A Time to Forgive and Promise Forever

by Marta Perry

  “They’re cleaning up the Spyhop. David uses her for the dolphin watch, and Daniel takes visitors out on her.”

  “Sammy likes doing that?”

  The wind ruffled Miranda’s hair into her face and fluttered her oversize blue T-shirt. “He loves it.” Maternal pride blazed in her eyes. “He’s turning into a real waterman, just like his grandfather and uncles.”

  Not like his father, in other words. She seemed determined to turn the boy into a complete Caldwell with no trace of Winchester to be found. That bothered him more than he’d expected.

  Miranda stopped level with the boat. “Hey, guys. You’ve got the Spyhop looking like new.”

  “Not quite that.” David ran a paper towel over the windscreen. “But I’d say she’s ready for the season. Sammy’s been a big help.”

  Sammy’s gaze slanted off Tyler and landed on his mother. “I did all the polishing.”

  Tyler seemed to feel an invisible push from Miranda, demanding that he respond. “Good job.”

  “Thanks.” Sammy hesitated, as if on the verge of saying his name, then let it trail off.

  Tyler braced himself against the railing, the rough wood warm under his hands. He had absolutely no reason to be nervous about this. If he could walk into a multinational corporation’s boardroom as if he owned the world, he could surely invite a seven-year-old to spend some time with him.

  “Sammy, I thought maybe you’d like to run into town with me.” He felt ridiculously like a teenager asking for a first date. “We could stop and get a hamburger for lunch if you want.”

  For a moment no one moved or spoke. A gull squawked above them, and he sensed Miranda holding her breath. What was she wishing for?

  His son squared his shoulders as if facing something unpleasant. “I already promised to go on a dolphin watch with my uncle. But thank you.”

  Miranda’s hand clenched on the railing next to his. “Sammy, you can go on the next trip. I’m sure Uncle David wouldn’t mind.”

  “That’s right,” David began, but Sammy shook his head, his mouth setting stubbornly.

  “We just got the boat ready. I want to go today.”

  “Fine.” Tyler hoped that didn’t sound as curt as he feared it did. “We’ll do it another time.”

  “Maybe you’d like to go along on the boat,” Miranda said quickly. “They have plenty of room.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Miranda meant well, but he had no desire to compete with David for Sammy’s attention. He stepped back, watching as Sammy loosed the lines that held the Spyhop to the dock. His son moved around the boat easily, as if advertising the fact that he was at home there.

  The catamaran nosed slowly through the water away from them. Sammy hopped onto the seat next to his uncle, and David let him put his hands on the wheel as they steered into the current.

  “Tyler, I’m sorry.”

  Was she? “Leave it, Miranda. Sammy can do something with me another day.”

  Everyone wants something from you. Here was one case where his father’s prediction had been wrong. Miranda hadn’t wanted anything from him but out. It appeared Sammy was felt exactly the same way.

  She should be glad Tyler wasn’t fitting in. Miranda had been telling herself that for the past hour, but if it were true, why did her heart ache for both Tyler and Sammy?

  She pulled the car into the drive next to the church, got out and unloaded the bucket of red tulips and yellow daffodils from the back seat. Maybe a little time spent alone in the sanctuary while she arranged the flowers for tomorrow’s service would help calm her mind.

  I don’t know what to do, Lord. I don’t even know how to pray in this situation. Maybe You’d best give me some direction, because I’m sure not doing very well on my own.

  She straightened, closing the car door, and heard someone call her name. Gran Caldwell waved from the front porch of the white clapboard house next to the church where Caldwells had lived for the past hundred and fifty years or so.

  “Miranda, come along over here. I’ve got some lilacs for the vases.”

  Miranda picked up the bucket and started toward her grandmother, her steps making little sound on the thick carpet of pine needles.

  “Hey, Gran. I already have some of Momma’s tulips and dafs.” She hefted the bucket as she grew near, hoping she could keep the conversation on flowers instead of the tangle her life was in at the moment.

  “No paperwhites?” Gran did love the pale, old-fashioned cream narcissus. “We’ll cut some of those, too, with the lilacs.”

  Miranda followed the spare, erect figure in the faded print dress along the hedge of lilacs—deep purple, pale lavender, pure white. Her grandmother’s green thumb was legendary. She inhaled, the perfume taking her back to playing under the lilac hedge with her sister, Chloe, on warm spring afternoons that seemed to last forever.

  How long would it take Gran to bring up Tyler’s arrival? Not long, she’d guess.

  Gran cut a spray of purple blossoms with her shears and turned it in her hands as if assessing its worthiness to appear in the church vases. Then she looked at Miranda, her faded hazel eyes still sharp even though she’d soon celebrate her eighty-first birthday.

  “I hear Tyler’s back on the island.”

  “Yes.” No sense trying to avoid discussing it with Gran, even if she wanted to. Gran always knew everything that happened on the island, and she generally knew what you should do before you did. “Someone sent him a photograph of Sammy.”

  “So he came. Well, I reckon that’s what he ought to do.”

  “Ought to do?” She set the bucket down. “Gran, he’s furious that I never told him about Sammy.”

  Her grandmother eyed her sternly. “I’m not saying his coming here is a good thing. I’m just saying if he’s any kind of an honorable man, he’d have come once he found out about the boy.”

  Honorable. Tyler’s face filled her mind, and she felt the jolt to her heart that she should be getting used to by now. Honorable wasn’t a word she associated with Tyler, but maybe Gran had a point.

  “I guess it might have been easier to toss the picture away and tell himself it was some sort of joke.” But then, Tyler never had been one to do things the easy way.

  Gran nodded. “He wouldn’t do that, not if he was a man you could have fallen in love with.” She snipped another stem of blossoms. “How is it going?”

  Miranda thought about Tyler’s rigid figure as he watched Sammy go off on the boat with David. “Not well.” She tried to swallow, but there was a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. “He and Sammy—they just seem to glance off each other instead of connecting. Maybe that’s best, anyway.”

  “Best? Way I hear it, you were the one who asked Tyler to stay. Now you wanting him to leave?”

  “I didn’t think he’d agree.” Her reasoning seemed vaguely shameful when she tried to explain it to her grandmother. “I thought he’d say he was too busy and that would make him see that he didn’t have time for Sammy. I thought he’d go away, and we could go back to our lives.”

  “And now that he’s staying, seems like everything’s changed.”

  All the things she hadn’t been able to say to anyone else began to pour out of her mouth. “Gran, I just don’t know what to do. If they go on the way they are, Tyler and Sammy are never going to be anything to each other. But if I help them…”

  Her voice choked. Gran folded strong arms around her, holding her close. Miranda inhaled the lavender scent that always meant Gran to her.

  “There now, child. Did you take it to the Lord?”

  Miranda nodded, trying to sniff back tears. “I’ve prayed about it and prayed about it. I don’t know if it’s better for Sammy to lose his father now or to try and divide his life between our world and Tyler’s. I guess the truth is, I’m scared.”

  Gran took Miranda’s face between her hands, her palms dry and cool against Miranda’s flushed cheeks. “Seems to me you’re trying to push God into choosing be
tween your two options. How do you know the Lord doesn’t have something else in mind entirely?”

  “But—what else is there?”

  “Miranda Jane Caldwell, you took vows before God to love that man forever. Did you ever think maybe God wants the two of you back together again?”

  For an instant she could only stare at Gran’s face. The world narrowed to the question that hung in the air between them, Gran’s challenging gaze, the faint buzz of a bee investigating the lilacs.

  “That’s impossible.” The words came out forcefully. She took a step back. “Gran, that can never happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” It certainly was to her. “Even if I wanted that, Tyler certainly doesn’t. He’s turned into a man just like his father, obsessed with business and making money. I can’t ignore that, and even if I could, I still can’t be the wife Tyler needs. I couldn’t eight years ago, and I can’t today.”

  “You stop that kind of talk.” Gran shook her finger at Miranda as if she were six instead of twenty-six. “How do you know you’re not the wife Tyler needs?”

  “I tried!” Tears stung her eyes at the memory of those humiliating days. “I couldn’t fit into Tyler’s world. As soon as he saw me there, he must have known that.”

  “So you came back here, where you felt safe.” There was no condemnation in her grandmother’s voice, just concern. She took Miranda’s hands in both of hers. “Child, you remember the verse I gave you?”

  How could she forget? Gran gave each of her grandchildren a Bible verse to live by. Miranda’s was embroidered on cream linen, framed and hanging on her bedroom wall.

  Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

  “I remember.” She tried for a watery smile. “I’m not sure I do so well with the patience part.”

  Gran shook her hands as if she’d like to shake Miranda. “You’re right good at humility, child. But it seems to me you’re forgetting about how God dearly loves you. If you really believed that, you’d know you’re worthy wherever you are, whether it’s here or in that big house of Tyler’s up north.”

  It was as if she’d looked straight into Miranda’s heart. Gran patted her cheek. “You think on that. God will give you the answer. You just have to listen.”

  She managed to nod, hoping she could somehow hide her feelings from Gran’s sharp eyes. She couldn’t let herself believe that Gran’s idea had any merit, because if she did, she might start hoping for something with Tyler that was never going to happen.

  Miranda tucked a spray of white lilac into the vase with the tulips and assessed the effect. Yes, that was going to look lovely.

  She took a breath, letting the peace of St. Andrew’s seep into her troubled spirit. The small chapel had stood on this same spot for nearly two hundred years. She looked around at the simple wooden pews, the white walls, the stained-glass windows with their colors glowing in the afternoon sunlight. She could use a little peace after listening to Gran’s upsetting ideas.

  Her gaze was drawn to the image of the risen Christ looking at Mary Magdalene, kneeling before him in the garden. The Christ figure glowed with light, seeming to radiate peace and understanding.

  Miranda slipped into a pew, putting her hands on the wooden seat back in front of her and leaning her face against her hands.

  Father, I don’t know what to think. Is Gran right? Have I been hiding?

  She longed to reject the thought, but Gran knew her as well as anyone.

  I want to be the person You expect me to be. If I have been hiding, please help me see what to do about it.

  No immediate answer leaped into her mind, but that didn’t matter. The answer would come. She had confidence in that.

  She stood, feeling better than she had since the moment she’d seen Tyler standing in the hallway, and returned to the flowers.

  Half an hour later, she’d finished the two vases that stood on either side of the communion table and begun work on the arrangement for the bracket behind the pulpit. One of the double doors at the rear of the sanctuary swung open, letting in a shaft of sunlight. Tyler walked toward her.

  Please, Lord, she murmured silently.

  “Your mother told me you’d be here.” He came to a stop a few feet from her. “She said you were arranging the flowers for tomorrow’s service.”

  Miranda gestured with the narcissus in her hand. “As you can see.” She hesitated, not sure she wanted to ask him what he was doing here.

  “Very nice.” He touched the delicate blossoms of the white lilac. “Where will this one go?”

  “There.” She nodded. “On the dolphin shelf.”

  Anyone would think Tyler was here for no other reason than a casual conversation with her. Anyone would be wrong. Tyler never did anything casually.

  He moved toward the shelf, his long stride bringing him within inches of her. “Wasn’t there some old family legend about that?”

  “Yes.”

  He stopped, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Just yes? You could tell me about it, you know.”

  He almost seemed to be teasing her, and she didn’t know how to react. It didn’t help that her heart was thumping at his nearness.

  “A wooden statue of a dolphin once stood there, carved by the first Caldwell on the island.” She mentally deleted all the references to the special blessings that were supposed to come to those wed under the dolphin’s gaze. Tyler didn’t need any reminder of weddings. “It disappeared a long time ago, when my father was a teenager.” Tyler also didn’t need to know how her father and uncle had been entangled with that disappearance.

  “But you still put flowers on the shelf.”

  Unnerved by his closeness, she jammed a tulip into the arrangement too hard and broke the stem. “Yes, we do. And I need to get on with it.”

  Tyler shrugged. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  She could hardly say the truth—that his very presence was enough to disrupt just about anything she might be doing. He moved away, and she could breathe again.

  “I’d forgotten how peaceful this place is.” He walked toward the side of the sanctuary.

  She ought to be able to concentrate on the flowers now that he was at a safe distance. Instead her senses followed him, informing her when he stopped and what caught his attention.

  With jerky movements she tucked the rest of the paperwhites into the vase and lifted it to the shelf. There, it would have to do. She could come in early in the morning and adjust it if she had to. At least then Tyler wouldn’t be around to distract her.

  “This is new, isn’t it?” Tyler had stopped in front of the stained-glass window depicting a dolphin surging from the water.

  “Yes.”

  Again he lifted his eyebrows, and again she knew she was being ungracious. It was a bad sign that Tyler brought out the worst in her. Unwillingly she crossed the sanctuary to stand on the opposite side of the window from him.

  “It’s the Caldwell dolphin. My cousin Adam’s fiancée designed and made it.”

  Tyler touched the crest of a glass wave. “It’s beautiful. She’s a skilled artist.”

  “Tory brought back our dolphin, in a way.” Things had come full circle. Tory’s mother had caused the loss of the dolphin, but Tory had created this beautiful tribute in its place.

  Miranda felt Tyler’s gaze on her face as she stared at the dolphin. Why had he followed her to the church? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “Your family must be very pleased with this.”

  It was certainly easier to talk about the window than about the situation between them. “We are. Although I think Gran still believes the original dolphin will come back someday.”

  “Hardly likely after all this time, is it?”

  “No, I guess not.” You came back, Tyler. What am I going to do about it?

  She took a breath, summoning her courage. Tyler had somethi
ng on his mind besides the Caldwell dolphin. She’d better try to find out what.

  “Why did you come here looking for me?” It sounded blunt, but it was the best she could do. “Did you want something?”

  Tyler’s chiseled features seemed to tighten. “I want to talk with you about Sammy.”

  She saw again his expression when Sammy had gone off with David that morning. Tyler probably didn’t experience rejection very often. She suspected he didn’t know how to cope with it.

  “What about Sammy?”

  He moved restlessly, the colored light from the window touching his cheek, then his shoulder. “The point of my staying here is for us to get acquainted. That’s a little tough to do when he doesn’t want to spend any time with me.”

  There were a lot of answers to that—that Sammy didn’t want to, that she wasn’t going to force him, that there wasn’t anything she could do.

  Gran’s words echoed in her mind. If what Gran said was true, it was time she did something about it. No more hiding. She couldn’t run from the pain of what she and Tyler had once had. She could only try to repair the damage she’d done when she’d kept Sammy from him.

  “It’s hard,” she said, not sure whether she was talking about Sammy or herself.

  “Most things that are worthwhile are hard.” His face was uncompromising. “I don’t plan to give up on this, Miranda.”

  Where was the courage Gran insisted all Caldwell women had? Maybe it had skipped her.

  “I think it might be best if we planned to do some things with Sammy together.” She didn’t know she was going to say it until she heard the words come out of her mouth. She’d asked God to show her what to do, and He had immediately given her an opportunity to find out. She couldn’t back out now.

  Tyler’s gaze seemed to probe for the truth beneath her skin. “The three of us together.”

  She forced herself to meet his eyes. “That will be easier for Sammy.”

  “It won’t be easier for you, will it?”

  For an instant she thought she saw sympathy in his face. She must be mistaken. Tyler could hardly feel sympathy for the woman who’d wronged him in such a fundamental way.