by Lisa Carter
* * *
“What’s going on up there?” Her father stood at the base of the tree. He wouldn’t come up. He never did.
Mouth tight, Jax shouldered past her dad.
Down below, the screen door banged. “Darcy?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Mom, too. Darcy’s life, as always, was a public spectacle.
Hands on her hips, her mother stood on the porch steps. “What’s going on?”
In the distance, she heard the unmistakable sound of Jax’s truck. Her lips flattened. Leaving—something Jaxon Pruitt had mastered. She slumped over the railing.
“Darcy?” She’d never heard her father’s voice sound so sharp. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“What were you thinking, bellowing at Jaxon like that?” Her mother joined him at the foot of the oak. “Half of the Kiptohanock grapevine is probably on the phone with the other half right now.”
“Let them talk.” She tromped down to the first platform. “I’m done with being good ole, get-along, go-along Darcy.”
“I don’t like your tone,” her mother huffed. “Have you forgotten who you are, Darcy Parks?”
Her father’s brows bunched, a thundercloud on his face. “What did Jaxon do to you?”
Was that concern—for her—on his face?
“Must we do this out here?” Her mother heaved a sigh. “Let’s go inside, and talk about what has you in such a stir.”
“I resign.” Darcy flounced—she who had never flounced in her life—down the remaining steps to ground level. “I’m done being the PK around here.”
Her mother gave her an exasperated glance. “This drama is unlike you, Darcy. At this time of the morning...when your father has an appointment—”
Suddenly, Darcy just lost it. “Dad has an appointment with a cemetery, Mother. And I’m done with all of it,” she shouted.
Her parents both took an inadvertent step back. Next door, the Pruitts must think she’d lost her mind.
“What do you mean?” Her mother’s face creased. “Done with what?”
Darcy threw out her arms. “Blame it on my hair. Blame it on a thousand days that end in y. I’m sick of being runner-up to everybody within shouting distance of this tree.”
Her mother’s gaze flickered toward Darcy’s father. “I really don’t think now is the time or—”
“I hate this tree!” She pounded her fist against the trunk. “Where second choice for me began before I was ever born.”
Her mother tapped her foot on the ground. “You don’t hate this tree, Darcy.”
“I hate it. I do.” She jutted her chin. “I love it and I hate it. Like I love the brother I never met, Dad. Maybe I hate him, too. Or maybe I just hate the aching hole he left in your heart.”
Her father flinched.
“You’re upsetting your father.” Her mom inserted her arm in the crook of his elbow. “We don’t talk about—”
Darcy continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “A hole I’ve tried—unsuccessfully—to fill my entire life. But I can’t. It’s time I accepted that, and got over it.”
Her mother straightened. “I cannot believe you’re acting like this, Darcy Rose Parks. After what your father’s been through—”
“I give up, Mother.” She threw out her hands. “I give up trying. I’m giving up this tree.” She cut her eyes to the Pruitt house. “I’m giving up lime-green freezer pops and Kiptohanock. For good.”
Her mother bristled. “You’re making no sense.”
“I’m sorry to be such a disappointment to you, but I’m climbing the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Mom.”
“Disappointment? What are you talking about?” Her mother’s lips thinned. “What has gotten into you, Darcy?”
“I’m going to kayak a stretch of the Amazon. I’m going to windsurf off the North Shore of Hawaii.” She glared at the Pruitt house. “With or without someone to climb, paddle or surf alongside me.”
Her father just stood there.
“Why do you never see me?” Something inside Darcy cracked and broke. “I’m going to seize my dreams, Dad. I can’t be Colin. I can’t live the life he might’ve had.”
Her mother’s mouth wobbled. “Don’t, Darcy.”
But Darcy had eyes only for her father. “I can’t keep hoping that one day you’ll choose me and love me the way you love him.”
Her mother’s face flamed. “Please, Darcy...”
She sucked in a breath, the reason she’d never left home suddenly crystal clear for the first time in her life. “I can’t be the child who never leaves you, Dad, just because Colin did.”
Her father reeled as if from a blow.
Tears cascaded from her mother’s eyes. “How could you, Darcy?”
Looking older than she’d ever seen him, her father freed himself from her mother’s grasp. “We should’ve talked about Colin and Linda a long time ago.”
This time, her mother winced. “Harold...”
“She’s right.” Her father’s face crumpled. “I used my work as a distraction, an excuse. But I never meant to hurt either of you,” he whispered.
“Your life with him was always enclosed in this glass jar, untouchable, out of reach. And we were on the outside, looking in, Dad.”
Her mother shook her head. “Your father has been very open about his struggles.”
A vulnerability that endeared him to so many hurting people.
Darcy bit her lip. “With everyone but us.”
His face constricted. “I never meant to shut you out, Darcy. I didn’t want to cloud the wonderful second-chance life I’d been given with you and your mom with the dark grief I carried.”
“Were we your second chance, Dad?” she whispered. “Or second choice? Why did everything belong to him?”
Bubbling out from the deepest places in her heart, she found the words she’d yearned to express but had dared not for fear of losing what little of her father was hers.
“Did you not save anything of yourself for me?” She gestured at the tree house. “Was there no place left in your heart just for me? For us?”
“The swing was yours,” her mother rasped. “Your father put the swing there for you, Darcy.”
Darcy gaped at them. “The swing wasn’t part of the original tree house?”
“The swing was ours alone.” Her father sighed. “But one day, you just stopped. You wouldn’t swing anymore.”
“When I found the carved initials...I assumed...” She choked back a sob.
“I’m so sorry, Darcy.” Her father touched her shoulder. “For ever making you feel second best. Forgive me, please.”
There’d been so much pain. For each of them.
“It’s time for there to be only honesty between us.” He gripped the railing. “Colin and Linda were killed on a Monday.”
“Dad, you don’t have to—”
“Colin needed a new pair of shoes from the mall in Salisbury. But a parishioner called.” He gave them a wan smile. “I’ve always been a workaholic. Struggled with false pride. It could’ve waited for another day. Instead, I sent Linda and Colin off without me. I should’ve died with them that day.”
Weeping, her mother sat down heavily on the step. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
“So am I.” Taking her mother’s hand, he lifted it to his lips. “Because if I’d died, I would’ve never had the opportunity to love you, Agnes.”
Her mother’s chin quivered. Darcy had never seen her parents so tender with each other.
“I didn’t stop to think how being a preacher’s kid might make you feel. Forgive me, too.” Her mother touched Darcy’s cheek. “No more PK.”
Darcy blinked away tears.
Her father enfolded Darcy in his arms. “As my beloved daughter, you have a place all your own in my life. And if God has create
d a desire in your heart to kayak the Amazon, you’ll carry my love wherever God leads you.”
“Really, Dad?” Something inside her seemed to rise, floating above the treetops.
He exhaled a long, slow breath. “It’s August 14. And I’d like to tell you both about Linda and Colin. Not keep it bottled inside anymore.” He swallowed. “Would you come to the cemetery with me?”
“I’d like that, Harold.” Agnes pressed her cheek against his sleeve. “To share not just the joy, but the sorrow, too.” And shining in her mother’s features was a newfound confidence, a security in his love.
“Darcy?”
In his eyes, she glimpsed the truth of his heart. Her father loved her. She could see it now. Despite his pain, he’d always loved her.
“Whatever the future holds, Dad—” her voice hitched “—we’ll share it together.”
The past with its pain and sorrow could never be erased. It was part of him. In truth, it had made him into the caring man—pastor, husband and father—she loved. It was time to stop fighting her father’s past. But to accept it and help him shoulder the weight of it.
“But first...” She bit her lip. “Would you push me in the swing again, Dad?”
A smile lifted his cheeks. “I’d like that, Darcy. So much.”
Sitting on the wooden slat, she coiled her hands around the chains. Her feet no longer dangled.
“Ready, honey?”
She glanced over her shoulder. A warmth filled his face.
“Yes, Daddy. I am.”
“Off you go then.” After pulling on the chains, he let go. Her feet left the ground as she sailed forward. “Higher, Dad. Make it go higher.”
Faster and faster. She pumped her legs. Her father’s gentle prodding propelled her upward and onward.
Darcy closed her eyes. In the swing, she broke the laws of gravity. She could fly. Bunching her muscles, she gathered strength and soared into the wild blue yonder.
Free and light. Higher and higher. Until the years and the cares dropped away. Until the sunlight danced across her cheeks, the wind whistling past.
Her mother and father laughed, their heads close together. The swing slowed. She no longer strained to reach the heights, content to let gravity hold her in its sway. Satisfied to have her feet touch the ground. To rejoin the ones she loved and who loved her.
“Bravo, Darcy!” Her father’s eyes grew misty. “Bravo, my beautiful, adventurous girl.”
Coming out of the swing, she wrapped her arms around his stout waist. “I’m a swing kind of girl, Daddy,” she whispered against his shirt.
“I’m a swing kind of dad, Darcy.” His voice was choked with unshed tears. “I love you, honey.”
And though it wasn’t Monday, her dad took the day off. They talked about many things. So many misunderstandings were erased.
But it was at the cemetery, standing beside her father, that she began to truly fathom how heavy was the burden of guilt. And in light of the Father’s promises, how unnecessary.
She ached for the wreckage guilt had brought to Jax’s heart. How she wished he could know how it felt to be free and light. No longer weighed down by the past and his failures.
Help Jax, God. Show him how much You love him.
A disquieting notion floated across her consciousness, like the tang of sea salt on the breeze. And she sensed that now was not the time to go to Florida. Not yet. That perhaps she needed to stay on the Shore, if just for a little while longer.
No matter the cost to her own heart, she must be there for Jax and Brody. To be their burden-sharer. With no agenda or expectations of her own. Except to help Jax accept the past, embrace the present and move on into the future.
God would reveal to her when it was time for her to leave. She could entrust her life and her plans into His hands. The safest place they could be. A peace, too long denied, flooded her being.
Florida. Her dreams. Machu Picchu would wait.
Jax and his grieving heart could not.
Chapter Fifteen
At the distant rumble of thunder that afternoon, Jax shut off the kitchen faucet. His gaze automatically darted to the backyard, where Brody was playing. But he wasn’t there.
Jax’s heart missed a beat. His son was probably running his trucks in the sand underneath the deck. “Brody?”
But when he’d clambered down the steps, a quick scan revealed no little boy. “Brody! Answer Daddy, please.” Also missing was the red dump truck.
One minute he’d been there and the next, he was gone. How far could a toddler go? The answer—too far, too fast. Sweat having nothing to do with August humidity broke out on Jax’s forehead.
Hands on his hips, he scoped the terrain, assessing the risks. The creek—
Jax took off at a run. Brody knew better than to go to the water without an adult. But kids didn’t think about danger.
He reached the shoreline out of breath. His personal kayaks remained tied well out of the reach of the tide. But no little guy. If Brody wasn’t down here, where was he?
Thunder clapped, closer than before. Rumbling like a kettledrum, fixing to blow a gale, as the old-timers would say. And like the born here he was, he immediately panned his gaze over the salt marsh in the direction of the barrier islands. Low, roiling greenish clouds ecliped the sun’s rays.
He shivered at the abrupt drop in temperature. “Brody!” His voice had gone rough with fear. There was a heavy intensity to the unnatural stillness of the air.
Maybe Brody had gone inside the house, slipping past him. Unlikely, but Jax tore across the lawn once more. Clattering up the wooden steps, he yanked open the French doors. Inside, he lunged for the staircase. “Brody? Where are you, son?”
But except for the hum of the refrigerator and the whir of the air conditioning, only silence greeted him.
Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he did a complete, aimless three-sixty. Fear seized his heart. Where was Brody? What had happened to him?
Jerking at the sound of tires crunching gravel, Jax raced for the stairs. Someone was here. Had someone taken Brody? Were they even now taking his son away from him forever?
His emotions seesawing, Jax hurtled toward the front door. On the porch, he came to a sudden halt as Darcy stepped out of her SUV. The last person he’d ever expected to see again.
Gasping for breath, he bent over, hands on his knees. His chest felt tight and he could smell the coming rain.
“Jax? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Brody. He’s gone.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
* * *
Darcy had taken one look at his blanched face and known something was terribly wrong.
As if unable to support his own weight, Jax listed heavily against the porch column. She’d come out here to apologize for screaming at him. To ask his forgiveness and for permission to be a continuing part of their lives as a friend. But now?
The wind picked up speed, blowing tendrils of hair across her face.
She brushed the strands out of her eyes. “What happened? Where was he when you last saw him? How long has he been missing?”
“Fifteen minutes, but it feels like longer. He was right outside the window. I took my eyes off him for one second...”
“This isn’t your fault, Jax.”
His terror for Brody radiated in palpable waves, the primal terror of every parent whose child has ever wandered away in a store. And because of her deep connection to the little boy, she fought against the horror threatening to engulf her, as well.
This wasn’t the time to fall apart. She needed to think calmly. Clearly. “He’s not been gone that long.” She gripped Jax’s upper arm. “Where have you checked?”
“I ran down to the creek first thing, but it didn’t look as if he’d been there. So I searched the house next
, but no Brody.” His breath came in ragged spurts. “Where could he be?”
“We’ll find him, Jax.” He shook like a beech tree in a winter squall. “I’ll help you look.”
Jax gripped her hand so hard, she winced. But she held on to him.
“He knows better than to wander off, Darcy.”
“Brody is a curious two-year-old boy. Something could have caught his attention—a bird or a butterfly—and he followed it into the woods.”
“Darcy, we’re surrounded by woods on every side. Isolated out here. No other house for miles.” Jax’s eyes widened. “Suppose he isn’t in the woods? Suppose somebody...”
“Worst case scenario, but there’s no time to lose.” She dug out her phone. “I’m calling for help.” She hit 911. “Do you have your phone on you?”
He fished it out of his jeans.
“Call my dad. He’ll get a group together to help us look. Hello...” She pointed her mouth at the receiver. “This is an emergency.” She relayed the situation to the dispatcher.
Moments later, she clicked off. “They’re sending a patrol car and issuing an Amber Alert.”
“If someone’s taken Brody, he could be anywhere by now. Scared. Hurt—”
“Don’t go there, Jax. We don’t have enough information. The Amber Alert will have law enforcement on the lookout.”
She pulled him close. His heartbeat thumped in his chest. “For once, small town nosiness could come in handy.”
He swallowed. “I talked to your dad. He and Seth Duer plus a bunch of other people are on their way. Thank God you came when you did.” His mouth twisted. “So much for my training. I was losing it.”
The look in his eyes turned her heart inside out. “You’re entitled to lose it. He’s not some mission. He’s your son.”
Darcy wrapped her arms around Jax. He was so scared. “I won’t leave you until we find Brody.”
“There’s a storm brewing. What if—”
She stepped back. “No what-ifs. We’ll do what’s in our power to do, and we won’t stop looking until we find him.”
“You’re right.” He scrubbed his neck with his hand. “And if I’ve learned nothing else, we must pray for God to watch over Brody, keep him safe and lead us to him.”
