The woman accepting the donation thanked them profusely. "These are such lovely clothes. They'll really be a blessing."

"I'm glad you can use them. Grandma wanted you to have them."

Carrie slid into the pa.s.senger side, but groped for the catch for her seatbelt. Seconds later she felt Peter's hand over hers as he directed it to secure the lock. He briefly lifted her hand to his lips. "It's been a long day for you."

She could only nod as he drove them back to Maddie's. No, she corrected herself, back to her house.

They had spent Friday evening after supper and all of Sat.u.r.day packing up Maddie's clothes and coats. Way up in the attic, they had found boxes of cast-offs that she'd packed up, too. Now the house was empty of Maddie's clothes, but it was still filled with her furniture and mementos.

She watched the streets of Sunville pa.s.s by her side window. For a few more hours, until she signed the purchase offer, Carrie wanted to think of the old house as her own. Working to sort out Maddie's personal things had led her to feel almost at home there.

Cleaning the emptied closets had been such a common homemaker-type activity that she'd felt comfortable in the role somehow. She liked the sense of responsibility and belonging. Thinking it might be her only chance, she treasured the feeling.

"That's everything for today, isn't it?" Peter asked.

"I guess so. I still have to figure out what to do with all the furniture that I can't bear to part with." She desperately wanted to keep the master bedroom set. She loved the beautiful four poster bed and the matching dressers, but maybe keeping it was not such a good idea. She'd always dreamed of sleeping in it someday, but that day was supposed to be spent in this old house with a husband, not alone in some apartment that she moved the set to. She would have a little time to decide about the furniture since the buyer would need time to get the loan and arrange for the closing, however.

She watched Peter, his grip on the wheel sure, his attention to his driving careful and complete. "Thank you for all your help."

He smiled and glanced at her. He'd been so solid and dependable, always putting her before himself in whatever they did. Little wonder he looked tired. With all the times they had made the trips up and down the stairs, they both had a right to feel tired and ready to call it a day.

Carrie's hand flew to her mouth with a sudden insight. "Oh, Peter. This is Sat.u.r.day. Your sermon. You told me once that you always spend Sat.u.r.day going over your sermon and here I've kept you busy all day. Oh, I feel terrible for distracting you. Why didn't you remind me?"

"You're a lot more than a distraction to me. And being with you was a lot more fun." He squeezed her hand on the seat between them. "But don't tell the congregation I said that," he added with a grin.

"I love your smile, Peter. You know, it lights up your whole face." When he glanced over at her with an exaggerated, teeth-exposing smile, she laughed. "What's your sermon on?"

"I don't know yet."

Carrie groaned and sank down in her seat. "Oh, Peter. You haven't started on it? Now what have I done? You'll be up all night."

"I'm sort of working on two and can't decide which one I'll use. It all depends."

He pulled into Carrie's driveway and stopped beside the porch. They had taken his car because she couldn't fit even one big box in her little sporty car.

"I wish there was something I could do to help after keeping you occupied all day long." Carrie stopped. Here she was encouraging him to stay again. She couldn't do that anymore.

He stared at her as if it was difficult to make up his mind and then shook his head. "No, much as I'd like to spend more time with you. I really do have to go to my office and get going on the sermon. May I stop by later to say good night on my way home?"

She knew she should say no, but because this would be the last time she could see him, she nodded. He left for the church on foot, leaving his car in her driveway until he would drive home after wishing her a good night.

Carrie walked through the house, checking drawers and closets to be certain she'd gotten everything. Her thoughts wandered to that afternoon when Peter had lifted the lid of the huge wooden trunk in the attic. Maddie's wedding dress lay inside, lovingly wrapped in multiple layers of yellowed tissue paper. The delicate silk crepe had been trimmed with lace and garlands of silk roses, each with delicate, tiny seed pearls gracing the edges of the pedals. The sleeveless top had a hand-st.i.tched, rolled edge.

The long, floor-length tulle veil with matching roses on the crown turned out to be so fragile that just lifting it put holes in it. Worried the same might happen to the dress, Carrie had wrapped them up carefully and put them in a box all their own to keep them safe.

"You'd look beautiful in that dress, Carolyn," Peter had said softly with so much love in his eyes, she hadn't been able to speak.

"No. Stop thinking about it. You're doing what's best for Peter," she ordered herself aloud. She turned on her heel and headed for her bedroom to pack her suitcase.

When Peter came back much later to say good night, he looked more tired, making her feel even worse. They stood in the front hall. Peter put his hands on her shoulders and drew little circles on the side of her neck with his thumbs. "Please. Please tell me you don't intend to walk out of my life a second time, Carolyn. For the love of G.o.d... no," he amended. "That's not fair... for the love of me, tell me you'll stay and be my wife."

Carrie opened her eyes to see his hurt and pleading face. She'd put the hurt look there. She'd hurt him--was hurting him with her selfish behavior. She had stop. She had to be strong. She stepped back out of his arms. "I can't," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Then tell me what is so bad about your past. I already know a little about Ralph, but I've been waiting for you to tell me, not my secretary or anyone else who seems more than willing to fill me in. I want to hear it from you."

She pressed her lips together between her teeth until she felt the pain.

"Tell me what I have to do to convince you to stay," he pleaded.

If only she could say she loved him and would stay, but that wouldn't be fair to him. He would come to realize how wrong she was for him and then he would regret marrying her.

Peter had been the rock on which she'd leaned heavily in the last few weeks. Carrie knew that Peter would go right on giving and giving, until one day he would realize that he didn't have anymore to give, that he needed a wife who didn't have a past she was running away from. He would want a wife who could comfort and support him some of the time, instead of always the other way around.

He should have a wife who was whole, strong and standing on her own two feet, a woman confident that sharing Peter's life meant sharing G.o.d's will for what they would do together here at the church in Sunville. Carrie couldn't be that woman and she couldn't stand to see repulsion in his eyes if she told him why.

"Yohoo! Hey, you two," a high voice called from the front yard.

Carrie jumped. She looked out through the screen door. "Bette, is that you?"

Bette's white-haired head appeared above the porch railing, sans her sun hat in the dark evening. Peter opened the door and she stepped into the house.

"Oh, am I glad you're here, Peter," she said pausing to catch her breath. "I thought I recognized your car."

"What are you doing out at this hour?" Carrie wanted to know.

"Is something wrong?" Peter asked, showing his concern.

"No, no. I just overestimated my own strength, that's all. I was over at Marge's watching a movie and started to walk home. I know there's only block left, but it seems so long. When I saw your car here, well, I was hoping you'd give me a ride. I just don't seem to have the energy I used to have."

Peter smiled. "Be happy to."

Bette didn't let him say more. "Thanks. I'll go wait in the car so you can kiss Carrie good night in private. Good night, Carrie." Giggling, Bette stepped back through the screen. "There's no rush," she called back as she went down the steps.

Carrie and Peter chuckled.

"She's such a dear," Carrie said. "I'm glad she's found another friend to spend time with." She looked at Peter and her smile disappeared.

"We'll talk tomorrow before you leave, but right now I have orders to kiss you good night," he said in a low voice.

It will be goodbye, too. There was no sense extending the pain of separation over a longer period. She was going to make a clean cut. She could not hurt him any more.

He kissed her sweetly, dropped his arms from her shoulders, and walked slowly across the porch toward his car. "See you at church in the morning."

She couldn't lie, so she didn't say anything. She didn't even nod. When she heard his car start, she moved to the door to watch him drive toward Bette's house. His red brake lights floated every which-way in her tears.

"I love you, Peter," she croaked with a broken whisper.

Carrie felt her heart pound. Panic constricted her chest. Her hands flew to press on the pounding pain in her temples. She felt totally alone and devastated.

She was desperate to be strong, to believe in hope, to believe she could ever be truly happy.

"Please, G.o.d, if there was just a way..."

Carrie swung the refrigerator door shut. It was empty and clean, and her car sat at the end of the driveway, all packed--both situations due to her working late into the night after Peter left to take Bette home.

With a last quick look around the house to be sure the windows were shut, she locked the front door and drove down the street. She intended to stop for Sunday services on her way out of town, but not at the Sunville Community Church.

For some reason she wasn't clear about, she drove across town to the nursing home where Don Hoag led the service as he did each week. The smile he gave Carrie as she entered was warm and welcoming. She joined in to help a small group of worshipers who walked or wheeled into the chapel early each Sunday. He even asked her, as one of the few able-bodied worshipers, to help with communion so the patients didn't have to move about in their wheelchairs. She liked the feeling it gave her to help.

The service was short, but one in which the message instilled hope... just what Carrie needed.

She waited after the service until each of the worshipers had gone back to their room. Looking out the tall narrow windows, she viewed fields of ripening wheat as far as she could see. Only the green stripes of the shelter belts interrupted the sea of grain waving in the breeze.

High overhead darkening c.u.mulus clouds rose majestically and dangerously above the horizon. She thought of the farmers who would be watching that sky, too, wondering if the winds and rain would beat the grain down, lodging it into a twisted tangle. She hoped that instead of robbing them of the harvest by flattening it and making it impossible to harvest, the storm would bring more gentle moisture so important at this point to fatten the kernels as they ripened.

"How are you doing?" Don asked as he came to stand beside her.

"I don't know. I... I'm not sure how I happened to come here. I was going to just call to say goodbye and thank you. I'm leaving, right now actually. I'm going straight back to Fargo from here."

The smile disappeared from Don's face. "Does Peter know?"

"He knows I'm leaving, but I... We didn't exactly say goodbye."

Carrie thrust her hands into her jacket pockets and toyed with a tissue she felt there. She was surprised that the tears were not flowing as she'd come to expect when she thought of how they had parted the night before without telling him she would not see him again. She'd been a coward.

"I... we..." She laughed at her false starts and then looked up at Don with a deep sigh. "I couldn't ever tell him, but I love Peter very much. However, I have to leave. He... um, he asked me to marry him."

"Wonderful. You two will be perfect for each other, if an old man may be permitted to say that."

Carrie shook her head slowly. "I want to be with him more than anything, but I can't be his wife. I would make a miserable pastor's wife, and eventually I would make him miserable."

Don took her hand and squeezed it gently. "I find that hard to believe and I'd be honored to talk to you about it, Carrie. Do you really have to leave so soon?"

She nodded. "I'm going back to see if I have a job waiting for me after I've been gone so much. I have a lot of thinking to do and I have to do that alone. I can't think very clearly when I'm around Peter."

He smiled with complete understanding of what she meant.

"May I phone you, Don? To talk to you?" she asked.

"I wholeheartedly encourage you to do exactly that. Come down to the office a minute and I'll give you my card with my office number on it," Don said as he led the way down the hall into his office where Carrie had sat the afternoon of the puppet show. To Carrie, that day seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd been so overwhelmed with memories of Ralph being there and then Susan had told everyone what Carrie had tried so hard to forget--she'd caused his death.

In her prayers last night and at that simple service just minutes ago, she'd asked for G.o.d's help to straighten out her life. She'd made a terrible mess of it and hated that she was hurting Peter and herself by leaving.

"I'll put my home phone on here too." Finished writing the number, Don gave Carrie his card. "I'm in and out during the day visiting residents, but the best time to reach me is mid-afternoon when I take a break. Most of the residents nap about then. Of course, you can call me at home in the evening anytime."

"Thanks, Don." She shook his hand and turned to leave, but paused to look back. "When I watched Peter walking out the door last night, I knew I would dry up inside, but then I've felt like I was crumbling into pieces since Ralph died."

"Ralph?"

Carrie nodded. "Ralph Anderson. We were engaged, but he died five years ago--right here in this nursing home, as a matter of fact. He took his own life. That's why I was so upset the last time you saw me."

"Wait a minute. I forgot it again," Don said as he turned to the file cabinets beyond his desk. He opened the top drawer and pulled out a manila file to look in it. "Here it is." He lifted out a small envelope and returned the folder to the cabinet. "When Peter told me your name the day of the puppet show, I meant to give this to you, but decided it could wait because you were so upset. I was going to bring it to the funeral, but didn't think that was appropriate."

He pushed the file drawer shut. "It's been here so many years I didn't think it could be important now, but will you forgive an old man for being so forgetful?" He handed her the feminine-looking envelope.

She saw her own name in the corner of the pale blue envelope and Ralph's name and room number in the center. She turned the envelope over. It had never been opened. She gasped. She clutched it against her chest and closed her eyes. "Thank G.o.d." She swallowed and then opened her eyes to look at it again. "This means Ralph never saw my letter."

"No, I'm sorry," he responded. "You saw the mess of boxes when you were here last. I was cleaning out the files and while we were at it, we decided to move them. I found that letter behind the file cabinets where it and several others had fallen. One of them was even a year older than that one. I apologize for the staff back then. I hope it wasn't real important that he read it."

"It's importance is to me. Now. I sent Ralph this letter the day before he killed himself. If he didn't see this letter, that means Ralph didn't know I was breaking off our engagement." She paced back and forth across the small s.p.a.ce in front of the desk. "All these years I've thought he killed himself because he read this letter that said I was leaving! Oh, G.o.d, how could you do this to me? All these wasted years!"

Chapter Seventeen.

Don took hold of Carrie's elbow and ushered her to the couch. "Let's sit over here. You've got to tell me the whole story so I can understand."

Relief flooded through Carrie's body as she explained the whole story. "I'm not a murderer. My actions did not make Ralph take his own life, but I've thought all these years that they did. So many people in town think I killed him just as surely as if I'd fed him the pills he overdosed on."

"I can't imagine anyone thinking that badly of you. It sounds more like the guilt you felt made you think others felt that way."

"No, people do think that way. That's what Susan blew up about the day of the puppet show here. Someone told her I was responsible for Ralph's death. That's why I'm leaving Sunville even though I don't think I still have a job to go to. I couldn't stay here without seeing Peter, and I wouldn't let my bad reputation tarnish Peter's. My presence would negate all the wonderful self-less work he does."

"But that goes a long way to showing how much you love him. He's a lucky man."

Carrie had to laugh at that. It was the first time she'd thought that anyone might be lucky to have her love. It would be too much to hope for. She looked down at the letter.

"Ralph and I started out so happily. Both of us were going to SU, but he had to drop out because of his family's financial reversals. He turned into a completely different man than the one I thought I'd loved. He was abusive, disrespectful, and started drinking heavily. He was drunk the night he crashed his car and smashed his legs. But I'd known for months before his accident that I couldn't marry him. After the accident I was afraid to tell him because he might think it was because of his legs. I was actually relieved when he yelled at me that he didn't love me and never wanted to see me again. He handed me the easy way out of the relationship, and I took it and sealed it with this letter."

"The burden of guilt for his death that you've borne all these years has been a heavy one. It's price was your happiness, am I right?"

"Yes, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't regret what I wrote to him when he was obviously so ill. But now... Oh, dear. I can hardly believe getting this letter back unopened. I've got to get to my apartment and think about what all this means."

She stood and put the letter into her purse. "I can't tell you what this has meant to me. Thank you for talking with me."

"But you'll call me to let me know how you're doing?"

"I'll call you very soon. Probably more often than you want me to," she added with a laugh.

"And you'll call Peter?"

The smile flew from her face. "I've hurt him badly and then I walked away without saying goodbye. I'm