The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club

by Lexi Eddings

  Anne was still as pretty as the day he’d married her. And she was the best of mothers. He loved the way she held Carson’s dimpled hands and clapped them together in time with the music. When the song ended she scooped him up and gave him a kiss on his chubby tummy. The child squealed with pleasure.

  Watching the tender way she played with Carson made Dan’s chest swell. They were his little family. His to love. His to protect.

  He was so ready to do that again. All he needed was for Anne to trust him. To let him back into that safe little circle of love they’d once had so they could rebuild their life together.

  Lester Scott’s face swam in his vision. Dan rarely let himself think of the man as his father, but there was no denying the connection. Still, contrary to the old man’s warning, he was not looking into a mirror, Daniel told himself. He didn’t have to repeat Lester’s mistakes.

  Maybe Lester couldn’t help his mental problems, but he hadn’t tried to do anything about his mean-fisted drinking either. He’d given up any chance for a normal family in exchange for the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle.

  Daniel was determined not to do the same thing to Anne and Carson no matter how often a quartet of queens winked at him.

  “Hello, Anne,” he said, taking a seat on the quilt beside her before she could tell him not to. Gabbling a string of da-das, Carson crawled over to his lap. Dan hugged him close. “I see the boy’s doing good.”

  She nodded, a smile drifting over her lips, there one moment, gone the next. “He misses you.”

  “Not as much as I miss him.” He planted a kiss on the boy’s temple and inhaled his fresh baby-powder scent. Dan shifted the boy up onto his shoulders so he could see the band over the heads of the people in front of them. Then he met Anne’s gaze. “Not as much as I miss you. I do, you know. More than I can say.”

  Her eyes shone at him for a moment, but then she looked away. “I got the job.”

  “Oh?”

  “At Walmart in the jewelry department,” she said. “It’s only part-time, but that’s okay. I don’t think I can bear being away from Carson more than twenty-five or thirty hours a week anyway.”

  “Is your mom taking care of him while you work?”

  She nodded.

  At least his son wasn’t being watched by a stranger. Just someone who sort of hated his dad. Still, Celia would take good care of Carson.

  Daniel lowered the boy from his shoulders, leaned back and crossed his legs, turning his right foot into a horsey for Carson to ride. “If you let me know your work schedule, I could ask for time off some of those hours so I can take him.”

  “I don’t want you to put your job at risk. Mom told me you’ve been giving her money and bringing over groceries to help with our keep,” Anne said. “She’s beginning to think you’re not such a bad sort now.”

  Daniel chuckled. “If I’d known that was the way to Celia’s heart, I’d have tried bribery sooner.” Then he sobered. “What about you? Do you still think I’m a bad sort?”

  “Danny, I never thought you were bad. Just . . . you just have a problem.”

  “But it doesn’t have me,” he corrected, putting Carson down to play on the blanket between them. “I’m dealing with it.”

  Her dark eyes seemed unsure. “I wish I could believe you.”

  Trust, but verify. It works for foreign diplomacy. Here’s hoping it works in a marriage, too.

  “Here. I’ll prove it.” Daniel reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a much-folded scratch ticket. He handed it to her.

  She stared at the piece of paper and then at him, her expression puzzled. “Danny, this is a lottery ticket. The only thing it proves is that you’re still gambling.”

  “No, I’m not. Don’t you see? The ticket hasn’t been played,” he said, pointing at the fading type. “Look at the date. I’ve carried it with me ever since then.”

  He’d bought it in despair at a twenty-four-hour convenience store the same day Anne left him. But then he realized that even if the ticket was a big winner, money wouldn’t fix what he’d broken between them. So he’d folded up the ticket and put it in his shirt pocket without scratching off the surface to reveal whether or not he’d won. He kept it in his pocket, close to his heart, like a coiled viper he was trying to tame.

  Resisting the urge to play the card was worse than the most vigorous exercise. It tested his will instead of his body. At first, hands shaking, he’d pulled out the card several times a day, always on the brink of peeling away the surface with the edge of a penny. Would he feel the rush of winning or the crush of loss? Each time, he forced himself to put the ticket away without answering that question.

  Even after the drawing was past and the ticket was invalid, it still called to him, singing the siren song of winnings that were just out of reach. There were still ways to play the ticket for one of the state’s “second chance” drawings, but he somehow always managed to refold it and stuff it back into his pocket.

  “This must have been a terrible temptation for you,” Anne said, turning the bedraggled card over in her hands. “You could have thrown it away. Why did you keep it?”

  “So I could prove to you, and to myself, that I could quit.” He decided to take a chance, the biggest gamble of his life, and reached for her hand. To his relief, she didn’t pull away. “Anne, you are the most important thing in the world to me, you and Carson. I will never lose sight of that again. Ever. I promise.”

  Her chin trembled. “You mean it?”

  “I’m betting my life on it. I’m no good without you, Annie. And I’ll work hard. I promise. We’ll have our own house again as soon as I can get a down payment together and—”

  She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “This was never about the house.”

  It was to him. Losing their home had made him feel lower than a worm’s belly. The little bungalow on Crepe Myrtle Street had meant comfort. Stability. Permanence. A place to shut out the world and bask in the love of his family. He’d never had that as a kid. Now he was driven to provide it for his wife and son.

  And he’d risked it all on the turn of a card.

  Never again. Please God don’t let me live to see another day when I don’t put Anne first.

  “Life doesn’t mean a thing if I can’t share it with you.” He cupped her cheek. “Please. Give me another chance.”

  “I’ll do better than that.” She leaned into his caress and smiled up at him. He could live happy for a week on just one of those smiles. “I made mistakes, too. How about if we both give us another chance?”

  His heart flooded with tenderness. It was so like her to shoulder part of the responsibility, but Daniel knew his weakness had caused all their problems. No more. He had plenty of reasons to be strong, but none were more important than the two he was sharing a blanket with at that very moment.

  “My shift ends in an hour,” Dan said, still hardly daring to believe he was being given a reprieve. “Can I come by tonight and move you and Carson back to my place?”

  When Anne had left him, she hadn’t taken any furniture with her except Carson’s crib and high chair. Daniel had moved everything they owned from their little house into his rented duplex. Except for the nursery, everything was ready for his family to rejoin him. In a fit of hopefulness, he’d even put up Carson’s swing set in the tiny backyard.

  She hesitated, so he redoubled his efforts. He figured she deserved to make him grovel a little.

  “Please, Anne, come home tonight.” He drew her into his arms, not caring if any of the other picnickers were looking on. “I know the duplex won’t be as good as the house was, but tell me you and Carson will move back in with me tonight.”

  “For the umpteenth time, I don’t care about the house, Danny. I care about you. And wherever you are, that’s home to me. But it won’t be just Carson and me moving in.”

  Please God, don’t let Celia try to move in with us.

  Despite his frantic silent prayer, he managed t
o say, “Oh?” in a semi-neutral tone.

  “Another little person will be coming home, too.”

  Wonderment settled over him as Anne took his hand and put it on her slightly rounded belly.

  Daniel blinked back tears. Anne had forgiven him for the mistakes of the past. The folks at Gamblers Anonymous had told him he’d always struggle with his addiction. But his darling wife was giving him a new reason to keep fighting the good fight. He held her close.

  Then she pulled away from him, tore the lottery ticket to pieces, and tossed them into the air like a handful of confetti.

  “That’s littering in a public park, ma’am,” he said in a mock-stern tone.

  “Then you’d better arrest me, officer,” she said as she threw her arms around his neck. “And never let me go.”

  “That’s a promise.” Daniel kissed her long and deep. He didn’t give a rat’s rear end who saw them doing it in a public park either.

  He’d been forgiven. He had a second chance.

  Was there anything better in the world?

  * * *

  All afternoon and into the evening, Lacy and Jake played in his kitchen. She taught him how to make three-cheese deviled eggs and once he mastered that, he started improvising. Next it was deviled eggs with bacon and jalapeños that were so hot it made sweat bead up on Lacy’s forehead. Then he concocted a cool mixture of chives and cream cheese to put the fire out.

  “I’ve never done anything but the traditional relish and mayo and paprika deviled eggs before,” Jake said as he sampled his latest creation. “I wonder how it would taste if I substituted mashed-up avocado for the mayo.”

  “I don’t know. Call me a stick in the mud, but I think green eggs should only appear in a Dr. Seuss book.”

  “Or as a St. Patrick’s breakfast special,” Jake said, unaffected by her doubtfulness. “Might be worth trying next year.”

  “Oh, I know! Maybe you could approach one of the elementary teachers about taking a field trip to the grill. You could set things up for the kids to make their own eggs and end the event with a Green Eggs and Ham read aloud.”

  “Sort of tying good nutrition and books and creativity all together in one gooey project,” he said. “I like it.”

  “Or you could do a cooking-with-kids class some evening to get the parents involved.” Lacy recognized the burst of imagination surging through her. She used to get that same high when she discovered the right concept for a design. It felt good to know the old creative juices could still flow, even if it was in a totally different direction. “I know you’ve got a lot of regular customers, but surely you can always use more.”

  “That kind of thing would certainly pull in a different crowd.” Jake filled the sink to wash up the bowls they’d used. “It would be great if families with kids wanted to come to the Green Apple to sit down for a meal instead of driving through a fast-food place.”

  “You wouldn’t have to limit your cooking classes to parents and kids, you know,” Lacy said. “In Boston, sometimes chefs would put on food raves that made for a great date night.”

  “With deviled eggs?”

  “No, with much fancier entrées. It was a chance for foodies to learn to make a signature dish and spend some quality time in the kitchen with their partner, too. The taste, the aromas, the texture of the food—when you get right down to it, cooking is pretty sensual.”

  “Is this the voice of experience?” Jake said as he handed her a tea towel to dry with.

  “Me? No. My friend Shannon dated a guy who was really into the culinary arts for a while,” she said as she dried a bowl and stretched to place it back into Jake’s neat cabinet. “Bradford Endicott wouldn’t be caught dead cooking. He was never about doing anything for himself if he could pay someone else to do it.”

  She wondered if Bradford had burned through all the money he’d stolen already. Given the lavish lifestyle he was accustomed to, it wouldn’t take long. Last she’d heard, his family had cut him off. He might well end up having to do things for himself. If he didn’t come back to the States to face indictment, it would serve him right if he was reduced to washing dishes for the rest of his miserable life in some third-world beanery.

  Somehow that image pleased her even more than picturing Bradford in an orange jumpsuit.

  “Lacy, you’re not still hung up on him, are you?”

  “On Bradford? No.” Even if he appeared before her in sackcloth and ashes, she had no interest in rekindling anything between them. And she certainly wouldn’t trust him with her heart or her money any farther than she could throw him. “That chapter of my life is over and done with.”

  “Good.”

  While he made short work of the rest of the bowls, Lacy wondered what it would be like to do dishes beside Jacob Tyler for the rest of her life. It wasn’t the glitzy world of high design she’d imagined for herself, but if the warm glow in her chest was any sign, it was a future with real appeal.

  He pulled the stopper out of the sink and then caught up her hand. “Let’s let the rest of these bowls air dry in the drainer and head up to the roof. It’s getting dark. The marina is going to have a fireworks display to kick off the boating season. My roof is a perfect place to watch them.”

  He took her hand and led her up a narrow set of stairs. Because the Town Square was built on a little rise, the park and Lake Jewel spread out below them to the northeast. In the deepening twilight, Lacy saw that Jake had spread out a blanket for them sometime earlier. A trail of loose rose petals led to it. The blanket was raised up from the decking by a couple of inches, far enough to suggest there was a foam pad under it for comfort. A handful of throw pillows were scattered over the blanket. A bottle of something sparkling was cooling in an ice bucket beside two stemmed glasses.

  “You’ve been planning this for a while.”

  “Be prepared. That’s my motto.” He gave her the three-fingered Boy Scout salute.

  “What makes me think you were never a scout?”

  He took her hand and they sank together onto the blanket. “I’m not planning on being one tonight.”

  “That,” she said as he bent to kiss her, “is something I’m counting on.”

  Chapter 25

  The Reverend Harold Hiney will be filling in for Pastor Mark for our midweek chapel and the regular Sunday services.

  Our visiting speaker invites us to call him

  Pastor Harold. No one calls him Harry.

  —from the Methodist church bulletin

  Lacy and Jake tumbled onto the blanket, mouths seeking, hands caressing. It felt so good to lie beside Jake, to be surrounded by his warmth, his strength.

  Just kisses, Lacy promised herself.

  Even so, her body thrummed to peak awareness. His every touch, every low groan—they moved her to her very core. She hadn’t had a makeout session like this for far too long. Of course, she hadn’t felt like this about a guy in . . .

  Forever.

  Bradford had been more a business decision, a merger, than a relationship. She’d been caught up in the glamour of his family name and prestige. The last time her heart had been engaged was eons ago, before she left Coldwater Cove for the first time.

  But not even the “Summer of Daniel” came close to this.

  She’d tried not to care about Jake. Really she had. She’d guarded her heart every step of the way, but there he was, firmly in the center of everything that made Lacy herself. All the empty places inside her, all the hurts, all the hopes, all her aloneness—he filled up every one.

  And she ached to fill up those lonely places in him, too.

  Holy So-Not Expected, I think I love him.

  Jake rolled her over onto her back and, despite her best intentions, the night was about to spiral out of control.

  Then the first screaming rocket exploded over Lake Jewel. Jake jerked away from her, chest heaving. He scrambled to his knees, thrusting her behind him.

  Wild-eyed, he looked over his shoulder at her and ordered h
er to stay down. Then he turned back to Lake Jewel, where fire dripped from the sky and reflected up from the black water. It looked like fiery stalactites and stalagmites meeting in the dark. What must it seem like to Jake’s combat-bruised psyche?

  He’s having another flashback.

  “It’s OK, Jake.” She sat up and stroked his shoulders in small comforting circles. Although he was in a confused state, he was trying to protect her. “We’re not in any danger. We’re home. Look, there’s the marina barge floating in the lake. That’s where all this noise and flashing light is coming from.”

  A Roman candle began spewing into the night from the deck of the barge.

  Tension drained out of his muscles and Jake slumped down on the blanket beside her.

  “It’s just fireworks,” he said so softly he might have been talking only to himself. “I knew they were coming tonight. I should have been ready for them.”

  “Well, I think I was distracting you a little bit.”

  “Give yourself some credit.” He offered a lopsided smile. “You were distracting me a lot.”

  “You’re pretty good in the distraction department yourself.” She gave him a thorough once-over. His eyes were back to normal now. His breathing had settled into a smooth rhythm. “Is the flashback over?”

  “It’s over, but that wasn’t really what you’d call a flashback. It was more like, well, I just become hypervigilant sometimes.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means I’m on high alert for a threat, whether there’s one there or not,” he explained. “You’re not going to nag me to see somebody about this again, are you?”

  She was tempted, but if he saw a therapist only to please her, all the counseling in the world would be useless. “You’re a big boy, Jake. I trust you to make a good decision for yourself.”

  “Well, that’s not good. If a girl won’t nag a guy, it’s a sure bet she doesn’t give a flip about him.”

  “You’re so wrong.” She palmed his face and pressed a soft kiss on his lips. Tenderness made her eyes well up. “I actually give two flips about you.”