Page 126 of To Believe In You
No one in Awestruck or Key of Hope wished them anything but happiness, and they would have it. The future, in every way that mattered, was certain in the hands of the Lord.
36
Three months later
Lina tilted her head, focused on the sideview mirror. Behind the vehicle where she sat with Matt, Awestruck’s tour bus loomed. In the years she’d worked for the band, she’d spent a cumulative total of four weeks living in a bus. Even then, she’d never stepped foot into the band’s own bus. That would change after their next stop, when she and Matt would join Gannon, John, Erin, Adeline, and Tim in the vehicle that now tailed them.
She, Adeline, and Erin were all tagging along for the first week of the tour. Then, Erin and Lina would return to their jobs in Wisconsin while Adeline continued with the band.
This year’s schedule included at least a week off every month. If that didn’t prove enough for Erin and John, Erin was considering a job change—the couple liked to throw around ideas about opening a custom auto shop. Like Adeline, Erin would hire someone to run the day-to-day, freeing her up to travel as she pleased. As for Lina, she and Matt weren’t engaged, and she’d save any job adjustments until after the wedding.
If there was a wedding.
Matt lifted her hand from the broad center console and kissed the back of her fingers.
There would be a wedding.
She squeezed his hand. “Does your commercial license cover tour buses?”
His eyes lit. “Yeah, but it’s about to expire, and I think there’s a reason the bus is staying behind us until we’re almost to Visser Landscaping.”
Lina snorted. Both the bus behind them and the truck Matt was driving seemed to be doing fine in the thin layer of snow that had fallen overnight. “They don’t trust you to not rear-end them?”
“It is a risk.”
“As if those ever stopped you.”
“Me? No. Them?” He tipped his head side to side.
Lina settled back into her seat. She hadn’t expected the interior of a dump truck to remind her of a cockpit, but the dash angled to give the driver access to a surprising number of controls. A massive center console separated her from Matt, who drove the thing as casually as the pickup he’d purchased a couple of months before.
They’d driven this same road in the smaller truck when she’d accompanied him to spend the holidays with his family. The warmth and love of the celebration had reminded her of Christmas with her grandparents. She looked at the blue sapphire ring she wore daily.
The stolen pieces hadn’t been recovered. The contacts Shane had shared with the police had evaporated like morning fog. With the insurance money, she’d commissioned a jeweler to make rings using gemstones from some of the pieces remaining in the safety deposit box. Still, it wasn’t the same, and most days, she opted for the one original ring she still owned.
As for the stamps, Shane had overestimated the collection’s worth, but Grandpa had acquired a few valuable enough to warrant insurance. Other than when she occasionally paged through the collection, she stored the stamp book in a case that met the appraiser’s recommendations for protecting the delicate collectables from the threats of humidity, light, and thieves. Not that anyone had attempted to steal from her since Shane.
She imagined Grandma would be proud. Lina was learning not only to manage her wealth, but to use it for good. She’d set up scholarships for Key of Hope graduates to pursue music in college, and she was talking with her advisors about other opportunities.
Shane was still in custody, awaiting trial. The charges against him were serious, and the district attorney seemed confident in the case.
However the trial—or anything else—went, Lina knew who to trust. The Lord was her protector and defender. If Grandma could hear her thoughts, she’d utter a heartfeltamen.
And what might Grandma have thought of Matt? If she were around, he would drive the reserved woman crazy sometimes, Lina guessed, but she also imagined him taking Grandma for a spin in a golf cart, him driving a little too fast, her holding on and roaring with laughter.
Lina’s reverie ended as her phone rang. She checked the display and then scanned the white countryside stretching outside her windows. “How long do I have?”
Matt glanced at her, a shadow passing over his handsome features. “Who is it?”
“Dad.” She’d been meaning to talk to him. He’d been cleared in the investigation into Shane, but he wasn’t innocent. He’d sent Shane, and he still hadn’t given up his campaign for her to sell The Captain’s Vista.
“Ten minutes.”
That would be long enough. Lina took a steadying breath and answered. “I don’t appreciate you sharing my contact information with strangers, Dad.”
“Jeremy isn’t a stranger. He’s an associate of mine and very talented at what he does.”
Jeremy was in the hotel industry, and he’d emailed to convince her to part with the house in Maine. She’d copied her father on her response, explaining to both that the supposed “money pit” more than paid for itself as a vacation rental. “I already shared my answer, and I don’t want to keep repeating it.”
