“Things change, Tucker. So do people. Especially after seven years.” With nothing else to do, Ginny sat down at the table opposite him.
“Yeah, I guess. I’m sorry.”
Ginny refused to respond to that. He was sorry, but he didn’t even know what he was sorry for! He simply waltzed back into town and expected everyone to be there.
“The doctors don’t know exactly what the problem is, but they’ve ruled out heart. He’s been through a whole pile of tests, but they still haven’t figured it out.”
The words burst out of her, bald, hard. The fear she felt came through as anger. Ginny glared at Tucker, willing him to see how hard this was.
“He gets pains. In different places. They can’t seem to figure out why, to pinpoint the cause. And every day he gets a little weaker, the pain bites a little deeper. My father is a sick man.”
“I had no idea.” Tucker’s mouth hung open in shock. He gulped but never looked away from her penetrating gaze. “I’m sorry, Virginia. I really didn’t know.”
The soft sincerity in those words was her undoing. Ginny choked on a little sob and let the words that begged saying burst over him.
“Of course you didn’t know. I wanted to tell you, to talk to you about it, but how could I? You disappeared from our lives and never bothered to check back.” She hated doing this, but the worry had become too much. And still she had no answers.
“You stroll into town expecting everything in little old Jubilee Junction to be the same. You assumed we’d all be here, waiting to welcome you.” She swallowed the tears and dared to say the words she’d hidden for so long.
“Did you ever think about us at all, Tucker? You never knew when some friend died or another moved away, when a couple split up and tore apart their family.” She softened her voice, tried to make him understand. “Did you ever give a thought to how it was for the people who chose to stay in this town, to make it their home, to push through all the problems and find joy and peace and satisfaction in their ordinary lives?”
“No, I guess I didn’t,” he admitted softly.
She stared at him, seeing the old Tucker transposed onto this newer, harsher Tucker.
“Why not? You spent the first eighteen years of your life here. You grew up with me, lived next door, went to the same church. We shared precious childhood times together, and then you walked away from all of it, from me, as if I never existed.”
“I went to college.” He said it as if it explained everything.
It didn’t. Ginny despised herself for harking back like this, but she had to say it. She’d been silent for too long.
“I know you did. Then you got a job, and another one, and another, until finally you were top of the heap. You traveled all over the world, covered every major news story you could get near. You built a reputation for homing in on the heart of those horrible conflicts, of showing the human side of the suffering. I know exactly what you’ve been doing.”
The kettle whistled. Ginny rose, poured boiling water over the chocolate, then carried the mugs to the table.
“You kept track of me?” He sounded shocked.
“Of course we did.” She smiled, sadness creeping over her. “You were one of us, the one who went out into the big bad world and accomplished something worthwhile. You were our ambassador and we were proud.”
“I—I didn’t know.”
She stirred her drink so vigorously the brown liquid overflowed the cup and ran in a little river across the polished surface. Did he even care? She mopped the mess, heart aching.
“Of course you didn’t know. How could you? You never came back, never wrote, never phoned. We never mattered enough to you—your history meant nothing to you.” She shrugged. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Apparently I didn’t mean anything, either.”
He shook his head, eyes downcast. “That isn’t the way it was, Gin.”
“Really?” She looked through her lashes, dared him to refute what she’d come to believe was the truth. “Weren’t you just a little bit ashamed of us, Tucker? Wasn’t it embarrassing to admit that your roots were among common, ordinary people who wouldn’t even know where Sri Lanka is, let alone what’s happening there?”
“I have never, ever been ashamed of Jubilee Junction or its inhabitants.” His angry glare gave testament to his words. “Never.”
“Fine.” She shrugged, tired of the whole thing. “It doesn’t really matter. It’s the past. Maybe I should leave it there.”
“Ginny, if this is about that promise I made you—”
“It’s not.” She cut him off, hid her pain behind bravado. “That promise meant nothing. Did you think I don’t know that? Haven’t figured it out after seven years?”
The bitterness, the gall of it ate into her heart like acid. How stupid she’d been.
“Of course it meant something.” Tucker’s face blushed a rich, dark red as he met her skeptical glance. “I meant what I said. I was going to marry you.”
“Really?” She shook her head, wishing he’d deny it. “I don’t think so, Tucker. It was just something kids say before they leave the nest. It was your way of hanging on to something secure when you stepped into the unknown. I should have figured that out after you left. When you didn’t come back.”
“How could you figure it out when I fully intended to come back? I did intend to marry you.”
“When, Tucker?” She played with the mug, which no longer held any interest. Ginny waited, hoping he’d stop her, tell her she was wrong, tell her he still loved her.
He didn’t say anything.
“When were we to be married, Tucker? When you didn’t write even one letter from college? When you didn’t let us know you’d won that prestigious scholarship? When you didn’t visit even once in seven years? When were you going to find time for marriage? For me?”
“I know, Gin. I should have written.” He raked a hand through his hair, his eyes swirling with emotion. “But at first I had to work a lot to supplement the scholarship. My dad sure wouldn’t chip in.” His bottom lip curled with disgust.
She frowned. His father hadn’t wanted Tucker to go away.
“Then I got caught up in the work, in the excitement.” His hands fluttered through the air as he tried to explain. “When you’re covering a story, time loses all relevance. I spent six months buried in the Amazon and never even knew I’d been gone a week.”
“I understand,” she lied. She didn’t understand. Surely if you loved someone—but that was the point. He didn’t love her. Ginny gulped and told the truth as she understood it.
“I believe everything and everyone came second once you were on a story. The job meant everything.” She stared at him, trying to figure out exactly who Tucker Townsend had become.
“You know, Tucker, at first I wanted to leave, to be with you. I wanted to take my design degree, just as we’d planned.”
“But you didn’t.”
Ginny almost smiled. The challenge in those words stung—as if she’d been the one to forget their promise!
“My mother passed away. Dad couldn’t manage things alone. I had to stay, to help.”
“I—I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She shook her head, letting her hair loose in hopes of easing the strain on her neck. “I grew to like working in the store, matching fabrics and designs to people’s personalities and homes. I took courses by correspondence, even managed to attend some short college sessions on campus.”
She smiled, remembering some of her less than remarkable projects.
“I tried out everything I learned in the houses around town and got more experience than I ever would have found in school, no matter how hard I studied. Eventually I developed a side business of my own.”
“So you’re happy here?” He sounded as if he didn’t quite believe what she was saying.
“I’m very happy.” Ginny shrugged. “There have been some hard times. Dad’s been sick, but he’s hanging on.”
“His
medical bills must be high.”
“Astronomical.” Ginny grimaced. “But we manage. I’m doing a lot of custom work now.”
“I suppose that’s why you’ve been seeing Riley—to get financial help? Riley always was good at figures.”
She didn’t like the question, didn’t like the implication behind it. Ginny stared him down, relieved when Tucker finally looked away.
“Riley is a very good friend,” she murmured. “He’s been here whenever we needed him.”
“Point taken. Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry. He looked fractious, ready for a fight. Then his eyes rested on her face, softened, filled with sympathy. “I really am sorry, Gin. I had no right to bother you, especially not tonight. You must be so concerned.”
“Apology accepted.” Ginny smiled to show no hard feelings, but kept her emotions firmly under control. She was tired. She was worn-out. If she ranted and raged as she wanted, she would say things she’d regret. It was better to pretend life was a bowl of cherries.
“Which brings us back to my father’s question. Why does your stay in Jubilee Junction depend on me?” She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap as she waited.
When he didn’t reply, Ginny frowned, lifting her eyes to study his face.
Tucker Townsend lost for words?
“I’ll listen, Tucker,” she whispered, covering his hand on the table with hers. “Whatever you have to say, I will listen.”
He threaded his fingers through hers, his eyes steady on her face. Something fluttered through his brown gaze, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He raked a hand through his dark hair, huffed in a great quantity of air, then exhaled it in one whoosh.
“I counted on that,” he admitted quietly. “I came back because I need you to help me, Gin.” His words rebounded around the kitchen, a desperate plea, even though his voice had dropped to a deadly, whisper-soft calm.
Ginny stared. “Help you do what?”
“Help me figure out what’s wrong. I need a way to get God to listen to me, to hear me, to tell me how I can go back to a job I think I hate. I need you to explain how I can find God when He’s turned His back on me.” The words poured out in desperation.
Ginny gulped, shocked by the admittance, stunned by the truth she saw reflected in his eyes. They were wide open, laid bare for her inspection. His shame, private agony and fear touched her in a place Ginny thought long dead. It hurt to witness his pain.
“But, Tuck.” She fell back on the old nickname without thinking. “I’m not a minister or a priest. I can’t counsel or advise you in something like this. This is a matter between you and your spiritual leader.”
“I don’t have one.” His voice tightened to a harsh grate. “I’ve attended a lot of churches lately, looked for answers. There’s nothing there. God doesn’t hear and He doesn’t answer. Not me, anyway.” He paused. Swallowed. “I even saw a psychiatrist.”
“And?”
The twist of his lips proclaimed his anguish.
“That’s not the kind of help I need.” His eyes were riveted on her. “I need someone who can help me break the silence.”
Ginny heard the implication through a mist of unbelief. Her? Surely Tucker couldn’t be serious?
“You want me to be some sort of an intercessor?” she asked at last, clinging to the one thread she could unravel from his words. “A go-between for you and God?”
“I guess. If that’s what you call it.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I need to learn how to redeem myself, how to get Him to make me whole, get back my control. If that’s even possible.” His face tightened. “I finally realized how much I need God, Gin. And now He’s gone.”
“But—why me, Tuck? Why do you need me?”
He grinned, the doubts slipping away in one moment of pure certainty.
“Because you’re the only person I know who has her head on straight when it comes to God. You know, you’ve always known exactly how to talk to Him, how to ask for things, how to get your prayers answered.”
She frowned, almost ready to tell him of her own doubts about a future she’d counted on for so long—a future with him. He stopped her cold with his next words.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with what I said seven years ago. I know I promised I’d marry you, Gin. At the time, I meant it. I would have liked to be your husband, believe me. But I can’t do it, not now. I don’t want or need a wife. Not knowing what I know.”
Somehow she scraped enough courage together to ask.
“What do you know, Tucker?”
The pain was there again, in full force, carving the lines in his face, draining away the hope that had once shone so brightly. Ginny shivered.
He shook his head at her, his face lined and tired.
“I can’t love anyone, Gin. Not anyone. That’s what God has taken away.”
She frowned, opened her mouth, but Tucker kept speaking.
“It’s His form of justice, you see. I pushed too hard, didn’t care enough about anyone but myself. So now He’s made it so that I can never, ever love another person again.”
“What—”
“I’m incapable of love, Ginny. That’s why I’ll never marry anyone. I’d only hurt them—you.”
Ginny’s eyes filled with tears as the terrible words sank through to her heart, killing her dream. He didn’t want her as his wife, didn’t need her to love him, care for him.
Tucker Townsend had come back to Jubilee Junction to ask Ginny to intercede for him with God, not to make her his bride.
Chapter Three
Two weeks later Ginny glared at herself in her bedroom mirror and prayed for deliverance from the chaos of her life.
A couple of things made her life a private misery. The worst was that Ginny couldn’t make Tucker understand that she didn’t have the resources she was certain he needed to help him break free of the guilt he was under.
They’d spent days talking, and Tucker still wouldn’t accept the truth she’d offered—that he had to deal with God one-on-one. Tucker had some strange idea that Ginny was wired into heaven on a private line he expected her to use on his behalf. She’d urged him to seek counsel from someone trained to advise. She tried to steer him toward her pastor.
Tucker would have none of it. It was her or no one at all. The whole town wasn’t going to know his problems, he insisted. He wouldn’t talk to anyone else. And with every day that passed he seemed to slump deeper into his private abyss, so that now his agonized looks filled her dreams.
Second, Ginny knew she had to turn down the only marriage proposal she might ever receive. But two weeks of telephone messages left on an impersonal machine had kept her from telling Riley she couldn’t marry him. She knew he’d just returned from a cattle auction five hundred miles away. She had a hunch his leaving had more to do with giving her time to think things over than with his need for more steers. She had used that time to consider everything and eventually acknowledged the truth. Riley wasn’t madly in love with her. His proposal stemmed from something other than love.
She stared at the phone clutched in her hand. Time to clear this up. She prayed for tact.
“Hey, stranger. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Hey, Ginny. I just got in and heard your messages.”
The question hung between them. She knew he wouldn’t ask again. It was up to her.
“I wanted to let you know my decision, Riley. I didn’t like to keep you waiting.”
“Uh-oh. It doesn’t sound good.”
“I’m very flattered that you would ask, but I’m sorry, I can’t accept your proposal.” Ginny rushed to reassure him. “I couldn’t help wondering what made you ask. I’m pretty sure you only proposed that night because Tucker was back.”
Silence. Then a sigh that told her she was right.
“Maybe just pushed it ahead a little, Ginny,” Riley mumbled. “Once I come to a decision, I don’t change my mind. I’d thought of it before then.”
“But not serious
ly. I think you only offered to make sure I wasn’t hurt.” She hated this. “You didn’t believe Tucker had come back to marry me and you thought I’d be devastated, so you tried to protect me.”
“Yes, well, he didn’t act like a man who was returning to the woman he loved.” The gruff voice rasped the words out.
She felt such a wealth of tenderness then. Friends like this were hard to come by. She didn’t want to lose Riley’s friendship. After all, he was a friend who’d gone to great lengths to protect her.
“You were trying to shield me from the truth. I appreciate it, but it’s not necessary, Riley. I’m a big girl. Tucker’s been gone a long time.” She forced herself to say the words, even though it hurt. “He’ll probably be gone again in a few days. I’ll deal with it.”
“Has he said he’s leaving?” Riley demanded, his voice sharp.
“Not in actual words.” Ginny shrugged away the memory. “He said he can’t feel love, not for anyone. He claims he’s done something so terrible that God won’t forgive him.” She hid the hurt deep inside under a carefree attitude. “He doesn’t want a wife, he wants some kind of intercessor.”
“And you’re telling me you’re okay with that relationship?” Riley sounded skeptical.
“I’ll help him if I can. That’s what friends do.” She grinned. “And you know all about that. Right, friend?”
“Yeah, I know.” He laughed, not even bothering to conceal his relief.
“Thank you.” His kindness still overwhelmed her.
“Anytime, pal. I didn’t think you’d take me up on it, you know, Ginny. In fact, that’s why I signed up for the rodeo circuit down south. I knew you wouldn’t. I’ll be gone for the next few months.”
Ginny heard the concern behind his voice.
“I’ll be fine, Riley. But you take care. You’ve been such a good friend to me. Don’t get hurt at the rodeo, will you?”
“Nah.” He waited a moment, then spoke again, his voice brimming with quiet concern. “Don’t get hurt too much helping Tucker. He’s not the same guy he was in high school, Ginny.”
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