The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall Read Free Book Online Page A

Road or keep going straight?
    She didn’t know. Whenever she spotted someone or passed a home, she didn’t dare stop to ask. People would think nothing of a mother and child going for a walk on a beautiful spring day in mid-May But their curiosity would turn against her once she asked where a certain road was. It’d begin a peppering of questions. Are you lost? Who are you looking for? Did your car break down? Where do you live? What are you doing on foot?
    No, she couldn’t ask.
    Lori tugged at her hand. “That road starts with an M, Mom.”
    “Does it?” Cara blinked, trying to focus in spite of a pounding headache.
    Mast Road .
    Her weariness dampened almost all the relief she felt at finding the road. The search for this sign had begun before dawn. Most of the roads in Dry Lake were long and hilly, but they’d at least found the one they’d been searching for—although she had no idea what the place had in store for them, if anything.

    They’d barely gone a hundred feet on Mast Road when she noticed a man on foot, leading a horse-drawn carriage to the front of a home. He went inside for a moment and came back out with a woman and five children. They all got into the rig. To travel like that, they probably were Amish. As they drove past her, she noticed a little girl inside the buggy who was a year or so older than Lori.
    Her shoes would fit Lori—without pinching her feet .
    As Cara approached the house, she saw only a screen door between her and the inside of the home. “Let’s knock on that door.”
    “What for?”
    “Just to see if someone’s home.”
    “Mom, look.” Lori pointed at a beer bottle lying in the ditch.
    “That’s nasty, babe. Let’s keep moving.”
    Lori pulled her hand free and grabbed it. “It looks like brown topaz, like our teacher at school showed us.”
    “Come on, kid, give me a break. It’s an empty beer bottle.” Cara took it from her.
    “Don’t throw it.”
    Unwilling to provoke her daughter’s taxed emotions, she nodded and held on to it.
    As they went up the porch stairs, Cara set the bottle on a step. She knocked and waited. When no one answered, she banged on it really hard. “Hello?” She heard no sounds. “Let’s go in for a minute.”
    “But, Mom—”
    “It’s okay. No one’s home, but if they were here, they’d give us some Band-Aids and some shoes that fit you, right?”
    “Yeah, I think so. But I don’t want to go in.”
    Leaving Lori near the front door, she hurried through the house, scavenging for clean socks, bandages, ointment, and shoes. With two pairs of shoes, a bottle of peroxide, a box of bandages, fresh socks, and a tube of ointment for her daughter’s blisters in hand, Cara hurried out the door, tripping as she went. The items scattered across the porch.

    Lori had the beer bottle in her hand, and Cara snatched it from her and set it back down on the porch. “I think one of these pairs will fit. Try this set on, and let’s get out of here. Can you wait until later for us to clean the blisters and wrap them?”
    “I think so.”
    “That’s my girl.”
    While helping Lori slip into the shoes, Cara looked around the yard. A man stood at an opened cattle gate, watching them. Her heart raced. How long had he been standing there? But he didn’t seem interested in confronting her. Based on the description from the man at the ticket counter, this guy might be Amish. He appeared to be past middle age and had on a dress shirt and pants, straw hat, and suspenders.
    Keeping an eye on him, she left one pair of shoes on the porch and gathered up the rest of the items and shoved them into the backpack. “Will those do?”
    “Yeah, but my feet still hurt.”
    She glanced at the man, who remained stock-still, watching her.
    “I’ll put medicine and Band-Aids on later. We need to go.”
    Cara tripped as she stood, knocking the beer bottle down the steps. Without meaning to, she cursed.
    Wordlessly, the man continued to stare at them.
    Cara