Callie looked away. The air felt hot and the seats were hard, but the food tasted good and the game was fun. She hadn’t been to a softball game since she’d left home. She took a deep breath and studied the scoreboard.
It wasn’t the mall or the market district in Nashville; it wasn’t a coffee shop or hanging out with her coworkers at an interior design studio. But that was okay. Amanda was here, people were nice and she had a job. It almost felt like home again.
She sneaked a glance down at Mark’s daughter. Almost.
* * *
The Hornets caught up in the third inning, but the Copperheads eventually won the game. It was hot and humid by the end of the ninth inning, and Lois’s husband, the team shortstop, was sprawled across the dugout bench like a beached whale.
“Ridley,” Mark said, as he reached for his bag.
“Good game, my man,” Ridley said from the bench.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“These noon Saturday games are a killer. They got to move us to after dinner.”
Mark chuckled. “Next week is four-thirty.”
“Music to my ears,” Ridley muttered.
“Daddy!”
Mark turned around in time to catch Hadley diving into his arms. He caught her as Ridley sat up and straightened his jersey.
“Hi, Mr. Ridley.” Then she pointed at the dugout door, and Mark watched Lois approach with her hands on her hips.
“I told her to wait with me,” Lois said, frowning at Hadley.
Hadley buried her head in Mark’s sweaty shirt. He set her down on the bench, and Ridley smiled at her. “You came to see me, didn’t you?”
“No.” Hadley grinned.
Lois stepped inside and hauled her husband up by the shoulder. “We have things to do, and by things, I mean you need to mow the lawn.”
Ridley groaned.
“Thanks for going back to the store, Lois,” Mark called to her.
“It’s no problem,” she said before her husband could complain. She shook her finger at Hadley. “You be good for your daddy today, or I’m going to make you sweep the shop floor.”
Hadley frowned and folded her arms. Mark laughed, thanked Lois for watching his baby girl on top of minding the store on Saturday then led Hadley out by her sticky hand to make room for the other players to get their things.
“Goldie!” Todd hollered as Mark headed off the field with his bag slung over his shoulder.
Mark nodded at his friend. “Great game.”
“You, too. That puts us up back on top even though it was close.”
Mark shrugged. “We’ll probably see them again in the playoffs.”
Todd pumped his fist. “And we’ll be ready.”
Mark laughed as Todd’s wife approached him, pulling their own kids behind her. Justin held hands with another woman. His heart did a swan dive. Callie Hargrove.
He couldn’t mistake the strong face and easy smile. The smile that slid off her face when she saw him looking at her.
“Good game, babe!” shouted Amanda. She jumped into Todd’s arms and planted a kiss on his lips. Their little girl shouted, “Daddy!” and grabbed a leg. Callie and the little boy just watched.
Mark’s mind swirled for something to say.
Amanda broke the ice. “Great hit out there today, Goldie. And two catches!”
“You keeping score?” he joked.
She tapped her forehead. “Oh,” she said, like she’d just recalled something, “you know Callie’s back, right?” She motioned toward her, and Callie slid the aviator-style sunglasses off her face. She stared at him, and he wondered if he had dirt on his chin, then he remembered Hadley weaving in and out of his legs.
“You remember Mark,” Amanda stated, like they hadn’t seen each other in a century.
“Yes, I know. Hi, again,” Callie spoke at last. Maybe she wasn’t upset with him over the spoons, but the past was another question.
“We saw each other the other day,” Mark said.
“At the Antique Market, yes.”
Feeling Amanda and Todd watching the exchange, Mark nodded. Surely Callie had told her sister she’d waltzed into the Market and tried to buy his family heirlooms.
An awkward pause settled around them. Mark made himself act casual. He was tired, but seeing her again sparked something inside of him he hadn’t felt in a long time. His mind raced for something more to say.
Hadley took care of things for him. She looked up at Callie while wiping her nose with a dirty hand. “Who are you?”
Mark froze.
“This is my sister, Callie,” Amanda interjected. She pointed at her son. “Callie is Justin’s aunt.”
Hadley glanced at Justin, whom she played with on a few occasions, then turned her attention back to Callie. “You’re not an ant.”
Callie evidently put it together. “I’m an aunt, not an ant,” she tried to explain.
Hadley wrinkled her brows, then pulled away from her father and skipped over to Justin. “Do you eat bugs?”
Mark tried to plaster a polite smile on his face and turned back to the adults.
“I didn’t know you still played.” Callie motioned toward the field.
“Um, yeah, just for fun now.”
“Oh, you should see him, Cal,” Todd said. “He’s the best. Took us all the way to the playoffs two years in a row.”
Mark waved him off. “Says the pitcher.”
Todd grinned, then looked at Callie. “Didn’t you two date in high school?”
Callie was speechless. Amanda tilted her head at Todd, then punched him on the shoulder.
Mark shuffled his feet. “Nice to see you again,” he said to Callie as he hitched the bag strap over his shoulder.
Callie must have felt mortified, too, because she blurted out, “So, did you change your mind yet?”
He knew exactly what she was referring to. She wasn’t the type to let things go. “No.”
She chuckled at his brusque answer. “Are you sure you even know what I’m talking about?”
He felt a tug at the corner of his mouth at the look in her eyes. The blinding afternoon sun made her eyes appear brighter than they had in the shop. Her skin was naturally tan.
“I meant the spoons,” she said.
“They’re still not for sale.” He let himself smile. There was no use in keeping his amusement from her at this point. If she wanted to play a game, that was fine. He’d play, but only because she was cute; he’d never sell them. Not ever.
“Like I told you,” he said, glancing toward the parking lot as the crowd around them thinned, “just about everything in the store is for sale but not the spoons.”
“You must have been very close to your grandma,” teased Callie.
He lifted a brow. “Something like that.”
Todd watched the exchange with interest. “What spoons?”
Amanda laughed, grabbed his hand and yelled at Justin to get out of the dirt. Hadley was right there with him.
“Bye, Goldie. Stay out of trouble!” called Amanda, dragging her crew away.
Mark waved and turned his attention back to Callie. She was studying him, but when he caught her doing it, she put her sunglasses back on.
“I may come by again this week,” she warned.
“If I’m not there, Lois will be.”
Callie raised a brow. “Your manager?” She sounded hopeful.
“No,” he smiled again. “She worked for my parents for decades, and now she works for me.”
Mark thought he detected a glimmer of disappointment behind the shades. Pulling the bag strap back over his shoulder again, he took the opportunity to walk off with the last word. “She won’t sell you the spoons, either.”
A gurgle of laughter echoed behind him as he walked away to fetch his
daughter in the dirt and head home.
* * *
Ragland’s countryside flew by out the truck window as he headed home with Hadley tucked in behind him in her booster seat.
He couldn’t recall when he’d first decided to break it off with Callie, but he’d known he would leave town after graduating and there had been no use stringing her along. She’d taken it pretty hard. His regrets came later. He’d missed her so much, but by then she’d gone to Nashville.
“Daddy, turn the music on.”
“We’re almost home.”
“But I want to sing.”
Mark started her favorite CD, then pulled off the road into his driveway with a sigh. He jumped out to grab the mail. Climbing back into the truck, he rattled along the gravel until they came up to the house.
The Chatham house was a brick ranch surrounded by azalea bushes. An older home down the road with a sweeping lawn built by his grandparents had been sold after they passed. At the more recent house where Mark had grown up, only a small swatch of grass in the front acted as a proper yard.
The place was surrounded by fields that needed cutting a couple times in the summer. Sometimes, he rented out the land to a few friends who liked to hunt in the fall. But now with most of the land sold off, there wasn’t much left to deal with.
The brakes squeaked as he came to a stop and killed the engine. Tired but satisfied that the Hornets had been beaten well enough to stop the jokes for a while, Mark headed inside. Hadley followed close behind.
He threw the mail and his keys onto the counter, then grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge. “Here,” he said, following Hadley into the living room. She turned on the television. “Drink this,” he said firmly.
She accepted it but pointed at the screen. “I want to watch.”
“You need a bath.”
“But I want to watch.”
Guilt hit him in the chest. She’d already sat through his softball game. “Okay,” he relented, “but stay right here. I’m going to wash up.”
“Okay.”
“Be a good girl.”
Silence.
Kicking off his shoes, Mark passed a picture of his great-grandfather dressed in a dark blue military uniform, and his mind drifted back to the spoons.
They were symbols of love and sacrifice, something Callie would love even more if she knew the whole story. He suspected Amanda had talked her into moving home to Ragland, but why move back to an old town in the middle of nowhere Georgia to work for a mom-and-pop business like Martin Hometown Realty? He imagined her working in Atlanta or Birmingham, not Ragland.
She’d always been creative. Staging homes seemed right up her alley. She’d mentioned flipping furniture, too, but that wasn’t much of a living, not without a shop. No wonder she had to take the real estate job.
The home phone rang. It kept jangling so he hurried back into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Mark?” Lois sounded like she was out of breath. “We have a problem.”
Mark closed his eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“I think we have a busted pipe in the Market. Water’s dripping down from the ceiling tiles in the corner over the hutch we moved last month.”
Mark sighed. “Call Jake,” he advised, then assured her that while she called their plumber he was on his way. He hurried back out to the living room. Hadley was nodding off on the couch.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he whispered, trying to pick her up.
“Don’t!”
“Daddy has to go to work.”
“No!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I want to watch the cartoons.”
“I’m sorry, but we have to go.”
She screamed, “I want to stay here!” but he picked her up anyway and carried her on his shoulder. Grabbing his shoes he’d kicked off at the door, Mark hurried back out to the truck, trying to stay calm while Hadley tried to get out of his arms.
After buckling Hadley back into her booster against her will, Mark cranked up her music to appease her as he hurried back to town, even singing along with her to make her happy. All the while, his mind raced. Leaks and water damage. Great. He’d have to use his insurance if they’d cover it. He didn’t have extra money to be throwing away on repairs, not with the bank pressuring him about his late payments. He pushed aside persistent thoughts of Hadley’s troublesome behavior and the fact that Callie was back in town.
He had a livelihood to worry about.
Chapter Three
A slammed door woke Callie with a start. She sat straight up in bed, her senses on high alert. Footsteps sounded across the living room floor of her new place just a few blocks from the office, and her heart pounded.
“Callie?”
Her shoulders slumped in relief. She flung off the covers and jumped out of bed. Bright sunlight streamed through the window. It looked like she’d slept in this Sunday morning.
“Callie? Are you here?”
Callie skipped across the floor and down the hall. Seeing her sister, she put her hands on her hips. “Amanda, what are you doing walking in and scaring me to death like that?”
Amanda laughed. She looked like she’d already run a million errands. “What are you doing sleeping until noon?”
“I was tired. It’s been a long first week.”
Amanda looked around. “I see you have the living room set up. I thought I’d come see if you need help in the kitchen.”
Callie let out a slow breath. “I don’t know what to do with all of these boxes.”
“Put them in the storage shed in the backyard. These little old cottages don’t have basements or attics. That’s why they put the shed in back.”
Callie wrinkled her nose. “It smells like gasoline in there.”
“It’s only for a few months, right? Once you open your boutique, you can move someplace else if you want.” Amanda waved her off. “I’m going to make you some food, and then we’ll get your kitchen set up.”
“Thank you,” Callie sighed. She started for the aqua-tiled bathroom. Mom had made breakfast for her every day through high school but complained about it every morning.
Callie bit her bottom lip. Her chest hurt a little every time she thought of her mother. She’d never been good enough, smart enough or even ladylike enough for her mother. If it weren’t for Amanda and her father, Callie wouldn’t feel like she had any family at all. Now more than ever, she felt like she had their support.
She trotted into the kitchen after getting dressed and inhaled the smell of bacon and eggs.
“Bacon? Really?”
“I brought groceries,” Amanda said in a singsong voice.
“Thanks.” Callie dropped into one of the four chairs around her refurbished oak dinette. “I appreciate it. Between checking out local places for staging pieces and getting started at the office, I’ve been crazy busy.”
“Well, there’s eggs, grits and toast, too.” Amanda carried two plates over to the table and sat down. “We missed you at church this morning.”
Callie shoveled a pile of eggs into her mouth. She hadn’t been to church in years. Her prayers hadn’t been answered when she needed help before, and skepticism had gotten the best of her. She mulled over going back to her family congregation after so long. Would it make any difference in her life?
“I’ll go next week,” she muttered.
Amanda’s lips twitched at the corner. She picked up her fork. “So, what do you think of Ragland now? Are you glad to be back, Mark Chatham notwithstanding?”
Callie shrugged and said through a mouthful of food, “It has its charm, if you’re into that.”
Amanda laughed. “That’s what you always say.” She took a small bite of her bacon. “You always liked coming home for visits. It’s not too different from Nashville, just smaller.”
“
No,” Callie said. “It’s nothing like living in the city.”
Her sister smiled faintly. “You don’t miss Ragland?”
“A little. I miss hanging out with friends, canoeing, the bonfires...you.” Mark.
“We still have a lake here, you know. You can always canoe and have bonfires.”
“It’s not the same,” argued Callie. “I’m older. I also need access to real shopping.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “It’s not that bad here. I like shopping, too, I just don’t have time to do much of it anymore.” She looked up with a grin. “You don’t know how it is with kids. They suck the life out of you. I love them more than anything, but all I do is clean house, fold laundry and play chauffeur.”
“I don’t know how Mom did it,” Callie admitted. “I drove her nuts, but I guess I do miss her sometimes. Her chicken pot pie anyway.”
“She didn’t mean to be so hard on you. She just had dreams, and we were a part of them. I get it now with Justin and Nic. I want certain things for them, too. I want them to do things and like things that I do but...” Amanda flicked her thumb “...they have minds of their own.”
“That’s my problem,” she joked. “I’m a terrible homemaker, and I have a mind of my own.”
“That you do, little sis, but hey, kids love you.”
Callie smiled because it was true. “So how often do Todd and Goldie hang out these days?” As Callie washed the breakfast dishes, her mind drifted back to yesterday and the rather enjoyable softball game.
“Goldie?” Amanda took a plate from her and dried it with a red-striped dish towel. “You mean Mark. Just every now and then. Mostly softball, I suppose.”
“So they weren’t playing softball when he first moved back?”
“You’d have to ask Todd. It’s been a while now.” Amanda walked over to a cabinet and opened it. “He came back around the time his mom was dying and then he stayed.”
“His daughter was with him.”
Amanda looked sideways at Callie. “Yes, she was a baby. I don’t remember seeing them much.”
“I remember you telling me the girl he married passed away or something.”
His Daughter's Prayer (Love Inspired) Page 3