Into the Garden

by Robert Hass

  Lord, I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified. Give me wisdom.

  As if Sloan knew she was still standing at the end of the hall staring his way with a longing too strong to ignore, he glanced back over one shoulder and winked.

  Chapter Five

  Annie helped Lydia from the bed to the chair next to the wide windows overlooking the gardens. The older woman was growing weaker each day and slept more than she was awake. Sloan was usually hovering in the doorway when his aunt opened her eyes, an action that pinched Annie’s heart.

  As she adjusted the oxygen tubing, she asked, “Would you like a snack, or something to drink? You haven’t eaten much today. I have some fresh melon and strawberries.”

  The move from bed to chair had taken a toll. Lydia, still catching her breath, only shook her head. Until recently, she’d read or crochet while sitting up, but this week, Sloan had begun reading to her, and the beginnings of a stocking cap for the orphan ministry lay unfinished in the basket.

  Lydia was determined to attend the upcoming wedding of Cheyenne Rhodes and the local vet, Trace Bowman, but after these last few days, Annie had her doubts.

  “I’m not sure you should try to go Saturday.”

  She adjusted her patient’s lap robe, fussing with it more than was necessary. Annie had come to love this woman when she was a child and she loved her even more now that they were together every day. The idea of losing her grew more and more difficult to accept. She could only imagine how Sloan was feeling.

  Lydia patted her hand. “I’ll be fine, honey. Stop worrying. Sloan promised to take me.”

  “He did?”

  Lydia’s chuckle turned to a cough, and another minute passed before she could speak again. “He’s a good man, Annie. I think you know that in your heart. Don’t be afraid of him.” She nodded toward the window. “Just look out there.”

  Annie had resisted watching Sloan with Justin, but now she did. The lacy white curtains were drawn to the sides in a swoop, giving a full view of the backyard through the large double windows. As she observed, a lump in her throat, Sloan fired a fast grounder toward Justin. Her son crouched low, scooped up the ball and fired it back. Sloan said something and grinned. Justin’s laugh seeped through the walls of the house and into Annie’s soul. When was the last time she’d heard her little boy laugh with real joy?

  “But why hasn’t Sloan been here for you before now, Lydia? Why did he leave you alone all this time?” And why did he run out on me when I would have stood by him no matter what he’d done?

  “Oh, honey, Sloan has always been here for me.”

  Annie turned from the window. “Then why haven’t I seen him? Is he the invisible man?”

  Lydia chuckled. “Just because he wasn’t here in person doesn’t mean he wasn’t in contact. Who do you think took me to Italy and France and all those other places? Who do you think paid for the repairs on this old house and anything else I need? Coming home was too hard, but Sloan has never forgotten his old auntie.” Lydia stopped for air, the sound ragged and harsh in the quiet room. “Now, don’t you tell him I said a word. He’s funny about that. Never wants credit for anything good he does.”

  The revelation stunned Annie. She looked out at the scene in the backyard, felt that clutching again in her chest, and wondered what else she didn’t know about Sloan Hawkins.

  “If you have something to tell him, Annie, don’t wait too long. Time has a way of slipping by.”

  Annie jerked her attention from the window to Lydia, pulse bumping. “What do you mean?”

  “Remember that verse in the Bible? ‘The truth will set you free?’ It applies in a lot of situations.”

  The truth. She’d lived half-truths and plain old lies for so long, Annie wasn’t sure she knew the truth anymore.

  She blew out a sigh. “How long have you known?”

  “If you’re talking about Justin, I didn’t know for sure. But I’ve suspected for a long time. Seeing the two of them together—well, I just knew.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Lydia reached out and took her hand. “I love you, Annie girl. You’re like a daughter to me. I never wanted to embarrass you or add to your hurt, and I sure never wanted to interfere in anyone else’s business, but now that I’m dying, I’ve become a selfish old lady. I want things settled.”

  Tears filled Annie’s eyes. “Oh, Lydia, I love you.”

  Lydia patted her hand. “Be kind to my boy. He’s got a ways to go before all the wounds are healed. I thought I’d live to see him happy, but—”

  Suddenly, Sloan’s cell phone burst into song. The device rang or chirped with text messages dozens of times a day, so she was surprised to see the black rectangle lying on the windowsill in Lydia’s room.

  “He forgot that noisy thing when he was in earlier,” Lydia said. “Do you mind taking it to him?”

  Head spinning, Annie was sorry for the interruption, but she took the phone and headed outside. Never once in twelve years had she told a single person other than Joey. And though he’d assured her he didn’t care, in the end he’d despised her for her sin. Would Sloan hate her, too, if he knew? Worse yet, would she lose her son? He was already a bubbling cauldron of emotional issues. Would the truth about his parentage send him over the edge?

  Since the day Sloan had arrived, she’d prayed for God to show her what to do. He hadn’t. With this growing appreciation of the man she’d vowed to despise, she was more perplexed than ever.

  The June warmth wrapped an arm around her as she jogged down the steps toward the pair of moody males. The summer blooms that had survived in Lydia’s garden were wilting, even though Sloan had made progress on ripping out weeds and unwanted mimosa sprouts. He still had a big job to do. Annie hoped Lydia would live long enough to see her garden restored.

  A baseball smacked against leather.

  “No way,” Justin was saying.

  “Won’t kill you, kid. You owe your mom big-time.”

  Justin took the ball from the glove pocket and looked it over with undue interest. “Yeah, I know.”

  Annie stopped. He did?

  “A man pays his debts.” Sloan raised his baseball mitt, a glove as disreputable as its owner’s jeans. Where had he found that? “Give me your best shot.”

  “Pretty brave, dude. I got heat.” Justin grinned, wound up like a pro pitcher and threw hard, grunting with the effort. The ball went wide left toward the picket fence, and Sloan missed the catch. He loped to the fence and as he did, he spotted Annie standing inside the garden gate.

  “Your phone,” she called, waving the device overhead. By now, the caller had given up, but the message signal had beeped.

  Sloan slapped at his pants pocket as though he couldn’t believe he’d left the phone somewhere. The device was part of his body.

  “Thanks.” He under-handed the ball to Justin. “Take five, kid. Let’s run my offer past your mother.”

  Justin’s sulk returned. “Whatever.”

  Annie went to join them beneath the shade of a mimosa. “What offer?”

  “Justin broke the windows,” Sloan said. “He should pay for them himself. I offered him a job working on Aunt Lydia’s garden with me. Minimum wage. Bonus if he’s worth it.”

  Annie’s heart leaped into her throat. “Seriously? You’d do that?”

  “I need the help. He needs the job. Right, Justin?”

  Justin allowed a shoulder hitch, eyes averted to be sure the adults knew how disinterested he was. “Sure, whatever.”

  A grin broke over Sloan’s face. “I like this kid. Great attitude. Reminds me of someone I used to know.”

  The joking comment was like ice water in Annie’s face. Emotions jumbled and another headache starting, she turned back to the house and her patient. She had some serious praying to do.

  Sloan hated weddings.

  For the dozenth time in the last hour, he adjusted the new silk tie he’d had to buy for this wedding of two people he ba
rely knew. But his aunt asked for so little, and if attending the wedding of two friends was that important to her, he was going to see that she not only attended, but that she had a good time and was well cared for. Not that Annie wasn’t hovering like a mother hen.

  He grinned a little at that. She’d done everything possible to talk Lydia out of going, but his aunt had insisted, stating that she’d prayed for those two to be healed from their heartaches and joined in love, and she was not about to miss God’s handiwork coming to fruition. After that, Annie had given in and begun her meticulous preparations to give Lydia the day she wanted.

  So had Sloan. After a hard, sweaty day in the sunny garden with the sulky but surprisingly useful Justin, he’d come inside to shower and dress while Annie whisked the kid home to get herself ready. He liked the boy, another surprise, just as he liked the cute little Delaney, who spent most days with her grandma, but on others roamed in and out of Lydia’s house with glasses of lemonade or drawings for them to admire.

  Annie’s kids. He plopped down on the foot of the ancient four-poster and stared at his gleaming black shoes. Their old man didn’t know what he was missing. Joey needed his behind kicked for throwing Annie and the kids aside. Justin, in particular, needed his father.

  With a grunt, Sloan tossed the comb on the counter. Nothing he could do about Joey’s problems, or even Annie’s, for that matter.

  He shrugged into his suit jacket and checked himself out in the mirror one final time. A spritz of cologne and he’d do. At least he wouldn’t shame his aunt, and Redemption wouldn’t run backward today when they got a load of that Hawkins boy.

  The radio clock gleamed red from the nightstand. Sloan grimaced. Time to get the show on the road. After straightening his tie one last time, he jogged down the stairs.

  From the front entry came the sound of voices. Annie and her kids had arrived. Butterflies fluttered in his belly. He rolled his eyes at the juvenile reaction and went to greet the trio.

  With the two children in front of her, Annie glanced up just as he appeared in the hallway. Dark blond hair backlit by the sunlight coming in from the overhead transom, she looked like an angel. Sloan’s butterflies returned. To date, he’d only seen her dressed in work scrubs. Today she wore high heels and some kind of flowy print dress in a shade of green that drew attention to her eyes and her curvy figure. Long, dangly pearls dripped from her earlobes and a simple pearl bracelet slid up and down on one wrist. He didn’t want to notice, but like a man too long in the Sahara he drank in the beautiful sight.

  “Wow,” he said, in spite of himself. His pulse kicked up and shot a zing of energy into his bloodstream. Annie Markham was a knockout, a woman any man would be proud to have at his side.

  He bit back the reaction. All the reasons she couldn’t be by his side rolled around in his gut until he was nauseous.

  Her generous mouth widened in a smile. Was that a blush of pleasure he detected on those unforgettable cheeks? “Wow yourself. Look at you in a suit and tie.”

  Determined to keep a light tone in spite of the leap of longing eating a hole inside him, he rubbed his smooth jawline. “Shaved, too. What do ya think?”

  “I think you look—” Sloan’s confidence rose as Annie’s gaze roamed over his navy blue suit and red tie. Her mouth opened and closed as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say. She finally ended with “—distinguished.”

  “Distinguished?” He pretended hurt. “You might as well have said ‘Presentable.’”

  “Well, you’re that, too,” she answered, with a small laugh.

  “What about handsome and manly and super-hunk?”

  Justin interrupted with a noise of disgust. “You two are boring. Can we go now?”

  “But, Justin,” little Delaney said. “They do look pretty. You look pretty, too.”

  The boy had changed remarkably in the last couple of hours. Somehow Annie had coaxed him into dark, crisply creased slacks and a white button-up shirt with a blue tie. His ragged sneakers had been replaced with black dress shoes, his hair was moist with hair gel, and he looked as stiff as his shoes probably felt. Sloan felt his pain.

  Justin rolled his eyes in that familiar way he had of showing total disgust. “Guys aren’t pretty. We dress up because women make us. Right, Sloan?”

  Sloan grinned. “No comment, buddy. I don’t have a death wish. Just remember what I told you. Keep your eye on the prize.”

  “Oh, yeah. Cake and punch.”

  They bumped fists. “Right.”

  Not to be outdone, Delaney insinuated herself between the two males. Sloan emitted a low whistle of admiration. “Let me see that dress you’re wearing, Miss Delaney Doodle-bug.”

  She giggled. “You’re silly.”

  Then she preened for him, spinning in a circle on her white sandals so that her skirt and her long blond hair twirled. “This was my Easter dress but I still like it. Purple is my favorite color.”

  No surprise there. Half the drawings she’d done for him featured some shade of purple.

  “You’re a beauty.” He looked above her head to where Annie was standing. Their gazes connected and held.

  Everything in him wanted to say “Gorgeous like your mother,” but he was treading on thin ice today emotionally. No point in getting himself kicked in the teeth.

  Seeing Annie dressed up for a wedding was doing weird things to him.

  “We’d better get Lydia in the car and go,” he said, more gruffly than he’d intended.

  Annie moistened her lips and nodded. “I parked by the ramp you installed.”

  “Thanks for taking your car.”

  The comment seemed to break the tension. “I doubt she would ride on your Harley.”

  “Sure she would,” he said, joking.

  But would Annie?

  Sloan hissed at the unwanted question. He and Annie were over long ago. Why were his head and his heart going crazy today?

  Redemption Fellowship was humming with quiet conversation as Annie guided her two children and her patient down the aisle. Sloan pushed Lydia’s wheelchair, the fingers of his hands tense against the handles. She knew he was anxious about attending church, but he hid it well behind the confident swagger that had driven her father mad and fueled her teenage crush.

  Heads turned as they passed and people nodded or called out a greeting. Sloan’s return greeting was almost grim. He had been defensive for so long, expecting everyone to reject him, that she wondered if he could see the admiration on the faces around them. She had always thought him the handsomest man she’d ever known, but in a dress shirt that matched his blue eyes and a red tie that accented his dark hair, he was the stuff dreams were made of. Her dreams, anyway.

  But she’d learned the hard way not to be fooled by dreams.

  “Is this seat okay?” the usher asked, indicating a vacant pew with access to a side exit. “You’ll have the end and the door in case Miss Lydia needs to leave.”

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” Lydia answered, but her voice was frightfully weak and raspy today. The preparations alone had taken too much out of her, but though she’d argued, Annie had not been able to change her mind about attending.

  With a smile, Annie said, “This is perfect.”

  Sloan positioned himself next to Lydia, and Delaney plopped down on his other side, whispering excitedly about the pretty lavender flowers and bows decorating the church. Needing to be near her patient, Annie sat beside her daughter with Justin at her elbow. This close she could smell Sloan’s cologne—a subtle, expensively masculine mix of spice and sandalwood that had driven her to distraction in the car. She’d be salivating by the time the wedding ended if she didn’t find something to take her mind off Sloan Hawkins.

  Fortunately, the wedding music commenced. Traditional notes of “Amazing Grace” played on a violin accompanied the groom, the minister and the best man as they made their way to the front of the church. Annie had known Doctor Trace Bowman both personally and professionally since
he’d moved to Redemption, and she had never seen him happier than in the last year since he and the darkly intense woman from Colorado had fallen in love. Today he radiated happiness as his daughter, the effervescent Zoey, made her way carefully down the aisle, strewing rose petals along the way. For a blind child, Zoey was remarkably confident, but her grandmother, Trace’s mother, walked behind, one hand resting lightly on the child’s shoulder.

  Then the music changed and the congregation stood as a unit. A little thrill raced along Annie’s arms. She loved weddings, especially this moment when the bride appeared in all her glory and the groom got that thunderstruck expression on his face.

  Cheyenne, a former police officer who had overcome a terrible violent attack to become a champion to battered women, floated down the aisle on her father’s arm. Her dark beauty was glorious in a long, ivory dress of simple design, her ink-black hair lying in wispy layers on her bare shoulders.

  The ceremony began and Annie couldn’t help watching the faces of the guests. Half the town was here. Miriam and Hank Martinelli from the Sugar Shack—who had, no doubt, created the cake du jour—exchanged frequent glances that made Annie smile. The couple had been married for years, but their devotion burned bright.

  Kitty Wainright, the maid of honor, sniffled. Jace Carter, a local building contractor, was watching the pretty motel owner with such intensity, Annie began to wonder. Did Kitty have an admirer? If she did, would she ever let go of her memories and take a chance on love again?

  Lydia coughed and Annie’s attention snapped to her, but Sloan had leaned forward, blocking her view. After a moment, he sat back and she could see that her patient was all right.

  She turned her attention back to the ceremony. Trace and Cheyenne, gazing at each other with trust and adoration, repeated their vows. A hot knot tightened in Annie’s chest—a knot of yearning to love and be loved forever. Tears gathered in her eyes. She always cried at weddings but today with the memories of the past sitting an arm’s length away, the emotion was raw.