Love Reunited. Renee Andrews
couple of steps to the side and Georgie continued talking toward where they’d been, the truth hit Landon with the same force as that bullet in Afghanistan. Catching him unaware. Unprepared.
John shook his head and started the truck down the road leading to town. “How? Did she say what happened? When it happened? Do you think it’s temporary? Is that why she’s home, to let her mom help take care of her until she’s better?”
Landon hadn’t considered that. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I see Eden often, at church and around town. She’s never mentioned anything about Georgiana losing her sight. Seems like she’d have said something.”
“Unless Georgie asked her not to.”
“Why would she do that?” John asked.
“Maybe she didn’t want me to know,” Landon pondered aloud. Georgie would have known that he would’ve wanted to help her if she was hurting. He would have done whatever he could to get home and be with his friend if she were in trouble. But she’d also have known that he was serving his country and wouldn’t have wanted him to do anything differently because of her. And then there was the whole Pete factor. No way would Pete want some other guy coming home to check on his wife. “I can see her keeping that from me, especially while she knew I was still serving.”
John grabbed his old baseball cap off the seat and put it on. “I can see that, I guess.”
“Still can’t believe it,” Landon said. “She looks exactly the same. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, except she can’t see.” His heart ached for Georgie. How long had she been this way? “She definitely didn’t want me to know. I’m fairly certain she was trying to disguise the fact.”
“How do you disguise it? Couldn’t you tell looking at her? Or was she wearing sunglasses?”
“No sunglasses. And her eyes looked normal, but you know, like she wasn’t really paying attention. Kind of like someone daydreaming.”
“She didn’t have a cane?”
Landon shook his head. “No, she didn’t have anything like that.”
John’s mouth quirked to the side, brows dipped, and then he nodded. “Maybe she doesn’t need one. I mean, think about it. When the power goes out at the farm at night, we can’t see our hand in front of our face, but we still find our way around. Spatial memory, I think it’s called. Or something like that.”
“Yeah,” Landon said. “That’s probably it.” But his thoughts weren’t really focused on how Georgiana got around. He was more concerned with why she’d lost her sight to begin with. And he also wondered where Pete was while his blind wife and their daughter were at the farm.
John pulled into a parking spot behind one of the shops on the square. “Think you can stop thinking about it long enough to have dinner with our little brother?”
Landon nodded. “I’ll try. Why are we meeting Casey at the square instead of having dinner at the farm?”
“Because he leaves for the University of Alabama next week, and he’s trying to spend as much time as possible with Nadia Berry before he goes.” John grinned. “He’ll be home late tonight, so I thought it’d be nice for all of us to eat together. Nadia works at Carter Photography and is joining us for dinner.” He paused. “I haven’t told Casey about the troubles with the farm.”
“Good. I don’t want anything keeping him from going to college,” Landon said.
John nodded. “And he’d stay here and try to help if he knew. All that kid has on his mind right now is spending as much time as possible with Nadia before he leaves. And, oddly enough, a pretty girl takes rank over his brother returning home from the army.”
Landon smiled, thought of another pretty girl he’d seen a few hours ago. A beautiful blind girl. “I get it.” He had another idea that might lend him a bit of information about what had happened to Georgiana. If any of their old friends were still in town, maybe she was still close to some of them. And maybe someone could enlighten him as to how she lost her sight. “You see any of the old gang while you’re around town? I mean, did most of them stick around Claremont, or have they moved off?”
“Most have stuck around. Chad, Mitch, Daniel. They all still live in Claremont. But I haven’t seen anyone much over the past couple of years. Just the ones I see when I get to go to church,” John said. “Too busy.”
Landon realized that he hadn’t acknowledged everything John had done over the past few years, taking care of Casey after their mother died and while Landon was still serving overseas. But he had a plan for letting John know how grateful he was, and he’d put that plan in motion soon. For now though, he simply said, “Hey, I appreciate everything you did for Casey, working yourself to death and saving for his college.”
“I didn’t touch his college money to help with the farm. There has to be another way.” John glanced at Landon. “I thought you’d agree.”
John had handled so much on his own.
“I do agree. Casey needs to go to school, and we will save the farm.” Landon shook his head. “I should’ve come home after Mom died.”
“We aren’t going there again,” John said. “All of that ‘oldest child should’ve taken care of this or that’ stuff. You came home during the roughest part. That was the important thing.”
Their mother had never been the same after they lost their dad. He’d only been forty-one when he lost his arm in the hay baler and bled to death on one of the back fields. Their mother had become a widow overnight and had sunk into a depression equally as fast. But Landon hadn’t realized just how bad she was, that she’d given up on her life and turned her focus to pills to help her forget the pain...until he got that call in Afghanistan and came home for the funeral. John assured him he was fine on his own to raise their little brother and take care of the farm and then Landon went back to serve the remainder of his tour of duty. But now he wondered if he should’ve requested more than the allotted emergency leave.
“You did the right thing, going back,” John said, able to read Landon’s thoughts as well as he had when they were kids. “You were serving our country and fighting for our freedom, and there isn’t anywhere else you should’ve been.” He punched Landon’s arm. “And that’s as mushy as you’re gonna get from me, so let’s leave it at that.”
“Works for me,” Landon said, and thought that John would probably feel a bit mushy tomorrow too, but he’d wait until he actually took care of his surprise before he let his brother in on the fact. That was one thing about being away from his family and friends for so long. Landon was a bit more sentimental for it, appreciated life more, he supposed, and appreciated his brother’s hard work immensely. Until he returned home today, he had no idea John had been working three jobs to keep the farm afloat. John never said a word in his e-mails, and Casey never said much about anything but school and sports.
Nor had John told Landon how he’d saved enough money to pay for all of Casey’s college education. Or how Casey’s auto accident last year had been the result of alcohol. No, John took care of all of that and simply told Landon after the fact, along with the news that Casey had fallen for Nadia and consequently found God through his relationship with Brother Henry’s granddaughter.
Thank You, Lord, for Nadia. And thank You, Lord, for John. Help me to never forget everything he’s done over the past few years for our family. And Lord, if it be Your will, let us find a way to save our farm.
“Here we are,” John said, leading Landon toward the back of Nelson’s Variety Store. “Look familiar?”
“Smells familiar.” Landon got a full whiff of the hamburgers from the five-and-dime. Then he heard an abundance of squawking geese and remembered how they always gathered around the three-tiered fountain that centered the square. “Sounds familiar too.”
“Yeah, those noisy