Flower Girl Bride Page 9

All kidding aside, there was only so much more of this I could take. If I had to stay here alone one more day, I probably would have to give in and listen to what God had to say.

  Chapter Seven

  By late Friday night, I lay spent on one of the padded deck chairs, my bare feet heavy on the wood decking and a floppy hat pulled low on my face to block out any light, natural or otherwise.

  I almost wished I could have found one of those imaginary Lake Michigan whales. I already felt as if I’d been swallowed and spit back up, and I hadn’t even gotten a water ride out of it. Self-examination was exhausting. A warning should have been posted on the whole activity: Not recommended for the faint of heart.

  There was nothing like having a clear villain and a clear victim in a drama and discovering that, oops, the victim wasn’t guilt-free. But this wasn’t a purse snatching or a random act of violence. It had taken two of us to make our marriage and two to break it.

  Not that I was ready yet to divide the responsibility fifty-fifty with my ex-husband or anything. I wasn’t the one who’d played musical beds and made procreation an extramarital party game. But I had chosen my husband for all the wrong reasons: why would I want boring qualities like honesty, reliability or a strong faith when I could have a man who was as ambitious as I was and a whole lot more charismatic? She who sows weeds, reaps—surprise, surprise—weeds.

  I’d had weeds, all right, big, gnarly weeds with thorns and the smell of decay to boot. That I’d had a part in making them grow shamed me.

  “Dear God,” I said aloud, beginning another of my stilted prayers that I’d been attempting for the last forty-eight hours. “You know me…well, you used to anyway. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. We haven’t talked in a while, but—I don’t know what to say to…”

  I let my words trail off. I had no idea what to say to the God of the Universe, my God with whom I’d once shared such a comforting intimacy. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that closeness and what had always felt like two-way conversations with Him.

  “I want that again, Father,” I whispered, pushing back my hat and sitting up in the seat. Already, dozens of stars sparkled in the sky that was deepening to a blue-violet. Out of my peripheral vision, I recognized the outline of the lighthouse, casting its own triangular spray of light in various directions.

  When I’d first arrived, I’d found the lighthouse majestic, but now I had to reserve that word for the night sky, enormous and unencumbered by jutting man-made structures. With spots of light that spattered across that ever-darkening backdrop, God had provided safe passage for those who traveled by water long before the first brick of Bluffton Point Lighthouse had been mortared.

  The sky stretched on until it and the water touched at the horizon, just as God’s love seemed to be touching me. He was here with me; I could feel it. I should have been chilly now that the sun was gone, but I was surrounded in warmth. God had been with me all along, I realized now. He’d just been waiting for me to notice.

  I was sitting in the dark, more at peace with myself than I’d been in months when the phone rang to fracture the silence. As tired as I’d been, I hadn’t even remembered to bring the portable phone outside with me, so I had to run inside to answer it.

  “She must be getting desperate now,” I told a disinterested Princess as I passed her on my way to the kitchen extension. What time was it in Paris? I counted off the six-hour time difference. Aunt Eleanor was calling at three o’clock in the morning?

  I flipped on the handset and spoke before my aunt had the chance. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “I guess, but I usually try to stay up at least a few hours after I tuck Sam in.”

  The next snide remark I’d intended to give to my pet-loving aunt caught in my throat. “Luke?”

  “Expecting someone else?” His voice had taken on a tone I didn’t recognize.

  If didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d heard a note of disapproval in his voice, as if he wasn’t happy to think I’d had been expecting someone else’s call. Though my ears were probably just ringing from an overdose of self-examination, I couldn’t help being pleased by the thought.

  “I figured it was Aunt Eleanor calling again, checking in on her beloved cat.”

  “Again?”

  “Since she left, she’s called more frequently than a telemarketer offering a great deal on long distance.”

  “That often, huh?”

  “That often.”

  Maybe I should have asked Luke why he’d phoned now when four nights ago he couldn’t get away from me fast enough, but that would only make him hang up now. That was the last thing I wanted him to do. I didn’t want to analyze it, to pick apart why I wanted to spend more time with a man who’d already made it clear he wasn’t interested in me. I just wanted to keep talking.

  Only we weren’t talking.

  The silence stretched too long, and for the life of me I couldn’t come up with anything clever to say. Should I ask how Sam was doing? No, Luke might think I was judging his parenting skills again.

  How about mentioning his mother or my aunt? I shook my head. That would only make him remember a certain matchmaking scheme, and I didn’t plan to go there. I might have been desperate for human interaction, but I wasn’t a suicide conversationalist.

  “How is the cat doing, anyway?” he said finally.

  I shrugged as I pinned the phone between my ear and shoulder. Though that wasn’t the subject I would have chosen, it was something. “We’re both alive.”

  “Alive is good.”

  Sixteen days and counting.

  Again, the silence hung heavily around me. What was he waiting for, another apology from me? I was forming the best one I could come up with after the day I’d spent when he spoke again.

  “Sam misses you.”

  Now that I hadn’t expected. “Oh.” I cleared my throat. Was this a test? Had Luke brought up Sam’s name just to see if I would head off on another diatribe about how he should raise his son? “I…um…miss him, too.”

  “He’s been begging to see you every night this week.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “He’s also been throwing terrible tantrums.”

  “Oh,” I said again. Forget suicide conversationalist, when had I lost the ability to speak in full sentences? I was a speech path, of all things. How was I supposed to help students with their fluency disorders when I couldn’t string more than two syllables together myself? Would my parents think they’d wasted all that college tuition money if they could see me now?

  “I promised him if he could behave for one night, I would call you and we would try to see you this weekend.”

  I didn’t even bother answering this time because whatever I said would probably sound curiously like “oh.”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I’m a lousy parent, bribing my kid just so I can get him to go to bed.”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking.” If he did know, he’d realize I still hadn’t gotten past the part where he’d mentioned seeing me again. And if he could see me right now, he’d see how ridiculous I looked patting my hair into place when we were only talking on the phone.

  “But bribing is lousy parenting,” he continued. “You know that’s true.”

  “The truth is, you know how little I know about parenting.” I took a deep breath and added, “You made that clear the other night.”

  “Maybe you haven’t been a parent, but you’ve had a lot of experience with kids, and you’ve helped plenty of them.”

  “Thanks for saying that.”

  “Why? It’s just the truth.”

  I cleared my throat, embarrassed as much as flattered by his praise. He was right; everything he’d said about me was true, and yet his words validated my work in a way that the ambitious professional goals that Alan and I shared never had.

  “Cassie, I’m really sorry about the other night.”

  Just like everything else about this conversat
ion, I hadn’t expected an apology from him. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “Fine. It’s a tie.”

  I smiled into the receiver. “Yes. Let’s make a truce.”

  “That calls for a truce dinner. We can do it tomorrow. You provide the awesome lake house, and I’ll bring the food and man the grill.”

  “Well, that’s one way of garnering an invitation,” I said with a laugh.

  “My son had to get his lousy manners somewhere.”

  “You go, Dad.”

  But I wasn’t offended, and he knew it. Over the next few minutes we finalized plans for dinner. I even suggested that we make a day of it, just the three of us, so we could help Sam work on his swimming. Luke didn’t sound all that enthusiastic when he agreed, but it was probably just my ringing ears again.

  After ending the call, I hurried through what was already becoming my nighttime routine of locking up the house, scooping Princess’s litter and putting out fresh water and food. I didn’t waste time or water by running the faucet, and the cat didn’t bother to sniff the food she would reject, anyway, until after I went to bed. At least female and feline could agree to disagree.

  I crawled into bed, pulled up the lightweight comforter and waited for sleep to hit me like a bag of rocks. After a draining day like this one had been, I deserved some serious shut-eye. Twenty minutes later, though, I was still lying there, having counted all one hundred sixty-seven swirls in the plaster ceiling design and having given up on counting sheep because they were stampeding.

  Why was I so keyed up, anyway? Tomorrow would only be another sunny afternoon with Luke Sheridan and his son. At least the forecasters predicted a sunny afternoon, which meant I had better find the galoshes and umbrellas just in case. But my uneasiness had little to do with the weather forecast, the predicted water temperature or even small-craft warnings. It had to do with the prospect of spending time with two special guys I’d been missing all week.

  This was just silly, I decided as I flipped over, fluffed my pillow for the umpteenth time and buried my face in the center of it. Maybe I should take this anxiousness or excitement or whatever it was as a warning that tomorrow wasn’t such a good idea.

  Was I becoming more involved with the Sheridan family than was wise? If I had any sense at all I would call Luke back, wish him well and say a quick goodbye. That would probably be best. Fast goodbyes just weren’t polite, though, and no one could accuse me of being impolite. Mom had taught me well. So the decision was made: I would see the Sheridan guys as planned. No one would accuse me of having any sense, either.

  “Watch this, Miss Cassie.”

  At the bottom of the deck steps, I turned to look back at the beach. Sam was still crouched next to the sand castle village he and I had spent the last hour building. He stood and, with the handle of his pail in one hand and a red shovel in the other, spun in low-flying helicopter fashion, whacking all of our best towers as he went.

  “Smack! Crash! Boom!”

  I waited until his sound effects were finished before commenting on his work. “Boy, you tore all that down faster than we could build it.”

  “I’m really strong.”

  “You sure are. Sand castle villagers beware.”

  When he started spinning again, sending sand flying in all directions, I hurried for cover, continuing up the steps. On the deck, Luke stood next to a stainless steel gas grill wider than my car and with enough side burners and other gadgets that it should have marinated, cooked and served the meat all by itself. That little toy was probably my uncle’s pride and joy.

  Luke appeared right at home as master of the barbecue, wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt open over his T-shirt and a red half apron tied loosely over his swim trunks. He topped the ensemble off with a MSU baseball cap, worn backward, and dark sunglasses. The whole getup should have been ridiculous, but somehow he made the look work for him. Who was I kidding? Luke Sheridan could show up wearing a pink tutu and a tiara and still come off looking unusually handsome and utterly masculine.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to stop, but that just made me want to laugh. How was I supposed to answer his question? Even if I avoided the whole tutu subject, I couldn’t mention how pleased I was that I’d ignored my misgivings and hadn’t canceled our date.

  Date? This certainly didn’t qualify as one unless the definition had changed since the last time I was single to include a miniature chaperone, but I couldn’t help wishing a little. Who knew the next time I’d meet someone who could make a blue Hawaiian shirt with huge white daylilies splattered all over it work the way Luke did.

  “Okay. Keep your secret. See if I care.”

  I answered him with an exaggerated shrug. “Too much sun, probably.” That was true, too, and Aunt Eleanor would have been disappointed to see I wasn’t even wearing a hat. My hair was flying around like a mop of straw, and it would probably take a rake to detangle it by bedtime.

  “Did you have fun building sand castles?”

  “Sure, but I think I know how architects feel after a natural disaster.”

  Luke chuckled. “I just had a nice visit with Princess. I gave her lunch by the way. And she took a nice long drink from the faucet.”

  My frown must have spoken volumes because he laughed again. “She’s still not performing her tricks for you?”

  “Except the hissing one, no.”

  He shrugged. “She looks healthy enough, so she’s not starving or anything. As long as she’s using her litter box, then she’s doing just fine.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll grow on her, sooner or later.”

  “Fifteen days and counting.” I didn’t realize I’d said my daily affirmation aloud until he looked back at me and tilted his head to the side.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the number of days until I’m outta here.”

  “I see” was all he said, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He didn’t appear to be upset that I wouldn’t be here long, but the fact that I wished it bothered him wasn’t a good sign.

  “You see him?” Luke pointed with the oversize, manly man metal spatula at the junior tornado on the beach. “That’s my boy. I bet he’ll be a demolition crew foreman when he grows up.”

  Sam was still spinning, but there was nothing left of our village as far I as I could tell. “Only if he gets to be the one operating the wrecking ball or detonating the explosives.”

  “You know him well.”

  I turned back to him, needing to know if he was being serious or just reminding me of our discussion the other night and how little I knew his son. But he was smiling. When he didn’t look away immediately, my cheeks warmed, but I couldn’t help smiling back at him.

  “Just a guess,” I answered.

  Glancing away, Luke pushed back the lid of the grill and turned the hot dogs he’d brought for Sam. Why anyone would choose meat by-products and fillers instead of a big slab of steak I would never understand. I’d just come to the conclusion that it had to be a kid thing when Luke spoke again over his shoulder.

  “I thought a lot about the things you said the other night.”

  “Look, Luke, I really overstepped my boundaries that night, and—”

  “And you were right about a lot of things,” he said, interrupting me and finishing my sentence with his own take on the subject. “My spending too much time at work and away from Sam, for instance.”

  He patiently turned several more hot dogs. Just how many could one little boy eat? And just how long could the boy’s dad pause before finishing what he’d started to say.

  Finally, he lowered the spatula and turned back to me. “I’d told myself it was okay because Sam wasn’t with strangers. He had family members around him whenever he wasn’t with me.”

  “It is good that he has the chance to spend time with Marcus and Yvonne,” I threw in, not certain why I def
ended him now when the other night I’d been so critical of him.

  With nervous hands, I captured my mop in a temporary ponytail at my nape. “Do you know how blessed he is to have grandparents living nearby? Or to have living grandparents at all?”

  “He’s lucky to have them, especially now that Nicole is gone, but that doesn’t take away my responsibility as his dad. He needs me most of all, and I need to make him my priority.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Yes but nothing. I dropped the ball here, and I wanted to thank you for reminding me to pick it up.”

  He paused long enough to open the grill again and turn the slabs of red meat. “How do you like your steak? Still mooing? Charred to ashes?”

  “How about somewhere in between those two, but more toward the ashes side than the mooing one, okay?”

  I stepped closer and examined his progress as he sliced into the T-bones with a knife. They were still too pink for my taste. Removing the hot dogs, he placed them on a platter he’d covered in foil, and then he sealed them with a second piece of foil before setting the platter on the grill’s counter area. He removed some other food and set it aside, keeping it warm on another foil-covered platter.

  I waited until he’d closed the lid and laid aside his grilling tools before I spoke again. “You’re welcome, I guess. About the reminder.” It pleased me more than I cared to admit that he’d valued my advice.

  Stepping to the deck’s railing and resting his forearms on the expanse of wood, Luke studied his son playing on the sand below us. I settled beside him, letting the wind off the water push my hair back from my face. Neither of us seemed to need conversation for a few minutes as we let the serenity of the place envelop us.

  At least that was what I was doing. I wondered what Luke thought when he saw this sun, this sand and this vast pool of water that God had formed with His own hands. A week ago, I remembered Luke mentioning they had to get up for church, so maybe he’d already noticed God’s handprints on this place before I’d opened my eyes to see them.

  I almost expected him to mention those awesome handprints when he spoke again, but he returned to our earlier subject. “For the last four days, I’ve picked up Sam by no later than five-fifteen, making sure we got home early enough to sit down together for dinner.”