Sunday Kind of Love

by Dorothy Garlock

  “I was lying,” Samantha interrupted her.

  Flabbergasted, Gwen didn’t know how to answer. Her knees felt weak; for a moment she worried she was going to fall back onto the couch. “You were what?”

  “I wasn’t telling the truth,” her aunt answered. “I suppose I could’ve found a better way of going about it, but I wanted to know if you were serious about this. About Hank. If I said things I figured you wouldn’t want to hear, I thought you might show me your true colors.” Samantha placed her hands on her niece’s shoulders and added, “And that you most certainly did. In spades.”

  If it had been anybody else, Gwen would have found such behavior inappropriate, even a bit cruel. But her aunt was unconventional, to say the least. She came at problems from directions most people wouldn’t ever consider. That wasn’t to say that Gwen enjoyed having been manipulated. Far from it. But while she was no longer angry, she was still plenty confused.

  “But why did you…oh, this is making my head hurt…”

  “Then let me tell you a story,” Samantha said. “Believe it or not, I know exactly how you feel about this.”

  Once both of them had sat, Samantha looked at her empty glass and frowned. “Maybe I better pour myself another before I get started.”

  “Get me one while you’re at it.”

  Fortunately, her aunt gave her only a third of what she poured for herself. Sipping at it, Gwen winced as the liquor burned its way down her throat. Within seconds, she could feel it in her head.

  With everything that’s happened today, maybe getting a little drunk wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  “Have you ever heard me mention Brent Irving?” Samantha asked.

  Gwen shook her head.

  Her aunt took a deep swig before she continued. “Brent used to work down at the courthouse. It was an easy enough job for him to get, after all his father had been a sitting judge for years. This was all back in the thirties,” Samantha explained. “I can still remember the first time I met Brent. I swear I saw stars. He was so handsome, charming, everything I’d been looking for. It was like something out of a Hollywood fairy tale, all that sappy, lovey-dovey stuff, only this time it was real. We had one of those whirlwind courtships, which was fine with me, since after three weeks it felt like I’d known him all my life. Every morning, I’d get up and think today was going to be the day when he’d get down on one knee and ask me to marry him…” Her voice trailed off. She took another drink.

  “What happened?” Gwen prodded.

  After a pause, her aunt answered, “For the longest time, I had no idea.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “One day, Brent and I were like two peas in a pod, up to our eyeballs in love, and the next he wouldn’t give me the time of day,” Samantha said, her expression pained. “No phone calls. No letters. He wouldn’t even look at me when I showed up at the courthouse and demanded to know what I’d done wrong. It just ended. I cried and cried and cried some more. Months went by and I was still a wreck, moping around the house, feeling sorry for myself. It was the worst time of my life.”

  “Did you ever find out why he did it?” Gwen asked.

  Samantha nodded. “About a year later, he wrote me a letter. I found it slid under the front door. In it, he told me that his parents had objected to him marrying me. They’d told him I wasn’t good enough, that I was someone he shouldn’t associate with. He couldn’t find the strength to stand up to them, I suppose. And so, because of what others wanted, he threw what we had away and broke my heart.”

  For as long as Gwen could remember, her aunt had been searching for a man to share her life. One after another had been proven unworthy. It was shocking to learn that decades ago Samantha had been so close to having what she’d always wanted. It made Gwen see the older woman in an entirely new light.

  “Do you understand why I’m telling you this?”

  “I think so,” Gwen answered.

  “I don’t want you to make the same mistake Brent made,” Samantha told her. “Or even me, for that matter.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Sure, I did,” her aunt disagreed. “What if I’d stood up for myself? What if I had marched across town to his parents’ house and pleaded my case, like I was in his father’s courtroom? Maybe I could’ve convinced them that I wasn’t the terrible person they imagined me to be. What would’ve happened if I’d fought for our love instead of lying in bed, crying my eyes out?” At that, a tear ran down Samantha’s cheek; she wiped it away with a sad smile, smearing her mascara. “If I hadn’t been such a coward, then maybe I wouldn’t have to pretend everything’s fine when I see Brent and his beautiful, surely upstanding wife walking down the sidewalk.”

  Gwen didn’t know what to say, struggling to hold back tears of her own.

  “If you learn anything from me,” her aunt continued, “it’s that when it comes to the things in life that really matter—and that most definitely includes finding someone to love—you have to fight. If you listen to your heart, you have to be deaf to everything else. Who cares if other people are angry or sad or even disappointed?” Samantha looked hard at her niece. “When it comes to Hank Ellis, no one else gets the final say; not your parents, not me, not even Kent. If all of Buckton thinks you’re wrong but you believe you’re right, then to hell with them. It’s your choice to make. Being happy is worth everything. You need to ask yourself, ‘Do I love Hank? Is he the man I want to be with? Is loving him, no matter what other hardships that might cause, worth it?’”

  Listening to Samantha, Gwen knew that she’d been wise to come here. While her aunt may not have given her any answers, at least not directly, she had pointed her in the right direction and given her plenty to think about. What mattered now was what Gwen did with her newfound wisdom.

  She had one heck of a decision to make.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AND THEN I kissed her.”

  Hank watched Coca-Cola spray from the bottle Skip had pressed to his lips, dribble down his chin, stain his shirt, and begin to splatter at his feet. Skip’s mouth moved like he wanted to say something, though no words came out. His friend tried to put his soda on the workbench beside him, but he was so out of sorts that he set it down with a wobble, nearly causing it to fall onto the concrete floor.

  Skip had come over in the morning, full of excitement for his newest money-making scheme. Hank had been out in his workshop, bright sunlight streaming through the doors. Talking a mile a minute, Skip had laid out his plan, something that involved old newspapers, while Hank applied varnish to an end table. Hank nodded occasionally, knowing that there wasn’t much point in trying to talk once Skip had built up a head of steam. Once he’d finally finished, Skip had asked Hank what he’d been up to the last couple of days. Hank had put down his brush.

  Then he’d told Skip what had happened with Gwen and achieved the impossible, rendering Skip Young speechless, if only for a moment.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” his friend stammered, the words coming out in a rush, making up for lost time. “She actually let you kiss her?”

  “As opposed to what? It’s not like I forced her to do it.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Skip explained. “It’s just that Gwen’s one heck of a looker. She’s about as fine a catch as a fella could ever hope to land. Whoever’s lucky enough to make her his…” His voice trailed off, his face scrunched up in thought. “Hang on, didn’t you tell me you met her fiancé?”

  Hank nodded. “The night I pulled her from the river.”

  “Don’t take this personal, but if she’s supposed to be marrying some other guy, then what’s she doin’ swappin’ spit with you?”

  This was the question that had been bothering Hank ever since he’d dropped Gwen off near her home. What were they doing? While she had gone to great lengths to make it clear she wasn’t engaged to Kent, they were most definitely in a relationship. Why else would she have brought him to Buckton? Still, Hank h
ad reason to be optimistic; wrapping his arms around a woman as beautiful as Gwen, both inside and out, and then kissing her had a way of doing that. But doubt continued to nag at him. He worried that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he never would be. Worse, he’d considered that he might be nothing more than a fling.

  “That’s why I’m trying not to get my hopes up,” he answered truthfully. “More than likely, nothing will come of it.”

  With that, Hank picked up his brush and went back to work. It wasn’t until he’d made a couple of strokes that he realized Skip still hadn’t spoken. He looked up to find Skip glaring at him.

  “Are you out of your freakin’ mind?” his friend nearly shouted. “A girl like Gwen Foster shows an interest in you and you’re tellin’ me you’re not gonna go after her with everything you got?” Looking disappointed, he shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re that dumb.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Skip drained the last of his Coke, then stared hard at Hank. “Ever since your brother died, I’ve been keepin’ a close eye on you, praying that something would come along and pull you outta your funk,” he explained. “That’s why I’m always tryin’ to get you to play ball or grab a bite to eat. I get that you feel guilty about what happened—hell, who wouldn’t—but wallowin’ in it ain’t right.” Skip looked around the workshop. “It’s like you crawled from that car to here, locked the door, and every once in a while you crack it open and let me in to visit. Now Gwen’s knockin’, too. She’s smart, funny, and plenty gorgeous. What more do you want? An invitation?” Skip sighed. “Mark my words, if you don’t do whatever it takes to make her yours, you’ll regret it every bit as much as your brother’s death.”

  Hank could only stare. In all the years they’d known each other, Skip had never spoken to him that way. He hadn’t known that his friend had been watching so closely, worrying about how he was dealing with Pete’s death. Skip was right, though. Hank had walled himself off, keeping everyone at arm’s length. But now Gwen had come along, forcing him to make a difficult choice. He could take a chance or play it safe. Hank wished he felt as confident as Skip seemed to be.

  “What if it doesn’t work out?” he finally asked. “What happens if Gwen decides to stay with that other guy?”

  “Then you get up, dust yourself off, and go on with your life,” Skip answered. “You’ve got to take a, what is that, you know, a jump…”

  “A leap of faith,” Hank finished.

  Skip snapped his fingers. “That’s it! That’s what you’ve got to do. It ain’t all that different from when you jumped into the Sawyer. You reacted without thinkin’, and look what came of it.”

  “It’s not the same,” Hank said. “I only did it because Gwen needed saving.”

  “So do you,” Skip replied.

  Hank didn’t know what to say. Maybe Skip was right. Maybe he was drowning, too. Maybe he needed to be rescued from his past, from himself. And maybe it was also true that Gwen was his salvation, that meeting her after so many years, falling for her, was the first step toward making things right again.

  “Is she worth fighting for?” Skip asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

  “Then what in the hell are you waitin’ for? Go get her.”

  “Right now?”

  Skip chuckled. “Still waitin’ for that invitation, huh? I tell you one thing: if it was me that Gwen Foster was sweet on, I’d have been there yesterday, poundin’ on her door, doin’ whatever it took to squeeze in one more date, hell, one more minute of time together.”

  Hank shook his head. “You make it sound easy.”

  “That’s ’cause it is.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he disagreed.

  “Why not?”

  “For starters, her parents hate my guts. If I just show up at their door, the first thing I see won’t be Gwen, but her father’s shotgun pointed at my chest,” he explained. “Then there’s the rich Chicago attorney who thinks he and Gwen are engaged to be married.”

  Skip hopped down off the workbench. “You can stand here and make excuses till you’re blue in the face, but the way I see it, you owe it to yourself to try. It’s called a leap of faith, remember?”

  With everything that’s already happened, with all the troubles trying to pull me under, I’ve proven to be a hell of a swimmer…

  “Besides, if she turns you down, you’ll always have me,” Skip joked.

  “That’s not much of a consolation.”

  His friend shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” He put his hand on Hank’s shoulder and added, “Get goin’.”

  So Hank put down his brush, grabbed his keys, and did just that.

  Hank took a deep breath, then rang the doorbell.

  Standing on the Fosters’ porch, shaded from the late-morning sun, he felt conspicuous. The whole drive across town, he’d talked himself through what he wanted to do and say, slowly gaining confidence. But by the time he’d parked his truck against the curb, the ticking engine sounding far too loud on the otherwise quiet street, that confidence had vanished. Walking to the porch, Hank had felt as if every eye in the neighborhood was on him. He kept expecting Warren to burst out the front door, shotgun in hand. After taking a moment to steady his nerves, remembering how Gwen’s lips had felt pressed against his, he’d rung the bell.

  It was too late to turn back now.

  Seconds crawled past like minutes, but no one answered. Hank rang the bell again; he could hear the chime sound inside.

  But still nothing.

  He rapped his knuckles against the door’s frame, trying not to hit it too hard, worried that it might sound like he was pounding, as if he was demanding entry. He raised his hand, but before he could knock again, a voice spoke behind him.

  “Hank? What are you doing here?”

  He turned to find Gwen standing on the walk. Sunlight shone off her hair. Her smile was every bit as radiant, although Hank was surprised that she was wearing the same outfit as yesterday.

  “I wanted to see you again,” Hank told her truthfully, even if he left out the part about Skip prodding him out of his workshop.

  It was clear that his words affected her; Hank saw it in the way a smile spread across her face, how her eyes lit up before looking away, unable to hold his gaze, but then just as quickly returned.

  “You wanted to see me that badly?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered.”

  “Maybe so.” Hank chuckled. He raised his thumb toward the door. “I knocked, but no one answered.”

  “That’s strange,” Gwen said with a frown. “My father’s been at the bakery for hours, but my mother should be home. Maybe she went to the grocery store.” She paused. “You were willing to come here, to face them, even after what happened the last time they saw you?”

  Hank came down the stairs to stand before her. “It doesn’t matter,” he answered. “Not enough, anyway.”

  “Now I’m definitely flattered,” she replied with a laugh.

  As much as he wanted to, Hank couldn’t return her good cheer. Her outfit kept distracting him, nagging at his thoughts. Something had happened, he was sure of it. “Is everything all right?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  He nodded at her. “You’re wearing the same clothes as the last time I saw you. I’m no Dick Tracy, but it makes me wonder.”

  “I spent last night at my aunt’s,” she told him.

  “Why not here?”

  Gwen sighed. “My parents and I had an argument.”

  “Let me guess,” Hank said, running a hand through his light hair. “They heard that we’d spent the day together.”

  She didn’t answer, her eyes falling to her feet. He knew he was right.

  “I’m sorry,” he offered.

  When Gwen looked back up, her expression was serious. “Don’t apologize,” she said. “They’re the ones at fault. My parents might choose to believe the worst
about you, but they’re wrong. They don’t know you like I do.”

  Even though a part of Hank was happy to hear Gwen standing up for him, he still felt guilty that he’d caused her so much trouble.

  “I don’t want to come between you and your folks,” he said.

  “You’re not.”

  Hank chuckled. “Sure seems that way to me.”

  “All right, some of it is about you,” Gwen admitted. “I just can’t understand why they won’t recognize what you did for me, or why they aren’t willing to give you a chance.” She paused. “But a lot of what’s happening is because of me.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “The problem is that they still think of me as a little girl. They want to be able to tell me where I can go, what I can do, and especially who I can do it with.” Gwen tenderly slipped her hand into his. “They don’t realize that I’m a woman now, and that these decisions are mine to make.” She smiled, causing his heart to skip a beat. “And right now, what I want most of all is for you to take me out for lunch.”

  “Downtown?” Hank asked, the thought of being seen on the streets of Buckton as unsettling as ever.

  Gwen noticed his discomfort. “We don’t have to,” she said quickly. “Let me fill a picnic basket instead, then we can drive into the countryside.”

  Hank knew that Gwen was just trying to make things easier, but it embarrassed him. “Let’s go to the diner.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  He thought back to his conversation with Skip. Hank wondered if his friend wasn’t right, if he hadn’t been making excuses for hiding himself away after Pete’s death. Sure, whenever he was in town people stared or made hurtful comments, but why did he let it get to him? He knew the truth about what had happened that night. That’s what really mattered. Right then and there, Hank resolved not to let any of that keep him from spending time with Gwen.

  “Yeah, I am,” he answered.

  He had taken a leap of faith, all right.