He pulled the drawer where he kept medical records and information on life insurance that he needed to keep on file, and sifted through the files until he found a blank folder to put the medical bills in. That’s when he saw a folder marked Julie that he’d completely forgotten he had.
He pulled it out and looked at it. He remembered creating the file when he’d been discharged from the army and helped his parents empty out their house for their move to New Mexico. He’d kept the paperwork and remembered only giving it a quick glance at the time. With the eye of a twenty-two-year-old.
One envelope stuck out like a sore thumb. He pulled the paperwork from the file cabinet and looked at it more closely. At the time, he’d thought Julie had gone to see a doctor for a routine physical. Most colleges require students to have them before attending school. But the name on the envelope was one he’d come to recognize over the years as a police officer. Dr. Lawrence Cross was an OB/GYN. He delivered babies.
The only reason why Caleb would know that is because he’d gone on a call where one of the women in town went into labor fast and Dr. Cross ended up delivering the baby in the parking lot of the medical center in town.
His sister was young at the time, barely eighteen years old. There were lots of reasons why a girl of eighteen would go to an OB/GYN. Caleb certainly didn’t know everything about the female body, much as he was fond of it.
But when he slipped the paperwork out of the envelope, he quickly learned that the procedure Julie had was a pregnancy test. It was positive. The date of the test was days before she’d left town.
* * *
Katie wasn’t at home, Caleb soon learned when he drove by the house and found Kas and Tabby alone. He swung by the bank to see if she’d decided to go back to work and use her vacation time later on when she cleared up the dispute over the chapel property. But when he didn’t find her at work, he knew where she’d be.
His nerves already on edge and ready to explode, he drove out to the chapel on Lookout Ridge. Sure enough, Katie’s car was in the parking lot.
Caleb swerved into the parking lot and slammed on his brakes, parking his truck right next to Katie’s sedan. The cease and desist order notice was still clearly visible on makeshift door. Katie was nowhere to be found outside.
Dammit! Didn’t that woman have any regard for the law at all?
Feeling like a locomotive as he climbed out of the truck and slammed the door, he walked to the plywood door he’d made with Katie and pushed it open. Despite the noise he’d made, he’d surprised her when he walked inside.
She bolted upright from sweeping dirt into a dustpan and dropped the contents all over the floor again.
“You’re going to need a shovel, not a dustpan to clean this place up.”
Rubber barrels were placed throughout the chapel. Caleb could tell already that Katie had been here for hours as it looked much tidier than it had on the day the roof collapsed. He glanced up to the ceiling and saw plywood was now covering the big hole that had let all the snow in and weakened the beam. A brace had been put under two sections of the beam to help shore up the roof and prevent it from caving in again.
The snow on the floor had been shoveled away or melted. He felt heat coming from somewhere, since the windows were open a few inches, he quickly decided there was most likely a propane heater somewhere tucked in a corner that he couldn’t see. The large beams that had hit him on the back and the head were no longer inside the chapel.
When had she had time to get this done?
“Katie, you’re making a habit of this, and I don’t like it. What part of cease and desist don’t you get?”
Katie still looked startled by being found inside the building. Still, she propped her fists on her hip and lifted her chin. “I’m not letting that Hollywood guy keep me from getting this job done. The court date to lift the cease and desist order is in a few days. I wasn’t going to let another snowfall cause any more damage, so I called Ash and he and a few of his friends came down and took care of shoring up the roof. It’s only a patch. The whole roof needs to be replaced. But until that happens, at least I’ll be able to save these floors from being ruined.”
“Do you think that rules don’t apply to you?”
“You’re not one for following rules much yourself. I know for a fact the doctor said you weren’t supposed to drive yet. Don’t tell me you hitched a ride with someone. Because I won’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want. I’m here. And so are you. And neither one of us are supposed to be because that sign to cease and desist is still on the door.”
She waved him off. “That’s just a technicality. We’re working on that.”
“Well, while you working on it, you can’t be working in here. You know that.”
“You’re not working at all right now so you can’t arrest me.”
“Someone else can. Someone who isn’t as nice as me.”
“I’m not working, per se. I’m just cleaning up. I want to get rid of a lot of this debris. That way when I get out of court and the judge throws Mr. and Ex-Mrs. Callahan off my back, workers can get in here and we can hit the ground running.”
“You still shouldn’t be here alone. You never know if that Hollywood lawyer or one of his lawyers will stop by to see if you’re complying.”
“What are you doing here anyway? You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I’m sick of
