The Thunderbolt

by Lori Wilde

  “Oh, he loves you, too. I can see it in the way he looks at you.”

  “Then why do we have to play games?”

  “Games? No games. You’re dealing with a man, drahy. God bless their souls, they’re often hard to convince, even when something is good for them. They are afraid to let go of their bachelorhood.”

  “I don’t understand.” Lacy was so upset she was on the verge of seeking out Bennett and telling him everything.

  “All men need a little push now and then.”

  “But before you told me not to do anything, that our love would happen of its own accord. What about that?”

  “And it will.” Her great-grandmother patted her hand. “I just gave the thunderbolt a boost. Your great-grandpa Kahonachek, he didn’t go down easy, either and your young man reminds me of him.”

  Lacy pulled back and stared at the wise old eyes peering at her. “So in other words, Great-Grandpa didn’t fall in love with you at first sight.”

  Great-Gramma waved her hand. “Of course he did; he just had other plans, and he didn’t want to change them. He was going to become a baseball player. Thought he was the next Babe Ruth.” She chuckled at the memory. “But the thunderbolt can’t be denied. He came around, and we got married when I turned eighteen. We’ve been happily married for seventy-five years on my next birthday.”

  “He gave up his dream for you?”

  Great-Gramma sighed dreamily. “Now that’s love, drahy. When a man decides you’re more important to him than anything else in the world.”

  “What did you do to convince him?”

  Great-Gramma smiled slyly. “We got lost in the Longhorn caverns together. Luckily, I happened to bring along a bottle of wine, a picnic basket full of his favorite sandwiches, and a soft blanket. By the time we found our way out of the caverns, he’d proposed to me and said I meant more to him than baseball.”

  “But what if he hadn’t given up his dream? What if he had chosen baseball over you?”

  “Then you wouldn’t be here, would you?” Her great-grandmother reached up to brush a lock of hair from Lacy’s forehead with dry wrinkled fingers. “Because after I’d been struck by the thunderbolt, I knew there was only one man for me. If not Kermit Kahonachek, then I would have remained a spinster.”

  “Really?”

  She shrugged. “He is my soul mate.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Lacy asked.

  “How can you not?”

  “Because Bennett has a life of his own, a place of his own in Boston, he’s his own person and I don’t want to use tricks to make him fall for me.”

  “His place is with you. In Boston, in Texas, it makes no difference.”

  “You don’t understand. Things are more complicated than that.”

  “You think things were easy for your grandmother Nony and Grandpa Jim? They lost a baby in 1948 and almost divorced over the sorrow. You think your mother and father didn’t have problems? Raising six children isn’t easy. The thunderbolt doesn’t erase all difficulties, drahy. It simply tells you who you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. It’s up to you to make love last.”

  “That’s not the story you’ve been telling me my whole life! You made it sound so easy, so magical.”

  “It is, if you don’t try to complicate matters. There, drahy, don’t cry.” Great-Gramma handed her a tissue from a box resting on the headboard. “It’ll all work out, I promise.”

  “Lacy?” Bennett stood in the doorway, the black medical bag in his hands. “Are you all right?”

  She blew her nose. “Fine. Just a little emotional.”

  Simply looking at him, his hair falling boyishly over his forehead, that concerned expression on his face, tugged at her heart in inexplicable ways. Her entire body buckled. Her senses were so heightened that his long, lingering gaze brushed her like a caress. She felt as if she’d waltzed off a precipice into thin air, as if she were tumbling in weightless slow motion, spinning helplessly toward a shattering end.

  Yes, she had fallen for him at first sight, but there was no guarantee he felt the same way. They’d been tricked into coming here by her great-grandmother’s artless machinations and this felt more and more like a total disaster.

  Bennett set the bag on the bed, opened it, and removed a stethoscope. Several of Lacy’s family members appeared in the doorway, watching the proceedings.

  “Hey, Lace.” Her youngest brother, Jack, held up a pair of crutches. “Look what I found in the attic.”

  “Thanks,” she said. Now Bennett wouldn’t have to carry her everywhere. That thought both saddened and relieved her.

  “I smell sausage,” Great-Gramma said to Lacy as Bennett pressed the stethoscope to her chest. “Bring me some breakfast.”

  Lacy shot her great-grandmother a dirty look. “Oh, no, you’re having chest pains. You can’t have sausage.”

  She wasn’t going to let her great-grandmother get away with her meddlesome chest-pain stunt without paying some kind of price, but neither was she going to embarrass her great-grandmother—or herself—by giving away her secret.

  But Lacy did have to get Bennett out of here as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the next thing she knew her family would be ordering flowers, sewing a wedding dress, and making an appointment with the preacher.

  9

  “Shoo!” Lacy’s great-grandmother made shooing motions with her hands. “Everyone out of here but the doctor. You, too, Lacy.”

  “But Great-Gramma...” Lacy shot her relative a chiding expression.

  “Go.”

  Bennett winked at Lacy. “Go ahead. We’ll be all right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Go have breakfast. I’ll be there in a minute.” Bennett figured Great-Gramma Kahonachek had something to tell him that she didn’t want her family to hear.

  He watched while Lacy hoisted herself up on the crutches, his eyes drawn to her petite body. How long had it been since he’d felt so helplessly overwhelmed by desire? He remembered all too well what it felt like to run his hands over her well-rounded body, to taste her lips with his tongue. His fingers tingled at the thought, as did other more southernly body parts.

  “Close the door,” Great-Gramma said, yanking Bennett from his fantasies.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He did as she asked.

  “Now, go over to the bureau and open the jewelry box.”

  Bennett followed orders, humoring her. The heavy wooden jewelry box tinkled a melody when he opened the lid. He expected some Czechoslovakian tune, but to his surprise he recognized the music from an old disco song. Something about thunder and lightning and knocking on wood.

  “Move those necklaces and rings aside. There’s a false bottom. Lift that out,” Lacy’s great-grandmother instructed.

  Curious, Bennett obeyed. He lifted up the bottom and found a pair of gold cuff links in the shape of lightning bolts. They were unique, unusual.

  “I want you to have them,” she said. “For coming this long way to check on me.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am.” He turned to face her. “These cuff links look like a family heirloom.”

  “They’re yours,” she reiterated. “For taking such good care of my great-granddaughter.”

  Bennett shook his head. He felt very odd, and the cuff links lay strangely warm against his palm.

  “Please, don’t argue.”

  “I really appreciate the offer, Mrs. Kahonachek, but you don’t have to pay me for being Lacy’s friend.”

  “You’re more than her friend, and you know it.”

  Her bold statement startled him. Bennett shifted his weight, uncertain how to extricate himself from this touchy situation. He liked the elderly lady. He liked Lacy’s whole family. That was the problem. He couldn’t have them thinking he was anything more to Lacy than a friend.

  “Come, sit down.” She patted the bed beside her. “Let me tell you about my thunderbolt.”

  Thunderbolt.

  Wasn’t that what Lacy had
called him last night while she was oozy on painkillers? An edgy panic gripped him.

  Great-Gramma reached out and folded his fingers over the cuff links resting in his palm. “Please.”

  Not knowing how to get out of it, Bennett cleared his throat and edged over, easing down up the bed.

  Over the course of the next few minutes, Great-Gramma told him a wild story about how something she called the thunderbolt had struck her when she’d first met her husband and how she’d known from the moment she laid eyes on him that he was her true love. The cuff links, she told him, had been commissioned in honor of their love.

  It was a touching, if somewhat batty, story. The exact opposite situation, it seemed, from what had happened to Bennett’s parents. Love at first sight that lasted for a lifetime instead of ending in a bitter divorce. What a fanciful idea.

  “Your family deserve these cuff links. I can’t accept them.”

  “The thunderbolt cannot be denied. Take them,” she whispered. “You must.”

  The more she thought about her great-grandmother’s deception, the more exasperated she became. Lacy, an honest person by nature, disliked subterfuge.

  First, she’d allowed herself to be influenced by Janet and CeeCee’s advice, dressing sexy, flirting, pretending she was something she wasn’t, and now this. Great-Gramma was pulling the strings, and she expected both Lacy and Bennett to dance to her tune.

  Thunderbolt, indeed.

  It angered her to think that she’d spent her entire adulthood waiting for the legendary whack of love at first sight. She’d even used the thunderbolt as an excuse to hide behind her shyness. She’d put her life on hold. She’d held her figurative breath and waited for the proverbial knight in shining armor to come swoop her up.

  Lies. All lies.

  To realize that all this time she could have been having fun, meeting fun men, coming out of her shell, learning and growing. Just as CeeCee and Janet had been trying to tell her. Yet she’d been too steeped in family tradition to take the chance.

  But part of her clung to a belief that the thunderbolt was true. That she and Bennett were indeed meant to be together for a lifetime. Silly. Fanciful fable.

  Lacy paced the hallway on her crutches. What was Great-Gramma telling him? She pressed her ear against the door and heard nothing but muted whispers.

  Unable to stand not knowing what was going on inside that bedroom for one minute longer, Lacy knocked then pushed the door open. She saw Bennett sitting on the bed beside Great-Gramma.

  Her gaze met his.

  He winked at her, and her heart lurched.

  They had to leave before things got really awkward and since Great-Gramma was fitter than a Stradivarius, there was no time like the present.

  “Since you’re feeling better, Great-Gramma, I think Bennett and I will go back to Houston.”

  “What’s your hurry, drahy? We don’t get to see you often enough. Besides, you haven’t had any sleep. See, your young man is yawning.”

  Indeed, Bennett was covering his mouth with his palm. He looked sheepish.

  “Yes, but Bennett has a patient waiting for a heart transplant and he would like to be there if one comes in. It’s better if we leave right away.”

  Great-Gramma laid a hand across her chest, leaned her head against the pillow, and closed her eyes. “Oh! My heart just gave a strange flutter.”

  In an instant, Bennett had his hand on her great-grandmother’s wrist, checking her pulse, a look of concern in his dark eyes.

  “It’s not going to work,” Lacy said. “We’re leaving.”

  Great-Gramma opened one eye. “Fine. Scoot. Leave when I need you most.”

  “If you were really sick, you’d let us take you to the hospital.” Lacy wasn’t going to give in to her great-grandmother’s maneuvers. Not this time. Enough was enough.

  “Lacy,” Bennett said. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to agitate her?”

  “Trust me. She’s fine.”

  “Could I talk to you in the hall?” Bennett asked.

  “Sure.”

  Once outside the room, Bennett lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned in close. “Listen, Lacy, I don’t mind staying awhile longer to make sure your great-grandmother is all right. If you want to leave on account of me, don’t even consider it a problem. Laramie said it’s not vital that I be there if a heart should become available for Mr. Marshall.”

  “But would your first heart transplant with Dr. Laramie and that’s why you came to Saint Madeleine’s. To work with the best of the best. If you miss out on this, you’ll kick yourself.”

  “First of all, the chances are slim that they’ll find a match for Mr. Marshall this weekend, but if I do get a text, we can drive to the airport in Waco then fly to Houston. I can come back for your car later.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” she said. “But something tells me Great-Gramma is going to be just fine. We should leave now.”

  “You never can tell with a woman of her age.”

  “I already feel guilty enough forcing you to drive me here over a false alarm.”

  “You didn’t force me to do anything, Lacy. I’m here because I want to be here.”

  Oh, Lord, he was saying all the right things. She looked into his eyes and melted. He was a good person. That didn’t make him her perfect mate.

  “Bennett, I think it’s best if we return to Houston. That is, if you feel up to the driving without having had any sleep.”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve only been up twenty-four hours. That’s nothing. When I was an intern, we worked thirty-six-hour shifts, and plenty of times we weren’t able to grab a nap. I can manage.”

  Lacy nodded. “Then let’s tell everyone goodbye and hit the road.”

  She hobbled inside the bedroom to inform Great-Gramma they were leaving.

  “You’ve got your heart set on this?” Great-Gramma asked.

  “I refuse to force anything between Bennett and me,” Lacy told her.

  “You’re a stubborn one, drahy. You take after your old great-granny.”

  Lacy leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I love you, and I appreciate you trying to help. But I can’t keep lying to him. If he wants me for me, fine. If not...” It took everything she could muster to shrug nonchalantly. “Such is life.”

  “Could you send your grandmother Nony in here before you go?”

  “Sure.”

  Lacy bid her great-grandmother farewell and went to where Bennett waited. Together they went down to talk to the rest of the family seated around the breakfast table. Lacy gave Grandmother Nony Great-Gramma’s message, then proceeded to tell everyone else goodbye.

  “Stay and eat breakfast,” her mother encouraged.

  Lacy shook her head. It was too tempting to stay. Too tempting to eat and sleep and to allow her family to run her life. She’d been doing it for twenty-seven years. It was way past time to walk her own path.

  “Bennett, talk some sense into her.” Lacy’s mother turned to him for help.

  He raised his palms and laughed. “Hey, I’m only the chauffeur.”

  “We really gotta go, Mom,” Lacy said. “I’m sure Great-Gramma is going to be fine. She probably had a bad case of indigestion. You guys have fun at the farm expo.”

  After many hugs and goodbyes, they finally broke away. On the way to the car, Bennett walked beside Lacy on her crutches, opened the passenger side door for her, then helped her slide inside.

  Feeling wrung out and discouraged but with an unexplained urgency pushing her toward Houston, Lacy leaned against the headrest and sighed deeply. She needed to get to her apartment, be by herself to sort out her tumultuous emotions.

  Bennett got behind the wheel, and it took everything she had to keep from telling him to floor it. He attempted to start the car.

  Dead silence.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  He looked at her. “How old is your battery?”

  “Bought it about six mo
nths ago.”

  “That’s probably not it, then.” Bennett stroked his jaw with a thumb and forefinger. “Unfortunately, I don’t know much about cars.”

  She was about as lucky as a three-legged, one-eyed, bobbed-tail dog. She’d wanted nothing more than to escape the cloying bosom of her well-meaning but interfering family, and here she was stuck right in the middle of them.

  Car trouble, of all things.

  “Breakfast and a nap are beginning to look very appealing,” Bennett said.

  “Yes.” Lacy sighed. Too appealing.

  “Besides, if we stay a little longer, we can make sure your great-grandmother really is doing okay.”

  Lacy bit her tongue to keep from telling him that sweet little old lady was lying like a politician and faking her chest pains. If Lacy told him that, then she’d have to reveal why.

  “Dylan can have a look at your car when he gets home from the expo. I’m sure it’s nothing he can’t handle,” Geneva Calder told her daughter as she leaned between Bennett’s and Lacy’s chairs and raked a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs onto their plates.

  Blue china plates. Wedgwood. Bennett knew because Nanna had once owned a set. Those blue china plates brought back a lot of fond memories.

  He eyed the meal spread before them. Sausages and French toast, kolaches and buttermilk biscuits, hash browns and fresh fruit cut into bite-size chunks. There was a pitcher of milk, a carafe of orange juice, and a pot of fresh brewed coffee. He’d never seen a spread like this outside a hotel buffet line. His mouth watered, and his stomach grumbled. He was starving.

  “But the expo won’t be over until eight o’clock tonight,” Lacy protested.

  “By then you and Bennett will have had a lovely nap, and you’ll be refreshed for your drive home.”

  Lacy sighed, and Bennett wondered, not for the first time, why she was so anxious to get back to Houston. Granted, her great-grandmother seemed to be fine, but her family was so loving, so accepting, he couldn’t figure out why she didn’t want to spend more time with them. Hell, he would have given his right arm to have a close-knit family like this one and that was quite a sacrifice for a surgeon.