Free Road Trip by Jan Fields

an extra prayer or two, we’d take them.”
    “You know I will,” Annie agreed.
    “So how is everything so far?” LeeAnn asked. “Seen anything interesting?”
    Annie settled into describing the hotel, the beautiful display for Betsy and even the attempted car theft. “Oh my,” LeeAnn said. “I am so glad no one was hurt. You should know better than to rush at thieves. What if they’d had guns?”
    “We didn’t exactly rush them,” Annie said. “And they ran away, so we weren’t even close to them really. I never even got a good look at one of them.”
    “Still, you can be way too brave for your own good sometimes,” LeeAnn said. “Now, tell me again about Gram’s tribute display.”
    With a laugh, Annie described it again. She’d barely finished when LeeAnn spoke up. “I can hear Joanna calling, Mom,” LeeAnn said. “I have to run. I’ll see you Saturday, or Friday—Sunday, for sure. I love you.”
    “I love you!” Annie said as LeeAnn hung up to rush away to tend to Joanna. Annie remembered well how horrible it was to have a sick child. She’d always hated whenever LeeAnn was ill. As a mom, you just wanted to be able to instantly make things better.
    She really only knew one way to help the situation, so she bowed her head and prayed for Joanna’s quick healing and for the rest of the family to stay well. She so wanted them to share Sunday together. After praying, Annie felt much better. She settled into the wing chair in the corner of the room and finished the baby blanket for the missions cupboard.
    It was almost time to meet the others in the lobby for supper when she finished the last bit of edging. “Perfect timing,” she said. “She carefully folded the blanket and slipped it into her project bag on top of the knitted blanket from Gwen and the quilt from Peggy. Now all she had to do was track down Dorothy and hand the lovely things over to her as they’d planned.
    Over supper, Mary Beth teased Stella a bit about her new admirer. “He certainly seemed very taken with you,” Mary Beth said.
    “I do not want to discuss that odd little man,” Stella insisted.
    “I don’t know,” Mary Beth said. “He certainly went out of his way to be charming. And some women like mustaches.”
    Kate giggled at that, and Stella merely stiffened her backbone and frowned at them. “If we’re going to waste the dinner hour in idle talk, I believe I will go and sit with some of my friends from the knitting guild.”
    “That reminds me,” Annie said. “I want to be sure to find my friends from Brookfield. I need to hand over the baby blankets for the missions cupboard.”
    “Just don’t forget the fashion show practice,” Mary Beth said.
    “I won’t,” Annie assured her as she stood and picked up the bag of blankets. “I made sure to check my packet when I finished the blanket.”
    Annie wandered from table to table, but couldn’t find the Brookfield group anywhere. Now where are they? she wondered. Then it struck her. Maybe they’d gone to the exhibit room to look at Betsy’s display. She hurried out of the dining hall and headed down the long hall to the Zavala Room.
    The hallways were a little crowded with small groups carrying their dinner conversations out into the halls. As Annie passed each group, she looked into faces to be sure she didn’t accidentally pass right by her church lady friends.
    Suddenly she felt a sharp shove from behind and stumbled forward. She bumped hard into a tall stout woman in a soft sweater. At the same moment, she felt a hard jerk on her arm making her drop her project bag.
    The tall woman turned sharply to look at Annie.
    “I’m so sorry,” Annie said. “Someone bumped me.”
    The tall woman smiled. “That’s perfectly all right. It is getting busy out here.”
    Annie nodded, looking around the floor for her project bag. Had someone kicked it aside accidentally? “Have you seen a pink canvas bag?” she asked. “I dropped it when I stumbled.”
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