His Small-Town Girl

by Arlene James

  Only Charlotte confused him. She couldn’t have been more welcoming, caring or generous, but that just seemed part of her nature. It shamed him to think that his own family would not be so accepting of a stranger. Rather than friendliness and inclusion, snobbery, conflict and rivalry characterized the Aldriches. They would look down on the Jeffords without a doubt, Charlotte included. Charlotte especially. So what was he doing here with her? What was the point? And why did her reasons for being here with him matter so much?

  Tyler really wanted to believe that all the Jeffords simply liked him, that they found him special somehow, apart from his sky box and millions of dollars. But he couldn’t help wondering if his wealth figured into it, although in Charlotte’s case he suspected she liked him despite his money. Maybe that was the key. Maybe the others were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt simply because Charlotte liked him. Tyler couldn’t fault them for that.

  “That was a great game,” she finally said.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s always a great game when they win.”

  The woman amazed him. Not only did she look like a vision, work like a Trojan, cook like a chef, treat all who came into her orbit with compassion and welcome and quietly, effortlessly order her entire family, the girl also knew a thing or two about football.

  She had a coach for a brother, so Tyler supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. What really blew him away, though, was how much she seemed to actually enjoy the game for its own sake.

  On the other hand, she seemed to enjoy everything in the same way—her family, her work, her faith, her whole life. That she could do so when she’d suffered so much loss and had so little made Tyler feel small and spoiled.

  He admired her, but it was more than that, too. He wanted for himself what she had, her contentment, her goodness. Worse, he wanted her in his life somehow.

  It was a foolish notion, but sitting next to her here on the sofa with his arm curled about her slender shoulders earlier had felt like the most natural thing in the world to him. It shouldn’t have—no one could have been more out of place kicking back to watch a televised football game than the one person in the room who usually watched those home games live from a private box for twelve on the fifty-yard line.

  No doubt Charlotte would feel as out of place there as he often did here, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  Glancing through the picture window to the front lawn and the roadway beyond, he saw that the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. In perhaps an hour, night would descend. Time enough for a little exploration.

  “I don’t know about you, but I could use some exercise,” he said, swinging his head around to look at her. She sat tucked back into the corner of the leather sofa recently vacated by Ryan, one leg curled beneath the other. Her elbow braced against the rolled arm as she toyed idly with a sleek strand of her hair. “Want to take a little walk?”

  She hesitated. He could see her mind working, though what thoughts went through that fine brain of hers he couldn’t have said. After a moment, she nodded. He hadn’t realized that his heart had stopped beating until it started again. Straightening, he rose at once to his feet, giving her no time to rethink. Charlotte unfolded her legs and got up, moving silently to the apartment door.

  He followed and listened as she explained to her family that they were going to the park. Reaching inside, she took a corduroy coat from the chair in the corner behind the door and handed it to him, then removed a smaller down-filled nylon jacket from a peg on the wall. She threw on the dark blue nylon jacket as they walked toward the front porch. Tyler held the outer door wide as she passed through and turned toward the ramp.

  “You’ll want to wear that,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at the corduroy coat that he carried in one hand.

  He didn’t argue, just shrugged into the heavy corduroy. The temperature outside had dropped considerably. The coat smelled of Hap so must have been the old man’s. Ty found it a cheery, comfortable aroma. Falling into step beside her, he strolled across the pavement. He felt good, as if enfolded in a warm hug, but something else percolated just below the surface of his mind, too.

  Hope, he decided after a moment. He felt hopeful, eager, even excited. All the frustration that had driven him from Dallas only days earlier seemed distant and foreign, as if it belonged to another lifetime, another man. Smiling, he sucked in a great lungful of autumn air, content to amble along as she led him around the back of the motel and across a patch of open ground to the point where Mesquite Street came to a dead end.

  The entrance to the park lay some three blocks distant, so they strolled in that direction. Despite the increasingly stark trees, the park couldn’t have seemed more beautiful to him if it had been the true Garden of Eden, and he wouldn’t have complained if the walk had been three miles instead of three blocks.

  In ways he could not have planned or even understood before, this sojourn in Eden, Oklahoma, seemed to be exactly what he needed. The peace and tranquility alone had reenergized him, and he’d gotten a good, hard look at how the majority of the world lived. In addition to that, the Jeffords had shown him what family could be. But might there be something more to it, something deep and personal? Somehow, he had begun to hope so.

  Charlotte folded her arms, holding her jacket closed against the chill. Striking out on foot like this might well be foolhardy. The rain had cleared for the moment, but those clouds in the northwest promised more. Her chief concern, however, did not involve the weather.

  She shouldn’t be doing this. Being alone with Tyler courted disaster. She supposed that seeing Jerry with his little daughter today had made her feel that she’d missed out on something, but that was no reason to behave foolishly. She sensed Tyler’s growing interest in her, though, and right now that made him very nearly irresistible. Disaster indeed.

  Tyler Aldrich could have any woman he wanted. With his wealth, connections, charm and looks, he probably found himself inundated with interested women. She was nothing more than the woman of the moment, and she’d best remember that. No one could seriously expect that his interest in her could be more than curiosity or that they could have any sort of future together.

  In all likelihood he’d probably never met a less sophisticated individual than her, and as alien as he at times seemed in her world, she knew that she would be even more lost in his. The man had a private luxury box at the pro football stadium in Dallas, for pity’s sake. He knew the coach personally! She wouldn’t know how to behave rubbing elbows with people like that.

  No, she couldn’t see anything ahead for her and Tyler Aldrich, and she wouldn’t set herself up for disappointment by trying to create anything. She knew, had always known, that her life lay here in Eden with her grandfather and brothers. When Tyler left this place, as he must soon do, that would be the end of it. Period.

  God had surely brought him here for a purpose, however. She’d sensed some confusion on his part during the pastor’s sermon that morning, and this walk seemed like a good opportunity to clear up any questions he might have about what the pastor had said. Letting her feet take care of getting them to the park, she turned her mind to the better subject.

  “I keep thinking about Grover’s sermon today.”

  Tyler zipped her a look from the corners of his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting.”

  “Anything about it strike you especially?”

  He put his head down for a moment. “I’ve sort of been thinking about the equality thing.”

  That set her back enough to slow her steps. “Equality?”

  “Sure. You know, how everyone’s sin is really the same.”

  Picking up the pace again, she mulled that over. She’d never thought of it in terms of equality, but that did make a certain sense. “Hap says that the only difference between people is Jesus,” she remarked.

  “I wouldn’t say that’s the only difference,” Tyler replied with a smile. “Hap may be the most gentle and caring fello
w I’ve ever met.”

  Pleased, she bumped his shoulder with hers. “I meant, the only difference in God’s eyes.”

  Tyler’s brow furrowed. “You don’t think God sees what kind of person Hap is?”

  “Of course. I also believe that God honors the good we do,” she clarified. “The point is that, since all sin is equal in God’s eyes, we’re all equally guilty, so we all need the grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ.”

  “Okay. I get that,” Tyler said slowly.

  She could tell from his tone that he wondered where she might be going with this, and ultimately she supposed the only way to get there was just to ask what she wanted to know. “Are you a Christian, then, Ty?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. My family have been members of one of the biggest, oldest churches in Dallas for generations.”

  “Then you understand what I mean by grace?” she asked. He made no reply, as if he took her question to be a statement. After a moment, she went on uneasily. “I guess what I want to know is why you haven’t given your pain and grief to God.”

  He looked genuinely confused at that. “I beg your pardon?”

  She stopped, realizing only in that moment that they’d reached the entrance to the park, and turned to face him. She realized, too, that she’d spoken without thinking again, but now she had no choice except to blunder on.

  “You don’t seem to have yielded to God your grief over your father’s death and the pain of your family’s rejection,” she said calmly, “and I can’t help wondering why.”

  “The pain of my family’s rejection?” he echoed, sounding genuinely confused. “Where on earth did you get that?”

  She spread her hands helplessly. “From what you said about your brother and sister resenting that your father chose you to head the company. That has to feel like rejection.”

  He shook his head. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t know how to behave if my family wasn’t always at each other’s throats.”

  Dismayed for him, she tried to reconcile that statement with what she knew about family. “I understand that you’re all probably only now coming to grips with the loss of your father and—”

  “Please. It’s not like he was a big part of our lives or anything.”

  Now she felt confused. “But he was your father.”

  “Let me tell you a little story,” Tyler said, leading her over to a bench, where they sat down side by side. “I was maybe ten when the maid had to see somebody about something.” He shrugged. “I guess she didn’t want to leave me home alone. Anyway, I wound up riding along with her in her car to this strange neighborhood, and I guess we were there for some time because I started playing baseball in the streets with a bunch of kids I’d never met before. I hit this ball straight through the front window of a house there.” He made a motion with his arm, indicating the path of a line dive.

  “Oh, no.” Charlotte lifted her hand to hide a smile. “I broke a window once, with a pork chop.”

  He chuckled. “A pork chop?”

  She nodded and wrinkled her nose. “It was greasy, and when I stabbed at it with a fork, it flew off my plate and through the window.”

  “And what did your father do?” Ty asked.

  She spread her hands. “Why, he fixed it. That window was always getting broken. The kitchen was really small and we didn’t have a dining room so the table had to sit right up against it.”

  Tyler slumped back against the bench, shaking his head. “So you broke a window and your father fixed it. No big deal. I broke a window and my father sent me to boarding school for the rest of the year.”

  She gasped, appalled. “He didn’t! Over a window that you broke accidentally?”

  Tyler made a face, shaking his head. “The window didn’t have anything to do with it. What infuriated him was that he had to be called out of an important business meeting to deal with it.”

  “But—”

  “The maid gave them the number,” Tyler went on. “I begged them not to call. I even offered to buy those people a new house if they wouldn’t phone my father’s office.”

  Charlotte snickered. She couldn’t help it. “You really offered to buy them a whole new house?”

  His lips twitched. “Hey, I was ten. Cut me a break here.”

  They laughed over that, then fell silent.

  “It wasn’t so bad, really,” Tyler said after a moment. “Those months at boarding school taught me a lot of discipline. I fared better than the maid, that’s for sure. She was fired on the spot.” He sent Charlotte a rueful glance. “No one called my father out of a business meeting and got away with it. Business always came first with him. Always.” He picked at a piece of lint on the pocket of Hap’s coat. “Toward the end of their marriage my mother used to have him dragged out on the least pretext. I assume that was why he divorced her. One thing was certain, he was never there for us, any of us.”

  Reaching out, Charlotte laid her hand over his. “I’m so sorry, Tyler, but I do understand. My mother was like that in a way. It wasn’t that she had more important things to do but that she seemed to think everyone else was there for her and not the other way around.”

  He turned his hand and clasped hers palm to palm. “Maybe we’re not so different after all,” he whispered.

  Suddenly, she very much feared that he might be right.

  Chapter Ten

  They sat together in silence for a while, soaking in the serene beauty of the park, hands clasped but not looking at each other.

  Finally, Tyler’s soft voice asked, “How did your parents die? You said something about an oil-field accident.”

  Charlotte cleared her throat and answered him. “In my father’s case, that’s right. He fell from a derrick.”

  “That must have been tough,” Ty murmured, squeezing her hand with his.

  “It was a terrible shock, but not as shocking as what my mother did,” Charlotte admitted.

  She rarely spoke of it. In all the years since, she hadn’t found any reason to tell another person about it. Everyone in the family and around town had always known. It had become common knowledge almost from the moment it had happened.

  Ty squeezed her hand again. “What did she do?”

  Charlotte looked at their clasped hands. The sight of them made her feel even sadder for some reason. “As soon as she got the news about Dad, my mother swallowed a bottle of pills.” She matched her gaze to his then. “With zero regard for the children she was leaving behind, she took her own life. She wrote a note, asking, ‘Who will take care of me now?’”

  Tyler closed his eyes. “Oh, man.” He lifted his free arm and curled it around her, pulling her close to his side. “I have to wonder how the human race survives sometimes.”

  “I know how I survived,” Charlotte said, laying her head on his shoulder and letting herself feel comforted. “My grandparents taught me to take these things to the Lord.” She lifted her head again. “I want to encourage you to do the same. It’s like Grover said today, His grace is more than sufficient.”

  Tyler chuckled lightly and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I’d rather that you prayed for me, frankly.”

  She blinked and sat up straight again, pulling her hand free. “Yes, certainly, but you can always go to God yourself, you know.”

  “Somehow I think your prayers might serve me better.”

  For a moment she stared up at him. “Why would you say that?”

  He smiled down at her, his palm cupping the curve of her jaw. “I suspect you have a direct line.”

  Flabbergasted, she exclaimed, “But don’t you see that your prayers are as powerful as mine?”

  “No,” he answered simply, leaning closer still. “Now let me ask you something.”

  “All right.”

  “Would you ever consider leaving Eden?”

  The shift in subject threw her. She’d expected something along spiritual lines. “Leave Eden?”

  His sky-blue eyes held her. “To live, I mean. Would
you ever consider living anywhere besides Eden?”

  She didn’t have to look for the answer, but it might have been more accurate to say that she didn’t want to look for it. “No!”

  He drew back a little. “Why not? You never know what another place might have to offer.” Obviously warming to his subject, he rushed on. “Take Dallas, for instance. You could eat out every night of the year and never visit the same restaurant twice. And shopping. Oh, my goodness. You can’t imagine what the shopping is like. Even I know it’s far superior to anything around here. Then there’s entertainment.” He waved a hand. “Anything you can think of. Lots you probably wouldn’t think of, too, but never mind that.”

  He went on enumerating all the reasons for living in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area. “The best hospitals, museums, art galleries, pro sports, amateur sports…” He threw up his hands. “You have no idea!”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely,” she said, mystified, “but it’s not for me.”

  “How can you know that?” he demanded, his gaze intense.

  “Well, for one thing,” she pointed out, quite unnecessarily, she thought, “my family is here, and they need me, Granddad especially.”

  “Your brothers are adults,” Tyler argued. “They want you to be happy. Your grandfather, too, no doubt.”

  “But I’m happy here.”

  “Are you?”

  “Absolutely. If I wasn’t, I’d be married to Jerry Moody right now.” Her hand rose halfway to her mouth, but the words had already been said, although why she had said them she didn’t know.

  Tyler sat back with a whump. “I knew it.” Abruptly he shifted toward her, eyes narrowing. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

  “No!” She shook her head, feeling out of control and reckless. “Why would you think that? I just told you that I broke off our engagement.”

  She could see the wheels turning in his head, the cogs fitting into place behind his eyes. “You broke off your engagement because Jerry wanted to move away from here.”

  “Eden is my home,” she said, trembling now. “I belong here.”