A Coldwater Warm Hearts Wedding

by Lexi Eddings

  “Mom, please don’t talk like that.” Heather might not get along with her parents all the time, but the thought of not having them around to fuss with was far worse.

  “Well, how about this, then?Your father and I have booked a Thanksgiving cruise out of Houston and we’d love to have you with us. Belize is lovely this time of year. We had our travel agent put a hold on adjoining suites just in case you can make it. Want to come?”

  “I can’t.” But for the first time, she was tempted. The idea of running away for a while held real appeal. “Lacy’s wedding is the day after Thanksgiving and I’m the maid of honor, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Her mother sighed. “Maybe we can plan for something around Christmas, then. I love taking holiday cruises—no big meals to fix.”

  “As if Alma doesn’t do all the fixing around the ranch.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean.” Her mother waved away Heather’s statement of the obvious. “It’s just easier not to be home on holidays.”

  Oh! Heather mentally smacked her own forehead and wished for a metaphorical V8. She finally understood why her parents always made a point of putting as much distance between themselves and home as possible during times when everyone else was gathering their families close. Jessica’s place at the table was too glaringly empty on those special days, the house too full of holidays past and celebrations future that would never be. Heather’s parents weren’t trying to get away from her.

  They were running from that empty chair.

  “Well, I’m sorry you can’t join us for the Thanksgiving cruise,” her mom said as she gave the quartz countertop a quick wipe down. “Especially since this year we really have something to be thankful for.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cousin Mary Margaret posted the good news all over the Facebook. Don’t you follow her?”

  “I rarely have time to check it.” Heather had tried several times, with no success, to get her mother not to call it ‘the’ Facebook.

  “Bet you’re not on the Twitter either.”

  Heather hid her smile and shook her head. “Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s up?”

  “Your cousin Levi’s been waiting at St. John’s, hoping for a transplant for the past week. Word is he’s getting a new liver first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “I can’t believe they found a match.” Heather was shocked to her toes. Levi’s blood type was O negative, rare enough to make finding a compatible liver unlikely in the extreme. But then she remembered that the source of her family’s joy was another’s sorrow. “I wish we could thank the donor’s family.”

  “That’s easy enough. You know them well. It’s the Evanses.” Her mother was scraping and rinsing the plates while Heather loaded the dishwasher, but her mom’s words made her straighten to her full height. “That’s right.Your old classmate Michael has come forward to volunteer a partial liver donation. Didn’t your friend Lacy tell you?”

  “I doubt she knows.” Lacy would have been all over this if she had.

  “Well, I must say, the family was surprised by his generous offer. And I don’t think he’d ever even met Levi before this.” She dropped a pod of detergent into the dishwasher, closed the door, and started the cycle. “Michael Evans is certainly not the young hellion I took him for when you ran off with him the night of the reunion dance.”

  Heather hadn’t run off with him. She’d just used his bad-boy reputation to punish her mother and father a little.

  Now she wished she had run off with him and never looked back. Michael was everything she’d ever wanted, but she was as guilty as her mother of judging him based on his past. Everything she’d thought she knew about Mike was wrong.

  “Mom, I gotta go.” She gave her mother a quick hug. “Tell Dad good-night for me.”

  “Where are you off to in such an all-fired hurry?”

  “St. John’s. I need to tell Michael Evans something in person.”

  “Well, tell him thank-you for us, too. This family thinks the world and all of Levi.”

  “I’ll tell him,” she called over her shoulder as she sprinted down the gallery toward the front door. She suddenly had lots to say to Michael Evans.

  She just hoped she’d get there in time to say it.

  Chapter 29

  A second chance ain’t worth a tinker’s damn if you

  don’t do nothing different from the first time ’round.

  Oops! I mean, tinker’s darn. Glenda don’t like it when

  I cuss so I’m tryin’ to quit it. That plus workin’ steady, givin’

  up drinking, and minding my temper is a full-time job, but if

  the payoff is that I get my wife back, I’ll make that trade all day.

  —Lester

  The road was a dark ribbon winding through the hills, illuminated only by Heather’s headlights. She forced herself to flick her gaze from right to left from time to time so the repetitive white strips down the middle of the two-lane highway didn’t lull her into a semi-hypnotic fog. Using the voice-recognition feature on her phone, she tried to call Glenda Scott as she drove through the night toward Tulsa.

  When she finally hit a patch of road that had cell service, the connection was made. There was static for a second and then a clatter, as if the phone had been dropped. Then a man’s sleepy voice said, “What d’you want?”

  “Oh! I must have the wrong number.” Heather was surprised not to hear her CNA’s upbeat voice answering the phone. “Who is this?”

  “Who you callin’?”

  “Glenda Scott.”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  The voice in the background sounded like Glenda. If that was so, the man who’d answered must be Glenda’s formerly estranged husband, Lester.

  Evidently not so estranged at the moment.

  “Gimme that phone,” came a muffled order.

  There was another moment or two of shuffling and static before a voice came through loud and clear. “Glenda here.”

  “So is Lester, I gather,” Heather said, a smile curving her lips. “Sounds like you aren’t making him stay on the porch anymore.”

  If a blush could be heard, Heather was sure one would have blasted over the phone in the slice of silence that followed.

  “No, he’s made his way back into my house and my heart. Looks like we’re doing like that old song says. You know the one”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“about love being sweeter the second time around.”

  “Only the second time? Come on. The night is young. You and Lester can do better than that.”

  “Heather!”

  She decided to stop teasing her friend. “Look, I need a favor. I’m not going to make it in for my shift tomorrow, and I don’t expect to have time to call administration. I need you to go into scheduling and mark me off as on vacation for the next week.”

  “You never take vacation.”

  “Well, I’m taking one now.”

  “You want me to go into the software and make it look like this week off has been planned for a while?” Glenda asked.

  “Can you do that?”

  “You’d be amazed at what my ten talented fingers can do.” In the background, Heather thought she heard Lester say something that sounded like, “Got that right.” Then there was a dull thud, like the sound of a pillow hitting someone’s face. Glenda came back on the line. “What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get back to town.”

  “Come on. You know all my secrets. Give,” Glenda wheedled. “It’s something to do with Michael Evans, isn’t it? You two getting together?”

  Heather figured she was sending a blush of her own. “Not right away.” Not so long as Michael was a patient in a transplant ward. But soon. “Let’s just say I think I’m ready to learn about that second time around stuff, too.”

  * * *

  The preoperative literature warned that live donors should expect a certain amount of pain following surgery. As Micha
el clawed his way back to full consciousness, he decided the morphine drip was his new best friend.

  He tapped the self-dispensing button with his thumb and a fresh burst of painkiller flooded his IV. The deep ache in his abdomen subsided a little. It still hurt like blue blazes, but the morphine made him not care.

  So far, he hadn’t encountered any surprises with the procedure, but he hadn’t been warned to expect hallucinations in post-op. An angel who looked suspiciously like Heather glided into his small curtained bay. There was even a bit of a glow around her as she drew near him.

  They really do give you good drugs around here.

  “Hey you,” the angel said softly, and ran her cool fingertips across his forehead.

  She was real!

  He wanted to say something, but his tongue was feeling two sizes too big for his mouth. Besides, he was all wrapped up in warm blankets and the pulsing afterglow of general anesthesia. He must have been moving his lips though because she put a finger to them.

  “Hush. I really shouldn’t be here. They only allow family in post-op, but I convinced the nurses I was your favorite cousin. If they think I’m tiring you, they’ll send me away, so don’t try to talk.”

  But he had to. It might be his only chance. “How’s Levi?” he whispered.

  “He’s out of surgery and in the ICU. His doctor says the graft is doing well.”

  Michael closed his eyes. “Thank God.”

  “Amen.” There were those cool fingertips again, this time sliding from his temple down his cheek. If only she’d keep touching him, he’d never ask God for another single thing. Not ever in his whole life.

  “And thanks to you too, Michael.”

  His mouth twitched, and he forced his eyes open. “Kinda had to do it. Only way I could get you to talk to me.”

  “A little extreme, don’t you think?”

  “That’s what Jadis said.” The morphine was dragging him under again. He’d just rest his eyes for a moment or two. “But if you forgive me,” he mumbled, “it was worth it.”

  “I can’t forgive you, Michael.”

  His eyes popped open again.

  “Because there’s nothing to forgive. Skyler told me the whole story. I know you did everything you could to try to save my sister.” Tears trembled on her lower lashes. “And now you’ve saved my cousin.”

  “All in a day’s work for a son of Krypton,” he said with a chuckle, and then regretted it sorely. Laughter, even the soft kind, hurt like the dickens.

  Heather rearranged the pillows under his head and shoulders and then pulled a chair close to his bedside. She sat and leaned forward, taking one of his hands. He gripped hers hard, as if she might get away.

  “You do go at everything hammer and tongs, you know,” she chided. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Love me, he mouthed. Then he drew a deep breath and gave voice to the words. “Love me.”

  “I do,” she said simply.

  “Good. ’Cuz I’ve always loved you, Stilts.” Pain notwithstanding, he figured he was the happiest guy in the hospital. Then he remembered how she hated that nickname.

  But she was still grinning at him as if Stilts was the sweetest thing he could have called her. Then she leaned forward and kissed him softly. He wanted to rock her world, to take her and pull her into bed with him, but he couldn’t seem to make his arms work. It was like trying to swim through Jell-O.

  “I didn’t mean for you to take the cousins thing literally,” she said when she leaned back again. “That kiss wouldn’t even shock Mrs. Chisholm.”

  “I can do better. Honest.” The morphine was making him slur his words. “Give me a day or two and you won’t think I kiss like a cousin.”

  “How about if I give you a week?”

  “OK. That sounds . . . pretty . . . good.” The morphine beckoned, and he felt himself slipping under, but he dragged himself back up. “You’ll stay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  This time when the morphine pulled him under, he let himself go. Heather would be there when he woke.

  Then, maybe, if he was luckier than he deserved, he’d convince her to be there when he woke every day for the rest of his life.

  * * *

  For the next week, Heather spent every waking moment with Michael in the hospital. She cheered him on when he took his first walk up and down the hall. She wheeled him into Levi’s room so he could get to know the guy to whom he’d given a second chance at life.

  On about Wednesday, Michael threatened mutiny unless his healthy hospital diet was supplemented with a little something from the grease and salt food groups. Heather decided to join the rebellion and sneak a hamburger and fries past the nurses’ station. But when she arrived back at his room, she discovered his parents were there. She hung back, just outside the door, to give them a little privacy.

  “You should have told us you were doing this,” Mrs. Evans scolded. She was as fretful as a sparrow, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, but otherwise, in Heather’s clinical opinion, she looked good for a cancer patient. Unless someone knew her, they’d never guess she was undergoing chemotherapy. Her makeup was flawless, and the short silver-haired wig framed her face perfectly. “Your father and I would have been here for the surgery if we’d known.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you,” Michael said, holding his mother’s hand. “Besides, you’ve got your own treatments to deal with.”

  “I’d have rescheduled them, honey.”

  “I couldn’t let you do that,” Mike said. “I know you’ve been trying to stick to the regimen so you’ll be done with your course of chemo before Lacy’s wedding.”

  “And it costs her plenty not to put each round of treatment off,” his dad said gruffly. Clearly, his wife’s illness was wearing him down, maybe even more than it did her. “But if your mother couldn’t have made the trip, I’d have been here, son.”

  Heather’s brows shot up. That’s a shocker.

  “It wasn’t necessary for you to be here,” Mike said. “I wasn’t in danger.”

  “That’s not true. All surgery carries risk,” his father said, his forehead wrinkled with concern.

  They always say people look like their pets, but Mr. Evans looks more like a Shar-Pei than a Yorkie.

  “Besides, son, I needed to see you anyway. Skyler Sweazy came to see me a few days ago and he told your mother and me an interesting tale. Seems I misjudged you. And you let me misjudge you,” Mr. Evans continued. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  “I never lied to you, Dad,” Michael said.

  “No, but you let me believe the worst of you. For years.”

  “Now, George, whose fault is that?” Mrs. Evans said, nudging her husband with her elbow.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Mike said, “because I promised I’d keep Skyler’s secret. I may not have had much going for me back then, but you always told me that a man was nothing if he didn’t keep his word.”

  “ ‘He sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not,’” Mr. Evans quoted softly.

  “Why, George! You know Psalm 15.” Mrs. Evans beamed. “I’m proud of you, dear.”

  “And more than a little surprised, I’ll warrant,” Mr. Evans said.

  According to Mike, his mom was the theologian of the family. She was all about grace, whereas his legal eagle father was, not surprisingly, all about the letter of the law.

  As Heather watched from the corridor, his dad put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Mike covered it with his own. Heather sucked in a quick breath, trying to muffle her surprise. Mr. Evans and Mike were finally making peace with each other.

  This means everything to him. Heather felt his joy as if it were her own.

  “We’ve wasted too much time apart, Mike.” Mr. Evans’s voice broke as he continued, “I’m so sorry, son. Can you forgive me?”

  “Nothing to forgive. You didn’t have all the facts. Seems to me a wise man once said there can be no justice if some of the
facts are missing.”

  Mr. Evans smiled. Clearly, he was the “wise man” his son was quoting.

  “Well, I won’t make the mistake of doubting you again,” his dad said. “Even if the facts seem to line up against you in the future, I’ll remember that character trumps what seems to be the truth every time.”

  Then there was lots of hugging all around and more than a few tears. Even though the bag with Mike’s hamburger and fries was getting soggy with grease, Heather wouldn’t have interrupted the Evans family just then for worlds.

  Chapter 30

  Holidays are stressful enough without chemo, a

  son donating part of his liver, and a wedding thrown

  into the mix. Guess this year, I should have

  just stuffed the turkey with Xanax.

  —Shirley Evans, when George laced her morning

  coffee with Bailey’s the day after Thanksgiving.

  Against all expectations, she didn’t complain a bit.

  After Michael was released from the hospital and back in Coldwater Cove, whenever Heather wasn’t working at Coldwater General, she was with him. They had supper or breakfast together, depending on her shift schedule. Since he was still recuperating from surgery, they spent their time cuddled on the couch, talking and watching old movies at her apartment. At the ranch house the MoreCommas team was like a bustling hive, bursting with new ideas and energy. It was impossible for Michael to truly unwind there.

  To Heather’s surprise, there was no talk of the future. It was as if they were in a time bubble. She loved Michael. He loved her. He grew stronger each day, and every moment together was enough.

  Heather hosted a bridal shower in the Methodist fellowship hall, where Mrs. Evans reigned amid her signature excessive decorations, but even so, Lacy enjoyed opening gifts and basked in the well-wishes of all her parents’ friends. In place of a bachelorette party, Heather treated Lacy, Crystal, and Jake’s sister, Laura, to a day spa in Broken Bow. For once, even Crystal the perfectionist had nothing to complain about.