Free Sarah's Window by Janice Graham

not intended to drive up to the university until later in the week, but he changed his mind that morning while he had his coffee and listened to the shovel scraping against the concrete walk and thought about things past, and wondered some about the future. The encounter with Sarah seemed to have set things in motion, to have flooded his consciousness with a peculiar awareness. Even Will appeared to him in a new light, and when he looked at the strange child crawling around on the floor at his feet, there would flash across his mind the image of Sarah sleeping, and the child didn't seem quite so strange anymore.
    He rose and set his empty mug in the sink. He looked out the window at the snow-blanketed lawn and the morning sky full of dazzling light, and he thought it would indeed be a good day for a drive.
     
    He had intended to break in mid-afternoon, but he lost track of time as he usually did. He slapped shut his lap- top and quickly gathered up his work and dashed down the walk behind the research library with his coat open and flapping in the cold wind. It was getting close to nightfall when he exited the turnpike at Cassoday and cruised slowly into the town. The lights were out at the Cassoday Cafe and the place was dark inside. There was an open sign hanging askew in the front window, but when he tried the knob the door was locked. Just then the red-checkered curtains stirred, and Amy's face appeared in the window. The door opened, and she greeted him with a shy smile.
    "Hi."
    "Is Sarah here?"
    "Nope. We're closed."
    John motioned to the book and the large envelope under his arm. "I just wanted to return this. She left it over at our place last night."
    "Oh, I can give it to her."
    She held out her hand, but he only stared blankly at her. She couldn't help but notice the way disappointment washed over his face and troubled his blue eyes, and there was a sudden boyishness in his demeanor that twisted at her heart.
    "She'll be in early tomorrow. I can give it to her then."
    "Yeah. Thanks," he answered. But just as he shifted the book to his hand, there was the sound of tires crunching on the snow, and he glanced over his shoulder to see a white Bronco with the Chase County Sheriff logo emblazoned on the door pull to a stop behind him.
    "Sorry, I gotta go," Amy said as she struggled into her coat. "My dad's here." She turned to lock the door behind her. "You know, she lives just up the road in Bazaar.
    It's on your way. If you want to take it by yourself."
    "I guess I could do that."
    Amy stole a sly glance at him as she sprinted down the steps to the waiting Bronco. "It's the yellow house. You can't miss it."
     
    There is an enchantment that settles over the Hills at twilight. It is rapid and fleeting and can only be seized at just the right time in just the right confluence of light and shadow. As John drove slowly up the road to Bazaar, he sensed such a moment was on him. He took his time, glancing often at the snow-patched winter-brown hills shrouded in ever-deepening hues of violet as the sun pulled its last light from the sky. As he rounded a bend or climbed to a plateau it seemed the face of the land was always changing. The north wind blasted his car from time to time, and he had to grip the wheel tightly to keep it on the road. The stars were already out and shining with cold brilliance in the clean sky. He thought again of the letters he had read and the man who had written them, and the seductive power in the words that passed between this man and Sarah. He wondered what kind of woman Sarah was and how it could be that he had never in his thirty-some years felt quite this urgency about anyone before.
    Even in the penumbra of dusk he could make out the yellow house with peeling white trim. He slowed and turned into the driveway.
    An old man on crutches answered the door and John didn't recognize him right off, only when he gave a little hop forward out of the shadows and his face came under the porch light. A