Love Inspired June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Single Dad CowboyThe Bachelor Meets His MatchUnexpected Reunion

by Brenda Minton

  “Pop was furious when he found out. He kept going on about her falling and possibly getting a concussion.” Ruthie took a sip of her freshly squeezed juice. “Come to think of it, that was his same concern when she fell off the rose trellis a couple of days ago. He kept telling her, ‘Thank God you didn’t crack your head.’”

  “It’s sweet, actually. He’s madly protective of her.”

  The acorn didn’t fall very far from the Bristow tree. In that regard Gray was a lot like his grandfather. Ruthie mentally kicked herself for letting her attention drift back to the man who still held the pieces of her broken heart in his strong hands.

  She must have cracked her own head to think that she could pray her former fiancé back to God and to herself. But if God didn’t give up on lost sheep, then she certainly wouldn’t give up on Gray.

  She focused on the specials menu, then looked over at Mustache Man at the end of the counter, who was digging into a hearty English breakfast. “What he’s having looks good. Is that French toast?”

  “Eggy bread? No.”

  Ruthie had never heard the refined Paisley snort before. This was a first.

  “It’s fried bread. I’ll do a nice British fry-up for you, complete with egg, bacon, sausage, tomato and a dab of beans.” She turned to the skillet and talked over her shoulder. “Now fess up. You’ve deliberately avoided telling me how you fared with Gray yesterday.”

  So much for taking her mind off him. Ruthie shrugged. “There’s nothing to say. I’m not really sure what that was about, though. After these past six months avoiding each other, he suddenly wanted me at the hospital with him. Constantly.”

  It had been nice to be close to him after all this time apart, but also stressful because there had been so much left unsaid between them.

  She fought to keep her voice strong, to look at Paisley directly when all she wanted was to bury her head in her arms and cry like a baby. But she was stronger than that now. She could do this. With effort she could convince Paisley and her friends that she no longer felt anything for Gray. Convincing her own heart was another matter.

  “But after he drove me home,” she continued, “he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

  “Perhaps he wanted to kiss you goodbye and was just avoiding temptation.” Paisley pulled a batch of scones from the oven, topped one with clotted cream and jam, set it on a scalloped-edge plate and carried it to a pair of women laughing at a corner table.

  Ruthie choked back a laugh at her friend’s comment. Big talk coming from a friend who studiously shied away from male attention. But then, Paisley had her reasons.

  The minute they were alone again, Ruthie suggested, “Or maybe he didn’t want to lead me on. Not that I’d be interested, of course.”

  “Of course.” For some reason, the Brits did sarcasm far better than Americans. It had to be the accent. Paisley deftly changed the subject. “I heard Gray is planning corporate security systems now. What do you say we have him put one in here?”

  “What do you say we let him continue to avoid me?”

  “He didn’t avoid you yesterday.”

  “The same could be said of your police officer friend.”

  Paisley set the fry-up in front of her and shot her a blue-eyed dagger. “Don’t try to make something out of nothing.”

  Ruthie poked her fork at the delicious looking but heavy breakfast. “What do you put on fried bread?”

  “Your teeth.”

  The front door chimed, and Paisley turned back to the smoking fry pan. She switched on the vent to draw out some of the smoke. A second later red-and-yellow flames danced along the surface of the overheated oil.

  “Oh, my!” Paisley turned in a circle, apparently in search of something to put out the fire.

  Ruthie scooted off her stool and ran behind the counter to help. The customer from the end of the counter followed on her heels.

  “Get the baking soda!” Paisley cried.

  The man snatched a can of something from the prep table.

  “No, not that!” Ruthie lunged to grab the can out of his hand, but before she could reach it, he threw the contents on the flames.

  Whoof! The pan flared up in a miniature fireball, and baking powder poofed everywhere.

  In a panic, Ruthie debated what to do first...tend to Paisley, whose blunt-cut brunette bangs now frizzled like tiny electrified wires, get the customer with the melting handlebar mustache out of the kitchen before he did further damage or try to extinguish the pan before it caught something else on fire. Before she could make a move, someone pushed past her, turned off the gas flames and deftly slid a lid over the hot pan.

  Gray, their fast-thinking rescuer, turned on the water, doused clean dish towels with cold water, offered them to the threesome and suggested they hold the cooling cloths to their faces to take away the sting of the heat.

  Paisley touched a hand to her cheek. “I don’t think I’m burned. Just a little warm.”

  After a quick check of the customer revealed a slight redness near his lip where his mustache wax had melted, Gray turned to Ruthie. He grabbed her by the upper arms and studied her intensely. First her face, then down to her hands, which he turned over to check for burns. She’d been farther away from the fire when it flashed, so she hadn’t felt the effects of the heat. Yet even after he’d finished giving her the once-over, he held on. She wondered if he realized how tightly he gripped her upturned hands.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, concern drawing a vertical line on his forehead.

  “I’m fine,” she said in a shaky voice, “but Paisley looks weird.”

  Along with her bangs, Paisley’s eyebrow hairs had faded from dark brunette to pale brown and corkscrewed in all directions. Her cheeks and nose glowed a faint pink, but it wasn’t clear whether the color came from a burn or stress.

  Savannah dashed over from Connecting Threads, her blond hair bouncing on her shoulders.

  “I heard a loud whoosh clear across the store,” she said, “and when I looked over here, it seemed as though the whole place had gone up like a dried-out Christmas tree.”

  While Savannah bustled from one friend to the other and then the older man, double-checking them for heretofore unnoticed signs of injury, Gray quietly herded the ensemble out of the kitchen.

  “It’s a miracle no one was hurt,” Savannah declared. “God must have been watching over y’all.”

  Gray fixed his gaze on Ruthie, his expression making it clear he would not be joining in the choruses of “praise God.”

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  * * *

  While her friends cleaned up the kitchen, Ruthie followed Gray back to the Gleanings area. Several new finds awaited price tags, and boxes from the Bristow house still sat near the checkout counter where she had left them yesterday afternoon. There were not yet any customers at this early hour of the morning.

  A terrible thought raced through her heart. “Sobo. Did the clot—?”

  “She’s the same,” he said, moving his hands as if to erase whatever worry she might have. “It’s not about her.”

  Relief flooded through her. But the troubled expression on Gray’s face killed the momentary reprieve. Were they finally going to confront the awkward elephant that had stood between them for the past four years? Worse, was he going to tell her he’d moved on and found someone else?

  “It’s about Pop.”

  Ruthie touched a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

  “No, not Pop, but his stuff. You haven’t already sold the things he brought in yesterday, have you?”

  His dark brow furrowed together, and he jammed his hands into his jeans pockets in a sign that Ruthie had come to know meant something was bothering him. Apparently, this was about more than just a few collectible doodads.

&n
bsp; “I don’t think so.” She looked inside the half dozen open boxes sitting on and beside the counter. “These haven’t been inventoried yet, but it looks like everything’s still here.”

  She paused, remembering what Paisley had said about selling the kissing dolls. Had he come back for them? Did they hold the same meaning for him that they did for her?

  “Oh, wait. There was one thing, a pair of knickknacks that used to sit on the piano.”

  She watched him, but his intense gaze never flickered. He didn’t remember? Her heart sank a little.

  He shook his head. “One of the boxes was full of military stuff from Pop’s service in Korea. Awards and medals, pictures, journals. Some keepsakes. He had set that box aside to put away but brought it to you by mistake.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s here somewhere.”

  They started with the stack beside the counter. Few of the contents matched the kinds of things Ruthie sold at Gleanings. She usually focused on antique or unusual one-of-a-kind items bought from estate sales and moving sales, but these would be sold on consignment for the Bristows. The idea had been to spare Pop the trouble of organizing a yard sale when he needed to take care of Sobo. He’d initially pushed aside the stored items in the spare bedroom to make room for Sobo’s rented hospital bed. But his wife’s Japanese decorating taste won out, and soon the room looked as sparse and clean as the rest of the house.

  They went through the three stacked boxes of odds and ends first, then moved a fourth from the small pedestal table Pop had brought and set it on the counter. The tabletop’s inlaid design of golden-colored grain beckoned her to trace her fingers around the bent heads of barley.

  She clearly remembered sitting at this table on the Bristows’ screened porch, playing Jenga with Gray and his younger sister while a warm summer breeze blew over the trio. Gray had stared intently at the stacked wooden blocks, determined to remove a piece without collapsing the precarious tower. Ruthie had laughed at his seriousness over the silly game, but he’d just refocused his concentration. With a hint of mischief guiding her actions, she’d touched her bare toes to the twisted barley pedestal and given it a nudge so slight the crashing of the tower could have easily been blamed on the breeze.

  When his foot came down on hers, she’d suspected she’d been caught. Instead, he’d conceded defeat and promptly invited her to the Byrd Theatre for a 99-cent second-run movie. It was their first date, and he’d held her hand during the entire time the Wurlitzer organ played before the movie started. Ruthie had no memory of the movie, but she could still remember the exact feel of her hand in his, the calluses on his palm scratching her skin. Remembered wishing they hadn’t bought popcorn each time he let go to reach into the carton for a handful of the buttery stuff.

  It had been part of the best time of her life. The laughter. The fun. Sharing new experiences together. The discovery that, no matter what activity they engaged in, it was always better when they did it together. And most of all, there was the easy camaraderie. The feeling that they could say or do anything without self-consciousness or censoring.

  The rest of the family seemed to approve of their nearly constant togetherness. Since Gray’s parents lived only a few blocks away, it had been easy for him to slip away frequently and come to visit her under the guise of checking on his grandparents. And on occasion, Ruthie would walk over to visit his younger sister, but spend as much or more time with Gray.

  But now...well, she measured every word she spoke and guarded every glance she sent his way. It was an uncomfortable balancing act between keeping a circumspect distance and wanting to slip back into that easy way of relating they used to have.

  “I knew you shook the table,” he said, breaking into her moment of reverie. He gave her a nostalgic grin edged with regret.

  Or maybe she was just hoping for a twinge of regret.

  “Then why didn’t you say something?”

  He gave a soft chuckle. “I liked your determination to win.”

  “Even if my methods were a little hinky?”

  He put his hand on hers, bridging the present with the past. “I’m sorry for hurting you. For telling you something so intense in a letter instead of...”

  “Instead of by Skype?” she finished for him. The comment had been intended to refer to the thousands of miles separating them at the time, but it came out sounding bitter.

  Something between an apology and a grimace crossed his face. “Yeah, I guess even that would have been more personal. More face-to-face.”

  He looked away and removed his hand from hers, taking the warmth with it.

  “And I guess it was pretty cowardly of me to keep dodging you after I came back home, but I convinced myself it was to protect you from an awkward meeting at my grandparents’.” He returned his attention to her, meeting her gaze directly. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for the way I handled things.”

  Sure, it had been unpleasant, but what breakup wasn’t? Even if they’d been in the same room, it wouldn’t have hurt any less. Despite her own pain, she knew whatever had caused him to change his mind about God and a future with her must have been hurting him much, much more.

  She shook her head. “No apology necessary,” she said. “That’s all in the past now.”

  We’re in the past, she almost added.

  “You may not be a Bristow by marriage,” he continued, “but according to my grandparents, you’re still family. We’re going to see each other at family events, so we need to be able to put the awkwardness aside. For Pop and Sobo’s sake, if not our own.”

  Ruthie nodded and offered him a wistful smile. “Yeah, it’s been hard juggling holidays and drop-by visits for the times you’re not there.”

  “So I’m not the only coward,” he teased. He pulled a cardboard box closer to him and lifted a flap. “Maybe we should meet for lunch sometime. Clear the air about the past and set up ground rules for the future.”

  “Rules of engagement, you mean.”

  He flinched as if she’d hit him.

  She’d intended it in the military sense, of course, but it was only after seeing his reaction that she realized her words could be taken a different way.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” he said with a forced smile. “Maybe we could call them rules of disengagement.”

  The joke wasn’t funny, so she didn’t laugh.

  The door opened, and a stylish young mother with a baby in a stroller entered the building. The woman spotted the Gleanings sign over the counter and headed toward the shop to browse.

  “Feel free to look around,” Ruthie told her. “And let me know if you have any questions.”

  Gray’s expression quickly changed to one of relief. “Here it is. Pop’s Korean War stuff.”

  “That’s great.” Ruthie bent to look at the assortment of papers, medals, photos and sentimental trinkets. “We get history hunters in here all the time. Pop would be heartbroken if we’d sold all those memories.”

  He closed the box flaps. “Thanks. For this,” he said, gesturing toward the mementos. “For everything.”

  At her questioning glance, he added, “For being there for Pop and Sobo while I was away.”

  “Your parents were there for them,” she said, deflecting his praise. “They looked after them.”

  “Yes, but you gave Sobo and Pop someone other than me to focus on. You made a difficult time in their lives a little more tolerable.”

  She shook off his thanks. “They’ve been there for me more than I was for them. I don’t know what I would have done—where I would have gone—if they hadn’t stepped in when I needed help most.”

  Gray’s expression took on a faraway look. Was he thinking of God—who he’d said wasn’t there when he’d needed help most?

  He t
ucked the box of Pop’s treasures under one arm and laid some bills on the counter. Then he moved the small, round table closer to the door. “I’ll take the table, too. Is this enough to cover it?”

  “Way too much. You could buy a new one for less.” She wondered if the table had stirred memories for him as it had for her.

  He must have read her mind. “There’s a bare spot in the corner of my kitchen. This should fit just about right.” With the box still tucked under his arm, he picked up the table with the other hand and moved toward the door. He stopped and turned back to her. “Don’t tell Pop and Sobo I bought it, or they’ll try to pay me back.”

  “Let me give you a hand.”

  Either the box or the table alone would have been manageable, but the weight of both was clearly an effort for him. She came from around the counter, but he hefted the table closer.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

  With a resigned sigh, Ruthie stood back and watched him struggle through the door, determined to carry his burden alone.

  * * *

  The fire at Milk & Honey was nearly forgotten when the lunch crowd poured in. By that afternoon, Savannah had sold a vintage dress to a teen for her upcoming prom, and Nikki, who helped run the shop next door and who they hoped would be a future partner at Abundance someday, had taken apart an antique typewriter to repair and restore.

  Whenever Ruthie thought about how Abundance and the individual shops within it came to be, she thanked God for bringing together the original three talented friends who, each in her own way, loved to find interesting articles and offer them for sale, and then adding a fourth to the mix. She sometimes laughingly called Savannah and Paisley her “Craigslist friends,” since it had been an online ad seeking roommates that had brought them together in the first place. Then, after moving into their Abundance shops, they’d been blessed to meet Nikki, who worked next door.

  The college years had been lean for the three friends, so they’d sought to decorate the rented house with flea market and thrift-store finds. Ruthie started them off with unusual pieces of antique furniture hidden under ugly coats of paint or dulled varnish, which she refinished and made to look like new. Savannah found lovely old tablecloths, bedspreads and dresses that showed small signs of wear and fashioned them into beautiful curtains fit for a showroom. And Paisley, with her penchant for food and hospitality, supplied fancy plates and introduced the group to the likes of tea infusers, egg-poaching cups and soup tureens.