Aggie nodded her agreement. "Sometimes these things just happen."
"This business was your mother's delight," Millie chimed in. "But you're not having any fun with it, Laney. So why aren't you asking God to let you move on to something else?"
"Maybe I'm afraid," Laney admitted. Her folded arms slid off the desk and plopped into her lap as she leaned back in her chair. "Because when things change, you never know if they're going to get better or worse. And what if they get worse?"
"What if they get better?" Aggie countered with a touch of impatience. "What if things could be a lot better, but they're not because you don't have the guts to take a chance?"
"Don't be too hard on the girl, Agatha." Caroline removed her glasses and bent forward to polish them on the hem of her dress. "She's had one trouble after another since Hannah passed."
"And even before," Millie said. "Nursing her sweet mother and then losing her that way."
Laney shook her head, rejecting their sympathy. "When I remember how well Mom dealt with her troubles," she said quietly, "I feel so ashamed of my whining."
"I know what you mean." Caroline slid her glasses back onto her face. "Hannah had courage, that's for sure."
Aggie put an arm around Millie, whose eyes had filled with tears.
"She was only twenty-two when your father left," Caroline remembered.
"She was heartbroken and scared to death," Millie said, slipping away from Aggie to pluck a tissue from the box on Laney's desk. "Her parents were killed in a car crash while she was still in college, so she had no family to help her."
"Except us," Aggie said. "But she didn't know that at first."
"But she pulled herself together," Caroline said, straightening her own back. "She had a baby coming, so she couldn't afford to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She worked hard and she prayed. And in time, her broken heart healed."
Millie blew her nose into her tissue and then said, "A Christian doesn't have the right to squander her life on bitterness, Laney."
"I hear you." Conviction thickened Laney's voice.
"When Hannah was fighting the cancer," Caroline said, "she worried about leaving you. But she wasn't bitter, even at the end. She knew you'd be okay."
Suffused with shame, Laney shook her head. She hadn't been okay since her mother's death. She'd been foundering.
She pushed her chair away from the desk and stood. "I need to be by myself for a while."
"Go ahead," Caroline urged. "We'll take care of everything here."
Millie smiled sweetly. "You go and have a good, long think about all of this. When we sit down to our tea in a few minutes, we'll pray for you."
"Thank you. For everything." Her vision blurring, Laney hugged each of her great-aunts. Then she snatched a couple of tissues from the box, gathered her jacket and purse, and went out the kitchen door.
At home, she changed her clothes and then decided to go for a walk. She started to grab her jacket off its peg by the kitchen door, but reached instead for a hooded Minnesota Twins sweatshirt Jeb had left behind. It was ridiculously huge on her, falling almost to her knees, and she surprised herself by chuckling as she rolled up the sleeves—and rolled, and rolled.
She flipped the hood over her head and went out the door.
Her aimless stroll took her to Lake Kohlmier, where she sat on a bench facing the water. Raising her eyes to the sky filled with scudding gray clouds, she whispered a prayer.
"Lord, I don't want to fight you any more. You know the desires of my heart, but it looks like you have other plans for my life. I want to be okay with that, but I'm going to need a lot of help. Please show me how to let go of Jeb and how to stop feeling so bitter about everything."
She sat quietly for a few more minutes and thought about her mother. Everyone agreed that Hannah Ryland had died bravely. But what was even more admirable, Laney now realized, was that her mother had lived bravely. She had learned to depend on God, and through obedience to him, she had discovered contentment and even joy.
"Lord," Laney whispered as she rubbed tears from her cold cheeks, "teach me how to trust you the way she did."
When the fresh autumn breeze pushed Jeb's hood from her head and tugged at her curls, she barely noticed. She sat very still, marveling at the warmth spreading inside her.
"Thank you," she whispered as peace seeped into her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As Thanksgiving came and went, Caroline was proud of the way Laney held her chin up even though her heart was broken. The girl was maturing fast, and she was beginning to demonstrate a remarkable faith in God.
Her financial difficulties were only increasing. She was now thinking about selling her house and most of her furniture and moving into a modest apartment. And bless her heart, she wasn't even crying about that. Not as far as the Graces could tell.
Christmas arrived, and although Jeb hadn't called Laney in two whole months, he'd sent her a beautiful hand-sewn quilt that must have cost the earth. Caroline managed to peek at the card accompanying it, which read:
Merry Christmas, Laney.
I thought you might like this for your hope chest.
I want to call you, but I'm afraid I'd blurt out what I'm working on, and I want it to be a surprise. In the meantime, I think about you and pray for you every single day.
Love, Jeb
Caroline didn't know whether to be pleased or annoyed by the cryptic note. Whatever his surprise was supposed to be, the boy was making a big mistake by not calling. And what was that business about Laney's hope chest? Was he asking her to wait for him, or was he telling her to find another man?
Laney didn't appear to know, but she was holding up admirably. She was Hannah's daughter, that was for sure.
A week after Christmas, Laney's building sold for a decent price. The buyer paid cash and wanted possession right away, so at the end of the second week of January, Laney closed the Three Graces Tearoom for good. She sold the kitchen equipment and the furniture at auction, along with every bit of the pretty English bone china she had helped Hannah collect just a few pieces at a time.
Prior to selling the china, Laney had urged the Graces to choose a tea set for themselves, as a memento. They'd been glad to do that. But then Caroline had noticed the poor girl wasn't keeping anything for herself.
Some things hurt too much to remember, Laney had said. And Caroline, who hadn't been a crybaby even when she was a baby, had had to turn away and wipe something out of her eye.
But the girl would heal, and she'd get that tea set back just as soon as her great-aunts slipped away to Glory.
For now, though, she was still young, and it was high time she started chasing some dreams.
Especially that long-legged dream who'd stolen her heart and then forgotten how to use a telephone.
Caroline didn't think God had closed the door on that romance. No, those silly kids had just messed things up somehow. So wasn't it a good thing they had the Three Graces to help them find their way back to each other?
After spending weeks praying about the matter and considering it from every angle, Caroline had finally conceived a good plan. So one evening in late January as she and her sisters sat in their living room with their television blaring the evening news, she cleared her throat meaningfully.
Millie's knitting needles stilled.
Aggie lowered her newspaper.
Caroline settled Frankie Five more comfortably on her lap. "We're going to find Jeb," she announced. "And then we're going to bring him home."
A slow, satisfied smile curled Aggie's mouth. She folded her newspaper and laid it on the coffee table. Then she picked up the TV remote and turned off the news program.
"But how can we find him?" Worry deepened the wrinkles in Millie's forehead. "If we ask Laney for his phone number, she'll want to know why we want it. And when we tell her why we want it, she won't give it to us."
"True," Caroline said. "That's why we'll be hiring a private investigator t
o find him."
"That's your great plan?" Aggie rolled her eyes. "Caro, Laney's sure to have his number stored on her cell phone. All we need to do is get into her purse when she's not looking, and—"
"We are not getting into her purse," Caroline said sternly. "That would be sneaking."
"Sneaking?" Aggie snorted. "What would you call hiring a private investigator to find her boyfriend?"
"I'd call it fun!" Millie clapped her hands. "Let's do it!"
Aggie lowered her head and peered over her glasses at Caroline. "You already looked at her phone, didn't you?"
Caroline petted Frankie Five and stared at the blank television screen.
"So what was the problem?" Aggie persisted. "Doesn't she have his number stored?"
"She's got one of those fancy phones," Caroline muttered.
"Ah," Aggie said knowingly. "You couldn't figure out how to access the directory."
Even at the grown-up age of 79, little sisters could be annoying. Caroline sniffed and tossed her head.
"Sneaky." Millie looked at Caroline with undisguised admiration.
"So we're agreed then." Caroline raised an eyebrow at Aggie to discourage further objections. "We're hiring a private eye."
"They're not called that anymore, Caro." Millie gave her head a regretful little shake as she went back to her knitting. "They don't wear suits and hats, either, which is a crying shame. I always liked seeing a man in a hat."
"Bogart as Sam Spade." Aggie nodded approvingly. "Now there was a man."
"Never mind that," Caroline said. "Think. Who do we know that knows a private investigator?"
Tapping a finger against her chin, Aggie suddenly brightened. "We could try Hillary Graham's new husband's brother," she said, referring to the best man at a wedding the Graces had brought about just last year. "Remember? The Minneapolis police detective on permanent disability after being shot in the back? I think Hillary said he was some kind of computer wizard, and that could be real handy."
"I'd forgotten about him," Millie said. "He seemed like a nice boy. If he's still not married, we should—"
"We'll find somebody for him," Caroline assured her. "But right now, our priority is Jeb. Let's give Hillary a call and ask her to put us in touch with the cop. If he can't help us, he's sure to know somebody who can."
"But what will we do after we find out where Jeb is?" Millie asked.
Aggie's arms jiggled as she pumped two fists in the air. "Road trip!"
Millie looked worried again. "Aren't we getting a little old to be gallivanting around the country? He's probably in Los Angeles, you know, and that's a long way. We'd have to go over mountains to get there."
"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket." Aggie pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. "At our age, we could do with a little excitement."
"Just calling him on the phone might not get us the results we want," Caroline explained to her youngest sister. "We're going to have to show up in person."
"With pie," Aggie said.
Caroline inclined her head in agreement.
Millie still looked troubled. "So we just show up—with pie—and tell him Laney's pining for him and he needs to come home?"
"That's the plan," Caroline said.
Aggie nodded supportively.
Millie shook her head. "But what if he just eats the pie and doesn't come?"
"He'll come," Caroline said. "Don't you remember how that boy humbled himself to ask for our advice? Millie, only True Love could have driven him to that."
"All righty, then." Millie rolled up her knitting and stuffed it into the bag at her feet. "Let's get busy and hire ourselves a private eye!"
Jeb didn't need the burst of applause from the five people in the recording studio's control room to tell him he'd just laid down a great vocal track.
"Amazing. What a voice!" Seated at the mixing console, beefy and bald Justin Kramer shook his head at Jeb through the glass wall separating them. "I loved the raw edge on that last line."
"My voice cracked," Jeb told his producer as he reached for the coffee mug he'd set on a ledge in the tiny vocal booth. He swallowed some lukewarm coffee and then said, "Let's do it one more time."
"No, this one was really good." Justin traded glances with the audio engineer next to him. "Let's hear the playback."
"No, that's okay." Maybe Justin was right. Besides, the song was hard on Jeb's voice, and he'd already sung it five times. He couldn't afford a blowout when he had to track lead vocals on four more songs before he and the guys started on the background vocals.
"Let's move on," he said. They had already been in the recording studio three weeks longer than they'd planned, and they were over budget to a degree that gave Jeb the cold sweats whenever he allowed himself to think about it. "I'm sorry it took me so many tries to get this one right."
"It takes as long as it takes," Justin said with a shrug. "Jonathan believes in you, and my orders are to make a good record." Justin's gold tooth flashed as he grinned. "We'll just have to make sure the big guy listens to the finished product before we present him with the bill."
It felt good to be recording again, and it was even more satisfying to be doing it with a bunch of Christians. The three guys in Jeb's new band could practically read his mind, and their playing was so tight that everyone who heard them said it sounded like the band had been together for years. Along with Justin, the best producer in the business and Jeb's new prayer partner, the guys challenged Jeb to reach higher, dig deeper, and go far beyond anything he had ever accomplished musically.
He couldn't wait to share all of that with Laney. He thought about her constantly and prayed for her just as often, but he hadn't called her since that difficult day in Los Angeles.
He'd sent her a Christmas gift with a note, and that was the only contact he'd dared. He didn't have time to go home right now, and he wanted to be holding her and not a telephone when he told her about the amazing things God had been doing in his life.
Because after she laughed and cried and kissed him, he meant to ask for her hand in marriage.
Soon, he promised himself. Not yet, but very soon.
For more than two weeks after closing the tearoom, Laney had worried about the Graces adjusting to the loss of the job they had so much enjoyed. She'd called them at least once a day, just to say hello and to ask if they needed anything. In the middle of the third week, they had delivered the firm but loving message that she should stop worrying about them and get on with her own life. They had gently explained that while they had enjoyed the work, they'd taken the job only to get dear Hannah started, and then they'd stayed on to support Laney. It had been fun, but now they wanted to turn their energies in other directions.
After Laney digested that surprising news, she realized that she, too, was eager to move on.
Since closing the tearoom, she'd written a résumé and combed the newspaper employment ads for a job. She'd had three interviews, two of which netted job offers that she'd ultimately decided against accepting. The last thing she needed right now was to fling herself into a dead-end job or to take up an unfulfilling career. Now that her bills were paid, she could afford to spend another month or two exploring possibilities and deciding what she truly wanted to do.
She'd signed up for two online classes in journalism. She was reviewing her mother's recipe files and thinking about putting together an afternoon tea cookbook. She'd started an exercise program. She'd joined the women's prayer group at church and was considering a couple of local ministry opportunities. She was spending time with her friends.
She wasn't truly content, but she was determined to get there eventually.
Four days before Valentine's Day, she made some mouthwatering black-walnut fudge as a surprise for the Graces. They were away from home when she tried to deliver it, so she used her key to let herself in. She put the nutty confection in their refrigerator along with a hastily scribbled note: Happy Valentine's Day (early) from The Fudge Fairy. Then she
went home to work on a writing assignment for one of her journalism classes.
At ten o'clock that evening, she was having a cup of jasmine tea and going through her mother's recipe collection when she realized the Graces had never phoned to say they'd found their treat. Since she hadn't talked to them in a couple of days, she grinned and picked up her phone, thinking to tease them about their shocking lack of gratitude to the Fudge Fairy.
They didn't answer their phone, so Laney began to worry. It was rather late for them to be out, and she could see from her kitchen windows that snow had begun falling in huge clumps that would pile up quickly and make a mess of the roads.
Wanting to make sure they were aware of the weather conditions and that they weren't far from home, Laney called the cell phone they took turns carrying.
"Where are you?" she demanded when Caroline answered.
A pointed silence made her regret her shrill tone.
"I'm sorry, Caroline. It's just that it's snowing so hard, and I can't help worrying about—"
"It's not snowing at all in Indianapolis, Indiana," Caroline said pleasantly. "And that's where we are."
Laney felt her eyes bulge. "You're where?"
"We left this morning for a road trip," Caroline announced grandly. "We made good time today, and right now we're at a motel on the far side of Indianapolis. It's a real nice place, and not too pricey, either. They have apricot-mint soaps in the bathroom, and—"
"What are you doing?" Laney screeched. "You can't just take off like this!"
"Laney Ryland," Caroline said crisply. "We may be as old as dirt, but except for an achy joint here and there, we get around just fine. And we're certainly not feebleminded. We have a cell phone, and credit cards, and plenty of cash. And after Aggie got a speeding ticket in Iowa, we made a pact not to drive too fast. So you can just stop being horrified and trust us a little bit!"
Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel) Page 28