by Polly Becks
He and Sue had decided otherwise, had chosen to rent a townhouse nearer to the garden center, three bedrooms, bath and a half, that was just big enough for the family. Sarah had her own room which she had decorated herself, with a little help from mom, and Blythe and Bonnie were still sleeping in the same crib, refusing to be separated.
For the moment, all was well.
The door opened, and Betty Finley appeared, a baby in her arms. She smiled broadly.
“Well, hi, Dave! What brings you by?”
“Got something for ya,” Dave said. “I won’t keep you.”
Betty pushed the screen door open. “Come on in.”
He followed her into the kitchen, which was in the center of the house, a variation on the style he thought was nice, having been in many houses in the course of his fire training and experience.
“Rosemary lemonade?” Betty asked, heading for the fridge. “I’m having some.”
“Sounds delicious. Sure.”
As she filled the glasses he admired the way she was managing, a forty-or-so-year-old woman who had never had children taking care of a one-year-old. The little girl seemed content, a pretty infant with beautiful auburn hair and deep dimples who rarely cried.
And rarely smiled.
The official mascot of Obergrande Fire Company #2.
“How’s she doing?” he asked as Betty set a tumbler with a long sprig of rosemary in it down on the table in front of him.
“Beautifully,” Betty said proudly. “She’s a good girl. A lovely child.”
Dave took a sip of the lemonade and nodded. “That’s delicious,” he said.
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a velveteen bag.
“I thought you should have this, for MaryBeth,” he said, cringing, as he always did, at the name they had given the little girl. For many weeks after the flood, in the hospital and after her release, she had been known just as MB, for Missing Baby. The Finleys, who had volunteered as her foster family, had given her the name, but it always bothered him, as it evoked the night of her rescue.
Something that still gave him nightmares, proud as the department was of it.
He pulled the frayed drawstring open, carefully removed the contents of the package, and held it up.
A tarnished silver bracelet, primitive in manufacture, with a translucent red stone set in it.
Betty Finley blinked. “What’s that?”
“Something I discovered in the backpack she was found in,” Dave said, turning the bracelet so the stone caught the light dimly. “It doesn’t seem like they’re going to find her parents, alive, at least, so I thought you should have this for her.”
Betty Finley’s face turned red.
“It’s only been three months, Dave,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You never know—”
“No, you don’t, and if they ever do find ’em, you’re just as capable of returning it to them when you return her as I would be,” Dave said, placing the bracelet on top of the bag and pushing it in front of Betty. “But I think the odds of that are pretty unlikely, Betty, so I’m turning this over to you now. It’s a simple thing, not worth much by the looks of it, though I’m no expert, certainly. But apparently it was important, or at least meaningful to whoever had her before you, so I thought she might want it someday, when she’s old enough to understand.”
Betty nodded, not looking up from the table.
“Besides, you’re an officer of the town, bonded and all,” Dave said, finishing up his lemonade. “Far more appropriate for you to have it than me, anyway. I was putting some stuff in the safe where I stuck it the night we found her, and came across it. Thought you should have it, and now you do.”
He stood up from the table and rubbed the little girl’s head, letting his fingers slip through the beautiful, baby-fine hair.
“She’s a pretty thing,” he said. “A very pretty little thing.”
“Thank you,” Betty said awkwardly.
“Well, I’ll show myself out,” Dave said, pushing in the chair. “Best to Leland.”
“Thank you—best to Sue.”
“Thank you as well. Goodbye.”
He made his way to the door, feeling the eyes of both foster mother and baby on his back all the way out.
Obergrande Community Church parking lot
WHEN LUCY LEFT the church about an hour later, there was someone sitting on the hood of her car in the parking lot.
Someone handsome and important enough to her for her to drop her canvas book bag and purse and run to him, laughing out loud, her long curly hair billowing in the wind behind her.
“Hi!” she called excitedly as she approached. “I’ve missed you so much—how did you get back here so quickly?”
Ace remained sitting atop the vehicle, grinning broadly, both his hands behind his back. He was attired in what he referred to as “civvies,” the military expression for civilian clothing, a pair of khaki pants, a white shirt and navy blue jacket.
“Pick a hand,” he said as Lucy leaned in and kissed him, leaving her lips a good long while on his, reveling in their lusciousness.
“Lwfft,” she said, continuing the kiss.
Ace brought his left hand around from behind his back and presented her with the single red rose. Then he slid the empty hand around her back, anchoring it to her waist and drew her closer, pulling her between his legs and kissing her even more deeply.
“You’re going to make my knees give out,” Lucy warned him when their lips parted. She lifted the rose to her nose and smelled it. “Thank you.”
“I’m not sure it’s gentlemanly to be making out in a church parking lot anyway,” Ace said. “I’d rather take you back to the hotel and do things I would need to come to church to repent for.”
“Ah, the Catholic in both of us—Fun on Friday, confession on Saturday.”
“Well, then we’re at the wrong church. Isn’t this Protestant?”
“Yes. I’m just teaching here again, starting next month, and checking up on Grace. So what’s in the other hand?” Lucy asked mischievously.
Ace’s smiled dimmed. He pulled out a standard-issue canvas bag from behind him.
“They’ve finally confirmed, cataloged, and released the contents of your car.”
“All these months later? They found my car?”
“They had a giant pile of them, stacked up like, I dunno, giant metal picnic tables leaning against one another,” Ace said, holding it out to her. “There wasn’t much in it—anything paper, like your road maps, dissolved or was unsavable anyway. On the positive side, you kept an impressively neat vehicle, something pretty rare for a kindergarten teacher. High marks on the military inspection scale.”
“I’m a first grade teacher now,” Lucy said. She took the bag and opened it.
Then put her fist to her mouth.
Ace took her by the waist, encircling it with his hands, and caressed her there as she continued to stare into the bag.
Then reached in, her hands shaking, and took out her grandmother Maeve’s rosary.
Connemara marble from the mountains of Ireland, green, the beads that had once been cubes, but had been worn into a slightly oval shape by the many loving caresses of Maeve’s devotion, and her own mother’s thereafter.
And her own touchstone caresses.
The Celtic cross at the end was dimmer than she remembered it, but then she realized it was silver, and likely to be tarnished.
Ace’s rough hand caressed her cheek gently where the tears were falling.
“I remember this hanging from the rearview mirror the night your car wouldn’t start,” he said quietly, kissing her neck as her head bent under the weight of the emotion.
Lucy nodded, unable to speak.
“It gets worse, my love,” Ace said, pulling her even closer and moving his hands to the small of her back, encircling her in his arms. “Hang on to me.”
“Why?” Lucy said, sniffling from within the depths of his jacket lap
el. “I didn’t keep anything else in my car but the maps, a little cup of change, and a troll doll.”
“Yeah, that’s in there,” Ace said, continuing to kiss her neck. “Ugly. Really ugly.”
“Her name’s Persimmon, and don’t insult my troll doll.”
He kissed her ear. “OK.”
Lucy finally swallowed, looked up and moved back enough to reach into the bag again.
She started to tremble.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Her hands shook as she pulled out the compact black umbrella.
Ace’s strong arms drew her close again and held her tightly.
There, in the parking lot of the Obergrande Community Church, she laid her head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck, the red rose trembling in her hand, and cried.
“I forgot about him again,” she wept.
Ace just ran his hand up to the back of her head and squeezed her gently.
LATER THAT EVENING, just as the sun was beginning to set, Lucy and Ace walked hand in hand to the place where the old dam stood, now no longer active.
It was nothing more than a right angle of sheer walls reaching about fifteen feet down to the water below.
But it was also a beautiful, out-of-the-way place to sit and watch the sunset over the lake, which the couple settled down to do.
Lucy carrying a bouquet of wildflowers they had gathered together in the grasslands of the Overlook.
They sat in comfortable silence, his arm around her, watching the sun bathe the clouds in glorious shades of pink and gold, the sky turning a beautiful spectrum of blue from the aquamarine at the horizon to a dark cobalt above them, where stars were beginning to appear.
Finally, when the sun had finished its dive and had disappeared beyond the end of the world, Ace turned and kissed her forehead.
“You ready?”
Lucy exhaled, then nodded.
She held her hand with the flowers over the water.
Then slowly let them go.
The wind caught the grassier, lighter ones, wafting them gently down to the lake below.
“Goodnight, Glen,” she said softly. “I hope you’re listening to an even more beautiful kind of music now.”
Then, with Ace’s help, she rose, brushed off her trousers, and slipped into her lover’s embrace.
As the sky turned dark, they turned and walked together, still hand in hand, back to the town, now no longer east or west.
Just Obergrande.
Chapter 32
‡
Danville, Virginia
LOUIE, THE MANAGER of the Mountaintop Café, nodded to Sam, who had just started refilling all the salt and pepper shakers from the morning rush.
“Table Eleven,” he said, looking up from the newspaper behind the counter.
Sam exhaled and grabbed an ice water, then headed toward the booth where a man sat with his back to her, his hair rumpled above a similarly rumpled shirt.
Great, she thought, a singleton. A low-paying table, almost not worth the interruption.
She placed the water down in front of the customer along with a menu, then pulled out her pad.
“Coffee?”
The man looked up, his face sallow, the bags under his eyes dark.
“Yes, please—cream, no sugar.”
Sam exhaled again, this time angrily.
“You can’t take a hint, can ya, Germ?” she said tersely. “I’m not sure how much more clear I could have been.”
“I heard ya,” Jeremy said, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. “It’s worth beggin’ if you’d reconsider.”
Sam looked back over her shoulder. Louie was deeply engrossed in the comics.
“Why the hell should I?” she whispered fiercely as she bent close enough for him to hear.
“You prolly shouldn’t,” he agreed. “But I’m prayin’ ya do, because I love you and I can’t live without you.”
Sam stood straight up.
She walked rapidly away from his table, back to the kitchen window.
And returned a moment later with coffee with cream, no sugar.
She set it on the table in front of him.
“Thanks,” Jeremy said, lifting the cup to his lips. “Are you about finished with your shift?”
“Do you want anything else?”
“Nope—just to talk to you.”
Sam exhaled deeply for a third time in the last few minutes. Her head was starting to feel light.
“My tables were all clean before you sat down,” she said, trying to sound petulant but failing. “Once the salt and peppers are done, and you’re gone, I’m done.”
“Go fill ’em while I drink this swill down. Then we can get outta here.”
“Who says—”
“Sam,” Jeremy said, holding his cup away from his mouth, “I love you.” He put the cup down on the wet placemat, then pulled a box out of his shirt pocket. “In all my life, you are the only good thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked up at her, and his eyes were gleaming, though he looked exhausted. “You’ve got every right and reason to kick my sorry butt to the curb; I’ve never deserved you, God knows. And if you tell me to hose off, you’re prolly makin’ a smart decision. But before I go drive off a mountaintop, which is all I feel like doin’ right now, I need to beg you one last time to give me another chance.”
He put the box down on the table across from him and nodded to the seat with his head.
Her eyes wide, Sam sat down across from him, ignoring the sharp glance from Louie.
She seized the small box and opened it.
The morning light coming through the blinds at the window made the small, central diamond sparkle as though it was set in one of the crowns in the tower of London like she had shown him once in National Geographic.
On either side of it were two small, clear pink stones.
“Rose zircon?” she asked as her voice clogged up with tears.
Jeremy nodded, his eyes locked on hers. “October, right?”
“Yeah.” Sam looked back up at him. “You remembered my birthstone.”
Jeremy ran his hand awkwardly over the hair at the back of his neck.
“You want me to get down on one knee?” he asked, his voice ragged.
Sam sat back against the upholstery, oblivious to Louie, who was getting off his stool.
“Yeah, I do,” she said, staring at the ring, then at Jeremy, then at the ring again. “An’ I want you to put it on me.”
“I’ll do that once I’ve said one last thing to you,” Jeremy said, looking hard at her. “You know I come with baggage—terrible baggage that’ll never get lost. I don’t know if it will come back to haunt me in the future, and that could be a problem for you. I told you my secret because it wouldn’t be fair to marry you without being honest about it. I totally understand if you don’t want to deal with it—or me.”
Sam’s eyes filled with tears. She started to smile, then saw Louie’s round stomach waddling over to their table.
“Buzz off, Louie,” she said in a threatening voice.
The manager froze in his tracks, then spun around and sauntered back to his newspaper and stool.
Sam’s eyes returned to Jeremy.
“Is there anything—anything—that you haven’t told me?”
Jeremy shook his head solemnly.
“You sure? Nothing?”
He thought for a long moment, then bowed his head. “OK, one thing.”
The smile fell away from Sam’s face. “What?”
Jeremy lifted his head and looked her in the eyes.
“Your nachos could use some Tabasco,” he said flatly.
Sam blinked. “That’s it?”
Jeremy nodded. “Otherwise, you’re perfect. And you know every secret I have now. The question is, are you willing to marry me in spite of everything you know about me?”
“I’ll let you know if you get down on one knee.”
Jeremy rose from the booth just as two older
women and a man were making their way into the restaurant. He put up his hand, then got down on one knee.
“ ’Scuse me a minute, folks,” he said to the startled group, who stopped just past the doorway. He turned to Sam. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Samantha Phyllis Melnicki. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll try real hard to be worthy of your love if you’ll marry me. So, uh, like, will you?”
She nodded, then smiled.
Jeremy took the little ring from the pasteboard box and slid it onto her finger. It took a moment to get past the knuckle, but once it did the fit was good.
He looked at her hand.
“Cool,” he said. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
The three people at the door applauded politely.
“I can’t,” Sam said regretfully. “I’m the only waitress on—and Louie’s useless—so drink your coffee and I’ll wrangle you up some toast and bacon while I wait on these folks. Then we’ll go home and never come back here.”
“Works for me,” Jeremy said, returning to his seat. “Wheat toast, if ya got it.”
He stared down into his coffee cup, hoping he had done the right thing.
Sam, grabbing water and menus for the three new customers, was hoping the same.
Chapter 33
‡
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER, June
LUCY WAS BUSY applying her lipstick when the door of her room in the Obergrande Hotel burst open suddenly.
Kelly Moran, who was helping her with her hair, carefully winding pearls through her upswept curls, dropped the rattail comb and cursed quietly.
Which was good, because the open door was admitting five little girls, all of whom were dressed in white flower girl dresses, crowns of white daisies, tiny lilies-of-the-valley, and white violets in their hair.
“Oh, my goodness!” Lucy laughed as they crowded around her in her satin dressing gown, hugging her and dancing in place. “Look at you! What beautiful princesses!”
“You’re getting married in your bathrobe?” Corinne demanded, a look of disapproval on her pretty face.
“No, no, I have a princess dress too,” Lucy said.