by Lynne Gentry
“You know where he lives. Why didn’t you go make your case?”
Saul’s cove was as close to heaven as anything she’d seen in this part of Texas. “The man is...so different than...”
“Roy? Or J.D?” Roxie’s ability to hit the nail on the head could be as irritating as comforting.
Leona closed the cabinet door with her hip. “I can’t bury another man.”
“Then you might as well curl up and die right now because you sure ain’t livin’, girlfriend.”
“Saul has his practice. He’s seen the world at war. He has no interest in seeing it at peace. He intends to stay in Mt. Hope the rest of his life.”
“I don’t see you spending your millions traveling the globe.”
“Not yet. But I intend to.”
“You don’t even get your face wet in the shower. How are going to travel over water?”
“Saul implied the same thing.” Sweat trickled down her neck. How dare Saul think he knew her simply because she’d balked about dancing on his dock. “Neither of you know what I might do someday.”
“Someday?” Roxie snorted. “What if that someday never comes, girlfriend? What if someday is right now?”
Tater started barking and scrambled for the front door.
“The kids are here.” Leona shook her finger in her friend’s face. “Not a word about Saul.”
“What if he shows up?”
“I saw his face when he realized I didn’t tell him about Africa. He’s not coming.”
“But he’s tried to get ahold of you.”
“Probably to tell me he’s Ruthie’s partner and after he thought it over, he couldn’t possibly leave that dear woman high and dry.”
“See, he is a gentleman.”
Leona shook her finger one more time. “Tonight is not about me.”
“It never is.” Roxie deflected Leona’s glare and zipped her pinched forefinger and thumb across her lips. “Sealed.”
“Momma!” Maddie called from the living room.
“Coming!” Leona ran the entire length of the short hall. “Maddie!” She swallowed her beautiful daughter in a thrilled hug. “You’re so skinny.”
“So are you.” Maddie dropped her purse on the couch and held Leona at arm’s length for a closer examination. “Have you been exercising?”
“She’s dancing,” David set Maddie’s suitcase on the floor. “With Roy McGee.”
“The missionary who used to bring us mangos from Africa?”
“I’ve had one lesson.” Leona didn’t mention her dancing practice and she cast a warning reminder Roxie’s way to make sure she didn’t mention Saul either. “With an old friend.”
“Dancing? With an old friend?” Maddie seemed equally surprised and impressed. “What next? Drinking?”
“That too,” Roxie quipped.
Why had she told Roxie about the spiked lemonade? “Are you hungry, Maddie?”
“She better be.” David surveyed the small living room. “Momma’s spread would feed an army.”
“Amy’s eating for two now.” Leona winked at her daughter-in-law.
“Don’t blame me for this excess.” Amy glowed, her hand resting on her growing midsection.
“Blame Parker.” Roxie popped another piece of cereal in her mouth.
Maddie’s eyes narrowed. “Parker?”
Leona pulled the plastic wrap off the vegetables and dip. “I thought it would be like old times to include him, tonight.”
David’s face scrunched into an angry snarl. “Momma, you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone our news.”
“I haven’t told him.” Leona dredged a carrot through the creamy sauce. “You don’t have to either. You can do the reveal after he leaves. I just thought your best friend deserved to hear your good news before you announce it to everyone.”
David sighed. “You’ve got a point.” He looked at Amy. “What do you think, babe?”
“Tell him.” Amy patted her tiny bulge. “Parker’s proved he can keep a secret better than anyone in this town. No one knew he was leaving.”
“Where’s he going?” Maddie’s antenna shot up despite her best efforts to act uninterested, which pleased Leona immensely.
“Guatemala.” David reached for a piece of celery.
“Another mission trip?” Maddie asked.
David poked a piece of celery in the dip. “Permanent change of residence.”
Maddie’s face sobered for a second and then quickly recovered. “He always said he wanted to go.” She smiled. “Good for him.”
Unwilling to believe Maddie was genuinely happy to hear Parker was living his dream without her, Leona glanced out the window. “You can tell him yourself, Maddie. He just pulled in the drive.”
“Momma—”
Roxie interrupted Maddie’s protest. “Leona, why don’t David and I let Parker in while you and Amy give Maddie a tour of your new house?” Roxie wiped her hands on her skinny jeans.
“Great idea.” Leona picked up Maddie’s bag. “That’ll give Maddie a chance to freshen up from her long flight.”
Maddie rolled her eyes at Amy. “Momma’s house may be different, but her inability to stay out of my life hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Lucky you.” Amy grabbed Maddie’s bag.
“I’ll carry that.” Maddie relieved Amy of the bag. “Sorry, Amy.”
“Your Momma means well,” Amy chided, looping her arm through Maddie’s.
“Don’t tell me she’s growing on you.”
“I heard that.” Leona couldn’t help but smile at the sound of their laughter. Moving out and giving Amy space had advanced their relationship. Now, to move in and set to work on her plan for Maddie.
The girls followed Leona down the hall and into the freshly painted bedroom. “I barely got the place put together in time for your arrival.” Leona closed the door.
“No pink?” Maddie’s edgy tone meant the conversation about Parker wasn’t over.
“No beige either.”
Maddie set her bag on a chair next to a table with a reading lamp. “Did you bring me home because Parker is leaving?”
“What can it hurt to tell him goodbye?”
“I know you mean well, but let me say this as gently as possible. I’m not going to marry, at least not any time soon. Maybe never. Parker’s a great guy, but we want different things.”
Leona eased onto the bed. “Girls.” She patted the empty space on either side of her, inviting Maddie and Amy to join her. “Amy, tell her how nice it is to have someone to come home to.”
“I don’t think I want to be in the middle of this.” Amy started to rise and Leona grabbed her hand.
“But Amy has made time for David, a career, and now, a baby.” Leona pulled Amy back to the bed. “It is possible to have it all, Maddie.”
“Momma, you loved Daddy. You spent the last thirty years raising me and David. All of that’s gone now. I think you’re projecting your loneliness on me.” Stung by truth for the second time in five minutes. Was the Lord trying to tell her something? “So, it might be fun hanging out with a fellow who looks like Crocodile Dundee and keeps you stocked in dried mangos.”
“She’s got a point, Leona,” Amy said, getting even for being forced into their feud.
Leona shot an exasperated look at Amy. “Roy’s an old friend.”
“Who’s asked her to go to Africa,” Amy added.
“Really?” Maddie’s eyes sparkled with the possibility that she’d stumbled upon the key to diverting this conversation. “I think you should be wicked and go, Momma.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Maddie kissed her cheek. “I know, but it was worth a shot.”
“Momma!” David knocked on the door then stuck his head in. “Your dancing partner is here.”
Maddie jumped off the bed. “I haven’t seen Roy in years.”
“It’s not Roy.” David didn’t hide his displeasure. “Care to explain why Saul Levy’s here
looking like your prom date, Momma?”
“Ugh.” Leona’s shoulders sagged. “Tell him I’m not going tonight.”
David came in and closed the door behind him. “The less I say to that sawed-off shotgun, the better.”
“Saul Levy?” Maddie’s grin took on a mischievous slant. “Momma’s dating two men at the same time?”
“It’s not what y’all are thinking.”
“I hope not, Momma,” David said. “Saul Levy is a jerk.”
The man who’d waltzed her around the lake was in no way a jerk. Leona stood and smoothed her skirt. “Who I choose to dance with is none of your business.”
“My point exactly.” Maddie crossed her arms. “It’s miserable when someone’s trying to tell you how to live your life, isn’t it?”
Leona yanked the bedroom door open and stormed down the hall. She marched into the cluster of Saul, Roxie, and Parker and extended her right hand. “Saul, I’m sorry we failed to connect this week.”
He took her hand and held on. “The failure is all mine.”
That he’d taken the blame for her refusal to talk set Leona back a few beats. “Maddie came into town for the weekend. We’re having a little family party tonight. I’ll have to miss our dance lesson. Sorry for the misunderstanding.” She squeezed his hand in hopes he would somehow know she meant her regret had nothing to do with dance lessons.
He smiled at her, a warm forgiving smile that said they’d never been enemies in his eyes. “Sometimes wires get crossed.”
Crossed was an understatement? She’d allowed the court of public opinion, of which her children were judge and jury, to twist more than the thin wire connecting her to this man. Her emotions were so knotted it would take years to completely unravel them. Years she didn’t want to waste worrying about what others thought.
Casting reason aside, Leona smiled and said, “Then I say it’s time to uncross them.” She threw her arms around Saul and gave him a big hug. To her relief, he hugged her back. When she pulled away, his expression leaned more toward charmed amusement than surprise. “I’d love for you to join us, Mr. Levy.”
“It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Harper.”
Leona didn’t have to glance over her shoulder to know David and Maddie’s mouths were hanging ajar.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Roxie pulled Leona into the kitchen and crowed, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, girlfriend.” She held her palm up for a high-five, which Leona purposely ignored.
“What in the world made me think inviting Saul to stay was a good idea?” Leona slumped against the wall and dropped her head into her hands.
“Nothing else matters—” Roxie lifted her chin. “—when you’re in love, my friend.”
Love? Even when she was young and giddy and falling in love with J.D., she’d never counted butterfly stirrings in her belly as love. Whenever she was around Roy, it was more like the time some rude boys pushed her into the camp lake and she thought she was drowning. Saul was what it felt like when her feet finally found the shore. Saul was solid ground.
“I don’t think so, Roxie.”
“David will come around.”
“He called him a sawed-off shotgun.”
“To his face?”
“No.” At least she hoped Saul hadn’t heard their discussion. “They’ve been at odds since we discovered J.D.’s will. David thinks Saul is after my money!”
Roxie led Leona to one of her new kitchenette stools. “David loved his daddy. J.D.’s secret hurt him. He’s got to blame somebody.” She wiggled her tight jeans aboard the opposite stool. “Your son also loves you, Leona. Give him a minute or two. David wants you to be happy and once he calms down, he’ll see what I see.”
“A foolish old woman?”
“A woman whose eyes are finally beginning to sparkle again.”
“Momma?” Maddie stuck her head in the kitchen. “We need a referee.”
“Here we go.” Leona snatched a tray of little sandwiches from the fridge. “If I can keep their mouths full of chicken salad maybe I can keep them from eating each other.”
She waltzed into the living room just as David asked Saul, “What do you mean, Dad helped you renovate your lake house?”
“I’d been living in my RV for a while. J.D. thought I’d feel more settled if I could move into the house. So he offered to help me pour the porch slab,” Saul said.
Leona froze. “When?”
Saul’s face sobered. He took a deep breath and said, “A few days before he died.”
Now, no one moved. The sandwich tray grew heavier and heavier in Leona’s hands. Had the physical exertion added to J.D.’s stress and contributed to his heart attack?
She swallowed. “I guess I didn’t know you and J.D. were more than lawyer and client, pastor and occasional parishioner.”
Saul’s eyes pleaded with her to understand. “We were friends.”
“And so you think that gives you the right to make a move on his wife?”
“James David!” Leona set the tray down. “That’s enough.”
“I’m sorry, Momma.” David snagged Amy’s hand. “We better go.” He stopped in front of Saul. “I apologize, Mr. Levy. I’m obviously very protective when it comes to my mother.”
“As a good son should be.”
David and Amy left. Leona wanted to go after them to assure David he wasn’t the only one blindsided by the revelation.
“Maddie,” Roxie’s voice broke the awkward silence. “Why don’t you and Parker come help me tidy up the kitchen?” Roxie picked up the sandwich tray and Maddie and Parker didn’t just follow her out, they ran out, leaving Leona and Saul to face each other alone.
Leona didn’t know why she felt the need to fix this. After all, this revelation was one more painful reminder she hadn’t known her husband as intimately as she’d always thought. “David may be his father’s son, but he inherited my temper.”
Saul offered a forgiving chuckle, which had the surprising effect of eliciting a laugh from her. It wasn’t Saul’s responsibility to keep her in the loop of her husband’s friendships. It was J.D. she was still mad at.
She waved toward the couch. “Care to sit?”
He nodded and sat opposite her. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I didn’t know you and J.D. hung out.”
“I assumed you knew your husband was fishing off my dock and helping me restore the cabin.”
“Finding out you didn’t know everything about the man you thought you knew better than yourself is ...”
“Unsettling?”
She nodded. “What did you talk about?” She stopped his protest with a raised finger. “Don’t think you’re going to get away with claiming that lawyer-client privilege stuff.”
A smile lifted his mustache. “Politics. Religion. The weather.” His gaze tangled with hers. “Everything.”
“Me?”
“He worried about you.”
“Because I’d never done anything on my own?”
“He knew you’d sacrificed a lot to become a pastor’s wife. Your career. Financial security. Travel. The privacy you craved. J.D. wanted to make certain you knew how much he counted on you, appreciated everything you did, and wanted you to have what you needed to start over...if anything happened to him before he had the chance to tell you personally.”
“He had thirty years to tell me.”
“But he showed you every day, didn’t he?”
Gas in her van. Plumbing repairs made on his day off. Her computer mistakes salvaged. Saul was right. J.D.’s way with words shined brightest in the pulpit, but his ability to show love resonated in simple everyday actions. “And so the two of you planned the reinvention of Leona Harper?”
“I promised him I’d carry out his wishes.”
“J.D. didn’t think I could take care of myself?”
“Just the opposite. And now that I’ve gotten to know you, I see why.” Saul rubbed his palms, the friction audible. “My wife wa
s a wonderful woman, in every way. I’ve not admired another woman as I did her ... until now.” Saul gaze was trained on hers. “I’ve spent my life being prepared for anything, as well as helping others do the same. But I wasn’t prepared...”
Leona’s heart tripped. Is this where he told her that she and her family were crazy? That he wanted no part of her reinvention or spending Sunday afternoons grilling steaks at the lake or practicing their dance moves on moonlit docks...she made her mind stop running ahead.
Something told her not to say another word. To wait. Patiently.
Saul stopped rubbing his palms. “But I wasn’t’ prepared for falling in love with you,” he whispered as he reached for her hand. His thumb gently grazed her knuckles. “If wanting to dance with you forever is making a move on you, then I’m guilty as charged.”
In love?
While the faint strains of Let’s Fall in Love played in her head, the picture of David’s pained face flashed in her eyes. What was she doing? She had no business falling in love with anyone, much less someone her son couldn’t stand to be in the same room with.
“Grief can do strange things to our memories. Make things seem worse than they were.” She pulled free of Saul’s gentle caress. “It’s time I stop looking at yesterday through today’s lens.”
Saul’s brow knit in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“Even if J.D. hadn’t left me a dime, he left me a lifetime of memories. Being alone is hard. Harder than anything I’ve ever done. I think I’ve been filtering past memories through my current pain. Grief makes it harder to remember the good.” She rubbed the tiny stone of her wedding ring. “Truth is, J.D. and I had a wonderful marriage and a wonderful life. We trusted each other. He wasn’t trying to hurt me by keeping his investments a secret, was he?”
“He believed you to be a woman more than capable of standing on her own two feet.”
“Thank you.” Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t think I realized, until now, how much J.D. loved me ... and ...” Elephant-sized grief plopped on her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.
“And how much you still love him.” The lack of judgment in Saul’s tone was a balm to her soul, but the sadness in his eyes broke her heart.