There was an L. Relief was a wonderful thing. Aggie didn’t need to add speech therapy to her daily list of things to do. The girls stared at her waiting for an answer. “Let’s see if anyone is ready for a break.”
Thankfully, Laird and Tavish seemed to be ready for a break, as was Kenzie. Vannie didn’t want to stop until her paper was finished, and Ellie was now struggling over then and than. She bundled up Ian in warmer clothes, remembering how cold it had been during her brief conversation with Luke, and helped the twins to zip up their coats. “Your coat is too small, Cari. We need new ones.”
“It’s ok. It covers my bell-bows.”
Rolling her eyes at the mental picture of “bell-bows,” Aggie shut the door behind them, shivered, and went to clean up her mess in the kitchen, hoping the water was finally boiling. She grew so engrossed in stirring the Jell-O, pouring it into the pans, and scrubbing the cutting board, she didn’t even notice the song she sang.
“I am so telling Luke that I caught you singing There Is a Fountain Free after hearing about his pipes. You’re busted!” Vannie laughed at what Aggie knew must be a comical expression on her face.
“Kind of like his pipes, eh?”
Thursday, November 20th
Laird burst through the door at eight-thirty, calling her name. “Luke’s outside. He can’t stop, but he thought you might—”
She dodged the coffee table, rounded the couch, and stuffed her feet into the mud boots on the porch. It took three steps to realize they were Vannie’s and her heel hadn’t made it to the sole. Aggie ignored the awkward lumbering movements the boots created and hurried to Luke’s truck. She opened the passenger door and crawled in the cab. “Can you circle the drive two or three times while you give me an update?”
She must have said just the right words, because the tension filled expression on his face softened a little. “I like hearing and seeing you happy to see me, Mibs.”
“I’ve been worried all day. Is the damage better than you thought?”
“Worse,” he admitted. “But according to Laird, who got it from Vannie, you were blissfully unconcerned about my mess as you hummed about free fountains.”
“Oh, I’m so gonna get them! I made Vannie promise not to tell you.”
Luke grinned, turning back into her driveway. “That’s what Laird said. Actually, I think he said, ‘I don’t know if Aunt Aggie will ever figure out that she can’t leave things open ended. We’re too good for that.’”
“What!”
“Yep. I didn’t bother to remind him that I’ve got my resume in for the job of husband slash father, and he is giving away all their secrets to the ‘enemy.’”
Short drives in Luke's truck had an advantage over leisurely chats in her living room—he couldn’t see her blush. “How long will it take to repair the damage? Do you have to take it off the market?”
“Yes. I called Amber so she could cancel her showings. I won’t get it back on the market before the New Year now. Things don’t dry in winter like they do in warmer months.” He sighed. “They’ll deliver a rolling dumpster tomorrow.”
“I’m giving the kids Wednesday off next week. You can take Laird that day.”
He didn’t answer at first, but then Luke nodded. “I think I can have things to where he could be a big help by then. I was hoping to have him on Saturday if you can spare him. That’ll give me Monday and Tuesday to fix the pipes.”
“Can I help?” She sighed. “I guess not. I’d have to bring the kids. That’s not much help.”
Luke’s hand reached for hers and squeezed before he returned it to the steering wheel. “I’ll see about Mom coming to stay for an afternoon the day I have to go shopping. If I have to redo that wall with the backsplash, and I think I do, you might as well come help me pick out the right tile.”
The words “might as well” rankled. “I don’t want to push myself on you, Luke. I just wanted to help.”
“What?”
He slowed, driving past the porch, and Aggie opened the door. “I should go in.”
“Wait, Mibs. You’re angry.”
Aggie pulled the door shut once more. “I—I guess I am. I would have said hurt, but they’re the same thing sometimes, aren’t they?”
“Why? What—”
Her hand remained on the door handle, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I don’t want to be a nuisance, Luke.”
“Who said anything about a nuisance?” He braked, throwing the truck in gear much more recklessly than his usual careful treatment of his “tools.”
“‘Might as well come…’ I don’t want to be a ‘might as well.’”
Though she’d expected a protest, it didn’t come. In fact, there was no response at all. He didn’t brake; he didn’t sigh; he didn’t even glance her way, much less speak. Instead, he kept circling the drive, unaware of the confusion he left in Aggie’s heart. Just as she was ready to demand that he stop the truck and let her out, realization dawned. He was thinking.
“Mibs—”
A giggle escaped before she could prevent it. “Sorry.”
“What—I don’t get it.”
“I just realized why you were so quiet and right when I realized that, you spoke.”
As if unsure what to say, he shook his head. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” He braked, his truck bed half in the road. Hanging his hands over the steering wheel, he laid his head on them and looked at her. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. I was thinking more that it wasn’t your kitchen and you wouldn’t get to enjoy it, but you might as well have fun with it anyway.”
Luke yawned. Ready to send him on his way, Aggie pointed to the house. “Let me out and go home. If you can’t sleep, ding me. I’ll be up for a while yet.”
“Can’t. No internet at the house.”
“On Cygnet? You’re sleeping there?”
He pulled up by her front door and put the truck in park. “Yeah. I can work as late or as early as I want. I can also make sure no more pipes burst. I’m going to test all the outside walls for insulation again—make sure I didn’t miss any others.”
Aggie’s heart sank. She’d miss their Internet chat. “Well, come over for breakfast if you like…”
“Can’t. I’ve got food there to eat while I work. I’ve got to get this done swiftly. Every day lost is money lost. There’s a house in Fairbury that I want, but until this sells…”
The temptation to offer him the money was overwhelming. She had it. He’d get it back for her. Soon enough, it would probably be his money too. Her conscience pricked her. It wasn’t “her” money; it belonged to the children. She had no business loaning out their money to anyone for any reason. Then again, isn’t that what investments were? She had investments—lots of them.
“Luke?”
“No, Aggie. I cannot tell you how much it means that you’d offer, but no.”
She blushed. “I hate how people can read me like that. I wish my face was totally deadpan.”
“It isn’t your face this time, Mibs. It’s you. I know you, and I also know just how much of a struggle it was to offer. It means a lot to me, but I can’t do it—”
“If things were different…”
His chuckle warmed her heart and sent her stomach flopping in that delightfully peculiar way that was becoming quite predictable. “Even if we were married and I had every penny of yours at my disposal, I wouldn’t do it. I have the money in my personal account for a down payment, but I don’t mix personal and business accounts. I just don’t.” He leaned closer, winked and added, “But I do like that your mind went there. I like it a lot.”
Aggie struggled to open her heart—share what she’d wanted to say for weeks, but a lump rose in her throat, choking off any hope of coherent speech. Instead, she gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile and stepped from the truck. Just as she started to close the door, she heard him murmur, “I love you, Mibs.”
“I love—” she began, but his truck was
already pulling away from the house. She pushed it all the way shut before he drove off with it open. “You too.”
Quietly, she let herself back into the house and kicked off Vannie’s too-small boots by the door. Dishes rattled in the kitchen, telling her that Laird was still awake and hungry. “Need help?”
Startled, Laird dropped his plate into the sink. “Oy! You scared me!”
“Sorry. There’s some carrot cake left—not enough for everyone tomorrow.”
“Thanks. Do we have any soup left? I’m freezing.”
“Doesn’t Luke have heat over there?”
“Yeah,” Laird explained, “it’s just that once you get wet, it’s so cold that you never get dry and then you’re cold all the time.”
“Why don’t you go up and take a hot shower and get into warm clothes? I’ll fix you some food.”
“Thanks, Aunt Aggie.” His feet pounded up five stairs before she heard him turn and come back down again. “Hey, Aunt Aggie?”
“Yes?”
“Do we have any space heaters? Luke could use one to help dry stuff out where he’s working.”
Aggie dumped the soup into the pan and turned to Laird, broth dripping from the edge of the now empty container. “He doesn’t have the furnace going?”
“He does, but it’s too expensive to heat that big house just for working in one room, so he has it turned down low.”
“I’ll get him a heater. I can’t believe he doesn’t have one.”
“He does, but it’s at some house in Marshfield he was working on and he doesn’t have time to go get them.”
As she listened to Laird return upstairs and then to the water coming on in the bathroom, Aggie’s mind whirled. She wiped up the soup from the floor, pausing to marvel that she thought to do that now when she’d never considered such a thing at the house in Rockland, and then stirred the soup. Cake went onto a plate and half a sandwich did too. She poured milk into a glass and placed it all on the island.
When Laird entered the kitchen, she smiled at how boyish he looked when just minutes before he’d seemed old for his age. Aggie grabbed her cell phone and her keys. “I’m going to go grab a couple of heaters from the basement and drive them over. I’ve got my phone. Eat and go to bed. If you need anything, call me.”
He waited until she reached the door before Laird called to her again. “Aunt Aggie?”
“Yes?” It took deliberate self-control not to sound exasperated.
“I have all my work done for this week except for the rewrite of my book report. Can I do that Sunday afternoon; that way I can help him tomorrow too?”
Her natural inclination was to say no, but Aggie remembered Luke’s argument that the kind of things he did in his “free time” were educational too. “Ok, this time, but if it isn’t on my desk and perfect Monday morning, I won’t agree to it again.”
“Thanks!”
Melting snow and two heavy space heaters made walking to Luke’s house impossible. Every time she ran an errand in the big fifteen passenger van, it felt like overkill, but two cars for one driver seemed even worse. She saw the lights on in the living room and dining room, but there was no sign of Luke when she pulled into the driveway.
At the door, she pounded. Her fists ached as she used them and her toes to try to summon Luke. Cold and ready to give up, she tried the door and found it unlocked. Once the door was open, she knew why he hadn’t heard her. The Old Rugged Cross blared from a CD player in the kitchen. The singer was the deepest bass she’d ever heard and then followed by a tenor singing, “I will cling to the old rugged cross…”
“Luke?”
Aggie stood in the kitchen doorway, a space heater in each hand. “I heard that you needed a little heat in here.”
Luke swallowed hard. He set down his drill and moved to take them from her. “Not anymore.”
Aggie says: Libby? Are you still awake?
Libby says: Sorry, are you still here? I was talking with Luke.
Aggie says: He seemed pretty discouraged tonight.
Libby says: He is. You made his evening bringing by the heaters.
Aggie says: I didn’t know what to do—if it was the right thing...
Aggie says: Laird said he needed some but that his were in Marshfield or something. I don’t know why he just didn’t go to the hardware store here and get one.
Libby says: He is on auto-pilot right now. He’ll be kicking himself later.
Aggie says: That makes sense.
Libby says: Aggie, are you ok?
Aggie says: Yeah.
Aggie says: I guess.
Libby says: You don’t seem yourself.
Aggie says: I tried to tell Luke…
Libby says: Wrong timing?
Aggie says: Not really—I mean, yes but no, you know?
Libby says: Um, not really. Care to elaborate?
Aggie says: Well, it wasn’t anything earth shattering. I didn’t have a big speech or anything.
Aggie says: He just said he loved me. He does that now, you know.
Libby says: I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected.
Aggie says: Well, I tried to say I loved him too, but he drove off even before I had a chance to shut the door, much less…
Libby says: My Luke is distracted right now. That is very unlike him and dangerous. But you went over to the house. There wasn’t a chance there?
Aggie says: *blush* I sort of lost all intelligible thought after he
made one of his startling comments.
Libby says: Something tells me I shouldn’t ask what it was, so I won’t. I won’t promise not to wonder, though.
Aggie says: Ask him. I don’t care if he doesn’t.
Libby says: I just might do that. I just might.
Libby says: You know, Aggie. My Luke is going to love to hear these stories of your attempts to share your heart. They will be very special to him once…
Aggie says: Once we’re engaged?
Libby says: It seems so presumptuous to say that, but yes.
Aggie says: Well, I’m a presumptuous kind of gal, I suppose. I fully
expect to be his wife someday—if he’ll ever ask. Well, ask for real. I suppose technically he already has by informing me that he intends to. Sort of.
Libby says: His sisters are going to be merciless. They’re bad enough now.
Aggie says: It’ll do him good. Mom says nothing makes a man of a man than enduring good natured teasing regarding his heart.
Libby says: I suspect your father was in earshot.
Aggie says: How did you guess? *giggle*
Libby says: I really would love to chat some more, but I’m developing a nasty headache. I think I should go to bed.
Aggie says: Oh, do! Feel better! Night!
Libby says: Before I go, will you do me a favor?
Aggie says: Anything!
Libby says: Convince Luke to do his tile shopping on Sunday. It’ll have been a full week of hard work at that point. He’ll need a break, but my Luke won’t take one unless forced to. He has a lot riding on this house
Aggie says: I’ll try. Tina isn’t going to see her father after all, so maybe she and William will take the kids out for pizza after church.
Libby says: Thank you, Aggie. Goodnight.
Aggie says: G’night.
Chapter Two
Over the Highway and…
Thursday, November 27th
Aggie’s heart was heavy as she neared Yorktown. She missed him—much more than she’d expected. Even late night chats had been limited to a couple of text messages. Each day he got up early, ate a cold breakfast, tore out the damaged walls, floors, or cabinetry, cleaned it up, and tried to install it all over again. They went shopping once, she helped with the tiling for a couple of hours, but most of the work was left to Luke and Laird—something Aggie imagined would become a frequent occurrence in their lives. Someday. She’d also received a couple of tender notes, but otherwise, Luke had been noticeably, painfully absent.
The din rose in the van, reminding her to pay attention to the road. “Ok, you guys, that’s enough roughhousing back there. Settle down and put your stuff away. We’re almost to Grandma Millie’s house.”
With that chaos tamed, Aggie refocused her attention back on the road. Though she’d looked forward to dinner in her childhood home with family she hadn’t seen in months, she already missed what seemed to be the rest of her family. Both Luke and his mother had declined the invitation to join the Milliken-Stuart clan in Yorktown for Thanksgiving dinner.
As Aggie turned onto her parents’ street, she saw that Christmas decorations were already making a show in several yards. There was fierce competition amongst the men on Lafayette Drive. For decades, they’d tried to outdo each other’s decorative efforts, including one man’s miniature city designed out of wire and blue and white lights.
The moment her foot applied the brakes in front of the house, children spilled from the van and tore across the front yard into the house. Anxious to get inside, Aggie crawled between the seats to Ian’s spot and stared at the empty seat. Somehow, someone had managed to grab him in the melee. She strolled to the back of the van, opened the door, and pulled the box with Vannie’s pies, hard crust and all, from it, shutting the door with her backside. Before she could make it up the walk, Laird and Vannie rushed back out the door to her.
“I’ll take that!” Laird reached for the boxes.
“Go see what is out back! Grandma said to.” Vannie’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she gently shoved Aggie toward the back gate.
Aggie glanced back and saw the children rush into the house again, barely missing a spill that would have created pie goulash in the process. Praying for patience, she pushed open the gate, glancing toward her father’s workshop, but she saw nothing. As she rounded the corner of the house, she spied Luke on one knee, his heart in his eyes and a ring box in one hand.
Aggie’s heart leapt into her throat simultaneously with the thought, I hope someone is recording this! A glance at the family room window assured her that the entire Stuart-Milliken-Winthrop clan was watching the scene with visible relish—truly. Martha held a jar of it in one hand.
Here We Come (Aggie's Inheritance) Page 2