Hometown Reunion

by Lisa Carter

  Emptiness consumed him, as he thought of what he could never have—a life full of love. Not just with any woman, but with the only one he’d ever imagined trusting with his heart, his life and his son—Darcy.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure, Jax.”

  He grunted. “She likes me so much she can’t wait to move away.”

  “Did you ever think maybe Darcy’s running as scared as you?” Charlie frowned. “Dude, don’t let that girl paddle out of your life for Florida. You’ve got to do something to convince her to stay.”

  Jax’s gut churned. “Fact is, Charlie, if I really care about Darcy, I’ll let her—encourage her to—get as far away from me as she can, for her own sake. I’m not marriage material. I’ll only hurt her. She deserves better than me.”

  An incontrovertible truth.

  “I think you’re off base about Darcy.”

  “Let it go, Charles,” he growled.

  “Okay then, let’s talk about you.” Charlie reached for his water bottle again. “Haven’t seen you in church yet.”

  Jax fidgeted. He’d been meaning to take Brody, but like navigating the turbulent waters of his marriage to Adrienne, it had been easier not to make unnecessary waves when it came to his relationship or lack of relationship with God. “Don’t you need to get home to Evy, Charlie?”

  No surprise, Charlie stuck to his guns. “Have you tried praying about the guilt? About Darcy?”

  Jax stiffened. “No.”

  “Then what have you got to lose? And how much more could you gain?” Charlie pushed to his feet. “If nothing else, peace.”

  Peace instead of cold numbness? Wisdom instead of confusion? Was Charlie right?

  Jax raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll think about what you said.”

  “We love you and Brody, Jax.” Undemonstrative like all the Pruitts, nevertheless Charlie hugged him, startling Jax. As did his next words. “I suspect Darcy might love you, too.”

  Jax’s heart thudded. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t.

  Charlie moved down the steps. “But don’t forget God loves you and Brody more than we ever could.”

  Jax escorted him around the corner of the house as Charlie headed for his truck, then lifted his hand as his brother drove away.

  Was Charlie right? Maybe it was time to stop relying on his own limited strength and reach out to the One whose strength was limitless.

  As for Darcy? No matter the yearnings of his stubborn heart, Jax needed to steer clear of any emotional entanglements. Truth was, his heart couldn’t take another loss.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, with Brody’s hand clasped in his, Jaxon hesitated at the church steps. He craned his neck, gazing up at the white steeple piercing the azure sky. It had been a long time since he’d darkened a church doorway. Adrienne had preferred to spend their few Sundays together leisurely.

  Brow puckered, Brody’s head swiveled from the harbor to the kayak shop down the block, then past the gazebo on the village green to the church. “What this pwace?”

  “This is church, Brody.”

  Brody’s eyebrows scrunched. “What’s chuwch?”

  Jax winced. “Church. Chuh-rrr-ch.”

  Brody scowled and pressed his lips together.

  Jax let the r’s go for now. “Church is one of the places we find God.” He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. “Where we find love. And where love finds us.”

  Was he talking to Brody or himself?

  “I know God.” Brody nodded. “Gwandma ’spwain to me.”

  Jax’s mom. Thank God for his parents. They’d stood in the gap for him. As Brody’s father, he should’ve been there for his son and hadn’t.

  After Charlie left last night, Jax had spent a long night thinking. He needed something and someone far more powerful than his own puny efforts to make a new life for his son. To forge a lasting bond with Brody.

  Brody tugged him up the steps and inside. Jax paused on the threshold, giving his eyes time to adjust. And to settle his nerves.

  This prodigal had been a long time coming home. In more ways than one. He’d done so many things wrong. As a husband and as a father. Was it too late? Too late for Brody and him?

  With all his heart, he hoped not. But coming to church had to be the first step in their new start. The first step in the long journey back to his Heavenly Father.

  “Jaxon!” Arms outstretched, Reverend Harold Parks hurried down the main aisle of the sanctuary.

  He found himself engulfed in the sixtysomething pastor’s embrace. When Darcy’s dad pulled back, Jax spotted tears in his sea green eyes. Eyes that forcibly reminded him of Darcy.

  “Good to see you here today, son.” The reverend clapped his shoulder. “So good.” Harold Parks bent to Brody’s height. “And who’s this good-looking young man with you?”

  Smiling, Agnes Parks bustled forward. “Isn’t he the spitting image of a certain Jaxon Pruitt at that age, Harold?”

  Out of breath, Darcy clambered into the foyer. “Sorry I’m late, Dad.” Her features altered. “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you...”

  Jax couldn’t tell if seeing them made her happy or sad. Crouching to Brody’s height, she gave him a big hug. Okay, clearly pleased to see his son. Jax, not so much.

  Brody hung on to her like she was his last, great hope.

  Jax understood the appeal. Her cheeks flushed, she looked pretty cute in a white cotton skirt and pink flip-flops. He’d liked to believe the sparkle in her eyes was because of him, but he knew better.

  She flicked Brody a quick smile. No smile for him. “Did you come with Grandma Gail to church, Brody?”

  It galled Jax that she assumed he needed his mother’s help. True, until today. “No, he came—we came alone. Mom and Dad will be here later.”

  Thrusting her tongue in her cheek, a tiny smile hovered on her lips. And he realized he wasn’t the only one who could push buttons.

  Jax did a quick scan of the rapidly filling sanctuary. Life in the beach community was casual—no ties or suits here. Even the reverend wore a golf shirt and slacks.

  He liked Darcy’s attire, not that he’d ever have the nerve to tell her so. The very feminine, rose pink, billowy blouse brought out the red in her strawberry blonde hair.

  An observation she wouldn’t appreciate. A button he decided not to push, since it was Sunday. Not with her playing the proper PK and all.

  She took his son’s hand. “This is my dad, Brody. You’ve met my mom already.”

  Jax nodded. “Miss Agnes made the yummy lasagna.”

  When Brody smiled, Jax’s heart almost split in two. Despite how much Brody resembled him, bittersweet traces of Adrienne lingered in his son’s lopsided grin.

  Agnes touched Brody’s hair. “I learned a long time ago the way to a boy’s heart.”

  “Me hungwy.”

  Jax frowned. “We just ate breakfast.” Brody would have the Parks family believing his father never fed him.

  Agnes’s lips twitched. “He’s a growing boy, Jaxon.”

  The reverend winked at Brody. “I promise to make the service as short as the Lord allows, young Pruitt.”

  Jax stepped out of the doorway as the Duers entered the sanctuary. Bristly mustached waterman Seth Duer patted Jax’s arm. “Good to have you home, Jaxon.”

  He moved Brody aside as a trickle of Seth Duer’s grandchildren followed in his wake. Brody locked eyes with a dark-haired preschooler about his own age, holding the hand of Seth’s oldest daughter, Amelia.

  Agnes smoothed her floral-patterned skirt. “Anytime your mom is busy or out of town this summer, you give me a call, Jaxon.” She smiled at his son. “I’d love to spend the day with this young man.”

  “I appreciate your offer, but I couldn’t—”

  She flitted her hand. “No tro
uble, it’s my pleasure. I have to live vicariously.” Her eyes cut to Darcy. “No grandchildren of my own.” Her gaze shot to him. “Yet.”

  Darcy went crimson.

  Harold clasped Jax’s hand. “I need to speak with the organist before service begins. But I hope we’ll see more of you in the future.”

  Darcy gnashed her teeth. But proper PK that she was, she held it together.

  “How about I take Brody to children’s church?” Agnes motioned toward Amelia’s son, who was heading to the education wing. “Would you like to meet my friend Patrick Scott, Brody?”

  Brody glowered.

  Jax didn’t relish a scene in front of the entire congregation. “Maybe I ought to keep Brody with me.” His son looked up at his name. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

  Agnes cocked her head. “There’ll be cookies, Brody.”

  Brody held up his arms, and Agnes picked him up.

  Jax flushed. The only stranger Brody didn’t care for was his own father. Maybe he should take up baking. If only it were that simple in righting the wrong between him and his son.

  Agnes whisked Brody away. And Jax decided to keep his distance from Darcy. The resident PK always took the closest pew to the front, so he settled into an empty pew a few rows back, across the aisle.

  Where were his parents? He rubbernecked during the prelude, scanning the foyer. Where were Anna and Ryan? Charlie and Evy? Reinforcements of any kind?

  But it was Ryan’s siblings who rescued him from sitting out the service by himself. In the quirky, if endearing, Southern definition of family—blood relations or not—the Savages welcomed him.

  Luke slid into the pew beside Jax. “Hey, man.”

  “You’re not sitting here alone?” Ryan’s bubbly youngest sister, Tessa, had grown up in Jax’s absence.

  “We can’t have that, can we?” Justine the Klutz—Mom’s words, not his—fell over his feet into the pew.

  He couldn’t help noticing that their other brother, Ethan, plopped beside Darcy. And she smiled at him. Irritated, Jax scowled. Only the preacher’s family was supposed to sit there.

  As Ethan Savage and Darcy continued to chat it up, other old friends stopped by to greet Jax, surprising him.

  He’d been gone a long time. Yet perhaps that was the truest measure of good friends—the ability to take right up again, no matter how long the time between conversations. Kind of like him and Darcy.

  Who was still talking a blue streak to Ethan Savage. Using her hands like she did when she was excited.

  In a deliberate act of self-discipline—his Green Beret training—Jax fastened his eyes on the podium. Refusing to track what Darcy was doing across the aisle.

  At the last possible moment, his parents, Charlie and Evy slid into the pew in front of Jax. Something about a leak in the bathroom, his mom murmured. Anna and Ryan had nursery duty. The congregation rose for the first hymn.

  His self-control cracking, Jax glanced over to find Darcy elbowing Ethan in the ribs as they shared a hymnal. Jax didn’t feel like singing.

  The sermon proved easier. Harold Parks knew how to hold the congregation’s attention. Jax kept his face forward and concentrated hard on being an attentive listener.

  “Our text this morning is from John 8:36.” Reverend Parks smiled before reading the passage. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

  Freedom, a great concept in the abstract. In Jax’s case, impossible. He shifted on the wooden pew. What he wouldn’t give to lose the heavy stone crushing his heart since Adrienne died.

  The pastor paused, his gaze falling briefly on each member of his flock. Was it Jax’s imagination or did it linger slightly longer on him?

  “He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.” Harold’s eyes darted to the front pew. “Reminds me of a young girl who loved to swing.”

  Jax saw Darcy recoil, as if she’d taken a blow to the head. But she recovered quickly, donning the stiff PK shield she often wore.

  The swing to which Reverend Parks referred had hung empty and forlorn as long as Jax had known her. He wasn’t acquainted with the swing-loving side of Darcy her father so fondly recalled. And judging by her hunched shoulders, it wasn’t a memory Darcy was fond of recalling.

  She loved her parents. Over the years, she’d sacrificed a lot to please them. To be the perfect PK. But a disconnect existed between Darcy and her father. Then came an unsettling thought. Kind of like the breach between Jax and his son.

  Jax glanced at his mother. From the pursing of her lips, he knew she’d noticed Darcy’s reaction, too. The reverend was a good, caring man. But Darcy would’ve have gotten more personal attention if she’d been any other child in his congregation rather than his own.

  Had the swing-loving Darcy disappeared about the same time she took to her tree house roost? Peering out at the world and the Pruitts’ backyard with those big, blue-green eyes of hers?

  To her credit, Gail Pruitt had done something about it. Going out of her way to include the little preacher’s kid in the escapades of her own rampaging brood.

  In their yard, Darcy was never the PK. She was just Darcy. With her in-your-face, larger than life dreams.

  The reverend went on to relate his child’s nearly airborne freedom on the swing. The exhilaration on her face. How he’d shared in her delight and joy. As their Heavenly Father delighted in His children’s joy. A joy most perfectly found within Himself.

  “Whatever you face today, dear friends, whatever weighs you down, keeping you chained in misery and dread, let God be your burden-bearer. I beg you to find true rest and peace in Him.”

  Those words forced Jax to examine his paltry efforts outside of God’s strength thus far. The pastor made it sound so easy. To stop striving. To stop working toward making your own peace. But that went against the grain of everything Jax was—as a firstborn, as a Green Beret, as a painfully wounded man.

  Harold Parks gripped the sides of the podium. “And once we allow God to be our burden-bearer, each of us must be brave enough to answer God’s further call on our lives. To become a burden-sharer with one another.”

  Like Darcy was trying to help Jax with Brody.

  As for the weight of his muddled guilt over Adrienne? He bowed his head as the reverend closed in prayer.

  In his heart, Jax believed the guilt to be a cross he’d have to bear alone. And suddenly, home felt farther out of his reach than he’d supposed. Farther than when they’d lowered Adrienne’s casket into the frozen Utah ground.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Darcy stared at the hand-carved initials on the tree house railing. They were weathered and barely visible now... She ran her finger over the indentions, tracing the C and the P. Colin Parks.

  She’d been five when she overheard a couple of ladies discussing the tragic loss of her father’s first family. Her mother hadn’t wanted to answer the questions bursting out of Darcy’s small chest. And still processing that she wasn’t her father’s only child, she’d used the railing on the bottom platform as a monkey bar. Upside down that same day, she’d spotted the carving.

  Her father—their father—had carved his son’s initials into the wood. She’d realized then that the tree house had been built for Colin, not her. And that it—like their father’s heart—belonged to her dead little half brother.

  Closing her eyes, Darcy leaned against the railing. Birds chirped in the canopy overhead. A briny sea breeze floated past her nostrils.

  Was it Darcy her father had pushed in the swing? Or did he visualize his small son, alive in its pendulum motion? Either way, she’d never gotten in the swing again.

  It’d been strange to hear her father talk in his sermon about what used to be their cherished time together. Disconcerting. He was always careful not to use her or Mom as an object lesson. Unless it was a good memory. As apparently, the swing was f
or him. Her, too, until...

  Pressure built in her chest. She gazed at what constituted her world. The screened porch where on Sunday afternoons her father took a much-needed nap. The deck of the Pruitt house next door. The street out front, where she’d lived her entire life...

  All at once, she couldn’t breathe. And she knew she needed to escape, at least for a while. From the pressures, the expectations, the loneliness.

  Without bothering to change clothes, she got into her car. The driveway next door was packed with vehicles. Gail Pruitt and Evy would’ve done it up right for Sunday family lunch. The choked feeling inside Darcy mounted.

  Minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of Kiptohanock Kayaking. Summer employee Chas and their clients would arrive later for the Sunday afternoon excursion. But now was her chance.

  Her skirt swirled as she hurried around the corner of the building, keys in hand. She would unlock the storage building. Retrieve her personal kayak and paddle.

  Darcy’s footfalls crunched across the sandy soil. There was nothing on earth like that first moment as the kayak glided out onto the water. The serenity, the calm, the absolute stillness of reaching the marsh and—

  She stuttered to a halt as Jax emerged, PFD in hand, from the outbuilding. Why, God? When all she’d wanted...

  Catching sight of her, he grinned. “Long time no see, Parks.”

  “What are you doing here, Jax?”

  This was her time. Her place. Her shop— Actually, it wasn’t. Her heart wrenched.

  He inclined his head. “Thought I’d get in some R & R on a lazy Sunday afternoon.”

  “Where is your son?” The words spit out of her mouth in a staccato punch.

  Jax’s eyes narrowed. “Napping at Mom’s,” he said. “Kind of unusual for him, Brody being such a big boy. Almost three, you know.”

  “I wanted to do a short paddle. If that’s okay with you?” She lifted her chin, galled that she had to ask the new owner’s permission for something she did every Sunday afternoon.

  “Be my guest.” His arm swept toward the dock. “Thought I’d do the same.”