by Lyn Cote
Audra studied her mother’s expression, her tone. Lord, help me understand what my mother is saying. Don’t let the wall grow higher.
“I was devastated, Audra. I adored your father. We were always so close. I didn’t know how I was going to go on without him. And Megan was only ten years old. I didn’t know how I could raise her by myself. Without him. The lonely years stretched ahead of me...”
Audra pondered this, but wouldn’t let her mother shift the focus. “I was heartbroken, too. So was Megan.”
“I know, and that probably made you easy prey to a sleaze like Gordon Hamilton.” She made a sound of disgust. “How can I make you understand? You came home for our first Christmas—without your father—and you told me you were pregnant. I couldn’t face it. How could I handle being a widow, a single mother, a grandmother, and you having a baby without a husband? I was barely able to get up some mornings and face another day without your father. I couldn’t handle one more thing.”
Audra began to grasp her mother’s motivation for asking her to give up Evie for adoption, but it still rankled to be classed as “one more thing.” Couldn’t her mother see how much that hurt? “So that means,” Audra accused, “I shouldn’t have expected your help?”
“Honey”—her mother leaned forward, reached for Audra’s hand—“please don’t take it like that. I’m not saying I was right. I’m only telling you why I did what I did. I should have found the strength to stand by you. I didn’t, and I know I failed you.”
Audra took her mother’s hand, feeling tears wet her eyes. Finally she’d received an apology. But was it enough to fill the hole in her heart? “I needed you so much.”
“I’m sorry, Audra. I can’t go back and unsay the words I said. But when you went ahead and had Evie, I was happy. I really was. I admired you for taking responsibility.”
“You didn’t show it.”
“By then I didn’t know how to show you my true feelings. After the hurtful words we spoke to each other that Christmas”—she dipped her chin—“a gulf had opened between us. And afterward, when we were together, I always seemed to say the wrong things. I was always so uptight.”
Honesty forced Audra to say, “I was, too. I know that I haven’t tried to bridge the gap between us. It hurt too badly.”
Her mother squeezed Audra’s hand. “I decided that this summer I had to make an attempt.”
Audra finally got to ask the question that had teased her since the morning her mom had invited Evie over for her first afternoon solo visit. “Why this summer?”
Her mother released her hand and took a sip of coffee as if flustered. “It’s silly, really. Just one of those moments that pop up and hits us in the face unexpectedly. I was at lunch with my friends for my fiftieth birthday. We chatted, and then everyone was bringing out photographs of their grandchildren.”
She smiled wryly. “And it suddenly slapped me in the face that I was fifty years old. I had a grandchild, and I didn’t have one photo of Evie in my wallet. Then it also hit me that Evie was seven years old and I only had seven years left to get to know her before she started high school and didn’t care anymore about getting to know me. And on top of that, Megan just finished her junior year in high school. She’ll be leaving me next fall and...”
Audra half smiled in return. She felt the connection of a mother to a mother. “I get it, Mom. I get it. I already get chills thinking of Evie leaving home.”
Her mother gave a half chuckle and beamed at her. A sudden, but very natural peace stretched between them.
Audra sighed. A gull swooped overhead, screeching. Out on the blue, blue lake, a parasailer was gliding over the gentle waves with a rainbow-striped sail. High above the water, an eagle circling dove toward the water. The peace of the setting washed through Audra along with understanding at last. Her mother wasn’t perfect, but neither was Audra. She felt suddenly free, lighter.
Coming home that long-ago Christmas, she’d assumed, as all children did, that her mother was indestructible. And now she knew the truth—mothers were just women blessed with children. “Let’s not be at odds anymore, okay?” Audra reached over and laid her hand on her mother’s.
“Okay.” Her mother rested her hand momentarily on both theirs. “Evie’s a lovely little girl.” She sat back and lifted her coffee mug again. “You’ve done a great job with her.”
Audra tested the water of their new harmony and mentioned a name she never spoke to her mother. “Shirley helped me.”
Her mother lifted the mug as if in salute. “And I’m going to thank her for that the very next time I see her.”
The sliding glass door behind them opened. “Hey, Audra,” Megan said, “what are you doing here? I was just about to drive into town.”
Grinning, Audra glanced over her shoulder at her sister. “Audra’s Place is closed today. Come over here and we’ll tell you all about it.”
Megan paused and propped a hand on her hip. “And will that explain why Uncle Hal is snoring away in our guest bedroom?”
Audra chuckled softly. Megan was one in a million.
“Megan, pour yourself some coffee,” their mother instructed, “and some for your sister, and bring out the croissants on the counter. The three of us are going to have a long chat about many things.”
Megan gave Audra a quizzical look and then stepped back inside.
“It’s going to be a good day,” their mother said, staring out over the vast sparkling blue lake.
“Yes.” A very good day.
“I hope”—her mother slanted a look at Audra—“you’re serious about that handsome sheriff.”
“I am.” Happiness bubbled up, frothy and sweet, inside Audra.
“Good. Evie adores him, and your father would have loved him as a son-in-law.”
Megan stepped outside with a tray in her hands. “Cool. Does that mean I’m going to be a bridesmaid soon?”
Audra chuckled and then she laughed. Life was good.
“HEY, SHERIFF, WOULD you be here to romance my boss?” Chad teased Carter outside Audra’s Dutch door that evening after closing.
Carter paused in the deep purple twilight. “Don’t be so smart,” he said, grinning. Though he was fatigued from loss of sleep, nothing could have kept him away from Audra tonight. She had told him she loved him. The memory still made him glow so warm and bright that he thought it might be visible to the naked eye.
Besides, another mystery had been solved and Audra needed to be told.
Chad’s expression changed. “How’s it going with Brent?”
“He’s in a lot of trouble. But his father has hired a good lawyer and Brent’s still a minor.”
“I didn’t know...I didn’t know till this summer that Brent had such a jerk for a father. Brent strutted into our school last fall like we should all fall down and kiss his big toe, you know what I mean?”
“I have a good idea.”
“I feel bad like...” Chad’s voice faded away. “Like I—”
“Brent’s setting the fires isn’t your fault. But it pays to remember that no one has a perfect life. And the people that bug everyone most are usually the most miserable themselves.”
“Really?” Chad eyed him.
“Really.”
“Okay. Gotta go. Shirley wants me home on time. All this stuff with Brent kind of spooked her or something. She’s been kinda sad all day.”
“Shirley has a tender heart,” Carter agreed.
With a wave Chad mounted his bike and peddled down the alley.
Carter approached the open door. Memories of going through the legal procedures of an arrest here for Brent played through his mind. But after Ramsdel had left with Lois, Audra’s beautiful words of love to him had overwhelmed and broken through all the sadness of this day.
Audra stood in the doorway, waiting for him. “I knew you’d come.” She opened the bottom half of the door and drew him inside. Then she shut both halves of the door behind him.
Though all he wanted
was to take her into his arms, he had something else to tell her first. The solution to the final mystery of this bedeviled summer. “Brent was the one calling and hanging up on Gordon Hamilton.”
She stared up at him. “Brent?”
“Yes. In May he told your uncle about seeing Gordon with his new wife at your café. Hal unfortunately told him of the connection between Evie and Gordon. When your uncle added that Gordon was not contributing to Evie’s support, Brent was even angrier. The calls were Brent’s way of paying Gordon back for you and Evie.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Well, perhaps Brent did some good. A lawyer called me this afternoon and said that Gordon would begin paying me child support plus back child support next month.”
“You’re kidding?” Mixed emotions over this development unsettled him.
“No, I was shocked. I gleaned from the lawyer’s careful phrases that Gordon’s family was afraid a scandal might come in the future if people found out that he hadn’t supported his birth daughter.”
Carter felt his brows draw together. “So Gordon didn’t grow a conscience. He just decided to protect himself. Wonder if his wife knows anything about this?”
“I couldn’t say. But I know I won’t be calling her anytime soon. Poor woman. She got stuck with Gordon.”
Carter chuckled and then gave in and folded her into his arms. “It’s all over.”
“It’s over, but we’re just beginning, aren’t we?” She lifted her face to his and smiled.
He kissed her, a sense of awe flowing through him. This wonderful woman loves me. His heart did silent somersaults inside. “I love you, Audra.”
She pressed against him, breathing in his distinctive scent. “I love you.”
The scent of garlic and oregano hung over them. He grinned, thinking that the scent would always remind him of this moment here with Audra. He framed her face with his hands. “This isn’t the most romantic of settings for a proposal.”
She grinned. “Oh, I don’t know,” she teased. “Remember the love scene in Evie’s latest favorite DVD, Lady and the Tramp?”
He laughed out loud and hummed a bar of “Bella Notte.” “You’re wonderful,” he said. He kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Take me to the beach, Carter. I want to walk along the shore with you.”
Within minutes, they’d returned to their favorite spot on the coast of Lake Superior. Like a rippled ribbon of light, the beam from the half-moon glistened on the lake’s surface, flowing right to them as if they and the moon were connected. “Sometimes it’s almost too beautiful here, isn’t it?” Audra whispered.
He clasped her in his arms. “I don’t deserve someone as wonderful as you.”
“I don’t deserve someone as wonderful as you,” she echoed. “Isn’t it nice that God always has something better for us than we can even dream of?”
He stroked her hair and she leaned into him.
“I just hope,” Carter said, his voice suddenly low and rasping, “that He can help me get a handle on my temper.”
She stopped Carter’s self-reproach with a kiss. “He will. And I didn’t tell you, but I had a long talk with my mother, and our relationship will be different from now on. It felt good to ‘speak the truth in love.’”
He inhaled her light floral fragrance and the scent of the pines on the breeze. “Yes. Please marry me.”
“Of course. Now kiss me. Please,” she whispered.
“My pleasure.” He held her in his arms, feeling her warmth and knowing nothing except death would ever part them.
EPILOGUE
The day after Labor Day, sitting behind his desk in his office, Carter opened his mail. Outside his window, the highest maple leaves had turned bright red and the lower branches had leaves edged with the beginnings of gold. The apple festival was coming and life was good.
He and Audra were planning a winter wedding. Brent had been placed in his father’s custody while the legal fallout from his fire-setting played out. And Audra had received her first check from Gordon. They’d agreed to put the money into an account for Evie’s future education.
When he and Audra had told her little girl about their upcoming wedding, Evie had squealed she couldn’t wait to call him “Daddy.” Pleasure flushed afresh, warm and sweet, through Carter.
He opened another official-looking envelope. Gloom crashed into his world. Oh, no. He read the letter twice, its news bringing back the recollection of an awful tragedy that had hit Winfield seven years before. If I’m upset and I was just the arresting officer, how will this hit Trish?
At that moment, as if on cue, Trish tapped on his door and stuck her head in. “Have a moment?”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “Come in. I have a letter you need to read.”
She looked puzzled but walked in.
“Sit down.” He motioned toward the chair.
She sat.
He handed her the letter and watched shock and dismay take over her face. When she’d finished reading it, she handed it back to him.
He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t—just stared down at his desk top. And he knew that this news would rock her family. But he was powerless to change that. Autumn would be bitter this year.
Dear Reader,
I hope you’ve enjoyed the first book in my NORTHERN SHORE INTRIGUE series. Did you notice that people in the northern Midwest call soft drinks pop? What do you call it where you live? I suppose it’s because a carbonated beverage pops? What do you think?
On a more serious note, Audra and Carter both made mistakes in the past. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t. That’s being human. But how wonderful is God’s forgiveness and grace. Every Easter season, I go back over what Jesus was willing to do for us—be rejected, humiliated, tortured, and killed. And all for me. And for you. As Charles Wesley wrote in his immortal hymn titled, “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?” in 1738, “Amazing love! How can it be, That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”
NOT FOR SALE ANYWHERE
If you’d like to read a free ebook short story collection, titled, “Two Seasons of Romance,” click here, https://BookHip.com/XFMAZV
I loved writing a happy ending to Carter and Audra’s long loneliness. And I was delighted to give Evie such a great daddy! I hope you will enjoy the next two books in the series, BITTER AUTUMN and FATAL WINTER.~
Here’s the beginning of book 2 -BITTER AUTUMN~
Deputy Sheriff Trish Franklin wished she could be a thousand miles away; in fact, anywhere but Winfield, Wisconsin. Still in her uniform, she drove the sheriff’s Jeep down the familiar wooded road. Dread sat in her midsection as solid as a brick. The tears she’d held back for two September days—ever since Sheriff Harding had shown her the bad-news letter—suddenly poured down her face. Blinded, she pulled off the road onto the entrance to a grassy private road. She bent her forehead to the padded steering wheel. How could God let this happen?
GREY LAWSON STARED out the bus window. The farther north he rode, the more he noted early-autumn golds and reds in the late-afternoon light painting the trees passing by the window. Grey wished he could stop the bus and just start walking anywhere—anywhere but where he had to go. Behind him on the crowded bus, a baby cried, sounding frustrated pushed past its limits. Grey understood the mood. But I have no choice. She needs me. I owe her. I love her.
An old guy sat crumpled up beside him, a man who’d grown old behind bars. They’d gotten on the bus together, sat together. But they hadn’t exchanged a look or a word in hours. Now nearing nightfall, the bus slowed. “Ashford!” the driver announced.
The old man beside Grey finally stirred. The bus stopped and he unfolded himself from his seat. Standing, he cast a departing glance toward Grey. “Good luck,” he mumbled. Grey nodded. He watched the old guy shuffle to the front and lower himself step-by-step to the street on the obviously poor side of town.
The bus finished letting off the few other people for this sto
p and then started up again. The bus driver announced, “Next stop, Winfield!” Grey tried not to look back but couldn’t help himself. The old guy stood, clutching his suitcase, looking around. No one was there to meet him. Good luck, old man. Grey closed his eyes and prayed that the old guy would find a warm bed and friendly smile before nightfall.
FINALLY, TRISH QUIETED and leaned back against the headrest. Tears still dripped from her chin. She drew in the fresh pine-scented air through the open window. If I’d suspected this was going to happen, Lord, I’d have stayed in Madison. Guilt, instant and fierce, scored her like a sharp stinging claw.
No time for regrets. She had to face reality. And reality was Grey Lawson was coming back to town—and it was facing her father and telling him this hard truth. He had to be told today. But she didn’t have to face her father alone. Three of her brothers would be with her. She started the engine and pulled back onto the quiet county road. She glanced at her watch. She was already late. Her brothers should be at her father’s place by now.
GREY RECOGNIZED THE scenery on the highway into Winfield as if he’d seen it recently, instead of seven years ago. He stood and walked, swaying with the bus’s motion toward the driver. He gripped the cool metal rail beside the driver and asked, “Can you let me off at the next intersection? It’s closer to home and I’m walking the rest of the way.”
The driver glanced at him sideways. “You don’t have luggage stowed underneath, do you?”
“No, just this.” Grey waved his slack duffel.
Sure. No problem.”
Grey remained where he was, swaying and bobbing with the bus’s movement. The intersection of Cross-cut Road and the highway loomed ahead. The bus slowed; Grey moved down the metal stair and waited for the door to part. As soon as it did, he stepped out. He paused while the bus door closed and the long vehicle pulled away. Then he tugged up the hood of his gray sweatshirt and started down Cross-cut, heading toward home. He had a warm bed and a welcoming smile waiting for him. But from just one person, and his arrival might cause her harm. How can I prevent my return from hurting her?