by Jillian Hart
The minute his boots hit the powdery snow, he knew what it was. He was staring directly at the passenger door of an apple-green VW bug. He knew that car. He had driven that car. There were books all over the front passenger floor.
Lucy. His heart gave one final beat. Dread filled him like water in a barrel. His feet carried him over the curb and onto the sidewalk, but he wasn’t aware of it. He was too busy thinking of all the reasons why she might be at the church on a Wednesday morning because there was no way she would be at the meeting—none at all. She had never been at a meeting before. Suddenly he was at the door without remembering how he got there.
Lucy. He could see her through the window in the door. Dressed in a sort of white fuzzy sweater and black jeans and fashionable black boots, she looked as if she could have stepped right off the page of an elegant magazine. Casually styled hair fell in artful curls around her heart-shaped face and her emerald eyes were warmer than any jewel, deeper than any he’d ever seen before.
Why exactly was he noticing? The toe of his right boot caught on the lip of the doorway. He stumbled into the room. Typical. Lucy scrambled his system as effectively as crossed wires. His ears were buzzing. His head was in a fog. What was a man to do about that? He had a meeting to attend. He had to pull himself together.
“Spence?”
Suddenly she was saying his name. Whoever she had been speaking with had gone into the conference room. They were alone in the hallway with his words from Thanksgiving afternoon echoing between them—with the memory of her hand in his and her unshed tears.
“This is going to be awkward.” She didn’t look at him.
He tried to concentrate, but it was impossible with all the static in his head and the sharp bite of his conscience. She really didn’t like him now. He could see it on her face. Once, he would have cheered about it. Now he felt small. He didn’t like it one bit. “What’s going to be awkward?”
“Didn’t Danielle tell you?” She looked down at the floor between them. She was little, for all her bubbling energy and life. She was slim and small boned, and when she was quiet he saw a depth in her that drew him a step closer. That made him want to know her better.
“I’ll probably be taking Dani’s place as the chair.”
“What?” The word came out like a thunder clap. He ground his teeth. That sister of his. She set him up. “I’m going to have to disown Danielle from the family.”
“Something tells me that’s just bluster. Danielle cares about you. Why? That’s the real question.” Her chin went up, and there was a challenge in her eyes but no malice in her words.
It was almost as if she were blustering, too. All right; he deserved that. He could be a good sport. “I’ve been asking that question for years. Dani won’t stop liking me no matter what I do.”
“She has your number, Spence McKaslin.” She almost smiled. It hovered in the corners of her rosebud mouth and in the gentleness of her voice.
His eyes smarted. He knew in that moment she had forgiven him for what he had said. Gratitude gathered in his throat, and he didn’t try to speak. She had a generous heart, and he was indebted to her for it. He was a hard man to forgive. No one outside of his family had ever managed it.
He wanted to thank her, but he didn’t know how. It would probably make him look like a pansy if he did, so he held his ground and his frown, although he instinctively knew that didn’t fool her either.
“Thank you for delivering my car. That was a lot of trouble for you to go to.”
“It wasn’t so much.” He shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t want your car blocking the entrance to the parking lot.”
“Sure, I understand.” As her car had been nowhere near to blocking the entrance, she got what he was trying not to say. He had called a truce, and that worked for her. “The children’s wing of the hospital is very important to me. I was behind the scenes in last year’s Project Santa.”
“I see. You’ve been helping Danielle?”
“Yes.” At least she wouldn’t have to have too much contact with him. He would probably be overseeing the budget and the project’s progress and nothing more. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she would have to be an insensitive clod not to have seen the apology and remorse on Spence’s face when he’d walked into the church hall. He also had to have done a powerful amount of snow shoveling to free her car. That, in her book, was the sign of sincerity. “I have all the information I was compiling for Danielle. Including the funds request.”
“That’s a relief. Thank you, Lucy.”
“Let me assure you, we won’t have to cross paths often. I have everything ready to go.”
“Good.” The tension eased from his shoulders. “This won’t be the kind of crisis I was fearing.”
“Do you always fear crisis?”
“Don’t you?” He appeared dead serious, standing as tall and as immovable as a mountain.
“Not always. Sometimes it is God’s way of pointing us in the right direction.” She might not have any clue what her own personal direction was, but God was at the helm so she wasn’t too worried. What she did worry about was if Spence was going to let her stay on the project. “You aren’t going to ask me to step down, are you?”
“Never crossed my mind.” He was pure sincerity.
This man was more and more a puzzle, one she could not afford to start liking again. This was a man who was hurting and had hurt her out of his own pain. She did not need that kind of man in her life. “Again, this project is important to me.”
“How long have you volunteered?” he said that as if she had just announced she was a former citizen of Mars.
“For a long time. I believe in living a purposeful life and helping others.”
“So do I.” A small smile softened his granite face.
He really is a handsome man, she thought, unable to help herself. She didn’t want to like Spence, but she did understand him. “I think they’ve started the meeting without us.”
“Oh.” He looked around, the movement scattering thick locks of his dark hair. He moved past her like a man of steel, in control. His voice sounded like iron. “Follow me.”
The order boomed down the hallway, and she resisted the urge to give him a sound retort, but she bit her bottom lip to keep it in. The project was more important. If only she wasn’t so confused and frustrated, she might be able to figure out the best way to handle this man. She wanted a truce with him. A part of her saw how he was hurting and understood it too well. She battled the same feelings once. Bleakness and sorrow had nearly taken all the good from her life.
She forced her feet down the hall and followed Spence into the conference room.
I believe in living a purposeful life and helping others. Lucy’s words were tormenting him, rolling around in his head. Spence leaned back in the chair, unable to force his gaze from the woman across the conference table. Light spilled onto her blond hair like liquid gold, framing her heart-shaped face and big, caring eyes.
You do not like her, Spence. He was resolute. You cannot like her no matter what.
“Spence?” Pastor Mark was looking at him expectantly.
They all were. Spence scanned the familiar faces around the table and gulped. How had he let his mind wander away from business at hand? He was not that kind of man. He was not prone to mental wandering of any kind. He did not approve of daydreaming.
“Spence, is this all right with you?” The pastor was still waiting for an answer.
To what? He didn’t have a clue. He looked around the big table, hoping to glean some sort of hint as to what he was agreeing to, but nothing. There were just expectant faces smiling at him, pleased with something. He wasn’t about to admit he hadn’t been paying attention. He didn’t approve of people who didn’t pay attention.
“Ah, sure,” he finally said, annoyed at himself. He wasn’t about to let anyone else know he’d drifted off. “It’s fine.”
“Wonderful. That’s just what I’ve bee
n hoping for.” Pastor Mark smiled warmly, and the rest of the table nodded and murmured in approval. “You’re an excellent leader, Spence, and no one can manage better than you. But I think a hands-on approach, pushing up your sleeves and working with the people we are helping is just what you and the program need.”
What? He blinked. Hands-on approach? Pushing up his sleeves? Working with people? What had he agreed to? At the edge of his vision, Lucy pressed the heels of her slender hands to her forehead, her blond hair scattering around her shoulders like sunlight, looking as lovely as a hymn and looking as if she had just received some very bad news.
Uh-oh. Panic bit him. He sat up straighter in his chair, fearing the worst. Maybe he had better pray that he could piece it together from whatever Pastor Mark said next.
“Lucky dog,” Jason Huntley leaned close to whisper. “I thought you were just going to supervise like last year. I would roll up my sleeves if it meant spending time with Lucy.”
Spending time with Lucy? His panic ramped up a notch. Yes, that was exactly what scared him. He followed the direction of Jason’s nod—to Lucy, of course. A terrible sense of foreboding settled like a fist in his stomach. Whatever rolling up his sleeves meant, he wasn’t going to like it.
He watched as Lucy lowered her hands from her face, and her green gaze fixed on his. She gave a little helpless shrug, and his heart turned over. Just like that.
He ripped his gaze away from hers, fighting panic, and fighting the words he would not let himself acknowledge. The unspoken truth remained lodged in his chest waiting, just waiting to be brought out into the open.
You do not like her, he told himself stubbornly although it was too late.
The rest of the meeting was a blur. He kept dreading the moment when he would have to walk through the conference room, down the hall and out to his truck, trying to avoid Lucy all that way. Knowing his luck, it would never happen. His problems around her had only gotten worse. He couldn’t concentrate on the business at hand—thank the Lord his part was already done. Everywhere he looked, she was somehow in his line of sight, sitting serenely at the table with her hands folded, listening attentively and looking so beautiful his teeth hurt—or maybe that was because he was grinding them.
Who was he kidding? He had more than a secret crush on her, and he was headed down a dangerous path. He liked her very much. How could he not? She was like looking at sunshine in winter, like decorations on a Christmas tree. She made his stony heart hurt whenever she smiled. What was he going to do about that?
The solution was obvious. He had to go back to staying away from her, but considering he had just agreed to work with her on the project, that meant one of them would have to quit. He wasn’t a quitter—not by a long shot. So that meant it would have to be Lucy.
You aren’t going to ask me to step down, are you? Her words came back to him. Remembering how she had stood before him, just a little thing with frail feelings soft on her face made his heart roll over.
Somehow he would have to get her to change her mind. Maybe now that she knew they would be working together, she would be ecstatic to change, jubilant. He could always hope.
“We’ll see you all next week,” Pastor Mark said as if from a distance, and almost everyone around the table was standing.
Spence hopped to his feet, feeling a step behind everyone else. Friendly conversations rose to fill the room. He had a dozen or more things he could say to anyone standing around him, but did he? No. His attention went to Lucy.
She was chatting with Pastor Mark, kindness shining through her like dawn. He strained to hear a snippet of Lucy’s gentle alto. “I am very committed to the children’s wing. This is a fine thing the church is doing providing Christmas for the kids. I know how much that means to families torn between the hospital and home.”
“We try to reach out to those in their time of need, whether they are believers or not,” Pastor Mark went on to say.
Spence grabbed his briefcase and marched toward the door. Nothing had ever been so hard as deliberately walking away from Lucy. She was supposed to be flaky, some artist type who cared only for herself and getting attention. Except her sincerity rang in his ears, and although he didn’t want to, he knew the sound of truth when he heard it.
I know how much that means to families torn between the hospital and home. Her voice was stuck on Play, and it looped over and over again. He couldn’t get it to stop. Maybe his conscience wouldn’t let him.
He hit the main hall and kept going. He didn’t look right or left. He nodded at a few folks he knew as he passed by them but didn’t pause to talk. The image of Lucy at Katherine’s sink with sorrow on her face and tears in her eyes battered him. Did that mean she had gone through some kind of loss?
“Spence!”
Lucy. He recognized her voice, since his brain seemed to have recorded it. He steeled himself to face her. The hallway was loud with conversations and folks milling around near the beverage station, but his gaze went right to her hurrying toward him, her hair flying, with a file folder in hand and her coat bunched over one arm. The only words that came to mind were, you are so beautiful.
Good thing his throat had seized up. He mentally grimaced. As if he could say that to her.
“We need to talk.” She smelled like sweet lilacs and gentle sunshine and sugar cookies. She looked like heaven smiling.
A tiny drop of tenderness sprang to life in his stony, barren heart, and he did his best to beat it out. Why her? Why did it have to be for her?
Chapter Eight
Lucy almost didn’t mind that Spence scowled at her with unmistakable distaste. She didn’t care if he didn’t like her. None of it mattered. He had volunteered to do all he could for the kids. She hugged the file folder to her. She loved those kids. Okay, any kid.
“Let’s duck in here.” He opened a classroom door and held it. “We can talk without being disturbed.”
“Good idea.” The hallway was pretty noisy. Not that she was eager to be alone with him, but it couldn’t be avoided. Their footsteps echoed in the room, and she set her things on the nearest desk. What was the best way to handle this situation? She was stuck working with Spence. A wise girl would make the best of it and manage to keep him a good distance away in case he decided to bring out the harsh comments again.
The door shut hard, echoing in the room. Spence looked troubled and a million miles away. “I’m surprised by this as much as you are.”
“I’m touched that you want to make a difference. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I deserve that.” He hung his head.
“No, I meant that as a compliment.” It wasn’t as if she admired him or anything, but he did have some very admirable qualities. “Everyone is talking about how you never get involved. But that’s different now. You must really believe in this project.”
“Uh, sure.” There he went, looking uncomfortable again.
Heaven knew what he was thinking. She didn’t want to look too friendly. He seemed to be uncomfortable with that, too. “I know it couldn’t have been easy volunteering, especially after what happened.”
“Sometimes I’m too harsh.” He stared at the ground between them. A muscle jerked along his jawline.
“So, you have one flaw.”
That made him smile a little. “I hate to break it to you, but I have more than one.”
“Sure, I didn’t want to point them all out.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Now he was really smiling, inside and out.
“Any time. As long as you don’t start pointing out all my flaws.”
“It’s a deal.” He pulled out a chair and folded himself into it. He watched her carefully. “I hear you volunteer a lot. Why the hospital?”
She went perfectly still. She didn’t move for a full fifteen seconds, each one ticking by slower than the last. Her face shadowed. “I don’t know you enough to tell you that.”
He winced. “I deserve that. But you can trust me, L
ucy. I’ve got my flaws, but I know how to keep a confidence.”
“It’s very private.” Tension dug into her face, etching fine lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth—lines of great pain.
Uncertainty cinched around his chest, making it tough to breathe. Maybe he didn’t want to know what haunted Lucy. Everyone had pain. He had pain and he didn’t particularly want to look at it or anyone else’s. No good came from it.
Or at least, that’s how he usually handled things. So why did he want to know? It was like a thirst in his soul, and he waited, wondering about the woman who slid behind the desk, using the surface cluttered with her things and the distance between them like a shield.
It was the real Lucy Chapin, he realized. The sunshine was gone and so was the cute smile. She sat quietly, looking very different from the perky blond who was always upbeat. There was a deeper layer to her, and he felt the pull of it on his well-defended heart.
“The man I was engaged to had a four-year-old son who was diagnosed with leukemia ten days before our wedding.” Her eyes silvered, but no tears fell. “Of course we canceled the wedding.”
He nodded once in acknowledgment. It was the most he could muster. Pain exploded through him as he realized what he had said. That afternoon in the kitchen mocked him. What was wrong with him? Didn’t he have enough money?
He bowed his head, unable to fathom what he had done. No wonder she had dropped the dish. How could she stand to look at him at all? Heaven knew he couldn’t stand himself.
He took a gulp of air, surprised he could actually speak. “I’m s-sorry, Lucy. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.” She did understand. He could see that plainly. She held no ill will toward him when she had every right to. The sorrow written on her face tortured him.
“You don’t need to say anymore.” He stood up, making enough noise to drown out the thoughts in his head that would not go away. Leukemia. There had never been a wedding. He knew the little boy she had loved had died.
He thought of Dorrie and how she had enough heart to love another woman’s children as much as her own. That’s the way Lucy had been. He could see it. He shoved the chair back in place. The legs scraping against the tile sounded like his soul crying out. Some things were too painful to think about.
