Abide with Me

by Delia Parr

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t believe we did. You haven’t called, and you haven’t set another date to show me any more houses, either.”

  “An appointment. I didn’t set another appointment. We’ve never had a date,” she insisted.

  “We really should do something about that.”

  She almost let out a sigh, but caught herself. “I’m not interested.”

  “Sure you are, but before you get all steamed up—”

  “I don’t get ‘steamed up.’ I’m simply getting frustrated. You don’t seem to be getting my message.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I’ve gotten the message. You like me. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”

  “And you’re too persistent for your own good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run and clients who respect the time I spend trying to find them a home, unlike other so-called clients who only pretend to be interested in moving to Welleswood,” she snapped.

  He ducked as if he were trying to avoid her words. “I’m glad I don’t fit into that last category.”

  Her eyes widened. Rather than use words to defend herself and prove him wrong, she grabbed at the keys hanging from the lanyard around her neck and unlocked her new credenza.

  “That’s an interesting necklace you’re wearing. Having trouble with thieves getting to your files?”

  “No, only hurricanes,” she muttered, pulled his file and put it on the desk between them. “Take a look. It’s your file. Count the number of houses I’ve shown to you over the past two months.”

  He thumbed through the file so fast he could not possibly have counted them all. “Sixteen. I believe that’s accurate.”

  “Sixteen exactly. And how many did you consider seriously enough to make an offer?”

  He shrugged, but his eyes were twinkling. “Only the first one.”

  “Which you reneged on.”

  “Like I had a choice?”

  “There were fifteen others,” she countered, to change the subject rather than admit he was right. It had not been his fault that he had been victimized by hijackers.

  “They weren’t quite right.”

  She meant to wave his words away, but her gesture was more like a swing. “You weren’t really serious about any of those houses. You only looked at them because you…I mean…” Feeling a little foolish to say she thought he only wanted an excuse to see her, she faltered—until she saw that twinkle in his eyes again. “You only looked at them because you wanted an excuse to see me.”

  He smiled. “I warned you I was persistent.”

  “And I distinctly told you that I’m—”

  “Stubborn. I remember. Scared, too, I gather. One date would fix that.”

  She stared at him. “Were you born this brazen or is it an acquired fault?”

  He laughed out loud. “Probably a little of both. At the moment, though, I guess I’m just interested in knowing one reason why you’re not interested.”

  “In you?” she asked.

  “Yes. Other than the age thing.”

  She cocked a brow.

  He shrugged again. “It bothers some people.”

  “But not you.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Okay then, it bothers me. I’m fifty-seven years old. You’re…”

  “Forty-six.”

  “I was eleven years old when you were born!” Andrea exclaimed.

  “A lot of people were. Now aside from the age difference, which neither one of us can change—”

  “I’m not interested. I’m perfectly happy being single, so there’s no need to date you or anyone else,” she insisted. She was not going to explain anything beyond that because she did not need to. He just could not argue with that reason.

  “I’ve been single for the past eight years. Being single is lousy, so I know better. Try again.”

  “I’m too busy to date. I have a business to run. Even if I wanted to date, I don’t have the time.” There. Argue with that, she thought, triumphantly.

  His brow furrowed. “From what I hear, you do have the time. Mrs. Blake is a lot busier here at the office than you are, and she’s been seeing the pastor’s brother-in-law for the past few weeks.”

  “D-Doris? And the pastor’s brother?”

  “I also heard he’s a few years her junior, too.” He winked, and his smile had victory written all over it.

  She could feel her heart pounding, and her temper slipped right out of her grasp. Even hours later, she could not figure out whether it was desperation or sheer orneriness that had prompted her to be so blatantly honest with him. “I’m not well, which means I’m not exactly dating material right now.”

  “Your ankle has been healed now—”

  “I have bladder cancer. For the second time,” she blurted. “I’ve been taking chemotherapy treatments since the end of July. I had one yesterday, and I have eight more months of chemo ahead of me. Which means I shouldn’t even be thinking of dating you or anyone else right now because I don’t have the time or the inclination to think about it because if I were interested, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I can’t date you because I’m not sure the chemo is going to work or not. I can’t see my own future clearly, let alone anyone else’s. Not right now. Understand? That’s the truth, the awful truth, and nothing but the truth. So please don’t worry about hurting my feelings. Just don’t slam the door on your way out, and if you tell one person on this entire planet or any other what I just told you, I will find some way to haunt you for the rest of your natural life.”

  With her chest heaving, she watched his expression change from brazen and playful to serious and thoughtful. Her hands clenched into fists, ready to pound on her desk if she saw even the slightest hint of pity in his eyes. She steeled herself, certain he would get up and walk out the door, like any other man would do.

  Instead, he took a deep breath. “What’s better for you? I can make dinner reservations for eight at La Casita, or I can pack a picnic, pick you up at six, and we can head for the shore. I have it on very good authority that the storm is long gone. After we watch the sun set, we can take a walk on the beach.”

  When her mouth dropped open, she slammed it shut and almost bit her tongue. “You will what? Are you serious? I just told you that I—”

  “You have cancer,” he whispered. “I heard you.”

  “And you still want a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? I thought that was pretty obvious.”

  “Not good enough,” she argued. “Give me one good reason why you’d want to date me. An honest reason,” she cautioned, trying to toss his earlier challenge to her right back at him.

  He smiled and held up the index finger on his right hand. “One, I find you incredibly fascinating. Two,” he said as he held up his middle finger, “you have more gumption than any other woman I’ve ever met.”

  When she tried to protest that he had gone beyond the one reason she had asked for, he silenced her by adding a third finger. “Third, I happen to find stubborn women very appealing. Do you need a fourth reason or a fifth? I’ve got those ready, too.”

  She swallowed hard. If the persistent man wanted a date, she would give him one he would remember for a very long time. “Make it for the beach at six-thirty. I’m on standby. If Doris isn’t finished her three-o’clock settlement, I’m showing a house for her at four-thirty.”

  He grinned, stood up and started toward the door. He had barely stepped outside and shut the door before he opened it again and peeked inside. “Make sure you bring a sweatshirt. The beach gets cold after sundown,” he suggested, then shut the door again before she could answer him.

  When the door opened again, only seconds later, she sighed. “What now? A reminder to bring a flashlight?”

  Jenny strolled in, backward, then turned around and shut the door. “Wasn’t that Bill Sanderson?”

  “None other.”

  “Why do you need a flashlight? Don’t tell m
e you’re taking him to see a house at night that doesn’t have electricity.”

  “Of course not.” Andrea fiddled with the papers in a blue folder labeled Sanderson, the color she reserved for impossible-to-please clients. She could feel a hot blush rushing up from her neck to her cheeks. Women her age did not blush. They had hot flashes, but they did not blush.

  Jenny sat down in the chair that Bill had just vacated. “Then what do you need a flashlight for?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a…a joke. The man’s impossible. I told you that. What brings you here? I thought you were going to see Madge this morning.”

  Jenny put one of her hands on top of the folder to stop Andrea from fiddling. “What kind of joke?”

  Andrea finally met her sister’s gaze. “It’s nothing. It’s not really a joke. I was just telling him—”

  “I don’t believe it!” Jenny chuckled and leaned back in the chair. “He asked you out. You have a date with him!”

  Andrea caught a lie before it slipped out. Jenny was her sister, and she would know it was a lie before Andrea finished telling half of it. “It’s not really a date. We’re just having dinner.”

  Jenny cocked a brow.

  “All right. It’s just a picnic at the beach,” Andrea admitted.

  “Tonight?”

  Andrea nodded. If life were fair, she and Bill would be able to slip out of town unnoticed and head for the shore, and no one in town would be any the wiser. “It’s only one date. I couldn’t talk him out of it,” she added defensively.

  “Are you crazy?” Jenny asked.

  Andrea bristled. “Crazy for going on a date with him? I’ve been asking myself the same question for the fifteen seconds I had to myself between the time he left and you got here.”

  “No, silly. I think you were crazy for trying to talk him out of it.”

  “Well, I tried hard, but the man is annoyingly persistent, not to mention he has an ego that is boundless. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating, that I like being single.”

  “And he said you were full of soup, as Mother used to say.”

  Andrea chuckled and ran her fingers through her hair. “Something like that. Good grief, what am I going to do with this mop of mine?”

  Jenny pulled out a tube of conditioner and placed it next to the blue folder. “Madge asked me to give this to you.”

  “She and Russell are feeling better? I called, but she’s still not answering the telephone.”

  “I guess not. I stopped on my way home from work, just to see if I could do something for her, but she wouldn’t let me in. She only opened the door wide enough to pass the conditioner out to me. She’s afraid to spread whatever Russell brought home with him.” Jenny shrugged her shoulders. “Like I’m not exposed to a hundred things worse than the flu five nights a week,” she grumbled before covering a yawn. “What else did you say?”

  “When?” Andrea asked, startled.

  “When you were trying to convince Bill you didn’t want a date.”

  “Oh, only that I was too busy to date.”

  “A woman should never be too busy to date.”

  “That’s what he said, more or less. He was so sure of himself, I lost my temper.”

  Jenny grinned. “You did? Why do I find that a little too unbelievable?”

  “Well, I did. I—I even told him about the cancer. That didn’t stop him. What kind of a man would want to date a woman with cancer?”

  Jenny stood up, walked around the desk, and put her arms around Andrea’s shoulders. “Exactly the kind of man we’d want dating our sister,” she answered.

  Andrea leaned into her sister’s embrace. “What kind of man is that?”

  “Just the kind of man who could love you as much as we do.”

  There was only one man Andrea knew who had loved her like that, and Peter had died so long ago. “Maybe I should call Bill and cancel,” she murmured.

  “No you don’t! You go on that date and have a good time. Now, forget the date for a minute and put on your thinking cap. We have a mystery to solve, or I won’t be able to get a wink of sleep.”

  Grateful for the opportunity to change the subject, Andrea looked up at her sister. “What kind of mystery?”

  “Russell’s car, which is in the driveway behind Madge’s.”

  “That’s your mystery? Is there something wrong with the car?”

  “No. The car is fine, but there’s a child’s car seat in the rear seat. What’s Russell doing with a car seat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. He certainly doesn’t need one.”

  Andrea laughed. “Since Drew and Brett aren’t even married yet, it’s a little early to anticipate grandchildren.”

  “Especially for Russell. Madge might think that far ahead, but even for Madge—”

  “Maybe she said something to Russell about needing a car seat for Katy or Hannah.”

  Jenny nodded. “She did mention wanting to take Katy to the beach house for a few days, and that she couldn’t do that without a car seat. I guess that’s it.”

  “Mystery solved.”

  “What about the other mystery?” Jenny asked with an impish grin.

  “What other mystery?”

  “What are you wearing for your big date tonight?”

  “A T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and I’m taking a sweatshirt. We’re going to the beach, remember?”

  Jenny tugged Andrea out of her chair. “Come on. We have to hurry. Michael is taking us away for the weekend, and I promised I’d be home by eleven.”

  Andrea pulled back. “What are you doing?”

  “Dragging you to Jolene’s. Kick and scream if you want, but we’re going to Jolene’s to get you something new to wear tonight.”

  Andrea laughed and let herself be dragged to her feet. “Okay.”

  “Okay? You’ll go?” Jenny asked.

  “Sure. I haven’t bought much in the way of clothes for a while.”

  Jenny laid her hand on Andrea’s forehead. “No fever. Must be love.”

  “Wrong, little sister. This is all about right and wrong. One date with me, and Bill Sanderson will know I was right and he was wrong.”

  “About what?”

  Andrea stiffened her back. “He really doesn’t want to date me. He wants to prove a point.”

  “Which is…?”

  “He thinks he’s irresistible. I’m going to prove otherwise. After one date with me, he’ll be very happy to leave me alone.”

  Which was precisely what Andrea wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Madge banished both Sarah and Russell to the first floor and spent most of Friday morning on her hands and knees cleaning the stains from the carpet runner on the stairs and in the upstairs hallway. She had only just started when Jenny arrived unexpectedly, and she had sent her sister off without too much trouble.

  Thinking about the story she had invented about she and Russell being ill, she scrubbed at a difficult stain with a vengeance. “All I had to do was lie to my sister. I hate lies. I hate the fact he’s forcing me to lie,” she spit, grumbling her words to match the rhythm of her arms as she worked the last stain from the carpet. Her arms ached and her back ached, but her heart ached more.

  She leaned back on her haunches and wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. She could hear Sarah and Russell’s laughter as they played with Baby in the kitchen below. “How fair is that?” she asked herself. “Russell gets to play while I have to clean up the mess he made.”

  She stared down the length of the carpet runner and clenched the scrub brush so hard her knuckles ached. Her life was a far bigger mess than this carpet had been, and she would have to work even harder to clear the stain of the scandal that would ruin her reputation and Russell’s. She did not have much time before the scandal broke. She could not hide Sarah forever. Sooner or later, someone would realize that Russell had brought home more than samples for a new l
ine of pet food.

  But Madge needed time. Time to let her seething anger cool, to decide what she really wanted to do, to make some sort of peace with herself before either she or Russell could contemplate the next chapter of their lives. Unfortunately, Welleswood was just too small a community to hide much of anything, let alone a three-year-old child. Madge did not have the time she needed. Not here.

  The day after tomorrow was Sunday. The moment services ended, everyone would wonder why she was not there. As soon as Andrea and Jenny repeated Madge’s lie about illness, Madge and Russell would be inundated with calls, and casseroles would appear at their doorstep. “Lies always come home to roost,” she whispered, unwilling to let one snowball into another and smash into her life when she could prevent it.

  When she dropped the scrub brush into the bucket, droplets of water splashed her arms and face and the solution to her immediate problem hit her. The beach house! If she and Russell could slip out of town with Sarah, unnoticed, Madge could get a reprieve and have a few weeks, at the very least, to work through this mess.

  At this time of year, most of the folks in most of the resort towns were either retirees who wanted to take advantage of off-season rates or full-time residents who were too busy to pay much attention to the fact that Madge and Russell had decided to spend a few weeks in their new beach house. The fact that the house just happened to be located at the tip of the town near the inlet, about as remote as one could get in a resort town, was an added bonus.

  Madge wiped her hands, stood up and carried the bucket of cleaning solution to the bathroom and dumped it into the sink. She could not go downstairs for several hours until the carpet was dry. By then, she could have their suitcases packed and ready to go. She could put fresh linens on the beds and close up the upstairs, and while Sarah napped this afternoon, Madge would sit Russell down and explain her plan.

  Or as much of the plan as she could.

  She knew where they would spend the next few weeks, assuming Russell had arranged for some time off from work. If he hadn’t, then he would have to do it now.