Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope

by Debra Ullrick

  “Governor.” Keith shook the man’s hand like an expert. “Mrs. Keyes. This is Dallas Henderson. My fiancée.” The last word lodged in his throat, but with a push he got it out. “It’s so nice of you to come. We so appreciate it.”

  From her post in the corner next to the outside wall, Maggie watched him. He was hard not to watch. Smoke-colored tailored pants. White shirt casually buttoned. He looked the part of the handsome billionaire heir. The problem was he didn’t look at all like Keith.

  Dallas on the other hand looked like she belonged nowhere else. Something in Maggie had hoped that Dallas wasn’t all that pretty because at least then, Keith’s assessment that she was nice would’ve been balanced by the fact that she wasn’t also beautiful. Well, that worked. No, Dallas wasn’t pretty. She was gorgeous.

  Her dress, a white number that plunged deep and rose high, accentuated a figure that said it was made for that kind of dress. The light golden hair was pulled to the side in a loose ponytail that hung over her left shoulder, wisps of hair sliding off both sides. Worse, her necklace and earrings alone had to cost more than Maggie would make in her lifetime. Yes, Dallas Henderson was beautiful, and the fact that she was nice too completely torpedoed any outlandish hopes Maggie had managed to put together about her chances with Keith. Even though her stomach twisted in knots at the sight, she watched them, mingling and sipping champagne, his arm around Dallas as if it belonged nowhere else.

  Her attention returned to Peter and his sister, making sure they didn’t go far. That wasn’t too much of a problem because Peter seemed to be permanently attached to the silk pants Patty Ann had loaned her. They felt great, but they probably cost more than all her other purchases put altogether. Worse, it wasn’t totally clear where they had come from. “Guard them with your life” was not what you wanted to hear when you’d be on the front lines with two children.

  So, with no better options, Maggie resorted to sitting on the little bench that had been added along with who-knew-how-many-other things to the backyard. It was like a completely different place. They’d even moved the playhouse, which must have taken more than a little effort. She sighed as she looked around. Here she was, in the midst of the Texas elite, and even though she was physically here, she was for all intents and purposes completely invisible.

  It hadn’t taken Keith more than five minutes to locate Maggie. From the first second he caught sight of her over in the corner by the miniature yellow rose covered trellis, he’d wanted nothing more than to find a way to break away from the stuffed-shirts and thank her for her kindness the night before. However, he knew that wouldn’t be possible tonight as much as he wanted it to be. Too many people were watching his every move. Besides, tonight was about showing off—for his father and Dallas, and Dallas’s family. He felt like a trophy on a shelf, having been taken down for others to ooh and aah over. Still, his gaze betrayed him every so often and drifted where the rest of him wanted so badly to go.

  “Well, Dallas, I’m glad to see Keith found you back,” Ike said with a big Texas grin as he ambled up to the happy couple.

  “Ike, I’m so glad you could come.” She put her arms around him and leaned forward. Keith wondered how her dress stayed on. The top of it was held together with a couple of gold chains which plunged down the backless part of the dress to the waistline. When she pulled back, Keith held out his hand.

  “Ike.”

  “Keith.” Warnings and an ultra-critical evaluation of the situation flowed through Ike’s eyes and smile right into Keith, pulling guilt out in fistfuls. Then with a real smile at Dallas, Ike raised his glass. “Congratulations, you two. I hope you will be very happy together.”

  As Ike stepped away, Keith closed his eyes for the barest of moments. When he opened them again, his gaze snagged on the young lady with the white pants and modest pink blouse sitting in the corner of the yard with two little children. Her hair was pulled up in that way that let it cascade down her back, conservative and yet not stuffy. Next to her sat Peter, and on her lap sat Isabella. She was playing with them, talking to them, just like she always did. If he could just go over…

  “I’d like a picture with the happy couple,” the governor said to those standing around. “Phillip.”

  The governor’s photographer stepped up. The two couples smiled, and the picture was recorded for all of posterity.

  “Well, well, it’s good to see you standing on your own power,” Greg said an hour later as Keith stood at the tree, taking a breather from the socializing. He was about full-up and overflowing on his small talk quotient for the year.

  Keith held out his hand to his friend. “You made it.”

  “Yes, I did. Even more remarkably you did.” Greg shook Keith’s hand. Then sipping the champagne he leaned on the tree next to Keith. “So, you made it to the airport looking all happy and chipper I guess?”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Me?” Greg sounded genuinely surprised. “What’d I do?”

  “Next time you call a cab, tell them which house is mine if you don’t mind.”

  “I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. You sent them to the mansion. Big difference.” Anger snapped into Keith. “Thanks to you my dad hasn’t spoken to me all day.”

  Greg shrugged that off. “Hey, now. That’s not my fault. It was all I could do to convince you not to be a total idiot and try to drive home. Because of me, you’re standing there in one piece. You should be thanking me.”

  They stood in the silence of a skirmish neither wanted to continue at the moment.

  “So, what’s the story on Peter’s new friend?” Greg asked, lifting his chin toward Maggie and the children who were still in the corner, at the party and yet not really visible.

  “The new nanny.” Keith took a sip of champagne to keep his heart from cracking in two.

  “Does the new nanny have a name?”

  “Maggie. Maggie Montgomery.” The name slid through him, knifing into his heart with the complete understanding that whatever he wanted with her would never become his reality. He looked around at the party. No, his reality was about his father’s money and his position in this life. Anything more substantial was a dream that would never be any more than that.

  “Hello there,” the tall, dark-haired, good-looking guy with the little wire-framed glasses said as he stood next to the bench where Maggie sat.

  “Hi.”

  “Cute kids.”

  “Thanks.” Somehow she had thought spending the whole night in the corner alone could get no worse. She was wrong.

  “They’re the Ayer kids, right?”

  That pulled Maggie’s uneasiness to the surface. “I’m sorry. Who are you again?”

  “Oh, sorry.” He sat down and pulled his dark blue jacket with him, which to Maggie was not an improvement. “Greg Parker. I’m Keith’s friend.” He held out his hand to her.

  The name pulled up a thousand emotions she was trying desperately to bury. “Oh, it’s nice to meet you Greg, Keith’s friend.” Isabella was toddling around the bench, and just as she got to Maggie’s leg, she reached out but missed, landing on her bottom. “Oops, baby girl. Try it again.” Maggie lifted her to her feet as Greg’s hand fell back to his jacket.

  “Gie. Gie,” Isabella said, her eyes shining.

  Maggie’s attention dropped to the little face she had grown to so love. “Gie. Gie? Is that Mag-gie?”

  “Gie. Gie.” Isabella pounded Maggie’s knee with her hand.

  Greg smiled. “You’re good with her.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Yeah, Keith told me you’re the new babysitter.”

  “Nanny.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A babysitter goes home when the parents get back from wherever they were. A nanny… well…” She snagged Isabella from escaping too far and swung her onto her lap. “Come here, you.”

  “So you don’t get like time off or anything?” He took a sip of champagne although he never
really took his gaze off of her.

  “Nope. Not so far.”

  His face fell. “Isn’t that like slave labor? Don’t they have to give you some time off?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I don’t mind. What else do I have to do, right?”

  “Ms. Montgomery,” Patty Ann said, stepping up beside them. From her outfit any normal person would’ve assumed she was the bride’s mother at a wedding. Ivory Chanel suit, upswept hair. It was a little much for a garden party.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Maggie stood, picking Isabella up with her. She felt Greg rise at her side, and she wondered about that.

  “Mrs. Ayer is ready for the formal pictures to be taken, so the children are needed.”

  “Oh, of course.” Maggie glanced back at Greg. “Excuse me.”

  She was there for the pictures of that much Keith was one-hundred percent sure. What he was less sure of was where she had gone after the pictures. As the sun relinquished its hold on the party and the soft lights came up, Keith couldn’t help but glance back at the empty corner. Frustration poured through him when even after minutes and minutes she didn’t reappear there.

  He checked his watch and realized she must be putting Pete and Izzy down for the night. His gaze traveled up to Isabella’s window, and sure enough the soft light in her window was on. At that moment he would’ve given everything he would ever own to ditch all of this and go up there to help her tuck the kids in. The light in the window faded to black, and he didn’t even have to try to remember the soft prayers she would say as she bent over Peter’s bed.

  “You’re not getting tired already now, are you?” Dallas waltzed up and draped her arms over his shoulders.

  “Just taking a breather.”

  She leaned over to him and nuzzled his ear. Self-consciousness dropped over him. “Hey. You’re pressing your luck there.” He ran his hand over her back.

  “I haven’t forgotten what you like,” she said, pulling her bottom lip under her teeth. She glanced back at the party. “Do you think anyone would miss us?”

  At that moment Keith caught sight of his father across the grass, standing and talking to both the governor and to Mr. Henderson. His father’s glance in Keith’s direction froze his blood. There was resolve in his gaze and a smile of self-satisfaction underneath. His stance on the situation was clear. Marry her or else.

  “Hey, you two. Get a room,” Greg said good-naturedly as he walked up to where they were huddled.

  “Jealous?” Dallas asked, smiling up at Greg.

  “Well, I wouldn’t be if Keith here would hook me up with the nanny.”

  Dallas tilted her head in curiosity. “The nanny? What nanny?”

  Greg lifted his chin to indicate the back corner, and Keith’s heart did a nosedive. Somehow that wasn’t what he expected. “Maggie. I’d love to ask her out, but you know the Ayers, they are taskmasters.”

  “They’re not so bad once you get to know them,” Dallas said, turning on her full-wattage charm in Keith’s direction.

  “Yeah, well, tell that to whoever hasn’t let Maggie off yet. How long’s she been here anyway?”

  Keith had to swallow to get the answer out. “Couple of weeks.”

  That got Dallas’s attention. “A couple of weeks, and she hasn’t had any time off?”

  Keith’s shrug hurt for more reasons than he could name.

  “Well, Greg, you leave it to me.” Dallas laced her arm through Greg’s and bent her head furtively. “I’m sure they will take the advice of their future daughter-in-law. Besides we owe you one for hooking us up. The least we could do is return the favor.”

  Ugh. She had to go and remind Keith. The night he never wanted to remember. The one she would never let him forget. It was a dance at A&M which were always rowdy and way-fun. Keith and Greg had gone to scope out the prospects for a night of fun, and Keith spotted Dallas almost instantly. She was a sophomore at the time, and he didn’t know her from Eve. During a slow song he’d finally gotten up the courage to ask her to dance; however, when he approached her to ask, she surveyed him like he was dirt personified.

  Stupidly he had asked her anyway, and it was with no small amount of insinuated insult that she had turned him down, making a point to do it loudly in front of her friends. He hated remembering that moment. It always made his heart stop his breathing.

  But Greg, being the friend he always had been, assured Keith it was only because she didn’t know who he was. So Greg took it upon himself to fix the situation, and fix it he did. By the time they left Dallas was hanging on Keith’s every word, and before the next three sunsets, they were a couple.

  “Do you think she’ll come back down tonight?” Dallas asked a little too into this whole set-up thing than Keith would’ve liked. “What, does she like have to put the kids in bed and stuff?”

  “That’s generally in the job description,” Keith said, hating how mean he sounded.

  “Well, maybe we can’t do anything tonight,” Dallas said as she patted Greg’s arm. “But I’m here the whole week. I’m sure we can get something to work out.”

  When the kids were in bed, prayers said, and tucked in, Maggie went to her own room. She didn’t turn the light on. They might see it from the party. Instead she knelt down next to her bed as tears of letting go streamed down her face onto the little white flowers. “Dear Lord, I know I never had a chance with Keith. I know that as well as You do. But please, I ask You, keep him safe. Help him to be happy with Dallas. Help them to have a long and happy life together because he deserves that much.”

  The night wound down eventually. The governor and his wife left. The guests left. Even the Hendersons had to call it a night. Keith was running on empty. After the night before, the draining afternoon, and the overtaxing evening, he was about ten seconds from curling up on one of the little benches and calling a stop-time forever.

  “Well, we really should be going too,” Dallas said as she laced her arm through his.

  “Are you staying at the guesthouse?” Vivian asked, and Keith wanted to throw up at the obviousness of the question.

  “Where else?” Dallas asked as if she was thrilled with the house and everything about it. She shrugged to get closer to him. “Oh, and Mrs. Ayer… Keith and I were thinking about having a little party Monday evening. Nothing big, just a few close friends.”

  This was news to Keith, so he perked up his ears lest he miss something important.

  “We invited Greg, and he wanted to bring a guest.”

  Vivian’s face asked the question as much as she did. “And the problem is?”

  “Well, it’s who he wants to ask,” Dallas said, and then she leaned in, lest anyone happen to hear. “Maggie Montgomery.”

  Vivian’s eyebrows shot up. “The nanny?”

  Dallas smiled. “You know Greg. Never one to shoot very high.”

  The comment raked right over Keith’s nerves.

  “But we were kind of hoping we could help him out. Do you think Maggie could have Monday night off?”

  Vivian smiled serenely. “I’m sure we could arrange that.”

  Chapter Eleven

  All day Sunday Keith thought of little other than Maggie. Of course he had plenty of other things to occupy his mind and his time like Dallas and her incessant come-ons. He’d ducked the issue the night before by practically falling asleep in their limo ride from the mansion to the guesthouse. It wasn’t an act. He was done for. Nonetheless, the barrage of innuendos had started the moment he woke up.

  Had he not had the brilliant idea of breakfast in bed, talking her out of anything else would’ve been next to impossible. More to the point they were to meet his parents at eight o’clock to ride with them into Houston to meet her parents at nine o’clock, and the prospect of all the parents on top of everything else was making him seriously queasy.

  “I wonder if Greg called Maggie yet,” Dallas said when she helped Keith take the breakfast dishes back to the kitchen.

  The statement twisted through hi
s gut.

  “I really hope she says yes. It would be nice for Greg to have someone.”

  Keith turned to her questioningly. “Why is this so important to you?”

  “Because.” She stepped up to him and laid her arms over his shoulders. “I want everyone to be as deliriously happy as we are.”

  “Ms. Montogmery,” Patty Ann said with her usual amount of iciness. “May I have a word with you?”

  Maggie had chosen to keep the kids upstairs rather than running the gauntlet of tempers and exhausted nerves the next morning. She had asked Inez if she could take breakfast up for the kids for a Sunday treat, and despite her assumptions of what the maid would say, permission was granted. Now, it seemed she had been caught.

  She unfolded herself from the floor and walked to the door, pulling her shirt down behind her. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Patty Ann stepped into the hallway, and Maggie’s uh-oh meter went off the charts. Still she followed her out with only a quick “You two be good.”

  “Ms. Montgomery. Three things. First, Mrs. Ayer wanted to extend her appreciation for your job performance last night. The children were there for the appropriate impact at just the right moments and not seen other than that. Very well done.”

  That surprised Maggie. “Thank you.”

  “Second of all, here is your paycheck for the first two weeks of your service. You will be receiving payment from here on out on the fifteenth and the first. There are no advances, so budget accordingly.”

  Maggie accepted the little envelope. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “And finally, you are being given tomorrow off.”

  “Off?” The word smashed into Maggie. “Why?”

  “So you can go into town and deposit that or do errands or whatever it is you do on a day off.”

  Maggie’s thoughts went into the room behind her. “What about the kids?”

  “Not to worry, they shall be taken care of.”

  “Keith, I talked with Lee Ferrell of Devonshire, Inc. last week,” Mr. Henderson said as they sat around the table eating brunch. “He is really interested in talking with you about your future in Houston.”