His Daughter's Prayer (Love Inspired)

by Danielle Thorne

  Mark shook his head, staring at the floor. “Maybe he didn’t realize how much damage there was.”

  “Or maybe he doesn’t know what it takes to lay floors.”

  The house fell silent. They’d turned off the music they’d sang all night to keep themselves awake. He reached down and patted her hand, and she caught his fingers with her own, so he left it there. He cleared his throat. “We got it done. I can’t think of any reason they can’t show the house today if they have a request.”

  “Yep, except it still smells like pizza in here.” She broke into exhausted giggles.

  He sniffed. “I can’t believe we ate two pizzas.”

  She kept laughing, then fell backward, sprawled out on the floor and put her hands over her face as the laughter spilled out. Tears trickled down her temples and into her hair.

  That made him start laughing and after a while he reached out and tapped her leg. “Stop it. You’re going to put us both out of our minds.”

  “Sorry, I’m sleep deprived,” she gasped between giggles. She tried to regain control but only managed sniffs and swallows before breaking into guffaws again when their eyes met.

  Wiping her eyes and taking deep breaths, Callie managed to sit up as far as leaning on her elbows. “You’re at your shop as much as I’m at the office.”

  “Actually, Lois covers on Saturdays, and I don’t open on Sundays.”

  “Why is that?”

  He shrugged. “That’s the way my parents did it.” He took a breath. “That’s something I’ll never change. I’m not going to compromise my values—even to save a store.”

  She studied him. “So,” she said, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them, “how bad is it really? The store, I mean.”

  Mark tried not to sigh. “They raised the rent in January, and I’ve had a hard time keeping up. The first quarter of the year is never a great one, and I was late on my April payment.”

  He wondered how much more he should tell her. Last night, she’d told him about her bad luck with dating, the not-so-great financial choices she’d made and the regrets she had never making peace with her mother. All he’d talked about was baseball and high school.

  He took a deep breath. “Actually, I missed May, too, but I just sent in half. I sold off my baseball card collections, so I’m hoping to catch up with June by the first week of July.” He exhaled. “To be honest, I feel like everything’s turning to sand and streaming through my fingers. I can’t get a hold of it.”

  Her face smoothed out in sympathy.

  Mark leaned forward and crossed his legs. “I’ve spent most of my life trying to make up for letting my parents down by not playing baseball professionally, and if I lose this store, I’ll feel like a failure again. Plus, there really isn’t anything else I want to do. I enjoy going to auctions and yard sales—like you. Cleaning things up and finding them a new home feels like I’m carrying on someone’s story. Plus...” he grinned, because she already knew this “... I like collecting baseball cards and old toys and junk.”

  She raised a brow. “And dollies.”

  She was so funny. “And old dolls when people bring them to me, but Hadley enjoys them.”

  Callie laughed and leaned forward. “Maybe you should just focus on what sells best and think about updating the store.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her golden tawny eyes went wide. “Bring it into this century. All of the inventory looks like it’s been dropped anywhere. I can tell you’ve tried to put similar things in the same areas, but an old desk covered with two hundred candlestick holders doesn’t quite work. Have you thought of setting up displays? Little mini rooms or scenes with themes from the same era?”

  Mark’s mind could suddenly see the old school desk set up by the front window with a few of his prized tin lunch boxes on it, with a shelf of toys and framed autographed sports cards. “I’ve never really thought seriously about it. I assumed people like to dig through things. I mean, I do.”

  “A lot of people do, but this would make it easier. Just going into the shop is a dig. Most collectors visit several stores in one day, right?”

  “I’m sure some do.” She was making sense. Just the way she’d cleaned up and presented this old farmhouse showed how she could see the big picture. Had she always been able to do that? Should he have moved to Nashville way back when?

  Callie gazed up through the windows over the dining area. The sun had risen. “You’re lucky. I always wanted my own place, a little shop that sells refinished furniture and candles and textiles. You know, pretty things.”

  “Old things made new?”

  “Yes.” A rooster crowed in the distance, and they could hear it even with the windows shut. “It’s so peaceful out here.”

  He watched her, his heart keeping time along with his breathing and the quiet hum of the house. “This place is only four miles from the lake.”

  “Oh? Are we that close?”

  Mark nodded. “Do you want to clean up and go for a drive after I drop Hadley off at school?”

  * * *

  They agreed to take Callie’s car after driving it and the truck back to Mark’s house. Callie knew she would be late for work, and she didn’t care. Mr. Martin had left another message about attending a real estate license class, and she wasn’t interested. Instead, she listened with interest as Hadley showed her the odd collections around her room: a bird’s nest, a beach pail filled with rocks, a crumpled butterfly, dolls with missing arms and legs—and hair.

  “Are you ready yet?” Mark called out.

  Callie pretended to gasp, and it stopped Hadley in her tracks. “We better hurry. Let’s get you dressed super fast!”

  The little girl laughed.

  “She’s almost ready!” Callie called into the hall.

  Moving as fast as she could, she changed Hadley into a pair of shorts hidden at the bottom of a dresser and found a pretty shirt hanging in the closet with the tags still on. Seating Hadley on her bed, Callie brushed out her hair with only a minor struggle, then made a dainty waterfall braid on one side of her head and pulled the rest back into a ponytail.

  Hadley stared. “It’s pretty.”

  “If you think it is,” Callie said firmly. “You should wear your hair the way you like it.”

  The girl glanced up at her in surprise, and Callie figured that was a talk for when she was a little older. “If you go brush your teeth and beat me to the car with your backpack, I’ll take you canoeing again if your daddy says it’s okay.”

  Hadley jumped to her feet and raised her fists into the air. “Okay!”

  Callie laughed and made sure to lose the race.

  After dropping Hadley off at a small clapboard building just a half mile from the square and across the street from the elementary school, Mark came back out to her car, put the car seat into the hatchback and dove into the driver’s side.

  “Ready?”

  Callie nodded and rolled the window down, thankful he felt like driving because she didn’t. The air smelled like damp grass and warm sunshine on pavement. Her belly was full of pizza and flat soda, but she still felt content. She’d washed her face in the kitchen sink at the farmhouse and brushed her hair out before putting it back up.

  Mark rolled down his window, too, and she dug around under the seat for her white baseball cap that read Music City.

  “I haven’t been out to the lake since we went canoeing,” she said, “but I’ve been meaning to.”

  “I took Hadley fishing after church on Sunday.”

  “That was sweet of you.”

  He seemed to appreciate the compliment, but he kept his eyes on the road and hummed along to the radio. Callie studied his profile and the tired lines under his eyes. Birds made a cacophony in the passing power lines. Soon, the lake became visible through the woods.

 
They pulled into one of the small parks around the lakeshore, and Mark motioned toward a trailhead through a grove of trees. “There’s the old walking trail that loops around the water if you want to go for a little hike.”

  “Let’s go.” Excited to be out of the house, Callie locked the doors to her car when he tossed her the keys. They passed into the cool shade of a tree canopy with clumpy water plants growing up the small embankment next to the woods.

  Their hands swung, close enough to touch, and Callie felt self-conscious. She’d walked the trails with Mark before but under much different circumstances.

  “You still love it here,” he observed.

  “I do.”

  Callie suddenly wanted Mark to hold her hand, but she forced herself to keep walking and not think about it. He’d broken up her with a lifetime ago. It was over.

  A breeze rippled across the lake’s surface, then drifted through the trees. A warm flood of peace washed over her. “I went to a lake outside of Nashville a lot. By myself most of the time, but I never felt quite safe.”

  Mark nodded. “It’s still safe here.” He touched her hand in midswing, and she caught his fingertips as they clasped hands. Callie’s heart gave a pleasant lurch.

  “How long do you think you’ll keep the Market open?” She forced herself to speak calmly and not to stutter like a flustered schoolgirl.

  “Oh, it’ll be a while. As long as I can work or until Hadley takes it over if she wants,” he answered in a soft voice.

  “Then a Florida vacation home?”

  Mark’s intense gaze drank in the green-blue lake water in the distance. “Maybe. That’s the plan for the future. Nothing’s set in stone.”

  “Hmm,” Callie said. She wondered what would happen to the store. It’d be an amazing space for a charming boutique—not that she could afford it right now. “Antique stores are a Southern staple. Maybe you’ll never go out of business.”

  Mark gave a faint chuckle. “Not if the bank has their way.”

  She felt bad for him. She knew what it was like to struggle to stay afloat. “You have so much inventory,” she said, then thought of the spoons. “There’s probably a lot you could get rid of and just slowly replace with better stuff. I mean, if it doesn’t sell, why keep it?”

  “I guess,” he mused.

  “What about the spoons?”

  He shifted his gaze from the treetops and met her gaze. “It’s crossed my mind once or twice. I know it’d get me ahead, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t end up in the same position later on, and then I wouldn’t have them at all.”

  “Tell me the story,” Callie pleaded. “You said that your grandmother gave them to your mother or something.”

  They came upon a steep incline in the path with a large boulder at the top. Callie panted up the hill and dropped Mark’s hand to climb up onto the rock and sit down. There was a nice view through the trees.

  He came up and joined her. Sun filtered through the trees, and she rolled up her pant legs to her knees. “Black pants get hot pretty quick in the summer.”

  “I bet.” His chinos were ruined with smudges of wood stain. “You may have to start wearing shorts soon. It’s going to get hotter.”

  “I love the Fourth of July, though. It’s one of my favorite holidays.”

  “Mine, too,” Mark said. “The parade marches right past the store as it goes around the square, remember, and business always does well.”

  “You work on the Fourth now?”

  “Just in the mornings.”

  “I remember when you used to spend it with my family.”

  He smiled at her, and she realized how close they sat together. His light stubble had flecks of gold in it.

  He smiled, and her favorite dimple appeared in his cheek. Her heart hopped, and she looked away, amazed that he could make her feel woozy.

  “My great-great-great-grandmother passed them down through the family.”

  “The spoons?”

  “Yes, Grandma Molly. Her father, John Friery, came from Ireland as an indentured servant to South Carolina as a boy. Once he earned his freedom, he worked on a few merchant ships out of Savannah for some years and eventually ended up with a small parcel of land somewhere near Atlanta.”

  Mark’s smooth voice drew Callie into the story. She gazed off at the distant tree line across the lake where the water met land. Some of the tall trees around them, she thought, were probably standing at that very time.

  “Molly was the oldest daughter, so I imagine she had a lot of responsibility and expectations. People did the best they could to marry well, and I guess that’s what her father had in store for her but then the war came.”

  “The Civil War.”

  Mark nodded. “I can’t even imagine what they went through. Her father joined up and was wounded. Her older brother and two younger brothers fought, and all but the youngest died. Her mother became sick during that time and died, too.”

  Stories about war, especially slavery and the Civil War, made Callie feel almost ill. It was all so confusing—and there were so many regrets. She struggled with people who wouldn’t admit it was a horrible, backward time.

  “Anyway,” Mark said after a pause, “when Sherman came through, Molly found herself helping a wounded man who’d hidden out back behind their house. Turns out, he was a Union soldier, starved, shot through the shoulder and near dead. Long story short, she nursed him back to health and kept him hidden from her father recovering in another part of the house. They fell in love with each other.”

  Mark seemed to be waiting for some kind of reaction, so she whispered, “Don’t stop now. Tell me it all worked out.”

  He gave a faint smile, and she realized how much she always adored the color of his gray-blue eyes.

  “Her father eventually caught them. Bailey Hart—that was the soldier’s name—stayed on and helped with the house and animals until the war ended shortly after. They told everyone that he was a deserter to keep him from getting killed, but as soon as the carpetbaggers and scavengers took over the city, people had other things to worry about.”

  “Did they get married?”

  Mark gave her a teasing grin. “It turns out he was the son of a wealthy politician from Rhode Island. When Molly’s father put his foot down and said that there wouldn’t be a wedding, Bailey Hart went back home.”

  “No!” Callie almost started to cry. “That’s terrible! Why would you tell me that?”

  Mark chuckled. “Well, because they wrote letters and when things became critical during the Reconstruction to the point Molly’s family was literally starving, a case of silver spoons, forks and knives arrived for Molly.”

  “I knew it,” Callie said as tears filled her eyes. “He sent her the spoons.”

  “Yes, with a letter asking her to elope. She was able to use the silver to get credit, and just before her father died, he changed his mind and gave his blessing for them to wed.”

  Callie gasped.

  “But,” Mark said, raising a finger, “it didn’t make any difference. Bailey Hart had already settled his affairs up North. He was trying to convince his family he wasn’t insane moving to the South. He arrived just in time to shake her father’s hand and receive his blessing before he passed away. Bailey and Molly married sometime in 1867.”

  Mark finished his story and sat back. They gazed across the lake until a flock of small, dark birds swooped past them in a busy cluster.

  “So,” Callie said, dropping her legs and resting her hand over his on the rock, “they lived happily-ever-after in Atlanta and passed down the spoons.”

  Mark nodded. “Yes, to my mother and now me. She wanted Hadley to have them.”

  “I see why you want to save them.”

  “Bailey Hart could have forgotten all about my great-great-great-grandmother. He gave up his inheritance and a gr
eat deal of prestige leaving Rhode Island, but he’d fallen in love with a Southern belle, despite the horrors of the war.”

  “Did they consider him a traitor?”

  “No. At least I don’t. He never apologized for fighting for the Union. Saying he was a deserter before the war ended was Molly’s idea, but you do what you have to do. It didn’t just save his life, it likely saved hers and her father’s, too. He probably changed his story and just explained the truth. Who knows what he did to protect them? That’s why the spoons mean so much to me. He was a good man, he stood up for what he believed in and he stayed loyal to the very end, even to Molly.”

  Callie’s throat knotted like a pretzel. She pointed at her tear-filled eyes. “Look what you’re doing to me,” she croaked.

  He chuckled. “Do you see why I can’t sell them now? They’re probably the last thing he received from his own family. They were his promise to another a thousand miles away, and he kept it.”

  Suddenly, Callie realized she would never feel right about trying to talk Mark out of his spoons. Once upon a time, she’d tried to convince him to take a baseball scholarship. She’d tried to talk him out of his dream to join the Coast Guard instead of doing what he wanted to do at the time. She was glad she’d failed.

  “Then don’t do it. There has to be another way. Maybe I can help you with some updates on the store.”

  “You’d do that for me?” he asked.

  “Of course I would.” She realized it wasn’t because he’d helped her fix the floors. She just would, no strings attached. He’d never expected anything back from her since she’d seen him again. He’d never been that way.

  Callie realized they were simply looking at each other, and she felt a blush bloom across her cheeks. She gave a quiet, little laugh and watched his eyes crinkle around the corners. As if reading her mind, he leaned over and brushed his lips across hers in slow motion. When she opened her eyes, they moved apart, and he looked back out over the lake.