A Love Rekindled

by Margaret Daley

  “How do you do it? They aren’t your children.”

  Gideon peered at Zane. “They will be. I’m adopting them right after Kathleen and I get married.”

  “Not only are you abandoning bachelorhood but you’re going to be a parent. What’s come over you?” Zane asked with a laugh.

  “Love. I love Kathleen. And I love those two boys. You wait. It could happen to you.”

  The vision of Kim teased his thoughts. He pushed it away. “No. Not me. I like being a bachelor. Just look at my busy schedule. When would I have time to fall in love?”

  “When it’s important, you’ll make time.”

  Marriage wasn’t high on his list, so he didn’t have to worry about that. He still could remember the last time he’d returned to Hope—close to a year after he’d left at the age of nineteen. He’d come to challenge Kim’s father and ask her to elope with him only to discover Kim was engaged to a proper Southern gentleman—the kind her father approved of. He left that same day, without even seeing her, and hadn’t come back until three years ago when he found out that she wasn’t married to that proper Southern gentleman anymore. His reaction to that news—mostly anger that she’d thrown away their relationship for the “right” guy and the marriage hadn’t even worked—made him even more wary.

  And in the time he’d been in Hope, he had avoided Kim and her family, not wanting to deal with what happened in the past or the feelings he’d once had for her—strong ones. He had thought she would be the woman he would spend the rest of his life with in spite of the fact a lot of people thought they didn’t belong together. Maybe they hadn’t, but that hadn’t changed how he felt about Kim.

  He shouldn’t let what they once had dictate what he did now. She needed help. He tried not to turn people away if he could figure out a way to help them. Allan Prescott had been there for him when he’d left Hope an angry young man. He had hired him to work in his New Orleans construction company and taught him everything he knew. Then when Allan had retired, he’d given him an opportunity to take over the business.

  He had made something of himself since leaving Hope because of Allan and the help the man had given him. Now Kim and her father—the man who hadn’t thought he was good enough to marry her—needed his help. The tables were turned. His business was doing great while Kim’s family had lost theirs. Can I forget the past and be around Kim on a daily basis to make the repairs she needs?

  * * *

  “Mom, you’re home finally. Papa Keith isn’t feeling well. He’s taking a nap.” Kim’s ten-year-old daughter Anna sat at the kitchen table drinking milk and eating cookies.

  “When did he lie down?” Exhausted after her encounter with Zane earlier, Kim set her purse on the counter then sank onto a chair across from her child.

  “When I came home from school.” Anna popped in the last bite and gulped down the rest of the milk, then hopped up. “Gotta run. I’m helping Maggie with the garden.”

  “It’s January.”

  “Yeah, but she said she’ll be planting some vegetables by the end of February. The garden is a mess since the hurricane.”

  She shouldn’t be surprised that her cousin would be out working in the garden the first chance she got. After the hurricane, Maggie had focused on the yard while Kim had turned her full attention to the house. Bienville was the family estate—what little was left of it—but they each took care of different parts of it. “Did you get your homework done?”

  “Not yet, but I won’t be outside too long. It’ll be dark soon. Besides, it’s Friday. I have all weekend.”

  As her daughter darted out the door that led to the outside staircase to the ground level, Kim placed her folded arms on the table and rested her head on them. What was she going to do? Could she do the repairs herself with Maggie’s help?

  She rolled to her feet and headed into the rest of the upstairs part of the antebellum house that had been in her family for generations. When she opened the door to what had once been her bedroom, she peered up at the gaping hole in the ceiling covered with a tarp to protect the interior until she could have the roof put on. That had been the one thing the contractor her father had hired was supposed to repair right away. The roof had been riddled with holes from missing shingles and several trees and limbs that had landed on it. A tarp wasn’t as effective as a good roof.

  The house was unlivable except for two bedrooms, a bathroom and a game room/now kitchen upstairs, all beneath the third-story attic that had added another layer of protection from the elements. The other second-story rooms, like her bedroom, had been exposed because of the damage produced by Hurricane Naomi. Add that to the fact the downstairs had been flooded during the storm. In all the hurricanes that Bienville had gone through, this was the first time water had come into the house. The three inches had been enough to cause major problems since they didn’t have flood insurance.

  Right after the storm, she’d managed to repair and clean up the middle section of the upstairs so they could live in those rooms. But the downstairs had been filled with muck and debris. In the time since Hurricane Naomi, she, along with her family, had finally sanitized and aired the flooded part while still teaching her third-grade class in a temporary shelter and taking care of her father whose health had declined. There had been a time when her family had had a lot of money and would have been able to pay for the work to be done immediately. But not now.

  Before going back to the makeshift kitchen to start dinner, Kim eased the door open to the bedroom her father shared with his grandnephew, Brady, Maggie’s twelve-year-old son. Her dad was sleeping more and more, and lately he hardly left his room except for meals. Every time he saw the condition of his home, something died inside him—piece by piece. Worry over her father’s state of mind and health plagued her.

  All she could think of doing was somehow getting his house back to its original condition, which took money they didn’t have. Insurance had paid for the roof to be repaired, but the contractor had skipped town with the money her dad had given him to buy the supplies.

  She peeked into the bedroom and caught sight of her father sitting on the side of the bed, his shoulders hunched. He stared at the floor at his feet, looking every bit of his sixty years. More wrinkles had appeared on his face, and his black hair had additional gray. Since the storm, a pasty pallor to his features, mainly because he never went outside anymore, underscored her father’s struggle to keep going each day.

  “Dad, can I get you anything?”

  He lifted his head, and bleakness stared back at her until he glanced toward the large floor-to-ceiling window. “Is dinner ready?”

  “Not yet. I was late coming home. I’m going to make it right now.”

  “It’s awfully quiet in here. Where is everyone?”

  “Anna is outside helping Maggie. I don’t know where Brady is, but he ought to be home soon since it’s near dinnertime.”

  Her dad stared at the cot Maggie’s son slept on near the only window that let in outside light. “He came flying in here right before I took a nap. I think he’s over at a friend’s house, so don’t count on him for dinner.”

  “Why don’t you come and keep me company while I cook?”

  “I’ll pass. I might watch the news or something.” He clutched the post on the bed and pulled himself up, then covered the distance to the TV and switched it on, his hand shaking.

  “Okay, Dad. I’ll come get you when it’s time.”

  “Maybe I’ll eat in here tonight.” Defeat echoed in his words.

  Kim came into the room and went to her father. “I’ll get the house repaired. I reported the contractor to the police today. They may be able to recover our money, if they can find him. In the meantime, we’ll do the work ourselves.”

  Her father looked at her as if she were crazy. “We will? Do you kn
ow what to do? I certainly don’t.”

  “I bought the book Do-It-Yourself Guide to Home Repairs this afternoon.” This was after Zane turned her down. “We’re intelligent. We’ll be able to figure it out.” Although after thumbing through it, she had her doubts.

  “Speak for yourself. The few times I’ve used a hammer I caused more problems than I fixed.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to have a choice. Bob has said he’ll help when he can, but he’s working on his own home.”

  “Bob’s a good neighbor, but he’s no better off than we are.” Her dad rocked back and forth, his hands still trembling. “There’s just so much to be done.”

  “I know, Dad. We’ll get it done.” I hope. Kim walked toward the hallway. “I’d better get dinner started, and I expect you to come eat with us. It isn’t good to stay in this room all the time.”

  He grumbled something under his breath.

  “I’ll have everything ready in an hour.” Kim threw her dad a smile over her shoulder then pulled the door closed. If he wasn’t in the temporary kitchen when it was time to eat, she would be back in here to coax him out of the room. She didn’t want him to become a recluse, but she wasn’t sure she could prevent it.

  Back in the game room/kitchen she opened the refrigerator and studied its contents. Reaching for the thawed ground beef, Kim decided on spaghetti, one of the few dishes she’d mastered. Anna loved it. After removing the ingredients, she plopped the ground beef in the skillet and began browning it.

  While that was cooking, she started dicing a big yellow onion. The potent aroma watered her eyes. Tears leaked from them and ran down her cheeks. She continued slicing while occasionally swiping the back of her hand across her cheeks. She and onions didn’t get along. This always happened, but tonight the release of tears was a relief.

  A knock at the outside door to the game room sounded. She hurried to finish the last part of the onion before answering. Another rap echoed through the quiet. Finished finally, she dumped the diced pieces into the skillet and hurried toward the door, dabbing a dish towel on her face to erase any evidence of her tears. But her hands smelled strongly of onion, which only prompted more wet rivulets to run down her cheeks.

  She paused to rub the towel one last time over her face when the door flew open and Anna came in.

  “Mom, there’s a man here to see you.”

  She forced a shaky smile to her face and tossed the towel onto the counter. “Thanks, honey.”

  Anna whirled around and raced back outside, leaving her alone with Zane.

  Chapter Two

  For a few seconds, Kim’s red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks rooted Zane in the doorway. He shouldn’t have come. He should have ignored the little voice in his head that kept telling him he needed to help her so that once and for all he could put his past behind him.

  Feeling the drill of her stunned gaze finally caused him to ask, “Can I come in?”

  She blinked, then turned away. “Why are you here?”

  Her tightly controlled voice, one he remembered her using when she was upset, coupled with the tears compelled him to finish what he’d started by coming to her home. “I’ve changed my mind. I think I can help you.” Somehow he would manage it—not for her but for him.

  She took a couple of steps back then swept around and hurried to the stove. “Come in.” Using a wooden spoon, she stirred the ground beef browning in the skillet then added some spices and diced tomatoes.

  The aroma of meat, onions and garlic wafted to him and made his stomach rumble. He’d forgotten to eat lunch again. His mouth watered, and he swallowed hard. He moved toward what Kim was using as a kitchen with a small sink, a refrigerator and stove at one end. In the year he’d known and dated Kim, he’d never been in this room, which looked like a game room, and only a couple of times had he been in her home. The last visit—or rather summons—was seared into his memories. For years it fueled his determination to prove himself to the people of Hope, especially Kim’s father.

  Now, though, he realized how unimportant that had been. But it had taken the Lord’s guidance to show him that.

  She turned on the oven and removed some French bread from its wrapper, then rotated toward him. “What changed your mind?”

  “I figured I owe you.”

  She leaned back against the bar counter, gripping it. “How so?”

  “For the time we knew each other. We were…friends once and friends help each other.”

  “I thought you were all booked up.”

  “I am.”

  “Then how?”

  “I’ll do the work myself—at least until I can hire more workers.”

  She swung toward the sink, her back to him, as she filled a pot with water. “I can’t let you do that,” she said, again with that tightly controlled voice.

  “Do you want my help or not?”

  After putting the pot on a burner and switching the stove on, she faced him. “How can you be here and on your other construction sites? I know you’re doing the school and several other places in Hope.”

  “Five other ones and several in Gulfport and Biloxi, but that’s my problem. Not yours. I can work here in the afternoon and early evening. That’s all I can do. If you want to find someone else, I understand.”

  She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “That worked well the last time we hired someone. Henderson and his crew skipped town with the down payment.”

  “I won’t be skipping town.”

  That sharp blue gaze zoomed in on him. “You did once.”

  She was having second thoughts now that he had decided to help her? He gritted his teeth, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “That’s in the past. I’m not that person anymore. Do you want my help or not?”

  “How much will you charge?”

  “I’ll have you pay for the supplies.” He knew about the financial problems that her family had gone through in the past ten years, which was part of the reason he’d decided to come see her. Like many in Hope, she was strapped for money, especially in the aftermath of the hurricane.

  “And?”

  “When we’re through, I’ll let you come up with what’s fair.”

  The color leached from her face. “What if I decide to give you nothing else?”

  “I’ve always known you to be fair, and from what I’ve heard about you in the past few years, that hasn’t changed.”

  “When can you start? As you probably saw when you arrived, there’s only a tarp covering the gaping hole where the roof was over my bedroom and that section of the house. If it rains like they predict in a few days, we may have as much water in here as we did during the hurricane.”

  “I can start tomorrow afternoon. Did they leave any supplies? I didn’t see any in the yard.”

  “No, even though we paid them for the shingles. They’d done some work for others around here so I didn’t think they would leave Hope like that.” Kim placed the bread on a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven.

  “I’ve asked around and discovered a couple of the people they worked for are having problems now.”

  Red patches colored her cheeks, rivaling her red hair. “When did you hear this?”

  “I made some calls before I came.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like companies like that one coming into the area and taking advantage of what happened here. Most are reputable, but this one wasn’t. They used inferior supplies and cut corners. Two of their customers had gone to the police about it. I think that’s why they skipped town.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders sagged. “Why didn’t I hear about this?”

  “Because our police chief only heard from the second dissatisfied customer this morning. The other one two da
ys ago. The chief had gone out to talk to the owner of the company, but one of Henderson’s workers said his boss was in Biloxi buying supplies. The chief had planned to talk with him today.”

  “And in the meantime Mr. Henderson left town permanently.”

  “That’s pretty much what our police chief thinks, too.”

  “When I talked with him today, he didn’t tell me there had been two other complaints.” She glanced toward the pot, the water in it boiling. She pulled open the cabinet behind her and withdrew a box of spaghetti, then put the pasta into the pot. “How come he told you?”

  “I asked Ian if he’d heard anything from anyone else in town. Did you?”

  Her face reddened even more. “I’m not very good at this business stuff. Dad used to handle it, but his Parkinson’s is getting worse.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  She straightened. “What else have you heard?”

  “The usual gossip that floats around this town.”

  “Since when have you listened to gossip?”

  “I don’t pay much attention, especially since I know what it means to be the object of that gossip.” He’d been bothered by the fact people were discussing Keith Sommerfield, even if the man had made his life difficult years ago.

  She pressed her lips together in a tight line. “I need you to realize Dad will be here while you’re working. He rarely leaves the house anymore. Do you still want to personally do the work?”

  “Will your father be able to handle me being here? Does he know you asked me?”

  Glancing toward the stove, Kim covered the few feet and stirred the meat sauce. “No. I thought I would tell him if you agreed.”

  “Yeah, why get him upset if I refuse?”

  “Right,” she answered although he really hadn’t asked a question.

  “Then I suggest you talk to him before I show up for work tomorrow.”

  “It’s Saturday. I’ll be here.”

  “To smooth the rough waters?”