Love's Little Secrets (Sweet Grove Romance Book 2; First Street Church #10)

by Sharon Hughson

  The soothing rocking motion stopped. Adonis tugged on his arm, and Herman followed him into the emergency room. He didn’t need to be here, did he?

  Before he could resist, a man in scrubs was leading him to a chair and quizzing him. He tried to answer, but the words sounded foreign. After giving his son the wallet so he could hand over the insurance information, Herman floated in a sea of muddled memories from his childhood, to Adonis as a child, to Norma in tears.

  He’d come in that Friday evening, nervous about sharing his news. Rather than meeting him at the door, Norma had stumbled out of their bedroom. Her hair was flat on one side, and she wore a wrinkled shirt and loose sweats.

  After months of trying, she’d finally gotten pregnant. Only a month ago, she was jubilant with plans for converting one of the bedrooms into a nursery.

  “I lost the baby.” Her voice echoed inside his mind.

  She flung herself at his chest. His arms circled her, and she gripped him, sobbing harder into his dress shirt.

  “I’m sorry.” She apologized again and again.

  They huddled together on the bed. When she fell asleep, he ambled down the stairs and fumbled through the refrigerator. He idly fired up the grill, cooking and eating a steak without really thinking.

  It was late Sunday night when he told her that he would be traveling to Las Cruces and spending one week there out of every three.

  “But I need you.”

  The tears started again, and Monday morning he slid out of bed and escaped like a thief. “I have an early flight,” he scribbled on a slip of paper.

  A few weeks later, he’d stayed late in the Las Cruces office and met Osaria. She apologized for bothering him, but he waved it off and told her to do her job. Soon they were talking. Three weeks later, he started helping her with her English, at first by reading notices around the office. One night, sometime later, when her stomach growled after she finished cleaning, he invited her to dinner. It was a mistake to eat at the restaurant in his hotel. It was a mistake to have a third beer after downing a mixed drink.

  In the morning, he woke up with a naked young woman beside him. She stared at him with wide brown eyes, and he couldn’t blame her for his weakness. The loneliness of Norma’s mourning swelled in him.

  He’d betrayed her again. He wasn’t there when she miscarried, and he wasn’t there to comfort her. And now he was cheating on her with another woman.

  Something pricked his arm. Herman blinked, staring at the white ceiling in the emergency room. A nurse held a needle to his arm. Behind her, Adonis, pale-faced, eyes wider than a full moon, stared at the procedure.

  Herman lay flat on his back, bed beneath him rolling along as he recalled the shy conversation when Osaria told him she was pregnant.

  Tears welled up as he asked her, “Is it mine?”

  “You are only one.” Her English had improved while they worked together, but the emotion thickening her throat muddled her response.

  He couldn’t give his wife the baby she wanted, but one night in a hotel room and he fathered a child with a near-stranger. Duty reared its head. The child was his responsibility. He couldn’t abandon it, and that meant taking care of this woman while she was pregnant and after the birth.

  White-coated people whirled around him. There were machines and pokes and instructions Herman could never recall but must have followed. A doctor claimed he’d been having small “cardiac events” for several weeks and was lucky the attack today didn’t cause more damage.

  “Your body is giving you warnings.” The man peered over his glasses at Herman. “It’s time to make changes, unless you don’t want to see the other side of sixty.”

  Time to make changes. The rest of the doctor’s spiel faded to background noise. Herman gathered enough to know he had to stay overnight in the hospital while they ran more tests and started him on some blood pressure medication.

  Please give me time to change.

  Who did he expect to hear his plea?

  12

  Norma hardly remembered driving to Rosewood after Roth Stryker’s call. Herman was in the emergency room, and they were running tests on his heart.

  They’d argued that morning. Had her callous words caused a heart attack? She might never know, but the quicksand devouring her stomach gave her a clue.

  Roth Stryker intercepted her as soon as she entered the lobby. His fingers wrapped gently around her upper arm, and he steered her toward the elevator. He had no new information.

  When the elevator opened onto the third floor, Roth guided her to the right.

  Adonis rushed toward them, face sagging in relief. “I was just going to call you.”

  She explained how she’d heard, and Roth patted her arm and departed. Words flooded out of Herman’s son, and his wild eyes reminded her of a spooked horse. She wilted into a chair, eyes blinking rapidly.

  “It’s too much.” The agonized whisper sounded loud in the quiet waiting area.

  “Stress, the doctors said.” Adonis reached for her hand and then recoiled. “No one’s fault.”

  Was he blaming himself? His arrival must have shocked Herman as much as it did her.

  “I have to see him.” She stood, her hands still trembling but her legs steady.

  “I’ll take you.” Adonis stepped toward closed doors into one of the wards. He paused and offered his arm.

  Norma stared at him. Yearning bubbled into her chest, filling her until she thought she would explode. If he wanted to be friends, she shouldn’t fight it, especially now that she knew she couldn’t lose Herman. No matter how hard the road to reconciliation might be, she didn’t want her marriage to end.

  Her fingers wrapped around his firm bicep, and he guided her into the hospital room. An antiseptic smell slapped her face. A stranger lay in the bed. When had his hair gone so silver? It nearly blended into the sheets.

  She paced nearer, and Adonis dropped his arm away. Scuffling sounds and then the scrape of a chair pulled her attention from the man in the bed. She offered a tremulous smile as Adonis gestured to the seat he’d pushed beside her.

  The heart monitor beeped, an eerie timekeeping device. Norma scooted the chair closer to the bed, perching on the edge of it. She studied Herman’s face.

  In repose, the lines smoothed out. A gray pallor leeched the healthy tint of sunshine from his cheeks. The strong chin, covered in a mostly gray beard, jutted out even while he slept. She’d been fascinated by his strong features from the first day her brother brought him home, heedless of the eight-year age difference.

  His chest rose and fell as the monitor droned on. She clenched her hands together as pain twisted in her chest. Anger simmered in her stomach, but the addition of worry made the stew a painful acid burning its way up and out.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Norma started at the sound of the boy’s voice. He’d been playing on his smart phone and she’d forgotten his presence. She shook her head, meeting his eyes and then dragging her gaze back to the patient.

  “It’s past lunch time.” He stood, stretching lithe arms overhead.

  “Go and get something.” She motioned toward the door. “I want to be here when he wakes up.”

  Adonis paced to the opposite side of the bed, gaze scanning his father’s face. “He looked like death earlier.”

  A shudder twitched up her spine. Death. No matter how betrayed she felt, she’d never wish death on Herman. While his world may have been entwined with another woman’s, Norma had belonged only to him for too long to imagine any other life.

  But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t expect him to honor their vows. She stiffened and drew slightly away from the bed.

  “Do you want me to grab something for you?” The boy’s pale brown stare darted from the bed to her, his tone hesitant.

  She frowned. “Maybe sweet tea.”

  He backed toward the door, staring at the ground.

  “Do you have money?” Norma rose and pilfered the pocket of Herman’s jean
s, folded and stuffed in a plastic bag. Her fingers closed on the leather wallet, hand-tooled with his initials. She’d purchased it several years ago at a crafter’s booth and gave it to him that Christmas.

  Another twist behind her breastbone. How had she let things remain unsettled between them?

  She held the wallet toward Adonis, who hovered by the door. “Take this.”

  He shook his head and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I have plenty of money.”

  “He’ll buy my drink at least.”

  Adonis glanced up at her and away. “He gave me cash.”

  Norma should have figured as much. Herman had never been stingy with money. But now that he had no income, she thought he should probably exercise a little more restraint.

  The boy left, and Norma wandered to the window and stared at the grassy rectangle a few floors below. Not that she truly saw it, because her mind raced through endless possibilities. What if Herman couldn’t find another job? Would he want to work closer to home? Or would he need to go even further afield?

  Her heart and stomach twisted together, an internal pretzel. If I have to leave Sweet Grove...

  A clot rose into her throat. In his absence, she’d built a life that revolved around her community. She’d filled her time with church projects, charitable committees, and volunteering. Hours spent helping at the schools eventually led to her employment.

  Her heart wrenched again. She’d hoped and prayed to fill her hours and days with raising children, but it never happened. The students at the elementary school had been surrogates. Their laughter and energy filled her days until she returned to the farm. In Herman’s absence, loneliness engulfed her at home.

  So she spent less time there and more time with the primary youth group at church or the crying babies in the nursery. And counted the hours until Herman returned each Friday evening, wrapping herself around him when he arrived, happy to spend most of their hours together at home.

  A cough and groan from behind her pulled Norma back into the sterile surroundings. With a deep breath, she twirled and retraced her steps to the bedside, inching the chair aside with her thigh.

  “Hey.” Her soft voice sounded incongruous against the backdrop of mechanical noise.

  Herman blinked and rolled his head toward her. It took a few more blinks before his eyes focused on her face. Confusion reigned in their pale depths. Her stomach lurched, making Norma wish she’d eaten even less that morning.

  “Do you remember what happened?” She sidled closer until her hip rested on the mattress a few inches from the hand not attached to an IV.

  He rolled his head and then his shoulders. His lips smacked. Norma reached for the plastic cup the nurse had left during her last visit. She leaned toward him and pressed the straw to his lower lip.

  His hand jerked up, brushing the outside of her breast. Norma’s breath snagged in her throat. Tepid fingers closed over hers on the straw, and his throat started moving. After several swallows, he gently pushed the cup away.

  Norma returned it to the rolling table. Lord, I don’t know what to say.

  When she looked at him again, Herman’s gaze fixed on her face. “Adonis. Did he call you?”

  Norma shook her head. “Roth Stryker saw you being rolled toward imaging and called Kyanna.”

  Herman’s lips smacked again.

  “More water?”

  His head rolled side to side. “What happened?”

  She pursed her lips together. “Do you remember anything? Chest pain? Talking to the doctors?”

  He blinked. “Not really.”

  “You had a heart attack. They think you may have had several small attacks over the past week or two based on answers to some of their questions. You don’t remember talking to them?”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes closed for several long seconds before he looked at her again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Where else would I be?” She shook her head, let her fingers drop onto his chest.

  He weaseled his hand beneath her palm. “You’re angry.”

  Norma sighed and closed her eyes. I don’t know how to reconcile all the things I’m feeling. Help.

  He smacked his lips and glanced toward the cup. She gave him another drink, sad to lose the physical contact while guiding the straw to his lips. Once he was finished drinking, she dropped her hand over his and laced their fingers together. His knuckles jutted into her palm.

  “I can’t change the past.” His gravelly voice struck a chord in her.

  She recalled clearly the day that voice said, I want you to be my future. Marry me? Sudden stinging in her eyes made her blink. Nothing could mar that memory.

  “It’s been hard with you gone.” She shook her head.

  “I’ve never deserved you, Norma. Your parents knew I was no good for you.”

  She remembered that, too. Herman and her brother had been working on the oil rig near the town where she had grown up. He’d been sweaty and greasy the first time she’d seen him, but handsome and mature. He was a man when all she’d ever known were boys.

  “You’ve been good to me, Herman. Except for—” She didn’t need to complete the sentence.

  “God knows I’d never hurt you on purpose.”

  God? He didn’t want anything to do with God. He attended church to humor her. Not once had he done more than blink when she’d explained her love for Jesus Christ.

  “I thought I wanted some explanation, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the past.” She squeezed his hand.

  Mist filmed his eyes. His eyelids closed for a long moment, and when he opened them, the veil had cleared. Maybe she’d imagined it. Herman was a man’s man, and he didn’t shed tears. Not even at his mother’s funeral.

  “What are we going to do? Your job...” The terror she hadn’t been able to flee when she’d scrambled away from him that morning edged against her thoughts.

  He’d provided everything they had. The wages she made working at the school would hardly cover the utilities on that old farmhouse.

  “Depends on Adonis.”

  Norma stiffened. Why did their future depend on his illegitimate son?

  “Don’t look like that.”

  Norma gulped back the violent seizure of fury that tried to reach through her chest and strangle him. After a couple swallows, she said, “He’s your son. I’ve welcomed him. But what does he have to do with our future?”

  Herman rolled his head to the side to glare at the cup. She helped him get another drink. His eyes stayed closed after he pushed the straw away. Did he fall asleep?

  She sighed and eased her hand away from his. Before she could withdraw it, his fingers snagged hers again. She gasped and snapped her gaze to his face.

  “Don’t go.” The hoarse whisper sliced through the wall of anger.

  “I thought you fell asleep.”

  His lips trembled. “They gave me something. But we need to talk.”

  Norma squeezed his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Your job—” he started.

  Norma shook her head, a rueful smile pulling at her mouth. “If I went back, Kyanna would kick me out.” She circled her thumb over the vein in his wrist. “I belong here with you.”

  He blinked several times, but the medicine won in the end. His grip slackened. Norma scooted the chair closer and leaned across her husband’s hospital bed.

  The truth of her declaration embraced her, a comforting presence in the face of the indecision and upheaval that had become her life.

  Marriage might be hard, and reconciliation would certainly hurt, but her path forward coincided with his. Now and forever.

  13

  “Thank you for coming.” Norma’s voice drifted through the open door, a melody Herman preferred to the continual drone of the heart monitor.

  But the doctor was concerned Herman could have another heart attack. They’d given him some blood pressure medication and blood thinners, and since he’d woken, groggy and confused, he hadn’t
felt even a twinge in the area of his heart.

  Except when Norma held his hand. But that wasn’t really in his physical, beating organ, but the deeper part where his love for her warred with his guilt. Guilt for betraying her and failing in his duty to provide the best for his only child. Secrets collided with uncertainty. How on earth could he take care of these people he loved without an income?

  As he considered it, his heart revved painfully. How was he supposed to reduce his stress level when everything in his life caused more stress?

  Movement at the door brought him back to the white-walled hospital room. He raised the head of his bed higher, watching for his wife to return. Instead, Bernie Olson entered, a black book held in his left hand and a smile on his round face. Herman’s body went rigid for a moment. Did he really need a sermon?

  “Sounds like you’ve had a rough day.” Bernie pulled a chair from against the wall and scooted it toward the bed, but not as near as Norma’s. “I sent Norma to get something to eat.”

  Herman opened his mouth but thought of nothing to say, so he closed it again.

  “I may not be your pastor, but I enjoy praying at hospital bedsides.” His lips twisted into a wry grin.

  What do I say to that? Herman stared at his hands crossed over his stomach.

  “How are you?” The preacher sat.

  “Better, I suppose.” He grimaced. “Medicated.”

  “Hoping to get sprung from this joint?”

  “I don’t have anywhere to be.” He growled the words, low enough he hoped the annoying machinery would drown them.

  “Home is more comfortable than a hospital.” The pastor stroked his chin with his free hand, the black book perched on his opposite knee.

  “Not so much in recent days.” He didn’t want to jinx the warming temperatures between him and his wife.

  “Norma seemed amenable to caring for you, rather than rolling you in hot tar in a chicken house and running you out of town.” The preacher’s lips quirked.