a long strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear. “I know exactly how to break a bunch of kids’ hearts.” She read the letter again, and then straightened her shoulders. “Well, I suppose it has to be done.”
Breathing a prayer that she would handle the situation as well as possible under the circumstances, Allie walked slowly down the stairs to a full-length basement room used for all kinds of church activities.
As she approached the door, she could hear Lily Twesbury’s voice enthusiastically describing various wildflowers to be seen in mountain meadows and along the riverbeds. “We’ll have lots of fun hiking all over the place, and making our own nature books to bring back home.”
Some of the kids clapped and cheered, sending daggers straight into Allie’s heart. As inconspicuously as she could, Allie slipped to the back of the room. As she stood there, looking at the circle of children sitting on the floor, her eyes settled on Randy Cleaver’s dark head.
Randy was a ten-year-old boy who had been on the streets most of his life because of a home situation with alcoholic parents. Allie knew the boy from escapades that had sent the wiry little troublemaker to her counseling office at school. Randy was tough as nails. A real handful. Just recently he’d been put in a foster home with church-going guardians who thought that sending him to church camp might help straighten him out. Now that hope was down the drain.
She had been the one to convince the boy that he ought to give summer camp a try, but she wasn’t sure he’d agreed for the right reasons. A city kid, raised in one of the toughest neighborhoods, Randy showed little appreciation for wildflowers and nature studies. But he’d been surprisingly cooperative when it came to washing cars in order to earn money for the outing. She hated to think how he might act out his disappointment.
Randy was sitting beside Cathy Crawford, a small eight-year-old girl with a mop of yellow curls. She had contracted meningitis when she was only four, and it had left her with a significant hearing impairment. Tiny for her age, she was terribly shy. She wasn’t inclined to do much talking even when she was in a friendly group and understood what was going on. The little girl was so sheltered by her parents that she rarely made any decisions on her own. Allie really felt that Cathy needed this time away from her parents, and it had taken a great deal of coaxing on Allie’s part to persuade her family that attending a summer camp would be a positive experience for their daughter. Now all of that effort was going to be wasted.
As soon as the last slide was shown, Trudy Daniels, a plump Sunday school teacher in her early twenties, came in with refreshments. “Here you go, gang.” With squeals of delight the youngsters rushed toward the trays of cookies and drinks.
Allie’s spirits sank lower just thinking about Trudy’s reaction to the news that all of their work was for naught. The young woman was a spark plug in the youth program and had become Allie’s good friend. They’d spent numberless hours seeing to a hundred details that two weeks in the mountains with twenty children and five chaperones entailed.
After Allie told her the news, Trudy sighed. “Well, I guess if it’s God’s will, we should accept it.”
Allie stared at her and echoed, “God’s will?” The words hung in the air. How could it be God’s will? The Bible was full of praise for His wondrous creation of rivers, mountains and open sky. Why would the good Lord want to deprive these children of experiencing that heavenly wonder?
With inspirational insight, the answer came bright and clear. He wouldn’t! It wasn’t divine intervention standing in the way of these children enjoying God’s out-of-doors—it was Scott Davidson.
Allie turned to Trudy, her eyes flashing. “I’ve got an idea. Reverend Hanson is going to be out of town for the next few days. Let’s hold off saying anything to anyone about this until he gets back,” she said, and then made a quick exit before her puzzled friend could ask any questions.
Hurrying upstairs, Allie made her way to the church office, and got Scott’s number from Harriet.
Allie dialed the number, moistened her lips and was ready with her persuasive argument. But after a few rings, a recording kicked in.
The voice was one she remembered, and just hearing it threw her off balance for a moment. She gave a nervous laugh. “Hi, Scott. This is Allie Lindsey—a voice from your past. I’d like to talk with you about the cancellation of our church camp, and I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.” She gave him her telephone number and then added, “Nice to hear your voice again.”
After she hung up, Allie stared at the telephone for a long minute. A mixture of emotions she couldn’t quite define made her uneasy. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Scott why she was calling? Maybe she should have waited until he called back to tell him? No, better to be up front about it. He might think she was trying to renew a personal relationship with him. For all she knew he could have married in the six years since she’d seen him last.
“Well?” Harriet prodded.
Allie reined in her wayward thoughts and gave Harriet a reassuring smile. “Don’t say anything to anyone about the letter until I talk with him. Hopefully, he’ll give me a call later today.”
But he didn’t.
Allie jumped every time the phone rang, but it was only someone wanting to clean her carpets, or soliciting donations. She spent a restless night, and by nine o’clock the next morning, Scott Davidson still hadn’t returned her call.
With stubborn intent, she phoned him again, and got the same recording, but she could tell from the short signal that he’d picked up his earlier messages. That’s when she made up her mind to confront him face-to-face. Rainbow Camp was only a couple of hours from Denver. If she left right away, she could get there a little before noon, and make it back by nightfall.
She took a moment to study her reflection in a mirror, trying to decide if Scott would find her terribly changed from the high school girl he’d kissed in the moonlight. Her slender figure was still in good condition from routine jogging and watching her diet. Her honey-brown hair had darkened slightly but it still had golden highlights and a soft natural curl that framed her face and highlighted her blue eyes. A summer sun had begun to touch her arms, legs and face with a warm tan.
Not movie star material, she thought as she playfully blew a kiss at her reflection. “But you’ll do.”
As she left the city behind and headed west into pine-covered hillsides, thick aspen groves and vaulting rocky cliffs, Allie realized how much she’d missed these mountains. She’d only returned to Colorado late in September, having left the state after graduating from high school in order to attend an eastern college where her parents had moved in their retirement. Allie had been born to them late in life, and after their deaths, she had accepted the middle school counselor’s position in Denver because the memories of growing up here were warm and inviting.
Her six-year’s absence faded as the miles sped by, and she was again filled with awe at God’s magnificence as the narrow road climbed in a serpentine pattern over mountain passes and then dropped down into beautiful valleys where green meadows and white-foamed streams flowed in silvery ribbons. Sam Davidson had built his Rainbow Camp in one of these beautiful mountain canyons. The buildings of the camp were set along a mountain river fed by melting snow from glaciers in the high country.
As Allie turned off of the highway to follow a graveled road through the trees, her heart quickened with expectation. A narrow bridge built of weathered timbers crossed the fast moving stream, and when a familiar panorama of cabins and other buildings came into view, a nostalgic lump
