back to the dorm to clean up.”

“Awesome. I’d love to see you in civilian clothes.”

“Really?”

He laughs. “Absolutely. How about you get yourself cleaned up and then we’ll go grab a bite to eat?”

I nod, trying not to look as surprised as I feel. “It won’t take me long,” I assure him. “I can get myself together in about twenty minutes.”

“Beaut.” But now he gives me a doubtful look. “That’s pretty fast for a sheila. Are you certain?”

“Yes. Half an hour tops — and that’s only if the showers are busy, which shouldn’t be the case.”

“You do that and you might just be my dream girl.”

My heart does a flip-flop now, and to my relief, we’re in front of the big dorm building. “This is it. There’s a community room if you want to wait in — ”

“No worries.” He points to the bench in front. “I’ll just wait here.”

Then I rush into the dorm, and as I’m running down the hall to the women’s section, I begin to unbutton my shirt.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” a girl teases me as I dash past her. “Hot date?”

Ignoring her, I grab my shower stuff and continue stripping off my clothes as I head for the bathroom. Thankfully, there’s an unoccupied shower and I make record time getting clean. Drying myself as I rush back to get dressed, I realize I don’t have the luxury of obsessing over what I’m going to wear or changing my outfit several times. Instead I pull out my blue-and-white checked sundress. It almost always makes me feel happy when I wear it. Then I shove my feet into my favorite Gap sandals, and letting my still-damp hair fall loosely around my shoulders, I fluff it with my fingers.

I grab my purse and paw through it as I walk back down the hall. I pause in front of the big mirror next to the front door to apply some lip gloss and mascara and give my hair one last fluff. Not bad for such short notice.

“How was that?” I ask Josiah, trying not to show how relieved I am that he’s still here … that I didn’t imagine the whole scenario.

He holds up his phone to show the time. “Incredible. That was exactly nineteen minutes and forty seconds, Rachel.” Now he peers more closely at me. “And you look fantastic!” He reaches for my hand. “You truly are my dream girl.”

I laugh as we walk together.

“I called some of the resort restaurants.” He leads us back toward the main part of town. “Sounds like almost everyone is booked for hours. But I did find one that’s willing to take us. If we hurry.”

“Considering this is a holiday weekend and a Friday, that’s quite an accomplishment. Well, unless it’s one of the kiosks.” I smile at him. “And even if we eat at Frank’s Frankfurters, I won’t complain.” The truth is, I would happily sit on the side of the lake and eat a can of tuna fish with this guy.

“Are you for real?” he asks.

“I was just wondering the same thing about you.” I laugh. “I mean, you show up out of the blue and what was going to be a boring night suddenly gets interesting.” It gets even more interesting when he leads me up to Frederico’s Italian restaurant.

“Here we go.”

“Are you sure?” I ask as he opens the big wooden door. “This place is usually hard to get into.”

“They had a cancellation. The woman said if we got here within five minutes, it was ours.”

“Awesome.” As he goes up to the hostess, I’m glad I brought my purse. This restaurant is expensive and I’m not assuming he’s going to pay for both of us. And I don’t even care if we go dutch — or if I end up paying for both of us. I think I’d give up a whole week’s pay for this evening. Well, maybe not a whole week. But at least a few days.

The restaurant is crowded, and the hostess leads us past several filled tables. It all looks very elegant with white linens, fresh flowers, glistening silver, sparkling glassware, flickering candles. I take it all in, trying to memorize each detail so I can play it back later. She finally settles us at a quiet corner table that’s not even next to the kitchen.

“Here you go.” She waits for us to sit, then politely hands us oversized menus and fills our water glasses. “Your waitress will be with you shortly.”

I smile at Josiah. “This place is perfection.”

“I hope the food is as good as everything else.”

“I can hardly believe that less than an hour ago, I was up to my elbows in drippy ice cream,” I confess.

“Don’t you love it when life takes you around an unexpected corner?”

I nod happily. “I do.”

I nearly fall out of my chair when Steffie, the short blonde from my dorm, steps up to take our order. “I thought you worked at the Blue Moose Café,” I say dumbly. She looks nearly as stunned to see me as I am to see her. “I have
two
jobs,” she informs me with a stiff little smile.

“Oh … I didn’t know.” I feel a little guilty for not being more friendly.

After placing our orders — I’m careful to order one of the cheapest meals: linguini with pesto, which is actually one of my favorites — I decide this is my opportunity to find out more about Josiah. As soon as Steffie departs, I start peppering him with questions. I quickly learn that he’s been in “the States,” as he calls our country, for five months.

“My mum thinks I’m on a mission.”

“A mission?” I’m confused now.

“It’s for the GEF church.”

It takes me a moment to remember what GEF stands for. But then it hits me — like a sucker punch. I should’ve known. This felt too good to be true, and now it’s falling apart right before my eyes. “You mean you’re part of the God’s Eternal Family church?” I ask meekly.

“No, no, not me. Not anymore, that is. But my mum is pretty devout.”

A wave of relief rushes over me. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if Josiah had turned out to be a member of a cult church. Not that I have anything against those people personally. I even knew a girl who went to a GEF church. She seemed really nice, until I realized she was only trying to get me to come to her church. But I already knew about GEF. My church had warned against getting involved with GEF … back before it fell to pieces.

“That’s what broke up my parents’ marriage,” he explains. “My dad was fed up with her church. After he left, my mum remarried a bloke who’s a rock-solid GEF. He’s a deacon.”

“Did you live with them? I mean, your mom and stepdad?”

“I did for a while. Then I started to question some of their beliefs and the church.” He shakes his head. “That didn’t go over too well with my stepdad. He said I was a bad influence on my sisters.”

“Sisters?”

“Yeah, I have three younger sisters. How about you? Any siblings?”

I shake my head no. “I always felt cheated by that. I used to wish I was part of a big family. How old are your sisters?”

His brow creases. “Let’s see, I reckon Vera is sixteen, Corrine is fourteen, and Beth is eleven.”

“Do you miss them?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so … sometimes. Except that they’re all brainwashed and into the church, just like my mum and stepdad. Nice little GEF girls. My stepdad was absolutely certain I was going to corrupt them. That’s why I went to live with my dad in Sydney. My dad’s no saint, but there was a lot less yelling there. More peace and quiet.”

I nod. “I can understand that.”

“When my mum heard I was coming to the States, she got all worked up. Probably because I’m her only son. She was certain she was losing me for good, and she literally made herself sick with worry.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “That’s why I told her I was going on a mission … you know, to ease her mind.”

“What kind of mission does she think you’re on?”

“Oh, just the usual — traveling around with another bloke, telling people about the GEF church. It’s what the church expects blokes to do after they finish secondary school. Two years on the mission field. It’s supposed to solidify their faith.” He’s playing with his butter knife like it’s a drumstick, and judging by his expression I suspect he feels guilty for deceiving his mother.

“Will you ever tell her the truth?”

“Oh, sure … someday. But if she knew what I was really doing …” He sadly shakes his head. “Well, she’d be pretty upset.”

“Just because you’re working at a dairy instead of converting people to God’s Eternal Family?”

He chuckles. “That too, but she’d be truly miffed to find out I’m working at my uncle’s dairy. My mum cannot stand Uncle Jim.”

“That’s the uncle who owns the dairy?”

He nods. “Jim is my dad’s brother. He left the GEF church ages ago. My mum calls Jim the ‘filthy black sheep.’ And she claims he’s the reason my dad left the church. If she knew I was here with Uncle Jim” — he stops drumming with the silverware — “it would not be good.”

“But didn’t you say that your uncle started a church? He must be a good man to start his own church. You’d think your mother would appreciate that.”

“But it’s not a GEF church,” he explains. “She’d rather I didn’t belong to any church. She’d rather I went out drinking every night.”

“I don’t get it. I mean, on one hand it reminds me of some of the stubbornness I saw when my church split. People who were like ‘it’s my way or the highway.’” I shake my head. “But seriously, why are people like that?”

“Good question.”

“So, you’re done with school …” I study him. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty in August.”

I try not to look surprised, but twenty sounds old.

“How about you?”

Suddenly I’m worried. If I tell him I’m only seventeen, he might drop me like a bad habit. And then I’ll never get to really know him. In the same instant, I remember something my grandmother always writes in my birthday cards, telling me that I’ve entered a new year — when I turned seventeen last fall she wrote, “You’re in your eighteenth year.”

“I’m eighteen,” I proclaim as if it’s true. “My eighteenth year … which according to my grandmother means I’m supposed to start acting like an adult.” I laugh nervously. “Sometimes that’s not so easy.”

“You can say that again.”

Relieved to have that lie behind me, I try to suppress the guilt by changing the subject. “How long has your uncle been running the dairy?”

“I’m not sure. He came to the States when I was still a kid. I reckon it was about twelve or thirteen years ago that he bought the ranch. It had been a dairy, but I guess it was pretty run-down. It’s taken a lot of work to get it into shape. But it’s real nice now. Uncle Jim has done some amazing upgrades. And his goal is to be completely self-sufficient and off the grid.”

“No electricity?”

“Right. He’s already experimenting with solar and geothermal and wind power. But the dairy has a lot of machinery to run.”

“It sounds interesting.”

“It is. And it’s really a great piece of property. About four hundred acres total. It’s tucked into the mountains, but with lots of green meadows as well as timber. And Lost Springs Creek runs right through the middle of it.”

“It sounds beautiful. I’d love to see it.”

He nods. “You will see it if you still want to come to church on Sunday.”

“I can’t wait.”

He looks directly into my eyes. “It’s refreshing to meet a girl who is excited about something like going to church.” He chuckles. “I mean, a girl who’s not with God’s Eternal Family.”

I shake my head. “I’m definitely not into GEF.” Now I shrug. “I don’t even know what I am really. I just believe in God and Jesus and the Bible.”

“So do we,” he tells me. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”

Now Steffie brings us our salads and a basket of bread, and to my delight, Josiah bows his head and asks a sincere humble blessing before we eat. Honestly, I almost feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. Is this guy for real?

[CHAPTER 4]

A
s we eat dinner, which turns out to be delicious, I confess to Josiah that I’m a foodie.

“What’s a foodie?” he asks.

“Someone who thoroughly enjoys food.”

He frowns. “But you’re not fat.”

I laugh. “Well, thank you. But it’s not like that. I enjoy learning about food and cooking.”

His eyes light up. “You really are my dream girl.”

Every time he says this, I feel so happy I could burst into song. But instead of making a fool of myself, I tell him about my secret dream. “I want to own and run a restaurant.” I glance around the elegant dining room. “Not exactly like Frederico’s, although this is really nice. I want a traditional sort of restaurant. And very uptown. I’m not really sure what it will be like. Except that it will be big and gorgeous and successful.”