by Lexi Eddings
“Really? That’s how it works in my life.” When he frowned in confusion, she went on. “Every time I got close to someone, they either died or left me or were taken away from me somehow. And God didn’t lift a finger to stop it.” She shook her head. “I just can’t risk caring anymore.”
“Even about me?”
Angie could scarcely breathe for all the caring inside her for this man. It was choking her. Seth had filled up the empty places in her soul until she was bursting with him. She wanted him with every molecule of her body. Her adoration of him bordered on idolatry. It was an old-fashioned sort of sin, but one she recognized in herself in a heartbeat. Every fiber of her being yearned toward Seth Parker.
Losing him would be her worst fear come to life.
It’s too late, she realized. She couldn’t save her heart from hurt by not caring for him. She already did. Seth was her next breath. He was her first thought each morning and the recurring theme running through her dreams each night.
“I can’t care for you more than I already do,” she said truthfully. Her chest constricted in pain. A single drop more love for him would make her heart stop. It wouldn’t stand the strain.
His lips tightened into a hard line. “Then how are you going to live, not caring about anybody?”
“I don’t know.” Shoulders shaking, she burst into tears. “But if I don’t get involved, if I don’t let myself care—”
“Then you won’t get hurt?” he filled in.
“Something like that,” she managed to choke out between sobs.
He understands. She never thought anyone would.
Seth took her into his arms and held her close while she wept. She let him. She didn’t have the strength to fight his love. A reservoir of past hurts bubbled up. All the times she’d come home to find her small suitcase packed, all the times she’d made friends at one school only to be yanked to another, every time she’d had to squeeze into yet another borrowed family, to call another stranger “Mom,” to give a piece of herself to someone only to have it rejected or stomped on—all those blows to the heart rose to the surface and she wept them out.
And all the while, Seth held her. Finally, she was cried out. Drained.
“Here’s the thing,” he said softly. “Everything in life is a risk. If we decide not to take any risks, we aren’t living anymore. We’re just taking up space.”
She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure her voice would work. And besides, just taking up space sounded safe.
“Angie, I love you.” He put a couple of fingers under her chin and tipped it up so she had to meet his gaze.
He’s not lying. I can see the love. What I can’t see is the hurt that always follows. But I don’t have to see it to know it’s coming.
Seth dug into his pocket and came out with a small box. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to give this to you, and it turns out there is no right time. There’s just now.”
He handed it to her. It looked suspiciously like a ring box. Hands shaking, she took it. When she opened the box, she found an antique diamond ring—a large center stone, ringed with smaller baguettes set in gold filigree.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It was my grandmother’s. She and my granddad were married for over sixty years. There’s a lot of love, a lot of promises made good, already ingrained in that ring.” He took one of her hands and sheltered it in both of his. “I’m adding mine today.”
“Oh, Seth.”
“Don’t give me your answer. Not right now. I can see you need to think on this,” he said. “But while you’re thinking, I want you to remember this. No matter what you decide, Angela Holloway, I’ll love you till I die.”
Angie pulled her hand away from him and put a little distance between them. “That’s just it, Seth. You’ll die someday. I’ll die. Whatever we do, it doesn’t matter. We’ll lose each other sooner or later.” She gave him her back, unable to meet his gaze any longer. “I can’t bear another loss. Especially not you.”
Seth crossed over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, but he didn’t force her to turn back to him. The warmth of his big rough hands penetrated even her thick sweater.
“God knows something about loss. After all, the reason we celebrate Christmas is because He let His Son leave heaven and come to earth,” Seth said. “I gotta think that was a lonely choice. A choice full of loss.”
“That’s the least churchy explanation of the holiday I’ve ever heard,” she said, turning in his arms to face him again.
Seth nodded, conceding the point. “Fancy words aren’t my strong suit.”
Angie smiled, despite herself. When they first met, she’d thought him a Neanderthal who only spoke in one-syllable words and incomplete sentences. Now she appreciated the depths of understanding behind those simple words of his.
“You said you were afraid God would let Ethan die. I was, too,” he admitted. “But even if the boy had died, we wouldn’t have been alone. God knows something about the pain of losing someone. I gotta believe if you let Him, He’ll help you deal with your pain.”
Even though she had no conscious memory of her real parents, she still felt their loss. Over the years, Angie had been an on-again, off-again churchgoer, depending on the devotion level of her current foster family at any given time. She knew the Bible stories. She remembered the words to some of the songs. But she wasn’t sure God was really the sort to take an interest in her.
He hadn’t demonstrated any so far. At least, not any she could see. But Seth obviously believed God could help her.
Make that “us.”
Until she figured out how to care for Seth, or anyone else, without fearing the pain that was sure to follow, there wasn’t much hope for an “us.”
She leaned into Seth and stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. He didn’t need much encouragement to respond in a way that curled her toes. When he finally released her, she sagged against him.
“I have to warn you, I’m taking that kiss as a good sign,” he said huskily.
“It is.” Angie hoped it was. It hurt to hope, but she was beginning to believe not hoping would be even worse.
“Good,” he said, “because I’m under orders to deliver you back to my aunt’s house for supper, where you’re supposed to help eat up some of her sad and sorry excuse for a Thanksgiving dinner.”
Angie groaned at the thought of Shirley Evans’s spicy mishmash of dishes. “I don’t suppose I can plead for a rain check.”
“Nope. When Shirley Evans sends a summons, attendance is mandatory,” Seth said. “Besides, if we don’t eat it, poor Uncle George will be stuck with those leftovers for a month.”
“I guess the old squirrel fighter deserves our support,” Angie said. “But I’m wondering if the highest and best use of that jerked turkey might not be to display it on the front lawn as a warning to other creatures.”
Seth laughed. “Don’t tell Uncle George. That’s just the sort of desperate measure he’d be willing to try.”
As Angie walked hand in hand with Seth down to his pickup, she wondered what desperate measures she’d be willing to try. Her dilemma couldn’t be solved with traps. No gizmo would drive away the fear of loss.
Or give her a way to deal with it when it happened.
Chapter 33
A lawsuit cannot be considered frivolous if simply threatening one will make the other party knuckle under.
—Peter Manning, on the many and varied uses of the legal system
“What do you mean, you don’t think we should proceed?” Sabine’s tone was carefully neutral. It was the same one she used for deposing clients she suspected actually were guilty, but she didn’t want to know for sure.
“Just that. I still can’t find a complainant,” Peter said. Once again, he’d had to place his call to his partner from the far edge of the Heart of the Ozarks parking lot to find a measly single bar of cell service. “Nobody in this whole town seems upset about the Christmas pageant taking plac
e.”
Peter had even trolled the Samaritan House homeless shelter looking for a disgruntled drunk to use as his aggrieved party. Not a soul would agree to take part in a suit against the town’s Christmas pageant, even when he offered a cash incentive.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, man, I could use the money,” one of the frequent residents of the shelter had told him. “But the folks hereabouts take pretty good care of the likes of us. Three hots and a cot, if we agree to not bring a bottle in with us for the night. Sandwiches to go and a warm blanket, even if we don’t.”
“They force you to sobriety? How can they impose their values on you like that?”
“It ain’t no big deal. They just hold out a carrot for us. There ain’t no switch to beat us with,” the man had explained. “Besides, reckon you’d want me to be sober if I agreed to sign on to your lawsuit thing.”
“I’ll only require you to be sober when you have to appear in court.”
“But you ain’t gonna be around here forever once that fancy-ass lawsuit of yours is done. Your money will go with you. So I asks you, what would I do after the ruckus dies down? I still gotta live here, you know. Ain’t nobody gone give me a handout if I screw up the pageant for ’em.”
“Not very Christian of them if they don’t,” Peter had grumbled.
“Well, maybe they would still help me out, at that. Folks ’round here are like that. But I wouldn’t feel right takin’ the help if I did ’em dirt like you want me to,” the scruffy fellow had said. “Why don’t you just ease on down the road, Counselor?”
So Peter had done just that. He’d frequented the Green Apple Grill by day and the Red Caboose Bar by night, half an ear cocked for malcontents. People complained about the weather and about politicians in general, mostly the ones in far off DC and a few in the state capital, but no one fussed about their own little corner of the world. For the most part, Coldwater Cove was pretty happy with itself.
And everyone seemed to be looking forward to the Christmas pageant with enthusiasm.
“I can’t believe it,” Sabine’s voice crackled from his phone. To say that cell service was merely spotty was charitable in the extreme. “You mean no one will sign on to the suit?”
“No,” Peter said. “I tried. Hand to God, Sabine, I tried.”
There was silence for a few heartbeats, but then she came back with Plan B. “Then we’ll file without a local. It makes for better TV if you have an upset resident by your side, but we’ll have to make do. The principle is still sound, and the media will be on the lookout for this story. They always are. I know I said we’d wait till closer to Christmas to file, but you know what they say. It’s better to be first than to be best.”
“I don’t know, Sabine,” Peter said. “Maybe we should try to make the case elsewhere. This town is a dusty little backwater. What happens here doesn’t hurt a soul. Why don’t we save our powder for a fight worth fighting?”
“This fight is worth fighting,” Sabine insisted. “Anywhere religion is being promoted by the government, it’s worth calling them out. Besides, just filing the suit will accomplish our goals.”
The only thing Peter thought it would accomplish was a string of disappointed faces in Coldwater once the townsfolk realized their precious pageant was going to be cancelled. From the old Vietnam vet who waited tables at the Green Apple to the statuesque dean at the college, everyone he’d met in the town would be upset.
Especially Angie.
He’d only seen her in passing, not even long enough to speak, since that night they’d had drinks at Harper’s. Peter could still scarcely believe she’d turned down his offer to make her a professor at Bates College. The offer was totally bogus, but she didn’t know that. She only knew it wouldn’t be right to accept it.
Somewhere along the way, his timid little Ange had developed an acute sense of “oughtness,” that elusive, almost instinctive feel for what was right or wrong, along with a spine of solid steel.
Sabine, who certainly had the spine, but not Ange’s “oughtness,” started talking again.
“This case is going to catapult us into the big leagues, Peter. You’ll see. You can’t buy this kind of publicity. We might even end up on a national morning news show or two.”
Peter could almost see her preening. Cameras did indeed love his partner.
“There’s no telling how many cases this will generate for us going forward,” she said. “We’ll be on every right-thinking organization’s short list of litigators.”
“I guess,” he said noncommittally.
“I know,” she countered. “So I’ll be in Tulsa tomorrow with a news crew ready to meet us on the superior court steps. I expect you to be there, too, Peter. Right?”
“There’s just one problem with that.”
“What?”
“Superior court convenes in the state capital.”
“Hello? Like I said. Tulsa.”
“Oklahoma City,” Peter corrected.
“You’re kidding me.”
There wasn’t enough bandwidth to do FaceTime on his phone, but he could practically see her rolling her eyes from halfway across the country.
“They actually think they have something that deserves to be called a city out there?” she demanded.
“Yes, they do, and it’s where you have to be if you want to file in superior court in this state.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you in Oklahoma City, then,” she said. “Right?”
He sighed. “Right.”
“This is going to make us, Peter.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t get all excited on me,” she said sarcastically. “I mean seriously. This thing has legs. It’s going to drive a butt-load of business to our door. You’ll finally be able to get that Ferrari.”
“Yeah. That’ll be good. See you tomorrow,” he told her more to get her to hang up than anything. When the connection was broken, Peter walked back into his slightly shabby, but scrupulously clean, motel room and plopped onto the sagging bed.
Angela Holloway would never own a Ferrari. She’d never have a vacation home on Aruba. She probably wouldn’t ever make it to teaching at the college level.
But she had integrity. She knew how to pick her battles and which offers to turn down even if they seemed to advance her. Peter would bet she slept the sleep of the just each night.
He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. But he remembered well enough to miss it.
* * *
“Are you sure?” Phyllis Wanamaker asked. She was the owner of a shop called the Secondhand Junk-shun and her voice didn’t usually sound so unsteady. “I mean, you saw the documents yourself?”
Marjorie Chubb allowed that the crackly sounding voice might be a technical issue.The captain of the Methodist prayer chain still wasn’t very adept at setting up conference calls on all their cell phones.
Usually the prayer chain operated like a phone tree. One member would call two, the next two called four, and so on until all the prayer warriors had the information they needed to begin their assault on heaven. But for emergencies, Marjorie insisted they all learn how to participate in a conference call so the concerns could be shared at once throughout the whole group and praying could commence immediately.
And this was an emergency if Marjorie had ever seen one.
“I didn’t actually see the documents, but I heard about the lawsuit straight from Wanda Cruikshank herself,” Marjorie assured her prayer warriors. If the editor of the Coldwater Gazette said something was true, you could take it to the bank.
“How did she hear about it?” Glenda Scott wanted to know.
“Oh, you know how those media types are. They talk to each other,” Marjorie explained. “It seems Wanda’s got a cousin who writes for a little weekly in Oklahoma City, and as soon as the news hit his desk, he gave Wanda a call for a comment.”
“What did she say?” asked Mrs. Chisholm, the oldest member of the group.
“How should I know tha
t?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Mrs. Chisholm said.
“No, I think she was too busy trying to find out what was what from her cousin to give him something printable from her,” Marjorie said.
“Is it real?” Tilly Jean Iverson, the newest member of the prayer chain asked. “Can they do that, I mean?”
“Shut the pageant down? Yes, it appears they can,” Marjorie said with a sigh. “A judge in Oklahoma City issued something called a temporary injunction.”
“A junk-what?” Phyllis said. Evidently her ears pricked whenever “junk” was part of a word.
“An injunction,” Marjorie repeated. “It means the pageant can’t go forward as planned.”
The prayer warriors all began to talk at once.
“Till when?”
“Did you say Tilly? Oh, no. I think Tilly dropped off the call. Tilly Jean, you there?”
Several more voices chimed in asking after Tilly’s whereabouts.
“Yep, I’m still here,” Tilly Jean finally managed to get in. “Did Marjorie ever say how long the pageant has to stop for? Marjorie, are you still on the call?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Well?”
“The pageant is hung up until the final decision is made, I guess,” Marjorie said with a sigh. Conference calls weren’t as efficient as she’d hoped. If everyone talked at once, no one could understand a thing.
“Who makes the final decision?” That sounded like Glenda Scott, a CNA at Coldwater General, but the connection was starting to break up a bit, so Marjorie couldn’t be sure.
“The judge in the capital, I think.”
“Well, why didn’t he just decide then instead of injuncting us?” Phyllis said indignantly.
“I think the judge put off his decision because we wouldn’t have liked it if he decided right then.”
Marjorie wasn’t sure who’d said this, but she thought it made sense. But maybe there was a spiritual reason for the delay, too. “If the judge had decided right then, we wouldn’t have had the chance to pray over the problem.”
This sentiment was met with a flurry of agreement.