Her Heart's Promise

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Kent tucked his head over the kitten, his shoulders hunched in defense. Like a turtle he had withdrawn again.

  Crystal angled her chin at Kent as she tossed her hat on the desk. “Who’s the kid?”

  “This is Kent, and I’m bringing him and his kitten to an examining room. As soon as Dr. Harvey comes in, can you send him my way?”

  “Not Dr. Braun?” Crystal asked, her voice holding a teasing tone.

  Tracy was disappointed at the faint blush warming her neck. From the first day that David Braun had started at the clinic four months ago, Crystal had been avidly watching the two of them, as if it was only a matter of time before they started dating. Because, you know, two single people were always on the lookout for a mate.

  Negatory.

  There was no way Tracy was putting herself there again. Her old relationship with Art was the textbook version of ‘bad relationship’. And she wasn’t putting herself there again.

  But that didn’t stop her from feeling extra self-conscious around David—which in turn annoyed her.

  “Just send Dr. Harvey in when he comes,” she said.

  Crystal pouted. “Okay, okay. I’ll just be in the supply room.” She swung around, her lab coat flaring out behind her as she strode down the hall. But from the glance she tossed over her shoulder and the wink she gave, Tracy guessed Crystal hadn’t gotten the hint.

  At all.

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  A SILENCE IN THE HEART

  Excerpt - Any Man of Mine

  "If I have to drop a quarter off one more set of abs," I hefted two four-liter jugs of milk onto the conveyor belt of the grocery store with a grunt "--punch one more stomach--," I followed it with two jumbo sized boxes of breakfast cereal “--trip…over...one...more...saddle--." I punctuated each word with the toss of a bag of chips, peanuts and sunflower seeds. "--I am throwing an old-fashioned, fully feminine hissy fit." I glared at Tracy, who stood behind me in the line at the cash register, daring her to deny me my well-earned pique.

  "Just stay away from the high C on the scream," was all Tracy said. "You're more of an alto than a soprano."

  As my best friend, Tracy would feign sympathy with my rants against my brothers, but I knew she was never fully on my side. From the first day she stayed overnight at my parents’ ranch and had been bombarded with my brothers’ spitballs as she came into the kitchen, my dad's booming voice yelling at her to come on in and join us for dinner and my mom's yelling at my dad to stop yelling, Tracy had fallen head over heels in love with my family.

  "I still can't figure out why each of my 33, 32 and 29-year-old brothers still want to live at home," I continued.

  "You're really venting this morning," Tracy commented with a wry tone.

  "Just getting started," I returned. It was Tuesday, the second day in a week that had begun badly, the first day was yesterday. Today wasn't looking so good, either.

  The flat tire I'd had on the way to work didn't help, nor did the fact that I'd had to change it wearing high heels and a narrow skirt on the side of a quiet gravel road.

  "You still live at home and you're 27," Tracy pointed out.

  "At least I, at one time, had plans to move out." I allowed a flicker of self-pity to creep into my voice. "Then Dad had his heart attack."

  "How is your dad doing?"

  "It will still be a few weeks before he's back to normal. The doctor also said often people suffer deep depression after a heart attack. So I'm still hoping and praying he'll perk up and get more involved in the ranch."

  Four weeks ago, my dad, Arnold Hemstead, had collapsed at the auction mart and had been rushed to emergency. He was diagnosed with a cardiac infarction, spent ten days in the hospital and came home to three anxious sons. And me.

  Neil, Chip and Carter hovered, helped and catered to my dad for a thoughtful 36 minutes then they went back to their welding, fixing and farming, knowing I'd take over.

  "I caught a glimmer of my old dad the other day," I continued. "He's getting more interested in what's happening. He asked me if I was unloading bales for Carter next week."

  "Are you?"

  I dismissed her comment with an exasperated eye-roll. I learned long ago to keep my nose in my business and in the house, away from anything to do with machinery, tractors and animals. The few times I offered my help and didn't understand what needed to be done, my brothers' method of informing me of my mistakes was to repeat the instructions verbatim and increase the decibels.

  Such cozy bonding time that was, working with the guys.

  "Okay, I'm guessing that's no." Tracy picked up one of the magazines lined up by the counter. "Sounds like you should take this quiz--‘Is the male in your life a man or a guy?’"

  "Guy, guy, guy and absolutely guy." The only not-guy in my life had been a few assorted boyfriends, the last one being Anthony.

  However, I broke up with him in the fall and had found no one who appealed to me since.

  And Wyatt? Where did he fit?

  In the past, I told myself. Even after all this time memories of him could still create a twist in my heart.

  "Okay, I sense we're not done with the sisterly pique yet." Tracy straightened the magazine and tilted me a grin. "Are you going to tell me which one of the guys in your life triggered this latest outburst?"

  I pulled from the painful past into the annoying present. "Chip. Hands down or in his case up in the air so he can flex his lateral deltoids." I sighed. "And don't I sound like I know too much about that."

  "So what did Chip do to earn this attack?"

  Where to start, where to start?

  "Let me set the stage," I said, watching the cashier bag the trans fat-loaded food. "It's Monday at 6:30, and Monday usually means a cranky supervisor, cranky foster parents and cranky foster kids who've had two more days worth of complaints to pile on me. One deranged biological father threatening me with a lawsuit if I didn't return his children to him the minute he steps out of jail, two runaways over the weekend and another case worker who won't return my calls. I come home tired and ready for a cup of tea and a smidgen of sympathy. I step onto the porch and stumble over Chip's roping saddle parked square in front of the door. As I try to gain my balance, I end up tangled up in a set of reins and fall in a most ungraceful heap on Chip's greasy coveralls. End result--a cleaning bill, bruised hip and a broken heel on the new boots you and I spent an hour and a half looking for in West Edmonton Mall. So you have a stake in my misery, considering all the grumbling you did on the two-hour drive back from said mall."

  I could see from the faint twitch of Tracy's lips that, while as a friend and fellow woman she felt sorry for me, as a normal human being with a dose of guy genes herself she could picture my ungainly fall and see the humour in it.

  Growing up with three brothers who revelled in their "guyness" had provided me with me lots of ranting fodder, but Tracy often took their side. Other than a frequently absent mother, Tracy had grown up on her own. The noise and busyness in our house was a welcome change for her and she enjoyed it.

  And she enjoyed Holmes Crossing. So when she graduated from her vet tech course she had returned to Holmes Crossing out of choice. I came back because it was one of the few places I could get a job in my chosen field of social work. There had been government cutbacks, and while I would have preferred to work in Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer or any of the larger Albertan cities, Holmes Crosssing had been a temporary option. Besides, I could live at home cheaply, which helped me pay off my student loans and get a decent savings account, AKA "escape" account, started.

  And then I met Wyatt.

  I sucked in a deep breath. Seriously. Why was I going back to that? Four years now and I still felt like he was hovering on the edges of my mind. Unwelcome hovering, but showing up none-the-less. Maybe it was because of Anthony. Breaking up with him had been necessary, but hard. He was a nice person. Just not my person.

  I handed the cashier my debit card and gave
the groceries a once-over, making sure I didn't miss any vital items such as chocolate-covered peanuts, pop or something equally nutritious.

  "So...moving on to the more mundane things in your life. What are you doing the rest of this afternoon?" Tracy asked as she put her own groceries on the conveyor belt. I glanced at the fresh lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers and fruit, and suffered a moment of grocery envy. Tracy's husband, a "man" in my estimation, didn't think eating salad would diminish his manhood and gladly ate the occasional meatless meal without thinking he would faint when he left the table.

  "After bringing you to the clinic, picking up my dry cleaning, getting my shoe repaired and dropping my flat tire off at my brother's mechanic shop?" I asked, trying for one last bid of sympathy.

  "Yeah." She seemed distracted so no joy there.

  "I have to head back to the office to give the other 'guy' in my life, my beloved supervisor, Casey Braeshears, a few moments of my time." I gathered up the Super-Size-Me groceries and swung the last bag into the cart, taking my frustrations out on Neil's nacho chips.

  "Forget to paper clip your invoices again?" Tracy asked, in mock horror.

  "I'm thinking it's something worse, like letting that teenager I had to drag home from a party borrow a government-issued pen without making him return it." I gave her a resigned look. "The budget, you know, doesn't cover these major, unforeseen expenses."

  "He still talk about leaving?" Tracy asked.

  "Unfortunately, no." It was the tantalizing thought of my annoying boss quitting like he had promised for the past six months that had kept me parked at my current job. Thinking I could take over from him. That and the fact I still had a boyfriend.

  But I broke up with Anthony, Casey back-pedalled on the quitting thing and just as I was making plans to go, my father had his heart attack. "Life is what happens when you are making other plans,” the old saying goes.

  "But he's sticking around until he retires," I continued. "Which means I need to cast my professional eye further afield."

  "Not for a while, though, right?" Tracy asked, a concerned frown on her face as she waited for her groceries to get bagged.

  "I don't know how much longer I can last with Casey," I said, slowly edging toward a conversation I knew she wouldn't like. "And I think the boys are getting better at managing on their own." While not exactly a nose-growing whopper, it wasn't exactly true. But I figured I was just enabling them by staying as long as I had.

  "I can't believe you would do that. Besides me, what is in the big city that isn't in Holmes Crossing?" Tracy asked pretending innocence.

  "Men?"

  "C'mon. I think you could find a few 'men' scattered through Holmes Crossing if you looked hard enough."

  My eye was drawn to the neon yellow of a reflector strip glinting back at me from a hard hat worn by a man behind Tracy.

  His grease-stained plaid jacket, torn blue jeans and work boots showed that this was a working man. He wore sunglasses that hid his eyes, and in spite of his full beard and moustache, I caught the smirk on his mouth, the arrogant tilt of his head that showed he was also a full-fledged guy.

  That and the rolled up motorcycle magazine he tapped against his thigh.

  Then he lowered his sunglasses enough so I could glimpse his bloodshot eyes, and then, incredibly, he gave me a slow wink.

  I gave him my best so-not-interested look, then turned my attention back to Tracy. My case was rested.

  "Holmes Crossing is guy-haven,” I grumbled, raising my voice for the benefit of the guy dropping his magazine in front of the cashier. "There's not a decent single man to be found anywhere in this town. I've lost faith in the whole 'seek and ye shall find' concept," I said as Tracy loaded her groceries into my cart.

  "You haven't had much of a chance to exercise that faith with the hours you've been working the past year," Tracy protested as she pushed the cart toward the exit.

  In spite of my momentary pique with the guy now at the till, I couldn't help a glance his way, surprised to see him looking directly at me. Or so it seemed from the direction of his sunglasses.

  What was worse, he was smirking, as if he had expected me to give him a second look.

  Which I stupidly had.

  I turned away, flustered, then angry at myself.

  The electric doors of the supermarket swooshed open ahead of us. "When was the last time you were on a date?" Tracy was asking.

  I pulled my attention back to her. "Does sitting beside Dr. Harvey in church count?"

  Tracy ran her fingers through her dark hair and angled me an exasperated look. "Danielle, the man is 60."

  "He's widowed and he's a gentleman," I offered. "Of course, I don't know why I'm fussing about not having a man in my life. I wouldn't have the time for the proper care and maintenance of a relationship if I did."

  "You need to let Casey know you're not a machine," Tracy continued, ignoring my feeble attempt at humour. "That you can't keep working these obscene hours. None of the other social workers in the department do."

  "It's not just Casey. My dad and brothers seem to think supper appears out of thin air every day. The boys are even childish enough to believe in the laundry fairy, who comes and does their clothes every day."

  "You should get them to help more."

  "I should also try to bring about world peace and reconcile every broken home."

  "You are working on the last part."

  "I might have a better chance at a city job if I can show how invaluable I am here." I grabbed the handle of the cart and traversed the parking lot.

  "Why not tell Casey to hire another social worker?"

  "Like that's happening. He's got to submit his budget for the next fiscal year and he's squeezing water out of coins to maintain his cheapskate status. I wonder if he gets frequent flier miles for every penny he saves the department." We rattled our way to my waiting car, the sun shining benevolently down on us. It was spring in the country and usually the lengthening days and the increasing warmth brought out joy and happiness in me. But work had kept me too busy to take time to appreciate the freshness of the air and the unfurling of new green leaves.

  Tracy's car was getting an oil change and she had needed a ride from work to the grocery store, so I had quit work a half hour early to help her out. Casey must have received wind of my defection, and this little meeting was his way of wringing out every possible minute of work from me.

  But now I paused, wondering when and how I should tell her.

  Like pulling a bandaid off, I told myself. Make it painful but quick.

  "You may as well know I'm already looking at another job." I rattled out the words faster than the wobble on my grocery cart. "It's regular hours, and I'll be reporting to a normal boss."

  "Good for you. It's about time. Who is this for?"

  "It's for a private adoption agency." I waited a moment, gathering my strength to drop the next bomb. "It's in the city. In Edmonton."

  I didn't want to see Tracy's face. So I pushed on, keeping my eyes on my trusty Honda Civic, fifteen years old and still going strong, thanks to Chip's mechanical abilities and body filler, courtesy of Neil. My brothers had their good points.

  "But that's a two-hour drive away," she wailed

  "Depends on who's driving," I offered. "Chip's done it in one hour ten minutes."

  "Chip is also about half a demerit point from having his license taken away," Tracy retorted, put out with my breaking news. "You can't go. I need you. Your foster kids need you. Your family needs...your father needs you," she hastily amended.

  I sighed. And that was the crux of the matter. Six weeks ago I had looked around for another job and my own place to live. I was tired of spinning my wheels in Holmes Crossing. Then Dad had his heart attack and my plans were put on hold.

  All my life, Dad had been the epitome of strong faith and good humour. Even after my mother, Alice, died five years ago, Dad had grieved hard, then told us all he put his trust in God and went back to bein
g the fun-loving, encouraging man I knew him to be. In the following years, I wondered how he had stayed so positive. How he had pulled out of his grief.

  It took me a lot longer than that.

  After the heart attack, Dad had become weak and frail and given to bouts of deep depression. These days he didn't even have the strength or the will to get up from his recliner or to crack open the Bible that he used to read every day. My brothers, who stopped going to church when my mom died, didn't share my concerns. Reading the Bible did not seem to be on the "approved" list of activities for guys.

  I couldn't leave my father this way, but I had stayed as long as I could. It didn't look like things were changing on the work front so I was the one who needed to do the changing.

  "I'm not moving to New Zealand." I pulled open the back door of my car.

  "I don't drive like Chip so it would be a four-hour round trip for me." Tracy set her bags in the back and slammed the door shut. "That's a lot of time to spend in a vehicle just for the pleasure of your company."

  "I would come home most weekends," I said, still loading up my own groceries. A week's supply of healthy food obviously took less time to load than three days' worth of junk food. "I have enough reasons to come back to Holmes Crossing."

  Tracy didn't reply as we got into the car. She said nothing as I reversed out of my spot and turned onto the street. She said nothing when we headed toward the garage where they were working on her car. She said nothing as I pulled into the customer parking stall.

  It was her turn to talk, but as I put my car into park I gave in. "Tracy, you said yourself that I needed to get another job. I heard you. I'm simply following your advice."

  "I said you needed to talk to your boss about your job. Not...not..." She spun her hand in a circle, wiping away what I had told her. "This moving thing you want to do. That you didn't even talk about with me. That you couldn't even bother to ask me questions about even though you knew I would be as upset as I am now." Tracy complained in a voice that conveyed to me her utter disbelief that I would seriously want to leave our home and community and head to the big, bad city.