Bad Heiress Day

by Allie Pleiter

  Go with it. Just go with it. Darcy picked up another one of the basketballs and tossed it to Jack, trying to smile. It was hard; she was unbelievably nervous. She had three different speeches rehearsed, but something told her to just hush up and let the moment do its job.

  “You’re kidding,” he said, his tone one of astonishment.

  Darcy shook her head.

  He paused for what seemed like an eternity. Then, without moving his eyes from her, Jack sent a ball soaring over the chain-link fence behind her. Its crisp bounce made a sweet, clear sound.

  “What the…?”

  “Hey, where’d that…”

  There were a few other choice additions to the clamor of reaction. It wasn’t every day brand-new basketballs appeared out of thin air.

  It had begun.

  But where things went from here would make all the difference.

  The group turned, peering in the direction from which the ball came.

  “Yo, mister, your ball.” One very tall, rather scary-looking teenage boy palmed the ball easily and walked toward Darcy and Jack.

  Please, God. Please-please-please…

  Jack walked past her up to the waist-high fence. She turned with him, feeling as if she were pulling her feet out of quicksand instead of pivoting on asphalt. The boy—well, you could hardly call him a boy, but he was no man, either—flicked the ball toward Jack with a single, casual move. Jack caught it in the chest.

  I swear, I’ll do anything, anything you ask just please-please…

  Jack shot the ball back toward the group. “Keep it.”

  Darcy felt as if her entire circulation system had just changed direction.

  “You crazy, man?” The group laughed and came a bit closer.

  “Could be,” Jack replied, looking at Darcy. She thought her stomach would drop out of the soles of her shoes at any second. The whole world spun in the dark of his eyes, as if someone had just turned on a light, or opened the door onto a breathtaking vista.

  “Nice ball.” The youth turned it in his hands, clearly enjoying the feel of it. Darcy noticed that the ball they had been using—now held by a smaller boy in the back of the group, was near black with dirt and even had what looked like duct tape on it in a few places.

  “You bet,” Jack replied. Darcy watched something catch fire in his eyes and spread throughout his body, almost visible, until it looked like the man would shoot sparks out of his fingertips. “I got more in here,” he added, with the most remarkable look on his face. “Anyone else want one?”

  The crowd went wild.

  Darcy was near tears by the time all the balls had been passed out, and whoops of joy echoed through the floodlit basketball courts. Jack himself had been pulled into the first group’s game, his hair all ruffled and his sweater sleeves pulled up. It was like Christmas in November. It was amazing.

  It was a miracle. Her own, personal, precious miracle. She sat hugging her knees on the trunk of the car, watching her husband turn into a wild-eyed twelve-year-old boy, laughing and carousing with a group of boys who could hardly believe what had just happened to them.

  My hero.

  Chapter 14

  All the Way Home

  Mike walked out the door for school at 8:17.

  At 8:18, the phone rang.

  “SO?” Kate’s voice practically exploded through the receiver. Actually, Darcy was a bit surprised Kate wasn’t waiting in the driveway when Mike opened the door this morning. She was glad. It had taken a gallon of coffee to get her and Jack going this morning.

  “So is Jessica going to sell Girl Scout cookies this year?” Darcy replied, smiling. She knew exactly what Kate was asking, she just felt like kidding around a bit this morning. She felt almost giddy with the afterglow of last night’s events.

  “So how’d it go with Jack?” Kate yelled into the phone.

  “Oh, yeah, that.”

  “‘Oh, yeah, that.’ Come on, I’ve been on edge all morning. Give up the details or I’m going to come over there.”

  Darcy’s response was a sparkling sort of sigh. She couldn’t even think of where to begin.

  She heard Kate chuckle on the other end of the phone. “That good, huh?”

  “Incredible.”

  “Spill it, girl. Start with dinner and don’t leave anything out—well, okay, it sounds like there’s a bit I probably don’t need to hear in detail—but don’t leave a speck out of dinner and the basketballs. However you all chose to occupy yourselves after you came home is…well…skippable.”

  Darcy sat down at the counter and poured herself a fourth cup of coffee. “Kate, it was wonderful. Every last bit of it.”

  “Jeff Ruby’s still a great steak, huh?”

  “For sure. Jack was practically glowing over the slab of meat. And the waiter thing, with the DVDs? Went off without a hitch. Everyone in the restaurant stared, and the waiter was great about it. Dramatic presentation and everything.”

  “Pure Darcy Nightengale. You do this kind of stuff better than anyone I know. So, did he love that you got them at a bargain, too?”

  Darcy glanced at the stack of DVDs now proudly displayed on the coffee table. “You know it. I just knew he’d get weird about that—it was the perfect touch to let him know I’d gotten them at a great price. At about two o’clock this morning, he actually calculated that we’d get a full return on our investment over rental fees in under three years.”

  “You guys were up at 2:00 a.m.?”

  “Well…”

  Kate interrupted her. “Let’s not go into it, shall we? I want to hear about the basketballs. Did it work? Did he get it? You didn’t get mugged or anything?”

  “It was amazing.” Darcy hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off her face yet. Even the kids had given her grief about her exhausted state of euphoria. “I thought I’d die just after I opened the trunk. It took forever.” Darcy went on to tell the whole tale, from the first hesitant basketball pass to the astonished faces of those boys to the wild games that followed. When Jack had finally held his hands up and pleaded middle age, he was winded, sweaty and downright electrified. He walked back to the car, haloed by the court floodlights, panting and grinning. As if someone had peeled ten years off his soul. He was young and vibrant and athletic and the world was his oyster—the dynamo of a man she’d fallen head over heels for in college. The man glowed from the inside out. Without a word, but just the instinctive sigh of her name, he’d pinned her up against the side of the car and kissed her as if they’d been apart a hundred days.

  Once home, they sat up talking for another hour. About what giving those basketballs felt like. What it did to those boys. How that energy that came from doing something so unsuspectedly nice for them was downright addictive, even if it couldn’t really be explained.

  Her body went into that wonderful meltdown of feeling, just remembering the look in his eyes.

  “He gets it, Kate. He gets it now. I thanked God a dozen times for you last night—I’d have never thought of something like this. I owe you.” She didn’t know if it was fatigue or the leftover emotional release of last night, but she found herself choking up on the phone. “I owe you so much.”

  Kate’s own voice faltered. “Yeah, well, I can’t let you go around having all the good ideas now, can I?”

  “We make a pretty good team, Kate Owens.”

  “That we do Mrs. Nightengale. Who knows how it will pay off now?”

  Darcy narrowed her eyes. “I think we stand a pretty good chance of getting the Restoration Project off the ground now.”

  “Maybe, but I wasn’t thinking of that.”

  “No?”

  “No, I had more immediate gratification in mind for you.”

  Darcy was puzzled. “Meaning…?”

  “Meaning are you forgetting your birthday is a week from Thursday? Think of the payback! I hope he comes to me for advice—I think it’s time you got that tiara you’ve been eyeing. Or maybe a new…”

  “Fridge?” D
arcy finished for her.

  “Not on my watch, girl. Not on my watch!”

  Tuesday Morning Prayer in the Henhouse was more like Tuesday Morning Party in the Henhouse. Glynnis was bubbling with excitement. She held Darcy at arm’s length. “My, but I’m not sure I even have to ask how it went. The look on your face could light up a room.”

  “It was wonderful.” Darcy felt as if those words had come out of her mouth a hundred times in the last two days.

  “Isn’t it wonderful when God goes the extra mile? I just love it when he exceeds our expectations. Feels like a glimpse of heaven, doesn’t it?”

  Darcy took her usual chair at the kitchen table. “Well, Jack hasn’t actually said yes to the project yet.” She was trying hard not to jump to conclusions, not to run off and put everything in the works just because of one wonderful evening. It was pretty hard—her brain seemed to be working overtime ironing out the logistics of The Restoration Project’s first wave.

  Glynnis looked surprised. “You mean you haven’t discussed it yet?”

  “Well, sort of. We talked about what it felt like to give those balls away, and why it’s worth the—what did Jack call it?—‘fiscal irrationality,’ but we didn’t quite make the jump to going forward with The Project.”

  Glynnis still looked stumped. “Why ever not?”

  Darcy felt like she was turning crimson. “Well, for one thing,” she said sheepishly, “he kept kissing me.”

  Glynnis’s eyes took on a sparkle worthy of a woman one-third her years. “Well, there is that to consider. A mighty fine reason, if you ask me.”

  Glynnis sauntered off the stool toward the refrigerator for the requisite iced tea. “You young people think you have the monopoly on romance,” she called over her shoulder.

  Darcy sucked in her breath. Some thoughts a brain just can’t hold without making you wince.

  “Ed Bidwell could sweep any woman off her feet. Even now, and even without the fancy car, mind you.” Glynnis filled two glasses and returned to the counter.

  It was like thinking about Santa putting the moves on Mrs. Claus. Darcy could only roll her eyes, even though she tried to look understanding.

  Glynnis could have been insulted, but she merely regarded Darcy with a one-day-you’ll-understand kind of look and sighed. “God designed marriage—and the marriage bed, mind you—for the long haul.” She spread her hands on the counter and pulled in a long slow breath. “Once you get those kids out from under you, you’ll be amazed at what you can find to do with your free time.”

  Now Darcy was positive she was turning crimson. The Bidwells were just one surprise after another. Or one shock after another, depending on how you looked at it.

  When I grow up, I want to be just like Glynnis Bidwell, Lord.

  “You know,” she said, rather eager to change the subject, “that wasn’t the only reason we didn’t get to that discussion. I felt something—a tug, sort of, a hesitation. I wanted to talk to you about it, actually. Every time I tried to steer the conversation around to that, I’d get this weird feeling that I wasn’t supposed to ask him about it.”

  “Really.” Glynnis leaned in.

  “Yes. It was…well, it was the exact opposite of what I felt up on the church steps. As if that had been a giant green light and this other feeling was a giant red light.”

  Glynnis pondered the information for a moment. “Well, I gather you’re learning to listen better, hon.”

  “What? To Jack? To my nerves?”

  “To God.”

  “God? Why’d He stop me from talking to Jack about it?”

  “Don’t you think He can say stop if He can say go?”

  Darcy didn’t have an answer to that one.

  Glynnis sighed. “Everybody’s always looking for an answer to prayer. Trouble is, people often forget no is an answer to prayer, too.”

  Darcy felt her chest tighten. “You mean God is saying no to The Restoration Project? He can’t do that now, can He?”

  “God is God. He can pretty much do as He likes.” Glynnis reached out and patted Darcy’s arm in a motherly gesture. “But no, I’m pretty sure He’s already given His stamp of approval to your idea. But maybe He just doesn’t want you to push the issue with Jack right now.”

  “But I need to move forward! So much good has happened—he gets it Glynnis, Jack finally gets it—and I know God did that. I’m dying to get started now.”

  “All the more reason for you to sit tight. If God’s telling you to sit still, it’s because you need to. He’s already done heaps for you this week hasn’t he?” She waited, staring at Darcy, until Darcy nodded her agreement like a pupil in class. “So you can trust Him, can’t you?”

  “I supp—Yes.” Glynnis had banned the use of I suppose two weeks ago.

  “Don’t you just hate it when God decides it’s time to learn patience? I just hate cooling my heels when I’m raring to go on something.” She picked up a cookie, pointing it right at Darcy. “But like I said, God has a habit of exceeding my expectations when I do.”

  “Really.” Darcy tried to sound enthusiastic, but wasn’t very successful.

  “You just watch, Darcy Nightengale. God has whopping big plans for you. You’d better let him get Jack onboard in His own way.”

  Chapter 15

  It’s in the Cards

  “Jacob the Kindly Lawyer,” as Darcy always called him, looked as though he had earned the name. A tall, frog-eyed gentleman in a striped shirt and real bow tie, he was soft-spoken and deliberate in his movements. Jack couldn’t think of anyone less like his idea of an attorney than Jacob Foxmore. Still, he looked like a man true to his word. And he had been.

  “I don’t think I need to tell you this is highly irregular, Jack. There aren’t a lot of circumstances where I’d agree to meeting to discuss an inheritance without the beneficiary present.” Jacob tapped the thick Paul Hartwell file on its end, lining up the papers inside into precise stacks. “Then again, everything about this particular estate is highly irregular. And, I doubt much as Paul would have minded. But you understand, I hope, why I had to get written permission from Darcy, even if you are married to her.”

  Jack hadn’t minded at all, even though Darcy had made a few jokes about “signing enough permission slips for schoolkids” as she wrote out the note. Jack rather admired Jacob’s keen attention to detail and protocol.

  “And I can understand,” Jacob continued, “why she’d want you taking the lead on this. With your background, I’d have probably advised her to do the same thing.”

  “I appreciate your willingness to speak with me,” replied Jack. “I’m just trying to figure out our options here.”

  Jacob pointed at him with the pencil in his hand. “Good choice of word. You do have options. Paul felt he had no right requiring you and Darcy to do anything.” The man sharpened his gaze. “But he did make his preferences mighty clear.”

  Well, Jack expected Jacob to see it that way. “Still,” he countered, “I gather there are several ways to do that, and several levels at which to do it.” Jack stared back at Jacob to see if he caught the subtext.

  He did. “If you’re asking me if you have to give all the money away or just some of it, the answer is no. I have no authority to make you do anything here. Darcy’s always been a signer on the account, even if she didn’t really know it. That’s why she could pull from her father’s checkbook to go do that beauty thing with her friend. Truth is, there’s nothing stopping her from using Paul’s money to get her nails done every day for the rest of her life.”

  “I was wondering about that.” It was one of Jack’s primary questions: whether or not Darcy had current access to the money, or did she have to go through Jacob. “So if I understand you right, the present setup could still stand. We wouldn’t need to move the money into a new account or anything at this point? It’s still earning the interest it’s earned all along, and we can access it whenever we want?”

  “Yes.”

  For a
fleeting moment, the thought struck Jack that he and Darcy could turn around tomorrow and buy a new house cash on the barrel. Never to see a mortgage payment again. That was a rush any CPA would have to be comatose not to appreciate.

  “Can we donate it right from where it is? Or do we need to set up some kind of special account?” Jack asked the question half out of honor, the other half out of stopping his spinning capitalistic gears.

  “Nope, you could give the whole kaboodle away tomorrow in one check—if you wanted to. Of course, if you were asking me, I’d have to say I wouldn’t advise it.”

  “Oh, I quite agree with you there. I think we have a lot of thinking to do before we do anything.”

  Jacob’s face took on a strange expression. “I can’t say, Jack, that I wouldn’t be slowing down past the boat dealership if I were you. It’s a lot of money. You got a lot to think about.”

  Jack tried not to let his shock show, then realized Jacob was not being judgmental at all. “It’s a lot to take in. Your brain wanders a dozen different directions.”

  “It does at that. Look, I get paid to give advice, so I’m going to give it. Go slow. Do your homework. Look at all your options. And never say never.” Jacob steepled his hands.

  Had he worked the Bond movie title in there on purpose? It was debatable, as the exact title was Never Say Never Again, but the slight twinkle in Jacob’s eye made Jack wonder. He made a mental note never to make assumptions about anyone in a bow tie ever again.

  Darcy cleaned three closets trying to keep her mind off The Restoration Project the next two days. She boxed up the last of the kids’ summer clothes, pulled out and assessed the snow boots and snow pants, and even sent three boxes of hand-me-downs off to the hospital thrift store.

  Anything to keep her mind off grilling Jack.

  She’d managed—through a supreme effort and no less than six calls to Glynnis—to keep her mouth shut. Her brain, however, had exploded wide-open, and the family computer held a ten-page outline of the Project’s pilot testing phase. She’d allowed herself one call to Meredith, asking her to identify five families or individuals who might be good candidates for involvement. It was superfluous, really, because timing was crucial and she still had no idea when The Project would move forward. She’d asked Meredith to humor her, however, desperate to be doing anything while she waited for the Green Light from Heaven that seemed to never come.