Her Montana Christmas. Arlene James
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was quoted in every edition of the newspaper around that time saying that the bank was solvent and all was fine, but when the crash came in ’32, it failed spectacularly and was reported to be woefully undercapitalized. Shaw was quoted as saying that for him it was just a long nightmare come to an end but that he felt badly for his neighbors and depositors, whom he promised to help as much as he was able. It just seems logical that Massey had something to do with the whole situation.”
“So you’re saying that Silas Massey either forced Ezra Shaw to buy him out, which caused the bank to be undercapitalized, or he stole—”
“I’m just telling you what we’ve uncovered,” Robin interrupted smoothly.
“However it came about,” Ethan said, “there were bound to be some hard feelings. I think it’s worth looking into to see if the bells might have been a gift to the church from the Masseys.” He added that he was going to dig into some old file cabinets tucked into a closet in a back room. “I might find something of interest to the museum.”
Robin remembered that, and the next day when she found a website that showed details, as well as written instructions, for re-creating exactly the sort of decorations the pastor would need to provide a centennial-style Christmas for his congregation, she decided to print off photos and drive over to the church with them on her lunch hour. She and Olivia had their hands full getting the displays at the museum ready for viewing, but Olivia’s husband, Jack, had come into town from his ranch on an errand, so the two of them were having an early lunch together, and that gave Robin a bit of free time.
She parked right in front of the church, grabbed the file folder in which she’d stashed the printouts and hopped out of her metallic-blue hybrid coupe. Stepping up on the plank walkway, she hurried to the white-painted front door of the church. It swung open easily. She walked into the cool, strangely silent vestibule and let her eyes adjust from the bright sunlight.
The vestibule usually rang with noise and always seemed dark, despite the twin brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Not today, however. Today, a shaft of light illuminated the very center of the wide space, along with the slender metal ladder that descended from the belfry. She looked up to find an open trapdoor in the vestibule ceiling.
“Pastor?” she called, amazed at the way her voice carried in the empty room.
“Put your hands over your ears,” he called down to her.
“What?”
“Put your hands over your ears!”
“O-okay.” She tucked the file folder under one arm and clapped her gloved hands over her ears. About two seconds later, a deep, melodious bong tolled through the rock vestibule. The force of the sound made her sway on her feet. She laughed, even as she warned, “You’ll shatter the vases in here if you keep that up!”
“I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”
It was, really, like standing inside a gigantic bell.
“Come up here and see,” he urged.
Glancing around, she laid the folder on the credenza that sat against one wall and tugged off her mittens, tucking them into the pockets of her heavy wool coat, but then she hesitated.
“Robin,” he said, just before his face appeared in the open trapdoor above, “come on up. It’s perfectly safe.” He wore a knit cap and scarf with his coat.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked, moving toward the ladder.
“I recognized your voice, of course.”
“Ah.”
He reached down a gloved hand as she put a foot on the bottom rung of the wrought iron ladder.
“How does this thing work?”
“It’s very simple. There’s a tall pole with a hook on one end. I used it to slide open the trap and then to pull down the ladder. When I’m done, I’ll use it to push the ladder back up and lift it over the locking mechanism then slide the trap closed.”
“I see.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he told her, grasping her hand and all but lifting her up the last few rungs to stand next to him on a narrow metal platform fixed to one side of the tiny square open-sided belfry. In their bulky coats, they had to stand pressed shoulder to shoulder. “Take a look at this.” He swung his arm wide, encompassing the town, the valley beyond and the snowcapped mountains surrounding it all.
“Wow.”
“Exactly,” he said. “There’s a part of Psalm 98 that says, ‘Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy...’ Seeing the view like this, you can almost feel it, can’t you? The rivers and mountains praising their creator.”
“I never thought of rivers and mountains praising God,” she admitted.
“Scripture speaks many times of nature praising God and testifying to His wonders.”
“I can see why,” she said reverently.
“So can I,” he told her, smiling down at her with those warm brown eyes on her face.
Her breath caught in her throat. But she was reading too much into that look. Surely she was reading too much into it. That wasn’t appreciation she saw in his gaze. That was just her loneliness seeking connection. Wasn’t it? Though she had never felt this sudden, electrical link before, not like this, as if something vital and masculine in him reached out and touched something fundamental and feminine in her, she had to be mistaken.
He was a man of God after all.
Even if she couldn’t help thinking of him as just a man.
A shadow seemed to pass behind his brown eyes, as if he’d read her thoughts, and he turned his gaze back to the mountains, visually drinking in snowcapped peaks set against the bright blue sky and the sunshine.
After only a moment, he smiled at her, his genial self again.
Yet Robin felt a distinct chill that she hadn’t felt an instant before, a chill that even winter could not explain.
In an effort to hide her disturbing reaction to Ethan’s closeness, Robin turned away from the magnificent sight outside the belfry, leaned back lightly against the hip-high wall and gazed instead at the two bells attached to the crossbeam in front of her. Each of the bells was about as big around as Ethan was, but one was deeper than the other. He stretched out a foot and gave the nearest bell a gentle shove. It rocked to and fro, giving off a delightful peal that, while loud, did not threaten to burst Robin’s eardrums or move her bodily, as it had down below. The crossbeam remained steadfast. Had it ever been unsound, it was not now.
Suddenly, the noontime recording played, a trilling carillon, one of several that played every three hours from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily. It was neither as loud as the sound had been in the chamber below the belfry, nor as rich.
“I did a little research after you called,” he told her when the recording stopped. “I was able to find records proving that Silas Massey and his wife not only gave these bells to the church, they had the vestibule and belfry built to accommodate them.”
“The rumors that the bells were silenced in resentment after the Masseys left town were apparently true, then,” Robin said, frowning, “but why? Do you suppose it really did have something to do with problems at the bank?”
Ethan shrugged. “All I know is that it’s time for these bells to ring again. I’m going to attach some ropes and prepare to use them. Wouldn’t it be great to ring these bells for Christmas?”
Robin looked around the small, dusty space. Only the ledge where they stood was wide enough to work from, but he couldn’t reach the arm at the top of each bell, where the rope obviously attached, from here. He’d have