Rachel walked around her desk to drop into the large leather chair behind it. “Hello, Mother,” she said into the phone, “what can I do for you?”
“So businesslike.”
“Considering it’s your business I’m running, you should be pleased.” Rachel spun her chair around, looking out over the skyline of Chestnut Grove.
“Honey, I’m always pleased with you. You know that.”
“The chocolate cake was really good. Reuben and Lorna send their thanks.”
“I’m glad to know you shared it. But I have a favor to ask of you. Your grandfather wants us to come to Vermont in a couple of weeks, but I don’t dare take Gracie along quite yet. Would you be willing to baby-sit?”
Rachel clutched the phone. Willing? Maybe. Capable? No. “When would that be?” she asked, turning around to check her appointment book. Please let there be a conflict. Please.
“The last weekend of the month.”
Bingo. Charity fund-raiser. Big deal. Big celebrities.
“Sorry, Mom. I’m booked up.”
“Oh, dear. That was the only weekend your grandfather can have us.” She sighed lightly. “And I can’t leave Gracie with just anybody. She’s too fragile yet.”
So why would you leave her with me?
“Why don’t you talk to Dr. Eli about your predicament,” Rachel suggested. “Surely he could recommend a private nursing agency or something similar?”
“Eli stressed that Gracie stay with someone familiar, especially because Gracie’s natural mother was so casual with her care.”
She shouldn’t feel guilty, Rachel thought. It wasn’t her idea that her parents take this child on. And it wasn’t her fault that Gracie made her feel incompetent and helpless. Two feelings she had promised herself she would never allow to take over her life again.
“However, if you can’t take care of her, then you can’t,” her mother continued. “I’m sure Eli would know where we could bring Gracie.”
“I’m sure he would,” Rachel agreed, relief flooding her.
“And what did you think of Dr. Eli? He’s such a pleasant man. So good with Gracie.”
“He seemed very nice.” Now was the time to make it clear to her mother that her matchmaking wouldn’t work.
“But he’s not my type.”
“What did you say?”
The innocent tone of her mother’s voice almost fooled her. “The matchmaking stuff. Mom, please. You know I don’t have time for anyone right now.”
“You didn’t have time for anyone in the past eight years. You don’t have much of a social life. All you do is work.”
Rachel frowned, rocking her chair a little harder. “I need this work, Mom.” It was what gave her life direction. And it was a good direction.
“What about your relationship with the Lord? Does that get pushed aside for your work, too?”
“Mother, what I do is all about helping the needy, the helpless. The very things that Jesus wants us to do on this earth.” Rachel knew the right words that would appease her mother and she used them shamelessly.
“Works without faith is dead, dear.”
Check. Her mother may come across as eccentric at times, but when it came to her faith, Beatrice had all the intelligence and knew all the strategies.
“This is what I do, Mother,” Rachel said finally. “I don’t have time for a boyfriend and I don’t have the inclination for one. So please, no more awkward dinners.”
She hoped her mother’s silence meant that she had surrendered.
“I’m happy, Mom.” She pressed on, determined to make her mother see the light. “I live a busy, active life that has purpose and meaning. I have friends and I have a community and a job that is important. And I have you and Dad and Gracie. I don’t need more.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought you and Eli would hit it off. He’s a good, kind man.”
Rachel thought of the smirk she’d caught on his face. The appeal of his languid good looks. Good and kind were not words that came to mind in connection with Gracie’s pediatrician.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll make someone a wonderful husband. But not me, Mom.”
Beatrice sighed. “Point taken, my dear. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You created an awkward situation. But you didn’t offend me.”
“Good. Well, I’d better go. I have an appointment with a physical therapist and after that Dr. Eli. Shall I tell him you said hello?”
Her mother was irrepressible. “Do whatever you want, Mom. Love you.” Though she said the words automatically, she did mean them. Her mother could make her crazy at times, could embarrass her at other times, but Rachel loved her parents dearly.
“Love you, too, dear.”
Rachel couldn’t help but smile when she hung up the phone. Dear Mom. Rachel had thought her mother’s adopting Gracie would satisfy her nesting instinct, but it looked like Rachel was going to have to be on her guard.
“Okay, guys. Final play of the game and we can’t afford to lose.” Alex crouched down, his back to the opposing team, and sketched the play in the grass in front of Eli and the other two teammates. “Eli, Ben is going to be watching you and we want to use that. See if you can fake him out.” When he was done, he held up his fist, his deep brown eyes sparkling with fun. The guys in the circle around him all hit it, called “break” and jogged to where a handkerchief on the grass of the park showed the line of scrimmage.
For the past three years, Sunday mornings would find Eli, his brother Ben, and their friends lining up against one another in Winchester Park for their weekly touch football game. Sometimes the wives and girlfriends came, sometimes they stayed at home. Sometimes Eli’s pager would go off and the game would be called. Sometimes Ben’s daughter Olivia would get tired and want to go home. But mostly they managed to finish their games.
The one constant was that Ben and Eli consistently played on opposing teams. It was a vague throwback to when they were young and constantly in competition with each other. Growing up had eased the competition, but hadn’t erased it.
Eli unbuttoned his shirt and wiped the sweat from his forehead with one end, squinting up at the sky, hazed over with humidity and heat. If he’d known it was going to be this warm, he wouldn’t have worn blue jeans.
“Hey, Doc, I’m watchin’ you.” Ben grinned at Eli and nodded. “I know you have a plan.”
Eli crouched down, resting his hands on his knees. “You do that, Ben. Don’t think we’re not counting on that.”
“You’re workin’ me, Eli. Playin’ me.”
“Now, Ben. Don’t be so mistrustful. Do what you think is right.” He leaned a little closer. “Use the force, Luke.”
Alex called out the play, and Eli could see doubt clouding Ben’s face as Alex glanced down the line away from Eli. As he did, Eli broke away, and Ben took the bait and veered away from him. Eli turned, and Alex spun in a different direction and snapped the ball directly to Eli, who caught it against his chest, cradling it like a child, grinning at Ben’s shout of disappointment.
Eli ran past the stroller that marked off the goal line, and spun around, holding up the ball in a gesture of victory. Ben was coming at him, vengeance in his eyes.
With a laugh, Eli swung left to avoid his brother. He looked up and, too late, saw Rachel Noble coming directly at him. She had veered off the walking path, a soft leather briefcase slung over her shoulder, cell phone clamped to one ear, a sheaf of papers in her free hand.
They would have collided, but at the last possible moment, Eli dropped his football and caught her by the shoulders to steady her and catch his balance. Her papers fell out of her hands and her briefcase slid down her shoulder as she came to an abrupt halt, teetering. She almost dropped her cell phone, as well, but it bobbled in her hands and she managed to hang on.
“What are you—?” She yanked the strap of her briefcase up her shoulder, but it stopped when it hit his hand.
“Are you crazy?�
� She looked down at her papers. Hitched her strap up again. Hit his hand again.
Then looked up at him.
As her hazel eyes met his, anger snapping in their depths, he felt it again. A light flutter, somewhere in the region of his heart. He had experienced it when he pulled up beside her at the stop sign and she had looked over at him. And felt it again at her parents’ place when he and Charles had come into the kitchen and he realized the beautiful woman he’d been openly flirting with, moments before, was his patient’s sister. Daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Chestnut Grove.
She wore another suit today. This one was olive green with a white shirt. Tidy. Together. With a hint of uptight. He wondered what she would look like in blue jeans, with her hair down.
She blinked once, and to his surprise, the anger seeped out of her eyes. If she hadn’t looked down, he could have seen what replaced it.
“Excuse me, please,” she mumbled, pulling back against his hands.
He had forgotten he was still holding her. He released her, reluctantly.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.” His apology sounded halfhearted even to him. “I was just trying to avoid Ben here.” He glanced back over his shoulder at his brother, who had kept his distance but was watching the two of them with avid interest.
“That’s okay. I was off the path.” She was about to bend down to pick up her papers.
“Here. I’ll do that.” He gathered them up, but as he handed them to her he belatedly saw the dark smudge marks his fingers had left on the white sheets.
As she tried to brush them off, he realized he had left the same marks on her suit coat. “Sorry about that,” he said, pointing to the faint marks of four fingers on her upper arms. “I’ll pay for the cleaning.”
“Please, don’t worry.” She gave him a quick smile that revived that flutter again. “It was my fault.”
Eli rubbed the back of his neck, aware that his unbuttoned shirt hung open. He lowered his arms, tucking his hands in the front pockets of his blue jeans. He angled his chin toward her papers, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. “Do you work every day of the week?”
Rachel frowned up at him. “I do what needs to be done. My work is very important.” Her voice took on a chill that made him take a step away.
“Of course.” Brilliant, Cavanaugh. You won the football game, but here and now you’re officially a loser.
“Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“I guess.” She gave him a polite smile, and with that she became again the aloof woman that had sat across from him at Charles and Beatrice Noble’s table.
“You still there, Rachel?” A man’s tinny voice called out from the cell phone she still held. And without another glance at him, Rachel continued her interrupted phone conversation.
“I was at LaReese’s place and thought I’d slip across the park to Bernie McNamara,” she was saying. She glanced up at Eli, and for a moment he felt it again. A subtle connection.
Then she turned and started walking away, still talking. Still working.
He must have imagined it.
As Eli watched her go, Ben came up beside him. “Very nice, Eli. But I thought your life plan didn’t include women for at least another year.”
“Two years,” Eli corrected, bending over to retrieve the football. “And even then the plan doesn’t include spoiled, haughty women.” Eli grinned at his brother and handed him the ball. “My life plan is firmly intact.”
“Pay down your loan, buy a house, the right car, and then look for someone to share your neat, orderly life.” Ben tapped Eli on the chest with a football, his expression turning serious. “Beware of plans, my brother. They have a way of flipping you midstream.”
Eli didn’t reply to that. He knew his brother was talking about the pain he and his daughter Olivia suffered when Ben lost his wife, Julia, to cancer.
Eli knew from personal experience that life didn’t always cooperate. At one time he had a girlfriend and other plans. But the girlfriend’s parents were leery of the question mark hanging over Eli’s life. Eli had been adopted at age six by the Cavanaughs and the only thing he knew about his natural parents were their names, Darlene and Zeke Fulton. The last memory he had of them was a car spinning out of control, a horrifying crash and then his own life turned topsy-turvy. When the girlfriend’s parents convinced her to break up with Eli, he was determined that the only way he would enter another relationship was if his own life was in order. So he made a plan and stuck to it.
But as he followed his brother back to the game, Eli threw a glance over his shoulder.
Rachel was looking back at him, as well.
Chapter Three
Rachel surveyed the homey interior of the Starlight Diner, looking for her friends Pilar Estes, Meg Kierney and Anne Smith.
She had rushed through her interview with Bernie hoping to get here on time. It had been a while since she and her friends had been able to get together for brunch and they had lots of catching up to do.
“You looking for the girls?” Sandra Lange, the owner of the diner, met Rachel at the door, her blond hair worn in its usual teased up-do. She was tying on her apron. “I just got back from church myself, but I believe that Miranda put them in the far corner, by the window.”
“Thanks, Sandra.” Rachel paused before joining her friends, noting Sandra’s drawn features. “How have you been doing?”
“Oh, not too badly,” Sandra said, with a smile. “I have to go to the cancer clinic again and the doctor will tell me what I can expect. I’m just thankful for each day God gives me. And thankful that the wheels of God grind slowly, but they do grind and each movement brings me closer to the truth.”
She was talking in puzzles, but Rachel sensed that she wouldn’t get more out of Sandra right now. The difficulties Sandra had faced in her life had created strength of character that many people underestimated. “I’m glad that you have your faith, Sandra.”
“It’s not just faith, Rachel. It’s a relationship with a loving Father.”
Rachel didn’t want to refute Sandra’s comment. Rachel had her own issues with God, but didn’t want to get into that right now. So she simply smiled and excused herself to join her friends, who were already chatting and laughing around the table.
“Good morning, lovely ladies.” Rachel pulled a large envelope out of her briefcase and dropped it on the table.
“Meg Kierney, these are for you.”
With a squeal, Meg pounced on the envelope, her pale blue eyes shining with anticipation. “Wedding pictures?”
“Fresh from the developer. Picked them up on my way here.”
Anne and Pilar leaned over to look at the photos Meg had pulled out.
Old rivals Meg and Jared had met at the thirty-fifth anniversary for Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency. Meg had already gone through a bad divorce and Jared was a widower. When they discovered that their respective adopted boys, Luke and Chance, were twins separated at birth, the only practical solution was to get married for the sake of the boys. However, as they spent time together, they truly fell in love and later had another, private, more meaningful ceremony at the Chestnut Grove Community Church. It was this ceremony that Rachel had pictures of.
“Oh. Look at Luke and Chance. They’re so cute! I would love to have twins.” Anne traced the faces of the boys with a longing look. “Actually, I would love to have kids, period.”
“You will,” Pilar said, reaching over and hugging their friend. “You just need to realize that you truly are beautiful. And someday some lucky man will see that, too.”
When Rachel and her parents moved to Chestnut Grove, Pilar, Anne and Meg befriended Rachel, unfazed by her parents’ wealth and unimpressed by her background. Rachel was a quick, bright student and as a result had skipped two grades, making her younger than the children she went to school with. Younger and, in spite of her brains, unable to defend herself in the rough and tumble that comes with changing schools. Her youth, com
bined with her New England accent and her parents’ money had created a situation ripe for teasing from other girls who saw Rachel’s quiet shyness as snobbery. One day some of the girls in her class had her cornered in the playground and were teasing her. Anne, Pilar and Meg had found her. The older girls had intervened and taken Rachel under their wing. Eight years ago, Rachel had moved away, but since her return she had slipped back into their lives as easily as if she had never been gone. Through the ups and downs of life, they had become her confidantes, advisers and dearest friends.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to meet with a couple of clients close to Winchester Park. I thought church would be longer.” Rachel set her briefcase down on the floor beside her and brushed her hand over her hair. Still in place, surprisingly enough. When Eli Cavanaugh plowed into her, she was sure her hair had come loose.
“You look fine,” Pilar said. Then she frowned, touching the smudges on Rachel’s suit jacket. “Wait, what happened to you?”
“I interrupted a football game.”
“What?”
Rachel waved one well-manicured hand. That little confidence was a mistake. “Never mind.” She didn’t want to talk about it. In fact, she preferred not to think about Eli, his shirt open, and his hair curling damply over his forehead.
“And you’re blushing about that ‘never mind,’” Pilar teased.
Meg glanced from Pilar to Rachel and laughed. “She is. Look at that, girls. I didn’t think anything could faze our resident math whiz.” She elbowed Rachel lightly. “C’mon. Who is he?”
“It’s not a he.” And her cheeks got even redder as she unconsciously brushed the other sleeve.
Pilar turned her around. “Look, a matched set on this arm. Someone has been manhandling our friend, amigas. Should we rush out to defend her honor or should we make her sit here and eat her fries without ketchup until she confesses who did it and why?”
“Unless, of course, she went through ketchup withdrawal and then we’d have to rush her to the hospital,” Anne said.
“Too bad Dr. Cavanaugh is a pediatrician,” Pilar said with a soft sigh, twirling her dark hair around her finger.
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