“What did Ruby do?”
Neil, Maggie realized, was a good listener. In the past, when she’d shared snippets of her story, people had butted in to express outrage. Sometimes they’d ended up talking more about her past than she had.
“She gave me this.” Maggie tapped the lid of the grubby box. “Then she took me to the supermarket, and we bought packs of crackers, my favorite kind. We stuffed the box so full it would barely close. Then she gave it to me to keep, and I took it out to Sawyer’s Knob and hid it.”
“Sawyer’s Knob? The overlook?”
“That’s right.” Maggie smiled wryly. “Ruby wouldn’t have approved of that part. It’s not the safest place for a kid to go, but I’d found a little crack in the rock that nobody knew about but me.”
Neil nodded slowly. “And that gave you a sense of control.”
She nodded, relieved. He understood. “It wasn’t just stashing the snacks. It was more the matter-of-fact way Ruby accepted that I needed them. Because, the truth is, it was never really about the food. It just came out that way. Comes out that way,” she corrected herself ruefully. “Still. Like how I try to feed everybody who comes within ten feet of me. And my ridiculous meltdown today about you taking the cookies away from Oliver. I’m really sorry I flew off the handle.”
Neil shook his head. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“Oh, but you didn’t know—” Maggie started, but he interrupted her.
“Doesn’t matter. I understand how it hurts when somebody hits a sore spot out of the blue like that. It’s like stubbing a broken toe. You almost forget about it, but then you accidentally knock it against a piece of furniture, and it brings you to your knees. I’m sorry I caused you that kind of pain.”
Maggie leaned closer and placed her hand on his arm, anxious for him to understand. “I didn’t tell you all this to make you feel bad, Neil. You’ve been...” The right words danced just outside her reach, so she had to settle. “...great,” she finished lamely. “So great with Oliver. So willing to help me, even though my problems have nothing to do with you. I felt terrible after you left. That’s why I came up here and told you all this. So maybe you’d forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Maggie. But thanks for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“Thank you for listening.” Their eyes met, and she was suddenly aware that her hand still rested on his arm. She flushed and removed it, tucking it back into her lap.
“I guess this is why you enjoy working in that bakery so much.”
Maggie grinned. A job that required wearing an apron and a hairnet probably didn’t sound very exciting to a brainy guy like Neil. “I do enjoy it. Being surrounded by food always makes me happy, and I absolutely love serving the customers. Whenever I put a plate in front of a hungry person, it’s like I’m feeding that grubby little girl who was trying to make a meal out of uncooked noodles. I think I heal a little more with every dish I serve. The Lord works things out in amazing ways.”
She’d never made that statement before in this church-rich region without hearing a quick and hearty amen. She waited for Neil to agree with her.
But he didn’t. The only sounds were the rhythmic cheeping of the frogs behind the cabin and Rover’s raspy purrs.
* * *
Neil shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Maggie’s outspoken faith was nothing unusual. Here in Cedar Ridge, most people talked about God as if they’d just had lunch with Him. That never bothered Neil. He respected other people’s beliefs, and he just kept his own doubts to himself.
And yet right now he felt as if someone had poked his heart with a sharp stick. Maggie had plenty of reasons of her own to feel betrayed by God—but she’d salvaged her faith. Why hadn’t he been able to?
After a couple of awkward seconds, she stood. “It’s getting late. I guess I’d better be getting home.”
Neil set Rover down on the porch floor and got to his feet. “It’s getting dark. I’ll drive you.”
“No need for that. There’s some moonlight, and I know the path like the back of my hand. Besides,” she added with a smile, “the lightning bugs are putting on a show tonight. I wouldn’t want to miss that.”
He blinked. “Lightning bugs?”
“Well, yeah.” Maggie lifted an eyebrow. “They’re spectacular this time of year. Haven’t you noticed?”
He looked out at the tree line. Yellow-green flashes flickered randomly here and there. Interesting, sure, but he wouldn’t call them spectacular. Trust Maggie to see beauty even in bugs. “I haven’t really paid much attention.”
“Oh, but you don’t know what you’re missing! Come on.” Maggie grabbed his hand, tugging him down the steps and across the yard. She stepped nimbly over the low wall where Oliver had taken his tumble and pulled him into the tree line.
“Now, close your eyes,” she commanded.
“Why? I can’t see fireflies with my eyes closed.”
“Nobody calls them fireflies around here,” she chided. “They’re lightning bugs. Shut your eyes and trust me.”
He closed his eyes. As she led him forward, last year’s pine needles crunched under his feet, and this summer’s leaves brushed against his cheek. He probably should have been worried about stumbling over a stump and falling flat on his face, but he wasn’t. His entire attention was focused on the feel of her slim, strong fingers closed around his own and the faint scent of cinnamon drifting from Maggie’s hair.
It made him think of waking up to the smell of cinnamon rolls baking on a Sunday morning before church. Mostly when he remembered something happy, it brought a sharp-edged shadow of pain with it. This brought only a hungry longing—for peaceful mornings, cups of coffee and rich, sweet rolls shared in companionable silence. For a woman’s head nestled against his shoulder, her red curls still tousled from sleep.
Neil’s eyes flickered open, and he stopped walking.
Laura’s hair had been brown, and she’d never liked to bake.
“You’re peeking,” Maggie accused him.
She stood just in front of him, the sliver of a moon silvering her ruddy hair and highlighting the sweet tilt of her nose.
“Look,” Maggie whispered breathlessly. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
Neil dragged his eyes from her face and tried to focus on the scene around them. The moonlit forest was alive with living sparkles, tiny lights darting all around them. “Yeah. It’s hard to believe they’re insects.”
Maggie laughed. “That’s what makes them so special. They’re just bugs—and not very pretty ones if you see them in the daytime. But at night, when they’re doing just what God made them to do, they turn into—” she gestured around them “—this! Don’t you think that’s amazing?”
I think you’re amazing.
He didn’t say the words aloud, but they echoed in his head just the same.
That anybody who’d been treated as badly as Maggie had been during her childhood could have such a strong desire to help others, to feed hungry people and to love an orphaned little boy who broke her heart at every opportunity...that was amazing, all right. And the fact that she was still so enthusiastic about simple things like cookies and fireflies?
To Neil, that was more than amazing. That was...
His brain fumbled for the right description and came up empty. He’d written more academic papers than he could count, and his vocabulary was off the charts, but he doubted there was any word in the dictionary that could sum up Maggie Byrne.
She chuckled. “There’s one in your hair.”
He reached up to flick it away, but she caught his hand.
“Careful,” she whispered. “You don’t want to squash him. Let me do it.”
She tiptoed toward him, her eyes fixed on something just northwest of his forehead. He felt her hand gently brush against his hair.
; The world closed in, just as it had when the tent had collapsed around them. Suddenly, nothing existed for him except Maggie. No past, no heartbreak, no guilt. Nothing but this beautiful, resilient woman who splashed on joy as if it were perfume.
For the first time in three long years, Neil’s weary brain closed up shop and his heart woke up and took charge. As if it were completely natural, just as if it didn’t mean that his entire world was tilting on its axis, he leaned down. He closed the scant inches between them until his mouth was only a breath away from Maggie’s.
He paused for one questioning second as she looked up at him, her eyes wide and startled. Then, when she didn’t pull away, he closed the gap.
And he kissed her.
He had forgotten what it was like, to lead with his heart without weighing the consequences. It felt good. After all the cold, lonely years, kissing Maggie felt like diving into tropical waters, so perfectly warm that you weren’t sure where the air stopped and the sea started.
Maggie’s hand slipped from his hair and settled lightly against his cheek. There was something about the innocent intimacy of that gesture that finally got through. He broke the kiss and stepped back.
She looked up at him, her eyes still wide.
“Wow,” she murmured. “Iceman, my foot.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Are you?” Maggie sounded bewildered. “Then I probably should be, too. But I don’t think I am.”
“I was married.” He blurted out the admission roughly.
“Oh.” Maggie waited a second before prodding gently. “What happened?”
“She died three years ago. In a car accident.”
“I see.” That was all she said, but the two words were full of a quiet sympathy. She found his hand with hers and squeezed. “I’m so sorry, Neil.”
“I haven’t kissed anybody since...” He was making a disaster out of this. “I haven’t been looking for—” He couldn’t figure out how to finish that sentence.
He felt Maggie stiffen. “Don’t worry about it, Neil. It was just a kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
She was trying to sound casual, but she didn’t quite carry it off. The kiss had shaken her, too. Somehow, knowing that gave him the words he wanted to say.
“No,” he argued quietly. “It meant something. I just...wasn’t expecting it.” A firefly flashed just beside Maggie’s face, spotlighting her in its split-second glow. In spite of his confused emotions, Neil smiled. “You keep knocking me off balance, Maggie Byrne.”
She’d turned her head to watch the firefly flit away, so he felt her answering smile more than he saw it. “Likewise,” she said softly.
She gave his hand one last squeeze before releasing it. “I’d better get back home before Ruby starts worrying. Besides, you need to rest up. VBS starts bright and early Monday morning and lasts all week. I’ve volunteered us to help with the preschool group.”
Neil’s brain was still on hiatus. All he could do was stare at her and think about how beautiful she was.
And how much he’d like to kiss her again.
“‘VBS’?” he asked. “I’ve heard of it. What is it, exactly?”
She glanced up at him with a laugh. “You aren’t from around here, are you? VBS is Vacation Bible School. It’s a summer tradition for the churches around here. You and I are helping out at Cedar Ridge Christian. That’s the church Ruby and I go to. Do you know where it is?” He managed a jerky nod, and she went on. “Great! Just meet me at the front entrance of the church at a quarter to ten Monday morning.”
Bible school. Church. Neil’s heart sagged like a deflated balloon.
“Maggie,” he began.
She’d already taken a few steps down the path toward Ruby’s farmhouse. She turned to smile over her shoulder at him, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Yes?”
I don’t do church.
That was what he should have said.
Instead he said, “Be careful.”
She nodded and waved. He watched her until she disappeared around the first turn of the winding path.
Neil sighed. The lightning bugs still swooped and sparkled around him, but all the beauty had gone out of the evening.
There was no way he was going to spend a week teaching preschoolers about a God he wanted nothing to do with. Sometime before Monday morning, he’d have to tell Maggie so.
And when he did, he had a feeling whatever that kiss had started would be over and done with.
Chapter Eleven
On Monday morning at 9:55 a.m., Maggie, Ruby and Oliver waited for Neil in front of Cedar Ridge Christian Church. The church’s VBS was legendary, particularly the epic slip-and-slide that capped off the event every year, and the gray stone building buzzed with excited children.
This summer they’d chosen a jungle theme, and as usual, the decorating committee had gone all out. The entrance was festooned with leafy vines, and a pair of huge stuffed lions guarded the doorway. A recording of jungle noises played on a loop inside the foyer, and the cheerful volunteer handing out name tags sported a khaki vest and a safari hat.
“Your boyfriend’s cutting things mighty close.” Ruby glanced at her watch. “The kickoff starts in five minutes.”
Boyfriend?
“Ruby, Neil’s not—” Maggie protested, but then her mind skipped back to the kiss a few days ago. She stopped short, her cheeks tingling with color.
The truth was, she wasn’t sure what her relationship with Neil was now—or even what she wanted it to be. Over the past couple of days, she’d gone through all sorts of feelings.
On the one hand, this—whatever it was—wasn’t part of the plan. She’d made a firm commitment to steer clear of romance—at least until Oliver’s adoption was finalized. And even then... Maggie intended for Oliver to have a stable family. The only kind of man she’d be interested in dating was somebody who was willing to commit long-term. Somebody capable of loving Oliver as his own, who looked on marriage as a no-matter-what, forever kind of deal.
Guys like that were as rare as unicorns these days, and Maggie certainly hadn’t expected to stumble across one. And she still wasn’t sure she had.
But she couldn’t deny it—there was something special about Neil, something that had her hopes riding on a roller coaster. And ever since that heart-stopper of a kiss, she’d been wondering if maybe—
“Neil!” Oliver piped up excitedly. Sure enough, the red Jeep was pulling into the crowded parking lot. Maggie’s nerves instantly started simmering like a sauce on a high heat.
“I’d better go save us some seats,” Ruby said as Neil approached. “There’s more folks than ever this year, and those pews are filling up fast.” The older woman waved at Neil, then disappeared into the church.
As Oliver toddled toward his hero, Neil knelt and held out his arms. “Hi, buddy!” he said. Oliver grinned and hugged him tight.
Neil approached Maggie, Oliver beaming in his arms. As their eyes locked, all the everyday chaos surrounding them faded away. In a finger snap of time, she was back in the shadowy forest with sparkles of light dancing around them.
She could almost smell the pines.
“Hi, Maggie,” he said, and her stomach flipped over. He glanced up at the gray stone building towering over them, and his expression shifted. “Listen—”
“In!” Oliver interrupted, pointing toward the open doors. “Go in!”
“He’s excited about VBS,” Maggie explained, studying Neil’s face. One minute he’d looked so warm and friendly, and the next it was like he’d retreated somewhere inside himself and pulled down the blinds. “Neil? Is something wrong?”
He looked over at the decorated church again, then at Oliver. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Drumbeats swelled from the sanct
uary, followed by a burst of music from the VBS soundtrack. The kickoff worship service was starting. The last stragglers on the sidewalk sprinted inside to take their seats.
“In!” Oliver wailed. “Pwease, Neil? Pwease?”
“Could we talk after the start-up session?” Maggie asked. “Oliver was beside himself when he saw all these jungle decorations. I know he doesn’t want to miss anything.”
Neil looked uneasy, but he nodded. “I guess so.”
As she led the way through the short, tiled foyer into the soaring sanctuary, Maggie worried her bottom lip thoughtfully. What did Neil want to talk to her about? Whatever it was, it sure had him looking serious.
She wondered if it had anything to do with what he’d said right after he’d kissed her.
I was married.
Maggie tiptoed, finally spotting Ruby in the sea of singing people. Heading in that direction, she remembered the framed picture Ruby had discovered in the cabin and tried to imagine what sort of woman Neil’s wife must have been.
A beautiful one, obviously. Probably a smart one, too. Somebody who’d been to college and whose bedside table sported a selection of literary masterpieces. Somebody who went to parties wearing a sparkly dress and high heels instead of an apron and sensible shoes. Who made witty conversation about art and current events, and who never sucked in her stomach when she passed a mirror.
The perfect woman. That was who Neil would’ve married.
Maggie, on the other hand, never wore heels without twisting her ankle, and the only sparkly thing she owned was a sequined chef’s hat her brother Nick had given her as a joke. She’d never set foot on a college campus, and her bedside table held an assortment of vintage cookbooks purchased at yard sales, bristling with sticky notes.
No wonder Neil wanted to talk. She’d been so busy worrying about whether he might meet her criteria, she’d forgotten to wonder if she met his.
Sorry, Maggie, but I’ve thought it over, and you’re not really my type.
They ducked into the pew beside Ruby, who gave Maggie a sly look as she scooted over to make room. The song ended, and the congregation rustled onto their seats as the pastor stepped to the podium.
Lost and Found Faith Page 14
