“I was going to tell you that I was dead broke, that I wouldn’t have given all my money away if I was so greedy that I’d connive to get yours. I was hoping you’d see that I didn’t care about the money and let us just start over, from that first night. Give me one more chance.”
“I’m the one who needs another chance.”
He took fifteen dollars out of his wallet and handed it to her. She took it. “We’ve already been to New York,” he whispered, “so now that I’ve paid my IOU, we can start fresh. How about just a dinner date here in town? Or . . . a lot of dinner dates . . . that might lead to . . . something even more important?”
She smiled. “Starting slow is good. I like that. And yes, I’d love to have dinner with you.”
“No doubts? No fears?”
“Just about your using your credit card to pay for it.” He laughed, and a smile glowed in her green eyes. “It won’t matter that we aren’t rich anymore, Blake. Because we are rich, whether we have money or not. Being broke might be our greatest asset.”
He crushed her against him, then began to laugh in a deep rumble against her ear. “Well, you know when I said I was broke? I didn’t mean totally broke.”
She stepped back and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged with that boyish charm that had never failed to enchant her. “I still have a little something.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . when I said I invested some in my own business . . . I made sure I’d have a tiny bit to pay back some debts and get my business off the ground . . . and a tiny bit to live on while I struggle.”
“Blake!” she said, grinning. “How much, exactly?”
“Just a million,” he said. “Split over twenty years. That’s not so much. I’ve prayed a lot about what a healthy balance is. I think it’s having enough to live on, enough to spend a little on people I love, enough to give away some. And I wanted a little nest egg just to get a family started . . . if and when it leads to that, and I mean absolutely no pressure by saying that. . . .”
She smiled at the thought.
“You think we’ll ever regret it?” she asked as they walked out to his car. “Giving up all that money?”
“No,” he said. “Because that ticket won us a lot more than money, and we won’t ever have to give that away.” He leaned down to kiss her, and as he did, her heart sent a prayer of gratitude to heaven.
“Besides,” he said against her lips, “there’s always next year’s sweepstakes.”
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Ingredients:
½ cup coconut oil (in solid form)
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg (or egg substitute)
½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
¾ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup dark chocolate chips
In a large bowl, mix oil, vanilla, and sugars until creamy. Add egg, blend until smooth.
In a medium bowl sift together the two flours, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Add flour mixture to coconut oil mixture, stir until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Use cookie scoop or form rounded tablespoons of dough and drop onto prepared baking sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately ten minutes, until edges are set and the middles are still somewhat soft. Transfer to a wire rack for cooling.
Yields approximately eighteen cookies.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TERRI BLACKSTOCK is a New York Times bestseller, with over seven million books sold worldwide. She is the winner of three Carol Awards, a Christian Retailers Choice Award, and a Romantic Times Book Reviews Career Achievement Award, among others. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in the Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual “new kid,” her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist. She sold her first novel at the age of twenty-five and has had a successful career ever since.
Recent books include her acclaimed Intervention series (Intervention, Vicious Cycle, and Downfall), stand-alones Shadow in Serenity, Predator, and Double Minds, and series, including the Moonlighters series, the Restoration series, Newpointe 911, Cape Refuge, and the SunCoast Chronicles.
In 1994 Terri was writing romance novels under two pseudonyms for publishers such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dell, and Silhouette, when a spiritual awakening prompted her to switch gears. At the time, she was reading more suspense than romance, and felt drawn to write thrillers about ordinary people in grave danger. Her newly awakened faith wove its way into the tapestry of her suspense novels, offering hope instead of despair. Her goal is to entertain with page-turning plots, while challenging her readers to think and grow. She hopes to remind them that they’re not alone, and that their trials have a purpose.
Terri has appeared on national television programs such as The 700 Club and Home Life, and has been a guest on numerous radio programs across the country. The story of her personal journey appears in books such as Touched By the Savior by Mike Yorkey, True Stories of Answered Prayer by Mike Nappa, Faces of Faith by John Hanna, and I Saw Him in Your Eyes by Ace Collins.
ALSO BY TERRI BLACKSTOCK
Moonlighters series
Truth-Stained Lies
Distortion
Twisted Innocence
Intervention series
Intervention
Vicious Cycle
Downfall
Restoration series
Last Light
Night Light
True Light
Dawn’s Light
Cape Refuge series
Cape Refuge
Southern Storm
River’s Edge
Breaker’s Reef
Newpointe 911 series
Private Justice
Shadow of Doubt
Word of Honor
Trial by Fire
Line of Duty
Sun Coast Chronicles series
Evidence of Mercy
Justifiable Means
Ulterior Motives
Presumption of Guilt
The Sun Coast Chronicles (an anthology)
Seasons series with Beverly LaHaye
Seasons Under Heaven
Showers in Season
Times and Seasons
Season of Blessing
Second Chances series
Never Again Good-Bye
When Dreams Cross
Blind Trust
Broken Wings
Stand-Alone Novels
Shadow in Serenity
Predator
Double Minds
Emerald Windows
Seaside
Covenant Child
Miracles (The Listener and The Gifted)
The Listener (formerly The Heart Reader)
The Gifted
The Heart Reader of Franklin High
The Gifted Sophomores
LUCAS MARCHAL FULLY EXPECTED his grandmother to show no interest in her hospital dinner tray; her appetite had dwindled to almost nothing. But in his wildest dreams he wouldn’t have imagined that her dour, no-nonsense nurse’s aide would lift the dish cover, scream, then stumble backward and fall to the floor.
He bolted toward her to help, vaguely aware of other San Diego Hope rehab staff filing through the door.
His grandmother’s roommate, chubby and childlike despite middle age, pitched forward in her bed to utter a lisping litany of concern. “Oh . . . my . . . goodnethh. Oh, my!”
“Here.” Lucas offered a hand to the downed nurse’s aide. “Let me
help you up, Mrs.—”
“No need,” she sputtered, waving him and one of the other aides away. “I’m all right. Weak ankle. Lost my balance, that’s all. After I saw that . . . horrid thing.” Revulsion flickered across her age-lined face. “On your grandmother’s plate.”
What?
Lucas’s gaze darted to the remaining staff now gathering around his grandmother’s tray table. They stared like curious looky-loos at a crime scene. Lucas was all too familiar with that phenomenon, though as an evidence technician, he operated on the other side of the yellow police tape. He turned back to the nurse’s aide—Wanda Clay, according to her name badge—who’d managed to stand and retrieve the dish cover she’d dropped in her panic. “What’s wrong with my grandmother’s dinner plate?”
“It was on the rice,” Wanda explained, gingerly testing her ankle. It was hard to tell if her grimace was from an injury or from what she was struggling to explain. “Sitting there on the food, bold as brass.” She crossed her arms, tried to still a shudder. “Black, huge, with those awful legs. I haven’t seen one of those vile bugs since I left Florida.”
A cockroach? On his grandmother’s food? It could snuff what little was left of her appetite—and his hope that she’d finally regain her strength.
“It’s probably scurried away by now.” The nurse’s aide rubbed an elbow. “That’s what they do in the light. But I saw it, plain as can be. And you can bet I’ll be reporting it to—”
“You mean this?” A young, bearded tech in blue scrubs pointed at the plate. Then made no attempt to hide his smirk. “Is this what freaked you out, Wanda?”
“I wasn’t scared,” the woman denied, paling as she stared at the tray. “Startled maybe. Because no one expects to see—”
“A black olive?” the tech crowed, pointing again. “Ooooh. Horrifying.”
Someone else tittered. “Yep, that’s an olive—was an olive. Sort of cut up in pieces and stuck on the rice. A decoration, maybe?”
“Oh, goody.” The roommate clapped her hands, her expression morphing from concern to delight. “Can I see? Is it pretty? Can I have a party decoration too?”
“Hey, Wanda,” the tech teased, “what form do we use to report an olive to—?”
“I think that’s enough,” Lucas advised, raising his hands. “No harm, no foul. Okay?” He reminded himself that law enforcement saw its own share of clowning. But . . . “We have two ladies who need to eat.”
“Yes, sir.” The technician nodded, his expression sheepish. “Just kidding around. I’ll get your grandma some fresh water.”
“Thank you.” Lucas glanced toward Wanda. “You’re not hurt?”
“Only a bump.” She rubbed her elbow again, lips pinching tight. “Some decoration.”
“Yeah.”
Lucas watched for a moment as Wanda helped the chattering roommate with her tray; then he glanced toward the window beyond—the hospital’s peaceful ocean view—before returning to his grandmother’s bedside. He slid his chair close, his heart heavy at the sight of her now. Asleep on her pillow and far too thin, with her stroke-damaged right arm lying useless across her chest. For the first time ever, Rosalynn Marchal actually appeared her age of seventy-six. So different from the strong, vibrant woman who’d essentially been his mother. A woman whose unbridled laughter turned heads in more than a few fancy restaurants, who shouldered a skeet rifle like she intended to stop a charging rhino. A still-lovely senior equally at home in a gown and diamonds for a charity event or wearing faded jeans and a sun hat to dig in her wildly beautiful garden high above the Pacific Ocean. She was an acclaimed painter, a deeply devoted believer. And a new widow. That inconsolable heartbreak had brought her to this point . . . of no return?
No.
Lucas watched her doze, torn between the mercy of letting her dream of far better times and the absolute fact that if she didn’t eat, drink, move, breathe, she’d succeed in what she’d recently told her pastor and her grandson: “I’m okay with leaving this earthly world.” Lucas couldn’t let that happen even if his grandmother’s advance medical directive, her legal living will, required he honor her wishes regarding life support. She’d beaten the pneumonia that brought her to the hospital this time, and the therapists said she still had enough physical strength to regain some mobility, as long as she mustered the will to take nourishment.
“Here’s that water,” the technician said, setting a pitcher beside the food tray. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about that kidding around earlier. It wasn’t professional.”
“No harm done . . . Edward,” Lucas told him after glancing at his ID badge. “I appreciate the help all of you give my grandmother.”
“Pretty special lady, huh?”
“The most.”
“If you need to get going, I can help feed her tonight,” Edward offered. “I know she’s on Wanda’s list, but I don’t mind. I have the time.” He shrugged. “And after all that joking around, I’m probably on her list too. Wanda Clay’s ever-growing—” The young man’s gaze came to rest on the Bible on the bedside table, and he appeared to swallow his intended word. “Her hit list.”
Lucas smiled. His grandmother’s powerful influence for good. Even in sleep. “Thanks, but I can stay tonight. Things look pretty decent out on the streets.”
“You’re a cop, right?”
“Evidence tech—CSI,” Lucas added, using the TV term everyone recognized.
“Cool.”
“Sometimes. Mostly it’s like being a Molly Maid. With gloves, tweezers, and a camera. Not as exciting as on TV.”
“Still sounds cool to me.” The tech moved the dinner tray closer. He pointed to the tepid mound of boiled rice. “I guess I can see how someone might think that thing was a bug.”
Lucas inspected the offensive olive. “You think it’s supposed to be a garnish?”
“Yeah.” Edward snickered. “Some bored dietary assistant getting her cutesy on.”
“It’s not like I’m sous-chef at Avant or Puesto,” Aimee Curran told her cousin, citing top-ten local restaurants. She tucked a tendril of auburn hair behind an ear and sighed. “Or that I even get much of a chance to be food-creative here. But . . .” She raised her voice over the mix of staff and visitor chatter in the San Diego Hope hospital cafeteria so that Taylor Cabot could hear. “At least working in a dietary department will look good on my application to the culinary institute.”
“You’re serious about it. I can see it in your eyes,” Taylor observed, mercifully offering no reference to Aimee’s failed and costly past career paths. Nursing, right up to the moment she panicked, then passed out and hit the floor during a surgery rotation, followed by early childhood education that . . . just didn’t fit. “Aunt Miranda would love it, of course.” Taylor slid an extra package of saltines into the pocket of her ER scrub top. “She was such an awesome cook.”
“She was.” Aimee’s mother had been a school nurse, but her kitchen was her beating heart. “Apron time” with her only daughter had meant the world to her. And to Aimee.
“If I win the Vegan Valentine Bake-Off, it means admission to the culinary institute with fully paid tuition,” Aimee explained. “I can’t qualify for more student loans. So this is it.”
“I didn’t know you’d gone vegan.”
“I haven’t. Not even close, though Mom taught me to respect organic and local foods. It’s just that there won’t be so many entries in a vegan contest. It’s a calculated risk. And I need to win, Taylor.” Aimee’s pulse quickened. “It’s my last chance to honor my mother with a choice I’m making for my life—my whole life. I’ve got to do that. I can’t bear it if I don’t.”
“I think . . .” Taylor’s voice was gentle. “I think that your mother would be proud of you, regardless.”
“But it just seems that everyone else has found their calling, you know? You’ve got your career in the ER. My brother’s starting medical school up in Portland, and Dad’s found Nancy.” Aimee smiled, so very happy f
or him. “Now they’ve adopted those two little rascals from Haiti . . .” Her eyes met Taylor’s. “The contest is being held on Valentine’s Day.”
“Your birthday. And also . . .”
“Ten years from the day Mom passed away.” Aimee sighed. “I’m going to be twenty-six, Taylor. It’s high time I got myself together and moved on.”
“I understand that.”
“I know you do.” Taylor’s husband, a Sacramento firefighter, had been killed in an accident almost three years ago. Taking a job in San Diego was part of Taylor’s plan to move on.
“So what are you going to wow those bake-off judges with?” Taylor asked after carefully tapping the meal’s calorie count into her cell phone. The old familiar spark of fun warmed her eyes. “Some sort of soybean cheesecake?”
“Not a tofu fan,” Aimee admitted, her nose wrinkling. “I thought I’d go through Mom’s old recipe tin and adapt something—you know, ban the chickens and cows, but keep the sugar.”
“And all the love. Aunt Miranda was all about ‘stirring in the love.’ I think I asked my mom once if you could buy that at Walmart in a five-pound sack like flour.”
Aimee smiled. “The first phase is tomorrow. I’ve got to pass that. The bake-off finals will be televised. Professional kitchen, top-grade tools . . . ticking time clock.” She grimaced. “Nothing like pressure. But at least the hospital dietary kitchen gives me a chance to handle more equipment than I have at my apartment and practice my chopping and slicing techniques.” She shook her head. “Mostly when nobody’s looking, since the biggest part of my job is tray delivery. But I’ve been known to add a few artistic, signature Aimee touches and—”
Chance of Loving You Page 11
