• •
On Thursday, Mr. Smart called her into his office. “Wendy,” he said. “I am real sorry about what happened to you and Ellen. You know I am. But it’s part of your job to fill the ATM every afternoon. You’re going to have bite the bullet and do it, that’s all.”
Wendy didn’t much like his phrase “bite the bullet.” The way she saw it, she’d come all too close to biting a real bullet, and all because the bank wasn’t concerned enough about employee safety to put the ATM next to the building so it could be filled without the whole town watching. But she couldn’t argue with Mr. Smart’s main point. She had always known that the ATM was on the other side of the parking lot, and was told when she came to work here that filling it would be part of her job.
Too bad. Because no way was she going to walk across that parking lot carrying thousands of dollars in cash again. It was a well-known fact that robbers often held up the same bank twice, especially when they had found it easy the first time. Wendy stood in front of Mr. Smart’s desk, looked away, and said nothing.
“So can I count on you from now on?”
Wendy shook her had. “I would if I could, Mr. Smart. But I can’t.”
Mr. Smart steepled his fingers under his chin and looked at her for a long time. Then he said, “Well, think about it, Wendy. One way or another, you’re going to have to get past your fear of … the parking lot.”
Wendy almost laughed. It wasn’t the parking lot she was afraid of. It was guys with guns! Or any strange men, for that matter. It was almost a week now since the holdup, and she still felt panic when a man she didn’t know looked at her — or worse, two men together. She hadn’t told anybody, not even Kyle, because what could they do? They’d just tell her to stop worrying. She had already told herself that and it did not help one bit.
Wendy didn’t need to be told that if she did not go back to carrying that cash out to the ATM she was going to get fired. Ellen had already agreed to start carrying the money out on Monday. If Wendy kept refusing, then it was just a matter of time. She pulled into her driveway and sat there a minute, thinking things through.
“The bank is not where I want to spend my life, anyway,” she said aloud. “If I could have my druthers, I’d spend all my time in the backyard fooling with animals. Or better yet, out in the woods, where the real wild things are.”
9
TWO PROPOSALS
Kyle called on Sunday morning and asked Wendy if she wanted to go for a drive.
“Sure,” she replied. “What time?”
“Right now,” he replied. “Soon as I can get there.”
It was unusual for Kyle to call out of the blue like that and ask her to go somewhere that wasn’t a regular date, like to a movie or a party. But they had barely seen each other for the two weeks he had been on the night shift. It pleased Wendy to think that he was missing her so much that he wanted to be with her the first chance he got when he was off work at the same time she was.
“So where are we going?” Wendy asked.
“You’ll see,” he said, and hung up before she could ask more questions.
• • •
They drove along a narrow paved road for about ten miles. It was like the area where Wendy had grown up on the other side of town. There were a few small patches of woods, but most of the trees had been cleared for farming. Wendy was a little surprised when they turned onto a dirt lane that led to a two-storey farmhouse set a good distance back from the road.
“Who are we visiting?” she asked, as they stopped in front of the house.
“Nobody,” Kyle said. “The old folks who own this place are at church. I just wanted to check it out.”
“For what? To see if a couple of church-going old folks are growing marijuana on the back forty?” Wendy joked.
“Has happened,” Kyle reminded her. “But these folks don’t have forty acres. Just ten. I doubt there’s anything besides weeds growing back there. The place is up for sale.”
“Are you thinking of buying it?” Wendy asked in surprise.
Kyle shrugged. “Come on, let’s take a look around.”
There was a small vegetable garden behind the house, but most of the property looked abandoned. The bird nests in some of the taller bushes and the rustle of small animals as they walked through the weeds made it seem as if it was already being used more by animals than people. At the very back, along the property line, there were a few trees. Some were so ancient-looking that Wendy thought they might have been part of the original forest.
Wendy was silent as they headed back to the car. She didn’t know what Kyle might decide, but she knew that if she had the money to buy a house out of town like this, with a little land around it, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
“Well?” Kyle asked. “What do you think?”
“Too bad they didn’t leave more trees,” Wendy said. “But the few at the back are nice, and there is that big shade tree in the front yard. I like the way the house is set back from the road, too.”
“I’ve already looked at the house,” Kyle said. “It’s in pretty good shape. Still, we’d have to do a lot of work to fix it up the way we want it.”
“We?” Wendy repeated in astonishment. Then she laughed. “Kyle Collins, are you proposing to me?”
Kyle’s face turned red all the way to the roots of his sandy crewcut. “Well, considering how your folks and my folks and Mrs. Armstrong and everybody else is waiting for us to set a wedding date, I don’t think we could very well move out here together without getting married.” He hesitated, turned a shade redder, and stammered, “That is, if you want to.”
“So is this a definite proposal?” Wendy teased.
“It’s a definite proposal,” Kyle confirmed. “And if you really like this place,” he turned and swept his arm over the acreage, “we could buy it and —”
Wendy laid a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, Kyle. Not so fast!”
Kyle let his arm drop, and looked at her. “What? You don’t like it? Or — oh, of course. You want to see the inside of the house first.”
Wendy shook her head. “I don’t care about the house. It’s the land that matters. What I’m wondering is whether we can afford it. Because — have I got this straight? You’re counting on my salary from the bank to help make the payments?”
“Well, yeah,” Kyle admitted. “I’m due for a raise at the end of the year, and then I might be able to swing it on my own. But the property’s for sale now, at such a good price that it’s going to get snapped up like that!” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “That’s why I was thinking that together, with both our salaries —”
“The thing is,” Wendy said quietly, “I am about to quit the bank job.”
Kyle didn’t say a word and didn’t even ask why.
