Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope

by Debra Ullrick

  Dallas elbowed him and smiled.

  “Oh, really?” Keith asked. He cleared his throat because the roll went down the wrong pipe.

  “With your background in your father’s company and your degree, Lee thinks you would be a natural to run their Midland assets.”

  Midland? He cleared his throat again. He glanced at Dallas. “Umm, we had planned to live in Houston.”

  “Oh, of course. Running things in Midland doesn’t mean you have to live there.” He laughed as if it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “You’d just have to go out there once or twice a week. Day trips for the most part.”

  How much had Mr. Henderson talked with Mr. Ferrell? It sounded like suicide to accept the offer. His father-in-law knowing the everyday details of his job and presumably his home life as well? He already had one watchdog. He didn’t need two. “Sounds interesting.”

  “I was telling Keith yesterday there is a nice little starter place in the Woodlands,” Dallas said. “It’s perfect distance from Hayden & Elliott. We’re going to go look at it this week. Right, honey?” She snaked her arm through his, and Keith had to fight not to remove his arm from the encroachment.

  “Well, I can’t say how pleased I am with the foundation the two of you are building,” his father said, and he really did look proud. “Years ago when I started out, it was with a five dollar bill and a dream. I can’t imagine where I would be now if I had the start you two are getting.”

  Dallas beamed her appreciation. “We’re so lucky.”

  “There’s a phone call for you in the kitchen,” Inez said, standing at the door to the playroom. For as many hours as they had spent with no one seeming to notice they were still on the planet, Maggie wondered why suddenly today everyone seemed to be showing up.

  “K. I’ll be right there.” She stood, pulled her top down, and leveled her gaze at Peter. “You be good and take care of your sister. Got it?”

  Peter’s eyes widened in fear.

  “Don’t worry.” She winked at him. “I trust you.”

  After a moment he smiled and nodded. With that she went down, wondering who in the world would be calling her. Mrs. Malowinski was the only one she could think of, and that made no sense because she didn’t have the number, which Maggie assumed was unlisted, and unless it was a tragedy, her foster parent would never call anyway.

  She picked the phone off the cabinet like it was a bomb that might explode. “Hello?” It was laced with uncertainty.

  “Maggie. Oh, good. I’m glad I caught you.”

  How a telemarketer had tracked her down here, she would never know. “I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”

  He laughed. “No. No, Maggie. This is Greg… Parker. Remember? From the party last night?”

  Maggie glanced over at Inez who she was sure was listening. “Oh, hi, Greg. Umm… if you’re looking for Keith…”

  “No. I’m not looking for Keith. I’m looking for you.”

  Awkwardness twined through her as she pulled her arm up over her middle. “Me? What…? Why?”

  “Listen, Keith and Dallas are having a little get together tomorrow night. Nothing fancy. Just some old friends. I was wondering if you might want to go with me.”

  The question knocked her backward. “With… I… Umm… Well…”

  “Please say yes. I know. I shouldn’t beg, but please say yes. Everybody else is going to be coupled off, and I don’t want to go alone. I just broke up with my girlfriend last month, and well, I haven’t had much of a chance to meet anyone new… But I don’t want to pressure you. If you don’t want to go with me, I’ll understand.”

  Ugh. Why did he have to sound so nice? Why couldn’t she just be a little more cruel? A little more selfish? It would’ve solved a lot of problems.

  “Please, Maggie. We can go late, leave early. You’ll never even have to know I’m in the room.”

  She laughed a little laugh at that. “Well, maybe I want to know you’re in the room.”

  He seemed to breathe in that statement. “Cool. So you’ll go with me?”

  “Yes, Greg. I’ll go with you.”

  “Tomorrow I’m going to need to run into Houston for a while,” Dallas said as Keith’s dad and Vivian monitored the conversation from the other side of the limo on their way back to the estate. “I need to get a few things for the party, and several things for your place.” She angled her attention to his parents. “Bachelors. They live on such a bare minimum.”

  His father laughed. “Keith never was one to need much.”

  “Tell me about it. His place is positively minimalist.”

  Keith wanted to tell her that he hadn’t touched a single decoration nor furnishing in five years. Each and every piece was handpicked and put there by Vivian before she knew he would be using the place. However, even at this moment he couldn’t be that cruel. So he accepted the jab and lowered his head to the proper level of embarrassment.

  “So, you’re having a party tomorrow night,” his father asked, smiling at Dallas while he simultaneously glared at Keith. How he could pull that off with them sitting right next to each other, Keith wasn’t sure, but he felt it just the same.

  Dallas shrugged. “Just a few friends. Nothing big. We’ll start with hors d’oeuvres on the patio. I’m thinking paté with a nice red wine, and then for the meal something light. Lamb or duck.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a chef,” Vivian said, clearly impressed with the menu. The limousine rolled into the turn and then through the gate.

  “Oh, no. I’m not. I thought either we could have it catered or we could just use your staff.”

  Keith noticed Vivian nearly swallow her teeth, and it was all he could do to keep from laughing. Instead, he simply leaned over to Dallas and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you want, baby. I’ll be there by 6:30.”

  Instantly the color drained from Dallas’s face. “6:30? Where are you going to be?”

  “Working of course. We’ve got to get Dragnet ready for Oak Tree. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

  “Hrumph.” It wasn’t really an answer at all, but Keith liked the sound of his father’s awkwardness just the same.

  Dallas was having trouble putting two words together. Vivian was clearly holding back a fit of anxiety, and his father was puffed and as red as a lobster.

  “Well,” his father finally managed. “I will be going into Houston tomorrow and then up to Amarillo Tuesday for meetings.”

  “Amarillo?” Vivian asked, her world spinning around her. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I’ve been busy with other things.”

  The car pulled up to the mansion and stopped. If he hadn’t known better, Keith would’ve sworn his father and Vivian were racing to get out. However, Dallas never so much as moved. He looked at her. “Ladies first.”

  Her eyes widened. “We’re getting out here? Why can’t they take us to the guesthouse?”

  “It’s only a half mile walk,” Keith said, teasing her. “What? Are you afraid you’re going to melt?”

  She didn’t look happy. In fact, she looked downright mad. “No.” But she got out anyway.

  On the trail, Keith tried to take her hand, but she anchored her arms over her middle. He didn’t fight it. After all that’s what he’d wanted for 24-hours, for her to stop hanging all over him. He put his hand in his pocket and absorbed the beauty of the day. The trees rustled above them, bringing him back to center. “So, what do you think about riding out to the falls on Wednesday? I think I should be able to get the afternoon off.”

  “The falls?” she asked, and there was a note of panic. “On horses?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean we could take the Dodge, but the horses let us take the slow way.”

  For as much as Dallas had hinted around the subject of being with him in the last day, she suddenly looked pale at the prospect. “Isn’t it kind of hot to be riding?”

  “You think it’s hot now, wait until July.” But his own comment knocked the w
ords away from him. July. Everything would be different come July.

  “Maybe we can go see the house in the Woodlands on Wednesday, put down an offer. I’d like to get that checked off the list as soon as possible. And Tracy and I are going to go in and finalize everything with the florist on Thursday. I wanted to do a final fitting on my dress before I leave. That would have to be Friday. I don’t want to wait until the last minute on that. Mom and Vivian have the guest lists all ready on-line so I’ll be putting the invitations together at school. I’d wanted to do it this weekend, but Mom was waiting on a few from her side. It’s such a nightmare to get 600 guests in-sync for something like this.”

  The thought of 600 guests almost overwhelmed every other thing she’d just said. Keith inhaled to stop his thoughts from swimming through all the details. Finally it struck upon something that had to be taken care of immediately.

  He rubbed his thumb across the bottom of his nose as the nerves tingled there. “Listen, about tomorrow night. I know the staff at the mansion would be glad to do the party, but I think it would be better if we hired someone on our own.”

  Her face fell. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s our party, and they’re not our staff.”

  It took a long minute for that information to wind through her. At the turn for the front door she shook her head. “It sure is hot out here.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Dallas spent most of the evening on the phone with Tracy making plans for the next day, and Keith spent it getting the place ready for a party. It wasn’t that bad, but still. He wanted it nice for Dallas not to mention the other guests he wasn’t even sure were coming. Some deep, demented part of him wanted to call Greg to find out if he’d asked Maggie, but that was playing with fire. He was sure to find out soon enough, and to him, seeing her again couldn’t come soon enough.

  “I think I’m going to turn in,” Dallas said when the phone call ended. “I’m supposed to meet Tracy at her place in Houston at eight, which means leaving here at what?”

  “Six-thirty,” Keith said. “If you want to miss at least some of the traffic.”

  “Huh.” That deflated her even further.

  “And you need to call a caterer first thing,” he said, infinitely more into the actual details of having a party than she was.

  “Okay. Fine.” She slumped onto a chair and watched him pull out the vacuum. “Are you going to do that now?”

  “Unless you want to do it tomorrow. I’ve got to be at the stables at eight, and I won’t be back until at least six or six-thirty.”

  “But I told everyone to be here at six-thirty.”

  “Thus I’m vacuuming now.” He was getting tired of this conversation.

  “But I wanted to spend some time with you.”

  “What do you call this?”

  She pursed her lips. “Vacuuming? Come on, Keith. This was supposed to be fun.”

  “Yes, but it can’t always be fun. There’s work involved too.” With that he started the vacuum and pushed it over the carpet. Dallas watched him for only a couple of seconds, then with a huff, she launched out of the chair and stalked down the hallway. Keith exhaled and rolled his eyes. If he was lucky, she would be asleep before he got the rest cleaned because one thing was for sure, she wasn’t coming back to help.

  Maggie had meant to be gone before nine. She had to get to the bank and cash her more-money-than-she’d-ever-seen-in-her-life check. Then she had a little shopping to do. With the white silk pants back to their original owner and everything from Wal-Mart on its second go-round, she decided to get something nice for tonight. Something that didn’t scream poverty.

  Where she would get this outfit, she had no clue, but that was part of the excitement. The two biggest problems were the kids and her car. When she went to leave, you would’ve thought someone had died. Both kids looked completely abandoned and then started wailing. She tried to calm them down, but when that didn’t work, Inez shooed her away. Reluctantly she left, not seeing that she had much other choice.

  Walking down through the trees, Maggie thought about her shoes that first day, and she smiled. Two sizes too big. Just like this job. Still, somehow, it had come to fit her like the new white tennis shoes on her feet. Her thoughts stumbled back to a Wal-Mart, and a shopping cart, and him. Sad acceptance slid through her. They were good together—Keith and Dallas—that much was obvious.

  As much as that hurt, she had to let him go because he’d chosen his life, and his life wasn’t her. Still a quarter mile from the guesthouse, she heard the familiar drone of the Dodge coming up behind her, and she couldn’t stop the smile.

  “Hey, stranger,” Keith said through the open passenger window. “What’re you doing out in these parts?”

  She turned to him, and when she found the other side of the pickup empty, her heart nearly wouldn’t let the words out. “Rescuing my car from your barn.”

  That brought a slice of worry across his face. “What? Are you escaping?”

  “Enjoying my day off.” Maggie was still walking, and he was driving very slowly next to her.

  “Day off? Wow. They actually let you out of prison?”

  She laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

  He drove a little farther. “You know, we are going the same direction if you hadn’t noticed. Why don’t you get in, and then you wouldn’t have to walk?”

  “I like walking. I’m showing off my new tennis shoes, remember?” She lifted her foot high, so he could see them.

  “Nice.” His face said he clearly did remember. “Well, before you wear them out…” He stopped and reached across the seat to pop the door open for her.

  Maggie beat back every feeling of the wonderful familiarity of getting in his pickup. Once inside familiar had never felt so safe.

  “So, you’re going into town then?” he asked as the pickup made its way the last 300 yards to the turn beyond the guesthouse.

  “Yeah. I’ve gotta cash my paycheck so I can pay you back.”

  Confusion dropped on his face. “Pay me back? For what?”

  “Gee, you have a long memory. Clothes. Wal-Mart. Shopping. Does any of this ring a bell?” It was so weird to be talking to him like this. With his beat up cowboy hat over the light blue bandana, she would never have guessed how he looked at the party on Saturday. It was like he wasn’t even the same person, or maybe that person wasn’t the same as this one. She couldn’t really tell how he could be both.

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Hey now. That was the deal, remember? You buy them. I pay you back.”

  The pickup bounced past the last knot of trees into the clearing where the barn stood.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Besides,” she said, and she couldn’t stop the smile. “I got paid.” She held up the envelope with her check, so I don’t have to be a mooch anymore.”

  When he looked at her and smiled, there was no condescension anywhere in it. “Good for you.” The pickup rolled to the barn, and he parked so her car would be able to get out. At the barn door she watched as he unlatched the bolt and pulled it down. He made it look so easy. The door swung open. “There you go. Safe and sound.”

  “Well, thank you very much.” She turned to him, and her heart did a flip-flop. “I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

  The word slammed into Keith like a brick. “Tonight?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She hesitated for a second. “Dallas’s party? That is tonight, right?”

  His thoughts swirled as if in a blender. “Oh. Y…yeah. That’s tonight. She asked you?”

  “No, Greg Parker called me. It’s the funniest thing. We just met the other night at the party, but he seems like such a nice guy. Besides, I figured he’s your friend, so how bad can he be, right?”

  There was teasing in her tone and her eyes, but Keith’s brain was having a hard time getting past her being with Greg. “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  For a full ten seconds no one moved. Then Maggie smile
d. “Well, miles to go and not much time to get there. Be good. I’ll see you tonight.” And with that she got in her car, got it started, and backed out past him standing at the barn doors. With a wave she started off. Just as she got to the trees, he remembered.

  “Maggie!”

  But she was gone.

  When she came back, he would have to open the door for her. He wished he had thought to ask her when that would be. He wished he could just think logically about anything when she was around. Then the thought of her with Greg twisted through him. Greg was a nice guy. He would surely treat her right. That wasn’t the problem. It was worse than that. It was that he never wanted to see her with anyone else. Ever.

  Maggie was so bad at this. Shopping was not her specialty. She didn’t know the first thing about what looked right together and what didn’t. Growing up she was just happy if it didn’t fall off and only had a couple of holes. Now, inexplicably, here she was trying to find something that would conceivably compete with all the other girls who were sure to be at this party.

  She couldn’t out-do them. That was a given. All she hoped for was to not look like someone’s poor step-niece that nobody wants around. Rack after rack, she looked. She even tried a few things on, but the fits weren’t right and the prices were worse.

  “God, what am I going to do?” she asked the One who had become her best friend when there were no others around. She looked in the mirror at the off-shoulder lime green thing she was wearing. It was awful. Nothing about it looked right.

  Quickly she checked the watch she had bought at the last store she couldn’t find anything at. “Great.” Now on top of not having anything to wear, she was going to be late. “Look, God, I know I have no right to ask for a miracle at this point, but I’m asking anyway. Please. What am I going to wear?”

  It wasn’t until she was in her own clothes and pulling her white sneaker on that the thought occurred to her. The dress. The one from Wal-Mart. She’d hung it in her closet in the very back, thinking it was too nice to wear at work. Presumably it was still there. Her memory slid down it, and she decided that yes, it would work, provided it actually fit. Of course, there was no way to know that considering she’d never actually tried it on. It was the one she had figured on taking back the minute he put it in the cart.