by Lois Richer
“Things are different now, Katy. Dad’s not here anymore and Mom has to run things by herself.” Keeley’s eyes narrowed, surveying the thick green crop across the road. “She’s having enough trouble keeping things going. And if we could just get a really good harvest, maybe Mom wouldn’t feel so bad all the time.”
“She feels bad because she wants to give us things,” Katy muttered astutely, glancing at them both as she snapped her gum once more. “But I don’t care about fancy clothes and stuff. I wouldn’t mind a four-wheeler, though.”
Grady grinned at the obvious hint about an upcoming birthday. Katy took every possible opportunity to impress on him the importance of a girl’s tenth birthday. Her veiled hints about appropriate presents had included an aquarium, an ant farm, new uniforms for the Little League team she belonged to and roller blades. A four-wheeler was her most ambitious hint yet.
“I don’t think your mom would appreciate that, Katy.” He mussed her curls with a grin. “Come on, girls. I need a little help with a project I’m working on. Only, you can’t say a word to your mother. If she knew, I’d never live it down.”
They danced around him like mosquitoes, trying to find out what he meant. But Grady just smiled and led them to a corner of the barn where he’d carefully hidden his latest labor.
“Uh…what is it?” Keeley peered at the plywood backdrop with its hinged sides. She struck her hands through the smoothly sanded holes and stared up at him, frowning. “You deliberately cut holes in this wood?” she asked in disbelief.
“Of course I did.” He was strangely affronted that she didn’t understand.
Katy glanced sideways at Keeley, who simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Then they both sat down on a nearby bale of hay and waited for his explanation. Grady couldn’t help feeling like a misunderstood schoolboy forced to stay late to explain his deeds.
“It’s for vacation Bible school,” he said at last, slightly exasperated.
“Oh, yes.” Katy’s big blue eyes were stretched wide open. “For Bible school,” she said softly to Keeley, jabbing her sister in the side with an elbow.
“Uh-huh.” They both stared at him in sympathy.
“Don’t you get it? It’s a backdrop for a puppet show!”
“Uh, Grady, our church hasn’t got any puppets.” Katy said the words slowly and carefully, her hand gentle on his arm. There was a soft sympathy shimmering in her gaze. “But it was very nice of you to think of it. Thank you.”
“They’ll have them by tomorrow,” he told her smugly. “I ordered them from a place in Calgary.”
“Wow!” Keeley, at least, appreciated his intentions. “So you can stand behind here and poke the puppets through and nobody will even know who’s doing what.” She beamed up at him. “It’s great! What are you going to paint on here?”
“Well…” Grady scuffed his foot against the wooden floor in an imitation of Katy and drew in a deep breath of the fragrant hay smell. “That’s a bit of a problem, you see. I can’t draw a straight line.”
“Anybody can draw a straight line,” Keeley protested.
“Not me.” Grady stared at his hands. “It’s something to do with my eyes, they say. Even my glasses don’t fix it completely. And I was hoping to have it ready as a surprise for your mom on Friday.”
“What kind of puppets are they, Grady?” Keeley wanted to know, studying the smoothly sanded wood. “Animals or people or what?”
“The lady at the shop told me they’re for a story about a missionary family living in the jungle of South America. There’s a mother, a father, a boy and a girl and a dog named Luther.” He watched her serious little face study the blank board before her.
“Luther’s not a dog’s name,” Katy said disgustedly. “Where’d they get a dumb name like that?”
“It’s not dumb,” Grady murmured, hoping he wouldn’t embarrass her. “Luther was the name of another sort of missionary a long, long time ago. Maybe that’s why they called him that.” He saw Keeley squinting at the board. “What do you think, sweetie?”
“I think we could do some trees and vines and stuff on here,” she murmured. “But first it needs a white coat of paint to even things out. Can you do that?” She waited for him to nod and then continued. “I could draw some stuff on in pencil and then fill it in with paint later. Do you have paints?”
“No.” He grimaced, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t too sure what to get. Maybe we’d better take a trip into town to check things out. I’ll just make sure that it’s okay with your mom. You guys go and get into the truck.”
“Can we stop for ice cream after?” Katy asked around the wad of gum that pouched out her cheek like a squirrel.
“Only if you get rid of that gum,” Grady retorted, grinning. “I thought your mother asked you not to chew it anymore?”
“She says it’s the kind that ‘won’t stick to braces,’” Keeley stated dourly. “It sure sticks to the desks at school.”
“Katy!” Grady swung round to hide the grin that itched at his mouth when she hastily got rid of the ugly green glob. “You’d better not have any more when I get back,” he ordered, striding off to the house before they saw him laughing.
Kids! Maggie sure had her hands full with this pair. And yet, she was so lucky.
Maggie snatched the sand pail full of water out of Greta Wilkinson’s hand just before it was emptied on Grady’s unsuspecting form and wondered why she’d ever consented to a beach party for the girls. This was more like a riot!
“Okay,” Grady was saying. “Here’s the raft.” The words had barely left his lips when the raft lifted off the sandy beach and flopped down into the water. “Uh, you’re welcome.” He grinned, dusting his hands against his shorts. His brown eyes sparkled up at Maggie. “Just a little hyper, aren’t they?”
“That’s like being a little dead,” Maggie informed him, sinking back down onto her beach chair. “Either you are or you aren’t. There aren’t any half measures. And I am,” she added, closing her eyes and letting a sigh of tiredness escape. “Dead, I mean,” she murmured, opening one bright eye to peer at him.
“Not quite yet.” He laughed, catching the beach ball and tossing it back to the giggling girls in the water. “But relax for a while if you want. I’ll watch them.”
“All of them?” Maggie studied his face and privately wondered why Grady had hung around for so long. Sometimes, when his eyes got a misty, faraway kind of look, she was sure he wanted to be somewhere else.
“Okay, maybe not all of them. That Melinda kid asks too many questions. She’s got more than Katy’s even thought of.”
Maggie groaned. “What did she ask now?”
“What does God do when he’s on vacation?” Grady chuckled. “She didn’t like my answer much.”
“What did you tell her?” Maggie wondered out loud.
“That God doesn’t take vacations. Even when we think He’s busy somewhere else, God still hears His children and cares for them.”
“Sure of that, are you?” she asked grouchily, thinking of the loan payment that would be due in September. It was a whopper.
“Absolutely positive,” Grady said matter-of-factly. “But Melinda insisted that three weeks of vacation was the law and that God wouldn’t be allowed to work it unless He got paid overtime.” He shook his head at Maggie’s wide-eyed look. “Then she wanted to know who paid God. Thankfully I didn’t have to answer that.”
“Why not?” She was almost afraid to hear this.
“Katy told her God got paid every Sunday when they took the offering!” He laughed heartily, his voice ringing out above the children’s shrieks of joy, and Maggie caught her breath at the pure pleasure on his face. “Those kids are really something, Maggie.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “They are. It was really kind of you to give the girls those bikes. That’s an expensive gift for one child, but two? You shouldn’t have done it.”
“Of course I should. How could I give on
e a bicycle and not the other? Honestly, for a mother, you’re not well versed in fairness.” He grinned knowingly when she sputtered angrily at the slur. “Anyway, it was either a bike or a four-wheeler, and I’m well aware of your feelings on that subject, Maggie McCarthy!”
“You wouldn’t have! Would you?” Less certain now than she had been, Maggie frowned as she studied his face for an answer.
“I was considering it, but then I figured maybe you were right. They ought to be a little older before they go tearing around on one of those things. Next year, maybe.”
Maggie couldn’t contain her thrill of excitement at the thought that Grady would still be around next year. She and the girls had really come to rely on his presence.
“By the way,” she murmured a few minutes later, “it’s Friday today. How come you’re not going in to Calgary for your weekly visit?”
He studied her for a few minutes as if he could see into her mind. Finally he spoke, but his words came out coolly, as if he didn’t welcome her question. “Everything is at a standstill right now. There’s no need. Besides I saw somebody locally.”
She got lost in her thoughts of Grady and all the things they didn’t know about him. Was he in love with someone in Calgary? Was that who he was making calls to? Or maybe he was really sick and had to go for treatment.
Maggie hated asking, but for the girls’ sake she had to know. “Grady are you in some kind of trouble?”
“What?” He stared at her for one amazed moment and then burst out laughing. “You mean, am I visiting my parole officer every week?” He grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you, Maggie, but I haven’t anything so exciting in my past.” He took a deep breath and then lifted his head, his lustrous brown eyes meeting hers head-on.
“I had an investment company. Someone initiated a hostile takeover by spreading rumors that we were doing business illegally. I’m hoping to save what I can out of the whole mess. But I can’t do that till my doctor gives me the all clear.”
No wonder he had to work for someone else, Maggie thought to herself. He must have lost everything but the truck and the camper.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her hand touching his gently. To her surprise he gathered it up and held it between his larger, work-roughened hands. “I had no right to pry. It’s just that Emerald told me about Doctor Lee and I wondered if you were all right. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing all that heavy work?”
“Good ol’ Emerald.” He didn’t sound angry, and Maggie relaxed just a bit. “I suppose it’s natural for people to speculate in a small community like this. That’s something I’d forgotten about.” He seemed lost in thought, unaware of her presence as he stared out at the glistening water rippling gently from a light westerly breeze.
“It’s all right,” she murmured finally. “You’re entitled to your privacy as much as anyone else.”
“You’re a nice woman, Margaret Mary McCarthy. And trust me, in this day and age, that’s a compliment!” He winked at her and let her hand go with a squeeze. “The truth is, I had a heart attack a while back. Stress induced, so they tell me. My doctor ordered me to rest and recuperate away from the city and my problems.”
“A heart attack? So you decided to work on a farm?” Maggie shook her head. “That’s really relaxing!”
“Actually it is,” he muttered, staring at the calluses that covered his fingers and thumbs. “I do an honest job in the fresh air and the sun. A certain beautiful lady feeds me home-cooked meals and two little girls keep life from getting boring. I’ve never felt better. There’s certainly no stress.”
Maggie studied his tanned face, noting the healthy flush of color. “Grady, I don’t think you should be—”
He cut her off. “I’m fine Maggie. Don’t start fussing. And Doctor Lee checks on me. He says there’s nothing on the farm that I shouldn’t be doing. It’s been really good for me.” He lay back on the shore, his head cupped between his hands and stared at the sky. “What do you think that cloud looks like? I say it’s a sailboat. One of the old-fashioned kind.”
After a glance at the girls currently engaged in a sand-building contest, Maggie lay back on her towel and stared upward.
“No way,” she disagreed after a moment. “See there.” She pointed. “That’s a puff of smoke from the dragon. There, underneath that ribbon. I can’t believe you can’t see it!”
“It’s fairly obvious you don’t know any science,” Grady countered, shaking his head. “That’s not a dragon. It’s a dinosaur. Triceratops, I believe.”
Maggie turned on her side to laugh down at him. “Triceratops, my foot! And I suppose you think the one beside it is a hippopotamus?”
He grinned, his breath near her ear. “Hey, maybe you’re finally catching on.”
She swatted his shoulder and found her fingers trapped in his. “I’ll have you know I invented this game.” Her voice died away at the look in his warm brown eyes, and she couldn’t help leaning nearer when his mouth brushed across hers. It barely qualified as a kiss and yet Maggie hadn’t felt this rush of stars to her head, or this giddy rush of feelings in a very long time. His mouth pulled away from hers but she couldn’t break the intensity of his gaze.
“Are you married, Grady?” The soft words slipped out before she could stop them, and once said, Maggie sincerely hoped he’d answer her. The silence, however, was deafening.
“I was. Once.” His voice was low and Maggie could hear the coolness. He was pulling away. Withdrawing. “We’re divorced.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been very painful.” She wasn’t sure just how to ask, but somehow she knew that it was important to know. “Do you have any children?”
His answer, when it came, shocked her to the depths of her being, and she felt as if the sun fell from the sky.
“Once I had everything. But now it’s gone. Everything’s gone.” He got up then and strode down the beach, a lonely solitary figure, lost in the mists of pain she had glimpsed in his brown eyes.
“Oh, Lord,” Maggie whispered fearfully. “Please be with him. Help him. I didn’t mean to tear him up like that. I just didn’t know.”
Suddenly the pastor’s words from last Sunday rolled through her brain. I am, God said. I am in control. I am there when you think I’m not. I see. I hear. I know.
It was a promise every bit as much as the rainbow that had covered the western sky had been a promise after the rain last evening. She just had to trust. Why was that so hard?
“Mom, we’re starved. Can we have the wiener roast pretty soon?” Keeley stood staring down at her mother, her eyes swerving to where Grady walked far down the white sand. “Isn’t Grady going to help?”
“Grady will come when he’s ready, honey. But I think right now we should finish up here on the beach. You guys go gather some driftwood for the fire. Go down there.” She pointed in the direction opposite of where Grady had walked. “I think there’s a huge pile just over that rock. Okay?”
“Sure, Mom. Is everything all right?” Keeley’s expression was worried and Maggie couldn’t help the surge of love that she felt at the little girl’s concern.
“Everything will be wonderful, sweetie. After all, God’s looking out for us, isn’t he?” She tried to sound sure of herself, but deep inside, everything was still a knot of questions.
“Yep! God, Granny and Gramps.” Keeley grinned, pointing. “Here they come, Mom, and they’ve got presents.” She swept up the beach and toward her grandparents with a whoop and a holler.
Maggie watched Katy follow and smiled at the looks on their faces as their grandparents wished them a happy birthday. But she couldn’t help it when her eyes kept returning to the tall, lean, forlorn figure sitting hunkered down on a log, staring out over the water.
Chapter Seven
“Why? Just tell me why the woman ever volunteered for this,” Grady demanded of no one in particular as he hauled in the tons of stuff Maggie had tossed into his truck bed that morning. “And how did she sweet-talk me into
helping?”
“Grumbling and complaining are a sin.” Pastor Jim grinned as he grabbed one of the largest boxes and lugged it inside. “But since you provided us with the puppets and backdrop, I expect the Lord will forgive you.” He sidestepped Tommy Williams and set his box down in the foyer. “The kids are a little excited about vacation Bible school,” he explained.
“A little?” Grady winced as a shrill voice bellowed out in the vicinity of his left eardrum. “What do you call ‘a lot’?”
“Just wait until Maggie gets them involved in one of those stories of hers. They’ll be as still as statues.”
“This I’ve got to see,” Grady muttered, carrying in another armload.
“You’re not going to be able to see anything, Grady. You’re going to be behind the backdrop. We’re short a puppeteer,” Maggie said as she walked over to the two men. Her bright eyes were studying him with a gleam that made his knees shake.
“Maggie, you promised!” he began. “You said that I wouldn’t be needed in the school. You said that I could get started on that haying today for sure.”
“But Grady,” Maggie pleaded, her eyes imploring him with that wide-open appeal that Grady defied any man to resist. “You know I can’t tell the story and manage a puppet. I’ll help you with the haying this afternoon, I promise.”
“You’re not haying,” Grady told her firmly. “It’s far too hot, and besides, you’ve got that special quilt order to fill. I’ll manage it myself. If,” he hinted broadly, “I ever get out of here.”
He tried to sidestep her but to no avail. Her fingers wrapped themselves around his arm and she hung on.
“Grady, I need you. Please?”
He tried his best to get out of it. “What about Emerald Stone? I thought she was going to help you?”
“Emerald fell and hurt her leg. Has to stay off it. Besides, she doesn’t like kids. Please?”