by Deb Kastner
Besides, she hadn’t had much of an opportunity to reconnect with her old friends—except for the occasional email, and that just wasn’t the same thing as face-to-face contact. She was anxious to hear what they’d been up to recently.
Eventually she’d bring Riley along with her and introduce him to the town. She hadn’t planned to return to Serendipity, but she was here now and she had to face reality. People were going to start asking questions about Riley. Someone was bound to do the math, and like it or not, the truth would eventually come out.
It was imperative that she protect Riley against the gossip that was sure to arise—and better that she tell Zach the truth before he found it out any other way.
Soon. But not today. Right now, she had enough on her plate just getting the clinic open.
She pulled her hair back into a smooth ponytail and checked her makeup before leaving the clinic. She didn’t know why she bothered—Serendipity was a country town with country ways. Hair and makeup were simple here.
Her heavily lined boots clapped loudly against the wood-planked sidewalk as she headed for the café. The ever-present Texas wind had a strong nip to it, and she pulled her wool coat more closely around her neck.
Her mind drifted as she walked. Nothing in the scenery was any different than she remembered from her youth. Serendipity was a settlement unchanged by time, looking nearly identical to what Delia imagined it must have looked a hundred years ago.
It was her perspective that had changed. Her heart. And now she was more confused than ever.
Catching up with old friends and announcing the opening of her clinic weren’t her only reasons for visiting Cup o’ Jo. She wanted to know more about Zach before she introduced him to Riley. It was better to be prepared than to be taken off guard, and she’d seen enough in her interaction with him to realize things were different now.
Zach had been a passionate boy, but self-centered in his every thought and action. He’d gotten her into all sorts of trouble—encouraging her to ditch class, driving recklessly with her on his motorcycle—even getting her arrested. It was hard for her to fathom that he could change so completely, even given the ten years since she’d seen him. Leopards could not change their spots, and neither, Delia believed, could Zach Bowden.
Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker—right?
Still, he hadn’t asked if he needed to stay around and help her out with Spence, nor had she indicated in any way that he should have. They both knew it wasn’t a paramedic’s job to play the nurse, but that was exactly what Zach had done.
Maybe there was hope.
As she neared the door of the café, she noticed a man up on a ladder, leaning precariously to one side as he fastened a string of icicle Christmas lights on the eaves with a staple gun. The sun was behind him and she could see only the shadow of his profile, but nevertheless she immediately recognized him—not with her eyes, but with another, deeper sense.
It was Zach.
Her heart lurched into her throat and it took all of her willpower not to turn on her heels and walk the other way. Sure, she wanted to talk about Zach and learn more about him, but she wasn’t ready to see him again. Not yet.
The only thing that stopped her from fleeing was the very real possibility that he had seen her walking up. But, because of the glaring sunlight, she couldn’t tell for sure. He certainly didn’t acknowledge her in any way, nor did he stop what he was doing.
Setting her jaw, she moved past him and into the small café without so much as greeting him. Maybe it was best if they ignored each other.
For now.
Delia stepped inside and then stopped, stunned, as she looked around the small establishment. Whereas the town hadn’t changed at all, the inside of Cup o’ Jo had been entirely renovated. Jo had turned it into Serendipity’s own version of a contemporary internet café, with computers lining the back wall and a printer whirring in the corner.
Despite the high-tech upgrades, the homey feeling Delia remembered from her childhood somehow remained. Perhaps it was the mouthwatering smell of fresh pastries emanating from the kitchen.
Jo, her red curls bouncing right along with her ample figure, approached Delia with a vigor that belied her seventy-plus years.
“As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Miss Delia Rae Ivers, all grown up and looking just gorgeous,” Jo exclaimed in that boisterous but exceedingly friendly way Delia remembered well from childhood. She’d missed the woman, who was like a second mother to her—and to most of the town. “I’d heard you were coming, dear, but how I managed to miss when is beyond me. If I’d have known you’d arrived I would’ve had Phoebe bake you a welcome-home cake.”
At the sound of her name, a very pretty and very pregnant woman, who Delia guessed to be about her own age, turned from the pastry bin where she was stocking and waved at Delia.
“Phoebe is my nephew Chance’s wife,” Jo explained. “And as you can see, I’m about to have a grand-nephew or niece.” She paused and chuckled. “Or is that great-nephew-slash-niece?”
Jo chuckled and waved her hands. “Oh, well. Whatever. I’m just excited for the baby, no matter what his or her technical relation might be called. I’m ready and waiting to smother the little one with love.”
Delia chuckled and nodded to Phoebe. “Congratulations on your baby. You’re welcome to stop by my clinic for the rest of your prenatal care if you’d like.”
Phoebe smiled. “Thank you. I will.”
“But back to you,” Jo inserted, making a speed-of-light U-turn to her original subject, “How long has it been now since you’ve stepped foot in Serendipity?”
Delia realized that the patrons in the café, mostly friends and neighbors from her youth, had stopped what they were doing to see what all the fuss was about. She wasn’t shy, so she didn’t let it bother her. This was as good a way as any to announce she was back in town and had reopened the medical clinic, even if it wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind when she’d walked in the door.
“Ten years,” said a bubbly, high-pitched female voice from behind Delia’s left shoulder. “I ask you, what kind of a friend leaves for ten years without even visiting her friends for the holidays?”
Delia turned to find herself wrapped in the animated embrace of her three best friends from high school—Mary Travis, Alexis Granger and Samantha Howell, who were all talking and squealing in turn. There was a good reason the boys on the football team had labeled them the Little Chicks when they’d been freshmen in high school—even now the chirping sound was unmistakable.
“It’s good to see y’all,” she said, although she knew she’d never be able to express in words how much these women really meant to her. While she’d had friends in Maryland, they were nothing like the Little Chicks. She’d been too wrapped up in medical school and her residency, not to mention single-parenting Riley, to make any truly close connections on the east coast.
“Did you see Zach outside?” Alexis queried, giving Delia’s shoulders another tight squeeze. “He’s hanging the Christmas lights for Jo.”
Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach and thrashed around in burning waves.
“I…yes. I saw him,” she said, hoping that would be enough of an answer to stave off further inquiries.
She wasn’t surprised her friends were asking her about Zach. He’d been her boyfriend all through high school. They didn’t know the whole story, of course, because she hadn’t told them. Other than her parents, she hadn’t told anyone.
But she was going to have to tell them, and soon—keeping the most important part of her life a secret was wearing on her. And, at the moment, it was making her feel a little queasy.
“I’m dying of thirst,” she said in an effort to change the subject, and thinking maybe a little carbonation would settle her stomac
h. “Can we get a table and catch up on what’s been going on with you? Emailing was nice, but it’s so much better to be face-to-face, don’t you think?”
Her girlfriends might not have taken the hint, but Jo, who was still hovering nearby, certainly did. The older woman began unobtrusively herding the ladies toward a large table next to the far wall.
“Four sodas coming up,” Jo said without waiting for the women to order. “Three diets and one regular.”
Delia chuckled. It was exactly the same drink order the girls had made dozens of times in their youth. She was amazed that Jo remembered.
Samantha flashed a mock scowl. “Your figure is as nice as ever,” she groused. “I was always jealous that you got to eat and drink anything you wanted without putting on a pound, whereas I couldn’t—can’t—even look at a regular soda without gaining weight.”
“You look fine,” Delia countered as Jo returned to the table and passed the drinks around. “You all do.”
“So when is the clinic going to open?” Mary asked. “Old Doc Severns hasn’t been working for a month. If anyone sprains an ankle around here, they have to drive for an hour to get it looked at.”
Delia combed her fingers through the length of her hair, offhandedly massaging her scalp. The vision in her left eye was beginning to blur, a sure sign that she was feeling the start of one of her knock-down, drag-out migraines. She couldn’t imagine why one would hit her now. She was so happy to be with her old friends. It would be a shame if a headache ruined it for her.
Please, God, not today, she thought, trying to breathe deeply.
Not that she was actually praying to God. She’d left her faith when she’d left her youth. It was just a way of thinking and nothing more. It wasn’t as if God, if He was there, had time for her headaches. She’d rather rely on science.
She rummaged around in her purse for her migraine medication and popped a pill in her mouth, following it with a long pull on her soda. The medicine wouldn’t stave off the headache completely, but at least it might whittle her migraine down to only one night of suffering. Otherwise she’d be in bed for a week.
“Still having your headaches, huh?” Samantha asked.
“Sometimes,” Delia confirmed with a groan. “Unfortunately.”
“Stress?” Mary guessed. “I remember the day of senior finals. You looked like you were going to outright faint most of the day.”
“I felt like I was going to collapse,” she assured them. “I can’t even believe I passed any of those exams.”
“And yet you made it through med school,” Alexis commented, tilting her head so that her long blond hair brushed over her shoulder. “How is that?”
Delia sat speechless for a moment, stunned by the revelation. Now that she thought about it, how was that, that she’d managed long, sleepless nights during her residency, not to mention her years as a single mom with no support?
Because, she realized, her migraines hadn’t been as bad in Maryland, stress or no stress. It was coming back to Serendipity that was the real strain on her nerves, and no wonder. Until all of her secrets were out in the open, she was carrying a tremendous burden inside her heart.
“That Zach,” Jo said as she swished forward and stopped at their table. “What a good, kind Christian man he’s turned out to be. I don’t know what I’d do without him, offering to put up the Christmas lights for me again this year—and then stopping ’round today to fix them up when the wind blew half of them off the eaves. Now that’s Christian charity for you. Otherwise Chance would have had to do it, and he’s already overworked just cooking for me.”
Theoretically, Jo was speaking to everyone at the table, but Delia was well aware that the woman’s comments were aimed directly at her.
Everyone looked toward her, yet no one spoke a word.
“That’s nice of him,” she stated, not knowing what else to say.
“It sure is,” Jo agreed with a chuckle. “It seems to me that man does more around the community and the church than anyone else in this town. No matter what or when the need arises, he’s always the first to volunteer.”
It hadn’t escaped Delia’s notice that it was the second time in as many minutes that Jo had mentioned Zach’s faith.
Bad boy Zach Bowden a man of God?
It was hard to fathom. How ironic would it be if Zach found his faith when Delia had lost hers?
Whether she liked it or not, Zach was going to be a big part of her life. She couldn’t ignore that fact forever. And she had visited Cup o’ Jo to find out more about him.
She supposed it was simply that she was feeling a little overwhelmed. She’d learned far more about Zach in this short time than she’d anticipated.
“All right, all right, enough about Zach already. Gone. Poof. Zip it. No more Zach. I don’t want to see him, talk to him or think about him.” She chuckled, but it sounded fake even to her own ears.
Suddenly, a chill ran up her spine.
No—that wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t a chill, exactly—more of a burning premonition.
She groaned and pressed her forehead with the palms of her hands.
“He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”
If she hadn’t already known it instinctively, she would have been warned by the way her friends’ eyes suddenly widened and the way the chatter around the table instantly ceased. Even Jo was quiet.
There was nothing to do but to face him. Her stomach roiled as she turned in her chair and glanced his direction. As she suspected, Zach was standing directly behind her and was staring right at her.
And they had an audience. Nearly everyone in the café was watching them.
In Serendipity, they were as infamous a couple as Bonnie and Clyde. She wanted to roll her eyes. Hadn’t anything else scandalous happened in the ten years she’d been gone? It seemed to her that everyone’s memories were far too keen where she and Zach were concerned.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the hum of activity in the café resumed. Jo excused herself to go back to waiting tables, and Delia’s three girlfriends spoke in hushed tones to one another. Delia couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could imagine.
If she could have, she would’ve ignored Zach’s presence, just as he had done to her when she’d first entered the café; but she found it difficult to break her gaze away from him. He was stunningly handsome in his trademark white shirt, black leather jacket and blue jeans. He held a black cowboy hat in one hand and was curling the rim with his fist.
A muscle twitched in the corner of his jaw. He tilted his head, his gaze still burning into hers.
Alexis, Mary and Samantha stood and hovered around Delia, nudging her upward until she had no choice but to come to her feet. As if that wasn’t enough, she was then not so subtly pushed toward Zach. Her heart raced as she experienced the most disconcerting sensation of being back in high school, with her giggling girlfriends making a scene in front of the boy she liked.
But this was different. She was a grown woman now—and she didn’t like Zach Bowden. He’d practically ruined her life before, and because he was Riley’s father, he’d be a trial for her until the day she died.
Zach dropped his gaze from hers, stepped sideways and planted his hat on his head.
“Ladies,” he murmured with a clipped nod. A moment later he was striding out the door and down the road.
Delia was equally distressed and relieved. She didn’t exactly appreciate his brushing her off with such callousness—but she wasn’t quite ready to talk to him, either. Even though it was constantly on her mind, she still had no idea how to say what needed to be said, nor when would be the best time to do it.
Maybe there was no best way to say it—and she was going to have to find the time, even if it was wrong.
<
br /> How in the world would she find the right words?
Zach, you have a son.
Chapter Four
Zach strode down the street with such a fierce determination to get away from Delia that he was becoming winded and short of breath. Or maybe it was seeing her again that had done that to him. Either way, his head was spinning and his pulse was racing.
He’d done everything he could to put Delia’s return to Serendipity from his mind. In the last two days, he had cleaned the leaves out of the gutters of his ranch house, patched up the barn to keep his stock warmer against the cold Texas winter, and cut so much firewood that there was no more room to stack it against the side of the house. But even though he’d been tired and sweat soaked from all the hard labor, he hadn’t been able to forget that Delia Rae Ivers was back in town, not even for a second.
And then he had to go and run into her while he was hanging Christmas lights at Cup o’ Jo. It just figured.
Even though ten years had passed between them, she’d never left his mind—or his heart. As a teenager, he’d been devastated when she’d left suddenly without a word to him. He wished he could forget the way he’d spent a long, frustrating year acting out his anger and getting himself into increasing amounts of trouble.
But then God had caught up with his wayward life and had changed his heart.
Zach Bowden, the kid who’d gotten straight-A student-council president Delia Rae Ivers arrested and thrown in county jail on prom night in their senior year was now a reformed bad boy who had repented his sins and given his heart to God.
But of course Delia wouldn’t know that. Nor would she have any reason to believe it.
And why should he care? The best thing for him to do would be to avoid her completely, not that that was an option. He was a paramedic and she was the town doctor. Not a good combination.
