Love Inspired January 2016, Box Set 1 of 2

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “What happens if a real birder stumbles into you while you’re scoping things? Can you talk the talk?”

  “I can,” Daryl assured her. “Taking on a persona you can’t back up can be a suicide mission in undercover work. My daddy loved birding and he took me by his side while I was growing up. It’s come in useful a time or two.”

  “I’m sure it has. What’s next on the agenda?”

  “We make note of every garbage can, receptacle, niche, ledge or anything where someone can easily drop a backpack or duffel bag,” Drew told her. “We number them, and each area becomes the responsibility of a team member when they arrive for the presweep in four weeks. But first, we drop you at the lower end of Center Street so you can walk to the florist and make arrangements.”

  “All right.” She pulled an electronic notebook out of her purse.

  “No electronic footprint, remember?” Drew frowned at her through the rearview mirror.

  “It’s a dummy account set up because we work with this florist all the time. If I walk in there with a composition book, she’s going to know something’s up. If I scroll notes into this with no names or dates, I can transfer them later and I don’t raise her suspicions.”

  “Works for me,” Daryl said. “I have to say it’s a real pleasure working with someone who’s got some experience in these things.”

  “Thank you, Daryl. It’s nice to be appreciated by at least some of my coworkers.” She poked Drew in the back.

  His laugh said he was unoffended.

  “Being a cop’s kid and working Music Row gave me an inkling of this. We’ve sent a lot of red herring cars in and out of concert venues to steer people off track. I’m actually having fun, although I probably shouldn’t admit that.”

  “Tell me how much fun you’re having the week of the event, when every trash can and barrel and flowerpot is scoured repeatedly. Or removed from the areas.” Drew pulled over at the curb a few blocks away from the florist. “Got your cell on?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay.” She stepped onto the curb, slung her bag over her shoulder and shut the door. He didn’t pause or wave or smile. Those actions might draw attention to them, and that was the last thing they wanted to do.

  But the simple words I’ll see you tonight filled her with anticipation.

  She was silly. There was nothing between her and Drew. He was leaving as soon as this wedding was completed, and she’d be working in Grace Haven for as long as her parents needed her.

  But for just a moment, when he’d tossed that everyday phrase at her, she wondered what it would be like to come home to Drew and Amy every night. To laugh and tease and hang with Drew, a kid and a dog.

  The all-American image warmed her, but she refocused her thoughts as she walked into the florist shop. The original order had been for colors of the season, total October.

  Today’s order was a complete about-face and for a different weekend. If Kimberly played her part well, she’d walk out of the shop in an hour and Priscilla Evans wouldn’t be the wiser. She’d messed up by calling Shelby on her personal phone. She wanted the florist do-over to go off without a hitch.

  You want Drew to be proud of you.

  She did. The admission should have worried her, but the thought of seeing those camo eyes directed her way, smiling, made it all worthwhile.

  * * *

  Dog days of summer.

  Hot and muggy had been the rule of the day late into the afternoon, so Drew brought Amy and Rocky down to the lakeshore for some cool respite.

  An incoming text from Rick said he was available for a ten-minute conference call. Amy was delighting Rocky by launching a stick into the water repeatedly, and not minding when the dog gave himself a good shake-off as needed. Drew placed the call from his spot on the edge of a weathered picnic table about thirty feet away. “Rick, it’s Drew. What’s up?”

  “I had a minute and wanted to check in,” Rick answered. “I’ve read the reports you’ve sent me, but the sound of your voice is a better indicator of whether I should be concerned or breathe easy.”

  “Easy on all counts,” Drew assured him. “Mostly because your daughter and the wedding coordinator are amazingly cooperative and not throwing land mines my way. If this status changes as the date draws close, I may rethink my position.”

  Rick laughed. “That’s a relief. I know Shelby’s putting up a good front here. She’s being helpful and supportive, and, man, she’s a vote getter. When she talks, the young voters listen. Of course, being engaged to Travis brings in a grassroots segment I might not have won over otherwise, so that’s a bonus. Shelby seems okay with all the wedding prep. Linda is another story.”

  Drew and Linda Vandeveld got along well as long as he did everything Linda’s way. This time, that wasn’t about to happen.

  “She told me you changed almost everything they’d planned and that Shelby’s going along because I’m working her too hard on the campaign trail and she just wants it over and done with.”

  “First, you should buy Linda flowers more often because she has to put up with you and me,” Drew told him. “Second, she’s right that we changed a lot of things because the family status is different than it was. Shelby understood that, and, according to the wedding planner, Shelby is the number one person we have to please. Third, we’re running everything by Shelby so she’s part of the decision-making process, but she’s letting us have our way, mostly because she thinks your campaign is more important than a wedding.”

  “It’s not, of course.”

  Drew cleared his throat. “When the guest list swells to repay political favors, it loses sheen from a bridal perspective.”

  “You think I’m exploiting the occasion.”

  “I think you’re doing what’s expected of the party candidate,” Drew told him frankly. “That doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “But it does make it expedient.”

  “Slightly self-serving.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No. What should make you feel better is that Shelby’s a great young woman and she doesn’t mind because she sees your candidacy as the greater good.”

  “What did I do to deserve a kid like that?” Rick asked.

  “You raised her to love God and her country. Not a bad combo.”

  “We can secure this setting?”

  Drew nodded as a familiar shape moved across the nearby intersection, heading toward the lakefront park. The sight of Kimberly in shorts and a tank top made him have to work to keep his attention focused on Rick. “Yes. We’ll let the feds worry about you. We’ll cover the venue.”

  “Can we make it seem normal, Drew? Mostly?”

  Rick sounded a little tired, or maybe just mad at himself for letting the campaign bump Shelby’s wedding to a distant second place. “Yes. We’re blessed to have a one-of-a-kind event planner in on this. Her background is in country music and police work, she’s worked major events in Nashville and she’s got the inside track on the country scene.”

  “I can’t remember you ever using glowing terms like that in the past.”

  “Well, I’ve never done wedding security for you before.”

  Rick’s grunt said he wasn’t exactly buying Drew’s explanation, but he let it go. “Keep me updated as needed. We’re stumping at the big arena here tonight, but I wanted to touch base with you and make sure I wasn’t overlooking anything with this wedding.”

  “We’re good. I’ll share concerns if there are any. You harvest votes.”

  “One last thing. Did I hear you and this event planner suggested barbecue for the reception?”

  “We did.”

  “My wife is going to ream you. Travis is thrilled. Shelby thought it was a great idea, a
nd all Linda could see was one of Travis’s friends slurping barbecue sauce on someone’s designer gown.”

  “We’ll stock the restrooms with stain remover sticks.”

  Rick laughed and hung up as Kimberly reached Drew’s side. The sight of her in everyday clothing took him back in time. Kimberly had always been the Energizer Bunny Gallagher, on the go, ready to jump into the game of the moment. A total tomboy.

  She didn’t look like a rough-and-tumble tomboy now, even in the casual attire. She looked...beautiful. A fact he needed to ignore no matter how hard it was. “How’d the florist appointment go?”

  She bumped knuckles with him as she eased one hip onto the table. “Crushed it.”

  “And she or he wasn’t suspicious?”

  “No reason to be. We squeeze in last-minute clients whenever possible, and with Dad’s illness, people are cutting us slack. Besides, she was thrilled to get the price tag on this event, and she’s calling a local farmer to secure the pumpkins and gourds we’ll need to put together this new look. We’ve tossed the autumn bouquets in favor of gilded fall harvest and canning jar lanterns. Country shabby chic gone upscale.”

  “Gilded pumpkins sounds weird to me.” Drew kept his eye on Amy and the dog, but he wasn’t unaware of Kimberly’s proximity. Cotton, fresh and clean, like newly folded laundry, spritzed with a hint of that fruity floral stuff. Oh, he was aware, all right.

  “Well, you’re a man.”

  He turned then, grinning. “I was afraid you hadn’t noticed.”

  Did the flush on her cheeks mean something? Or was it the August sun?

  “Kimberly, watch me hit that buoy!” Using pinpoint accuracy, Amy hurled the stick and hit the marking floater as Rocky launched himself back into the water to swim for it.

  “Awesome!” she called before shifting her attention back to Drew. “She’s got quite an arm, Drew. Does she play baseball? Or softball?”

  “Yes, but not this past summer. I wasn’t there to run her back and forth like I usually do.”

  “She should be playing,” Kimberly declared. “That’s a God-given talent right there.”

  “It’s hard when you’re working an hour away,” he admitted. “And that’s if everything is smooth. On a bad commute night or if I’m in the Manhattan office, it’s longer. When I was just working corporate, it worked out all right. But once we hit the campaign trail, everything got bumped.”

  She stared at him. “At that rate, you spend over five hundred hours a year commuting instead of hanging with the kid. I don’t get it.”

  “Gainful employment. Life in the tristate area is unaffordable unless you’re raking in monster bucks, and I wanted her in a good school district even if it meant a longer commute.”

  She directed her gaze toward Amy. “I’m sure she’d vote for more time with her dad. Her Team Slade mentality seems pretty ingrained.”

  “That’s why kids don’t get to make the decisions,” he answered. “It’s my job to think about finances, safety, education, neighborhood and opportunities.”

  “Do you think our parents stumbled into living here by accident?”

  Her question threw him off track. He glanced around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Grace Haven is gorgeous now,” she explained, “and it was a great little town back then, but do you think they knew how much better this was than so many other places?”

  She was right. He’d had a dream childhood here; they all had. He’d shoved that realization aside at some point, letting the loss of his buddy overshadow years of good times. “Maybe it’s not so rare as it seems,” he offered softly. “Maybe you and I took a wrong turn after Dave died and forgot to weigh in all the good stuff.”

  * * *

  Kimberly had come to the same conclusion. That’s exactly what they’d done. Ironic that it took coming home for both of them to see it. “I wonder if she’d like to play on the fall league team.”

  “We’ll be gone by the beginning of October,” Drew argued.

  “That gives her a month and a half,” Kim answered. “She’ll have to be in school here for September, right?”

  “Yes.” He sounded hesitant, as if he hadn’t really faced his current lack of options.

  “So?” Kimberly eased off the table and faced him. “Why not keep her busy with a chance on the team while she’s here? She can run and throw. Is she any good with a bat?”

  “Better than good. She’s got quick wrists.”

  “Then give her the opportunity to shine. The kid’s got talent, and Coach Cutler is a gender-neutral guy. If a girl can make his team, she plays.”

  He stared, surprised. “You mean play on the boys’ team?”

  “If she makes it, she plays. And Corinne says the coach is awesome. He’s developed a lot of great young players.”

  “She’d play with Callan?”

  “He’s a little older, but again, it all depends on the skill level of the athlete. Come on—you know all this. You played here.”

  “This wasn’t part of the plan,” he argued, but she’d piqued his interest. “Amy was supposed to be safely tucked in a fun and challenging athletic camp, then a boarding school at least through January.”

  “Well, she thwarted that, didn’t she?” Kimberly laughed up at him. “What were you going to do about school? Have her skip a month?”

  “No, I just hadn’t gotten that far ahead in my thinking,” he admitted. “But you’re right, I’ll need to take care of things tomorrow. Get her registered. Which means having her pediatrician send her records to the school and get anything else they need. Kids complicate things.” He said it with a pretend glare in Amy’s direction, but Kimberly read the truth. He loved his daughter. Amy’s age meant that she’d been born before Dave died, but there had never been any mention of Drew having a child, and folks knew these things in small towns.

  Drew must have read her mind. “Her mother died just before Amy was three years old.”

  Kimberly winced. “I’m so sorry.”

  Drew’s strained expression said he shared the emotion. “We met while she was in grad school at the University of Rochester. We had a lot of fun together back when I didn’t weigh up consequences like I do now. We parted ways when she graduated. She wanted me to move downstate. I refused, not knowing she was pregnant. Then we lost Dave. I felt like a loser, like nothing I did was right, and Eve called me the next year to say we had a daughter.”

  “That’s quite a year.”

  “It sure was. I think hearing about Amy saved my life.” He watched as Amy dashed around the park trees with Rocky in pursuit. “I felt so guilty about Dave’s death. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t function. I was a danger to myself and others on the force.”

  His admission showed her how foolish she’d been. She thought he’d dealt with Dave’s death and moved on. While her family recognized the danger in police work, Kimberly had laid the blame squarely at this man’s door because a good partner always had your back. He hadn’t—and Dave had died. Shamed by her own shallowness, she listened quietly, at last.

  “When I learned about Amy, I resigned from the force and moved downstate.”

  “You started over.”

  “Not at first,” he admitted. “I wasn’t quite done being stupid. I drank too much and did a pretty good job of alienating most of Eve’s family and friends. Eve’s parents are affluent people who were probably appalled by my behavior, but through them I ran into Rick Vandeveld. He saw something redeemable in me.”

  “He gave you a job.”

  “Starting at the bottom in security, yes. He gave me a hand up at a time when I hated myself. He showed me how important it is to be a great dad, a hard worker and a man of faith. I owe him a great deal.”

  “When Amy’s mother died...” Kimberly
wasn’t sure how to phrase her question with sensitivity. “Weren’t her grandparents a factor in Amy’s care?”

  “You mean did they want to keep their only grandchild instead of letting her be raised by her rabble-rousing father?”

  “It couldn’t have been easy.”

  “It wasn’t, but I was working for Rick then, and I’d stopped drinking. And Eve and I shared time with Amy. They didn’t like it much, but Eve understood me better than most. She knew having a child would breathe life back into me. And she was right.”

  “She sounds nice, Drew.”

  This time he turned to face her. “She was. We both realized we weren’t meant to be together, and she was engaged when she was killed in an accident. And then Amy was with me.”

  “Well you’ve done a great job because she’s a delightful kid.”

  “Thank you. I think so. Right now she’s a great kid with a very wet dog.”

  Rocky loped their way, paused and shook, spraying droplets of lake water all over them. “Amy, you did that on purpose.”

  “I did no such thing.” Her grin belied her words. “I just happened to come this way. Rocky did the rest. Can we take a walk along the lake?”

  “You’re not hungry?” Drew paused. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Fine. I’m never real hungry when it’s hot like this.”

  “Me, either,” Kimberly agreed. “Then fall hits and I want to eat every high-carb comfort food known to man.”

  “Right!” Amy smiled in instant agreement. “We’re so weird.”

  “No argument there.” Drew laughed as Amy poked his arm, then slung an arm around her shoulders. “Come with us, Kimber. It’s a perfect night for a walk along West Lake Road.”

  Kimberly glanced at her watch.

  “I’ll make sure we’re back in time for your mother’s phone call,” he promised. “And maybe we can grab a basket from the Shrimp Shack on our way back. We can munch and walk, a perfect summer supper.”

  She almost said no, but when he tipped his head slightly, their eyes met.