Wynn choked out a laugh. “Thanks, Penny. I like your dress, too.”
The little girl’s hand tucked into hers, Wynn entered the church. She was late, and it seemed like every eye turned to stare at her as she stood in the back of the church. Her heart slamming in her chest, she froze. Penny tugged on her hand, and whispered, “Come on, Aunt Wynn.”
Penny led her to a pew, where her mom and Jules stood to let her in. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized she was surrounded by her family. Her brother Ash turned and winked at her. He was sitting in front of her with Jordan and Levi. Her brother Joe, and Claire, with a baby carrier wedged into the pew and most of their kids in the row beside them, were sitting behind her. A lump settled in her throat as they stood to sing the first hymn. Latham eased into place beside her and surreptitiously gave her clammy hand a squeeze. Her high school friend Molly, whom she hadn’t seen since the morning she’d run out of the Hilltop, peeked through three rows of people and gave her a little wave.
Latham leaned in. “I hear there are doughnuts in the fellowship hall. Want to make a break for it?”
“Shh. Don’t tempt me.” She looked up as the music started, tears gathering in her eyes as she sang the words to the song about God’s faithfulness. These precious people who loved her were encircling her in a silent message to everyone in the church: this is our daughter, our sister, our aunt, our friend. She’d loved the Lord since she was a teenager, but she hadn’t prayed in a long time. Somewhere along the way, she’d started having faith in politics, in powerful people, in her own ability. Her causes were righteous, but she was not. She didn’t deserve the acceptance and love of the Lord. And yet, as the pastor began to speak, she realized that He offered it anyway.
She closed her eyes, letting the words of the sermon flow over her, and she prayed. The words came slowly and haltingly, her heart creaking open to Him like a door with a rusty hinge.
Father God, You’ve felt so far away from me, but the truth is that when I left my family, I left You, too. I acted like my prayers weren’t important and my faith wasn’t vital to the person I’d been raised to be. Please, Father, forgive me for my actions, for my unbelief. Forgive me for forgetting that I’m Your daughter.
That prodigal son thing—it’s for real. I wanted to come home and wasn’t sure if I could. I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d receive, but it’s been so much more than I deserve.
Thank you, God, for loving me enough to accept me, even though I’m flawed and broken, and for giving me a family who loves You enough to do the same.
I love You.
She opened her eyes, the room blurring through her tears. Latham held her hand again, gripping it tightly in his, not letting go.
Her future was uncertain. Maybe she would be in Red Hill Springs, maybe not, but the panicked feeling was starting to fade. She’d made a life for herself before, and she could do it again. This time, she had the love of her family and the love of her heavenly Father. She’d always had these things, but now she vowed to never forget them again.
On the other side of her, Penny snuggled in, and Wynn put her arm around the sweet seven-year-old. She also had the love and trust of some unbelievably special kids.
As the sermon wrapped up, the butterflies in her stomach intensified again. Knowing that God loved her and forgave her still didn’t mean the church people would. She glanced down the row and toward the door in the back of the sanctuary. Could she slip out before anyone noticed? Not without making a scene shoving past everyone and...being noticed.
The final hymn played and Wynn sang along, every muscle tensed and waiting. When she was in middle school, there was this one kid who always picked on her. When it happened, her brothers would appear, flanking her with their strength and support. Joe was shorter, but he was a wall. And Ash, on the other side, could disarm anyone with his dimpled smile. She’d always felt safe with them on either side of her.
When the breakup with the congressman happened, she’d been alone and she’d felt alone. She didn’t feel alone now. She was anxious, but she had her family around her. She would be okay.
As soon as the hymn ended, Latham leaned in. “I need to help Aunt Mae get Pop out before he gets confused. I’ll see you later?”
His hand was warm and firm on the small of her back, somehow feeling absolutely perfect there. Wynn looked up to find his beautiful brown eyes on hers. She nodded. “Yes, go. I’ll be fine.”
He slipped out of the pew, and she followed him with her eyes. As people started milling around, her friend Molly, her hair curled into perfect waves, made a beeline for her, leaning over the pew to give Wynn a hug. “Hey, girl, it’s so good to see you in church.”
“Thanks. It’s, um, been a while.” Wynn tried a laugh, but it fell flat as, from the corner of her eye, she saw one of her mother’s friends pointing to her and whispering to her companion.
“Oh, listen, I didn’t come for months after my mom died. I just couldn’t face it. It’s okay. I think people understand sometimes we need our space. If they don’t, they should.” Molly looked across the room and waved at her husband. “Look, there’s James. I hope he remembers our kids are in the nursery.”
“I haven’t seen him since graduation. He looks exactly the same.” Molly’s husband had been the quarterback of their high school football team and the nicest boy in school.
“He’ll love hearing that. Listen, a couple of us girls from high school want to give you a welcome home tea—” she sent a curious glance at Wynn’s bulging tummy “—baby shower sort of thing. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were expecting.”
“It’s okay, Molly. I didn’t tell anyone until recently.”
Molly glanced over at the women who were openly discussing Wynn at this point. “I understand why. So, can you look at your calendar and give me a couple of Saturday or Sunday afternoons that look clear?”
Wynn blinked. Her high school friends? She didn’t know she had any left. “Honestly, my schedule is pretty open. Whatever works for y’all should be fine.”
“Okay, then, make us a list of the people you want to invite.” Molly reached down and picked up her little girl, who’d run in from the nursery, and settled her on one hip. James followed with the baby.
“It’s going to be a pretty small list. I don’t have that many friends,” she said wryly.
Molly laughed. “I think you’d be surprised at the friends you still have here. Ready, babe?”
“Sure, Mols,” James answered. “Good to see you, Wynn.” Molly’s husband followed Molly out the door, with their baby asleep on his shoulder.
An unexpected pang of envy hit her, and for a second, she wished she’d had someone to be happy with her when she’d found out she was pregnant. Someone walking beside her as she left church, their baby on his shoulder. That wasn’t her life, though, and it did no good to wish and wonder about what might have been.
Penny plopped down on the pew beside her, the baby blue gingham dress billowing out around her. She held out a foam cup full of doughnut holes to Wynn. “These are for you, Aunt Wynn. You can fit more in a cup than you can on a plate because you can smash ’em down.”
“Good to know. Thanks, Penny.”
Joe stuck his head in the door of the church and mouthed, “You got her?”
Wynn nodded. She sat down on the pew beside Penny as the last few people left the sanctuary and took a doughnut hole out of the cup.
Penny sat beside her, her feet up on the pew in front of her. “I know you were scared to come to church, but I’m glad you came anyway.” Penny stuck another doughnut hole in her mouth. “I like church.”
“I like church, too.” Wynn picked up another one of the sticky doughnut pieces and thought about the way her family had stood with her, and how Latham, and Molly, too, had made sure she felt a part of things.
And the church hadn’t collapse
d when she walked in the doors.
The verse the pastor preached on today, I’m a new creation, came back to her. She’d thought when she left Washington, DC, that coming home was going backward when really, it wasn’t that at all.
In so many ways, it was a new beginning.
* * *
Outside his workshop, Latham lifted the piece he was working on onto a makeshift workbench he’d put together with a couple of sawhorses and a few boards. He’d left Pop inside with Aunt Mae after their Sunday lunch together. The pastor had preached about how through God’s mercy, we have a chance to be a new creation every day.
Latham could understand that. When he was working on a piece, the basic bones stayed the same, but as he shaped and sanded, it became new. Every day, there were changes. Each day, a new creation.
He got it. So why did he feel like he was stuck in the past? He had a little sander that he used sometimes for the finishing work, but today, he wanted his muscles to be burning and exhausted so he could just forget everything else.
In church this morning, he’d stood with his arm around Wynn. He wanted her to know that he would stand with her. He’d loved her once, but more, they’d been friends for a long time. Her being pregnant didn’t change that.
But what did it change?
Was she still the same person who’d left him on graduation night? Was she a person now who would leave her child with family and go off to chase her own dreams, like his parents left him?
He stopped midstroke with the sandpaper. His own parents had left him because their dreams were stronger than their love for him. He hadn’t seen the connection before. Loving Wynn had nearly broken him once. She’d left and he’d had to pick up the pieces of himself.
She’d made a choice, and her choice hadn’t been him.
It didn’t matter what kind of pretty spin she tried to put on it, the fact was she left. She left him.
He pushed the sandpaper down the wood in long even strokes. Was it so much to ask that someone would love him enough to choose to stay?
“Would you like me to leave you alone with your thoughts?” Still in her church clothes, Wynn stood hesitantly at the edge of the woods that lined the clearing around his workshop. “Your aunt told me you were down here.”
He picked up a tarp, threw it over his project and walked over to her, taking the bottle of water she held out to him, trying to shake the unfriendly feelings that his thoughts had left him with. “What brings you out here?”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye at church. Thanks for sitting with me.” Sunglasses covered her eyes, and he couldn’t see her expression.
He took a swig of water and motioned to the two Adirondack chairs he had built and placed under a big oak tree. “You’re welcome. Although I’m pretty sure Penny had you taken care of.”
“She’s so precious. Those missing two front teeth are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” Wynn sat back in the chair and curled her feet underneath her. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Church? No, it isn’t. I mean, there’s always a few who have something to say about everything, but most people aren’t like that. They really took care of me and Pop after Gran died. I didn’t have to cook for at least a couple of months.” He picked up a piece of wood from the ground, pulled his pocketknife out of his pocket and started to slowly peel the layers away, letting the shavings fall at his feet.
“That’s really sweet of them. There’s a lot I didn’t know about this town when I was growing up here.”
He shrugged, struggling a little, still, to reconcile the Wynn sitting here with him with the one in his thoughts from a few minutes before. “Why should you? You were a kid—your viewpoint is the only one that matters to you. As you get older, you start to realize there’s a lot more to life.”
Her eyes were on her hands in her lap. “When you work for the government, you go from crisis to crisis to crisis. And your viewpoint is always the only one that matters to you. I know that sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t.” The birds were twittering in the tree above him, and when he looked up, he could see the clear blue sky through the branches. “It’s easy to do. You get caught up in the day-to-day and suddenly realize you haven’t looked at the sky in months.”
“Okay, maybe not stupid, but selfish. You’re so grounded, Latham. I don’t see you letting that happen. I don’t see you forgetting what’s important.” Her voice was quiet, and he wondered if it was the sermon that stirred her thoughts.
He shaved small pieces as he turned the wood in his hands, thinking about what she’d said. “When Gran died, I had to reevaluate my life. It was either put Pop in a home and live the life I wanted to lead or live here with Pop and give up those dreams. I found out it wasn’t an either/or decision. I can be the person I wanted to be in Red Hill Springs, just maybe not in the way I imagined it.”
She nodded, one hand rubbing her stomach, where he imagined the little one was kicking her. “You know I came home because I needed a safe place to regroup. I didn’t plan to stay.”
His heart stumbled a second before resuming its normal rhythm, the desire to seize on her words with hope almost overwhelming. He cleared his throat and looked at the piece that was taking shape in his hands. “And now?”
“Like you said, I have to reevaluate. There are some things that are more important than my dreams, and this little girl I’m carrying is one of them. She needs a mom who will put her first and not be calling the babysitter at midnight asking for one more hour because the vote isn’t locked in yet.”
Tension he didn’t even know he’d been carrying eased at her words. She wasn’t his mother, putting her needs above those of her child. It wasn’t fair to put her in that box.
“Mayor Campbell asked me if I would fill in on the city council until the next election.”
He jerked his head up. “What? Charlie finally decided to retire?”
She smiled. “I should’ve known you’d be dialed in to the local politics.”
“I’m not halfway to a PhD in political science for nothin’, but his asking you to fill in surprised me.” His heart beating like crazy, he asked, “So are you going to do it?”
She hadn’t moved from her position in the chair. “I want to. There’s a part of me that gets excited about the possibility when I think about it. But I don’t want to start something without knowing I’ll stay to finish it.”
He nodded slowly. “And you’re not sure about that now.”
“I have to know—really know—that I’m doing the right thing, not just for me, but for her, too.”
“I get that. When do you have to give Chip an answer?” He fashioned an eye with the point of his knife.
“Friday.”
“That gives you five whole days to make a monumental decision.” He raised an eyebrow. “No problem.”
“Do you have any advice?”
“Uh-uh, no. This is a decision that you have to make for you and your baby.”
Please, please, please, please, please stay.
She nodded once, decisively, and stood, as he put the other eye on the little figure he had carved. “You’re right. I have the next five days to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Piece of cake, right?”
“Gran told me once that there’s nothing ahead that God hasn’t already seen, so you don’t have to be afraid to make a decision.” He walked with her to the edge of the clearing and handed her the little bird he’d made out of the small block of wood. “Just figure out what the most important things are that you want to pass on to your daughter, and that will help you decide.”
“Thanks. That helps.” She started down the path and turned back, the little carving he made cupped in her hand. “So I’ll stay with Pop tomorrow while you take Aunt Mae to the airport?”
“Can you be here around nine? T
he weather’s supposed to get dicey tomorrow afternoon, but I’ll be back before then.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.” She gave a little wave and disappeared around the bend.
When she left town the last time, he hadn’t had a chance to convince her to change her mind, even though she said he was the only one who could have.
This time, he was choosing to stay silent.
When she stayed—if she did—it would be because she wanted to stay, not because he asked her to.
Chapter Twelve
Latham pulled his winter hat farther down on his head and muttered warnings to his truck about going shopping for a shiny new replacement with a heater that worked and leather seats with built-in warmers. The temperature had been dropping like a stone all day, and the heater in his old truck had died about two weeks ago.
He’d dropped Aunt Mae at the airport so she could catch her plane to return to Michigan, where she’d be packing up her house before she moved to Alabama. The icy rain had started as he’d pulled onto the highway. Luckily the season had been fairly mild so far, more like spring weather than winter, but there were winter storm warnings for tonight. In Alabama. He shook his head. In his mind, mild winters and long springs should be the payoff for surviving the hot, humid summers in the South.
Between the road he was on and his house there were two bridges, which he was pretty sure would be iced over since the runways at the airport had been closed two hours ago. The sky was dark gray, the light fading even though it was only afternoon. The boughs on the trees were beginning to bend as the icy rain coated them.
And man, it was cold. He blew his red fingers in an attempt to warm them. The first bridge was just ahead of him. Pulling off onto the shoulder of the road, he grabbed his scarf from the seat beside him, wrapped it around his neck and buttoned up his wool peacoat. After a quick rifle through the dash compartment for gloves and a flashlight, he opened the door and stepped out into the freezing rain.
Cold slammed him in the face, icy water trickling down the back of his neck. He turned the collar up on his coat and started across the bridge. Less than three feet out, he slipped and barely regained his footing. Yeah, the bridge was icy.
Their Secret Baby Bond Page 11
