Of course, he would just as quickly have taken her life had she been turned to the demon’s cause, which was a good part of the reason for her mixed feelings about him. That, and the fact that at one time she believed Ross to be her father. It seemed strange, thinking back on it. She had rejoiced in the prospect of John Ross as her father. She found him tender and caring; she thought she probably loved him. She was still a girl, and she had never known her father. She had made up a life for her father; she had invented a place for him in her own. It seemed to her John Ross had come to fill that place.
Gran warned her, of course. In her own way, without saying as much, she indicated over and over that her father was not somebody Nest would want to know. But it seemed as if Gran’s cautions were selfish and misplaced. Nest believed John Ross was a good man. When she learned that he was not her father and the demon was, she was crushed. When she learned that he had come to save her if he could but to put an end to her otherwise, the knowledge almost broke her heart.
Most of her anger and dismay had abated by the time she encountered him again five years later in Seattle, where he was the victim and she the rescuer. Ross was the one in danger of being claimed, and if Nest had not been able to save him, he would have been.
Ten years had passed since then, and she hadn’t seen or heard from him.
She shook her head, watching the houses of Hopewell, Illinois, drift past as she drove her new Taurus slowly along Lincoln Highway toward downtown. The day was bright and sunny, the skies clear and blue and depthless. Another storm was predicted for Tuesday, but at the moment it was hard to imagine.
She cracked a window to let in some fresh air, listening to the sound of the tires crunch over a residue of road dirt and cinders. As she drove past the post office, the Petersons pulled up to the mail drop. Her neighbors for the whole of her life, the Petersons had been there when Gran was still young. But they were growing old, and she worried about them. She reminded herself to stop by later and take them some cookies.
She turned off Fourth Street down Second Avenue and drove past the First Congregational Church to find a parking space in the adjoining bank lot. She climbed out of the car, triggered the door locks, and walked back toward the church.
Josie Jackson was coming up the sidewalk from her bake shop and restaurant across Third, so Nest waited for her. Bright and chipper and full of life, Josie was one of those women who never seemed to age. Even at forty-eight, she was still youthful and vivacious, waving and smiling like a young girl as she came up, tousled blond hair flouncing about her pretty face. She still had that smile, too. No one ever forgot Josie Jackson’s smile.
Nest wondered if John Ross still remembered.
“Good morning, Nest,” Josie said, falling into step with the younger woman, matching her long stride easily. “I hear we’ve got baby duty together this morning.”
Nest smiled. “Yes. Experience counts, and you’ve got a whole lot more than me. How many are we expecting?”
“Oh, gosh, somewhere in the low teens, if you count the three- and four-year-olds.” Josie shrugged. “Alice Wilton will be there to help out, and her niece, what’s-her-name-Anna.”
“Royce-Anna.”
“Royce-Anna Colson.” Josie grimaced. “What the heck kind of name is that?”
Nest laughed. “One we wouldn’t give our own children.”
They mounted the steps of the church and pushed through the heavy oak doors into the cool dark of the narthex. Nest wondered if Josie ever thought about John Ross. There had been something between them once, back when he had first come to Hopewell and Nest was still a girl. For months after he disappeared, she asked Nest about him. But it had been years now since she had even mentioned his name.