by Arlene James
“Hey, Doc! You’re just in time for lunch.”
“Well, of course, I am,” Brooks said. “Exactly as I planned.”
“That’s not what you told me,” Kaylie retorted, folding her arms.
“You’re right,” he admitted glibly. “I’d hoped to make it in time for breakfast. Lunch is plan B.”
Odelia giggled, setting her earlobes to jiggling. Since she was wearing earrings that resembled globs of purple gummy worms, the effect was a little scary. She’d have looked like a walking bait shop if not for the optically disconcerting white spirals printed on her purple cotton sheath, which she wore with white sandals. The wide straps of the sandals and neat, clean lines of the short-sleeved dress lent an odd air of demureness to the otherwise crazy costume. In other words, it was pure, quintessential Odelia.
“In honor of Brooks’s visit,” she announced gaily, “we’re having a garden party.” She slipped free of their visitor and went to bend over Stephen, adding, “And Brooks says you may join in, if you feel up to it, Stephen dear. Would you like that?”
“Tante Odelia,” Stephen said with a grin, “I would love it.”
“Are you sure?” Kaylie asked, biting her lip with worry. She couldn’t help thinking of the ordeal that the stairs presented.
As if reading her mind, Brooks stepped forward. “I think we can make it a little easier for him.” Gently nudging Odelia aside, he began to pull the straps free on Stephen’s jacket sling. “For starters, let’s get rid of this.”
Kaylie helped Brooks carefully maneuver the confining, vest-like object over Stephen’s head. Brooks then lifted Stephen’s shirt, revealing tautly sculpted muscles, and performed a three-fingered tap along the twin ladders of his ribs. Stephen winced lightly from time to time but never lost his smile.
“Sore but much improved,” Brooks pronounced. “Ready to try it without the jacket?”
“Absolutely.”
Brooks looked to Kaylie. “Let’s get him a simple sling. That’ll keep the weight of the cast from stressing his clavicle and shoulder muscles and still let him lift his arm and start moving a little more fluidly.”
Stephen eased back on the sofa with an “Aaahhh,” and Kaylie smiled, promising, “I’ll take care of it this afternoon.”
After a few questions and a check of Stephen’s pulse and eyes, Brooks stuffed his tools back into the pockets of his suit jacket and offered his arm to Odelia. “I hear Hilda’s apple-chicken salad calling me.”
She laughed, and they swung toward the door. Chester and Kaylie helped Stephen back into his chair, then the trio started off after Odelia and the good Doctor Leland with Kaylie pushing and Chester again trailing along behind. At the head of the stairs, Stephen rose, balancing his weight on one foot. Kaylie and Odelia went down with the chair while Chester and Brooks took positions on either side of Stephen beneath his arms. Had he been a few inches shorter, they could have carried him. As it was, he hopped lightly from step to step until he reached the bottom and sank once more into the wheelchair.
Odelia hurried ahead, chattering merrily about May Day being the perfect day for a garden party. Stephen tilted his head back, gazing up at Kaylie with wide eyes.
“Good grief. Is this the first day of May? I’ve lost track.”
“It is,” Brooks answered for her. Bending low, he murmured to Stephen, “No dancing around the Maypole for you, though.”
Kaylie smacked Brooks lightly on the arm with the back of her hand. “Or anyone else, you pagan.”
“Hey, I’m an anti-pagan. I firmly believe that Christianity should co-opt every festival and holiday, despite its origins, and make it exclusively our own.”
Kaylie couldn’t argue with that.
Reaching the end of the east hall, she turned Stephen’s chair and backed him down the slight slope into the sunroom. Chester split off and went into the kitchen, while Brooks sprinted ahead to the end of the room near the cozy brick fireplace and opened one side of the French door for Odelia. He threw the other side wide as Kaylie approached with Stephen in the wheelchair. Once more the aunties had rearranged their furniture to accommodate Stephen, a fact he immediately grasped.
“Bright room. Odd furniture groupings.” He leaned his head back, smiling. “All for little old me?”
“All for great, massive you,” she grunted, shoving his chair over the threshold. He laughed as they gained the outdoors.
The expansive brick patio looked like a spring wonderland, with flowers spilling from a dozen knee-high pots and hanging from graceful wrought-iron stands. The aunties had pushed together two square, redwood tables for their party, creating a space in the center large enough to accommodate Stephen’s outstretched leg. The arrangement came with the added benefit of a pair of tall, rainbow-striped umbrellas that rose from holes in the redwood tabletops.
As they reached the table, Stephen sucked in a deep breath, spreading his arms as wide as the cast immobilizing his bent elbow and lower arm allowed. “Now this is my idea of paradise.” He nodded toward the figure of a man moving near the greenhouse set back at some distance and asked, “Who’s the gardener?”
Everyone looked at Magnolia, who beamed and said, “His name is Garrett Willows. Hired him almost a month ago. Two green thumbs.” She turned up her own two in tacit approval.
“Oh, I know him,” Kaylie remarked, setting the brake on Stephen’s chair. “Or of him, anyway. Isn’t he the older brother of Bethany Willows Carter?”
“That’s right,” Hypatia said, spreading a starched linen napkin across her lap. As usual, she looked regal in apricot silk, especially next to Magnolia’s simple print shirtwaist.
Brooks pulled out the wrought-iron chair beside Stephen for her, and Kaylie absently dropped down into it, musing aloud, “Wasn’t there something significant about Garrett?” It hit her suddenly. “Wasn’t he sent to—”
Odelia shoved a basket of rolls at her, reaching across Brooks as he took a seat between her and Kaylie. “Have some bread, dear.”
“Yes,” Magnolia echoed, cutting her eyes meaningfully at Hypatia. “Have some bread.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Hypatia scolded, “as if I don’t know the man has been in prison. The two of you act as if I sit in some ivory tower, completely cut off from the rest of the world while you drag in your strays—no offense, Stephen dear. Well, I know what goes on. I remember perfectly that Garrett Willows pled guilty to assault for beating his stepfather half to death.”
“Pity he didn’t finish the job,” Brooks muttered. He cleared his throat when Hypatia shot him a quelling glance. “Sorry. It’s just that Garrett went to prison for trying to protect his mother from her husband, and even after that, she stayed with the man. Less than two years later, he killed her.”
Kaylie remembered the whole ugly story now, how Bethany herself had used to come to school with bruises and scratches that she’d tried to hide. Garrett had been in his early twenties and Bethany, who was Kaylie’s age, about seventeen when he’d taken a baseball bat to their stepfather. Bethany had been newly married when her mother had died, and Kaylie remembered that at the funeral Bethany had sobbed that it was her fault for leaving her mother alone with her brutal stepfather.
Stephen let his gaze sweep around the patio once again in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “Don’t know this Garrett, but I’m inclined to believe Magnolia when she says that he has two green thumbs. I suspect that makes four in total.”
Magnolia blushed, indicating the level of his success in diverting the conversation. “Why, thank you, Stephen dear.” She literally batted her eyelashes at him. Intentionally frumpy Aunt Mags! It was enough to make Kaylie gasp when Aunt Mags cooed, “Are all hockey players so silver-tongued?”
Stephen and Brooks both burst out laughing.
“I think you have me confused with my agent,” Stephen said, and that sent Brooks off into a chain of stories about Aaron Doolin’s college days that kept everyone at the table laughing merrily for some time.
When Carol placed a plate filled with chicken salad, apple slices, fresh greens and sliced hardboiled egg before Kaylie, she regretfully shook her head. “Oh, no. I can’t stay. Dad will be expecting me at home.” Checking her watch, she hastily pushed back her chair.
“Nonsense,” Hypatia decreed. “Hubner can take one meal alone. We’ll make it up to him by inviting him to dinner tomorrow evening. How will that be?” Without waiting for an answer, she looked to Carol, saying, “Bring me a phone, will you, dear?”
“Oh, allow me,” Brooks said, pulling his mobile phone from the pocket of his suit jacket and handing it across the table. He shared a conspiratorial smile with Kaylie, who understood perfectly that seeing Brooks’s name on the caller ID would add weight to Hypatia’s plea.
Kaylie told herself that she should just get up and go, not let the company, food and the beauty of the day seduce her away from her duty. But it was just one meal, after all. Just one. Hypatia made the call, saying that they had coerced Kaylie into staying for lunch because Brooks had arrived and inviting Hub and Kaylie to join the sisters for dinner the following evening. No mention was made of Stephen until Hypatia passed the small phone back to Brooks.
“We’ll expect you to join us, too, of course, Stephen dear,” she said in an amiable tone that allowed no refusals.
He smiled wryly and inclined his head. “My pleasure.”
“And you, as well, Brooks,” she went on in a somewhat lighter vein.
He lifted a hand. “Sorry as I am to say it, I have a prior commitment. It’s my evening at the free clinic.”
“In that case, will you honor us now by praying so that we may eat?”
“Delighted to.”
Everyone bowed their heads as Brooks offered simple but eloquent praise and thanks for the company, the surroundings and the meal. Carol reappeared with tall, frosty glasses of iced tea garnished with lemon slices and mint leaves. To Kaylie’s surprise, Stephen took a long drink of his.
Lifting his glass, he said, “I’ve tried telling my friends in the Netherlands that this is how you’re supposed to drink tea.”
“Hear, hear,” Brooks agreed, eliciting a number of politely indignant arguments from the aunts.
Finally, Odelia sat back, smiled indulgently and declared, “Oh, you wretches. You’re teasing us!”
Stephen and Brooks just smiled, saying nothing, while the aunts twittered with amusement. Kaylie bit her lip and sent Stephen a laughingly censorial glance from beneath her brow, but he refused to look at her, most likely for fear of giving himself away. One thing she knew about the man was that he could not abide hot tea. Actually, she mused, she’d come to know a good deal more about him than that.
She knew that he could be cross, arrogant and demanding but also thoughtful, sweet and charming. Tough as nails and boyish at the same time, he could display a remarkably selfish nature and then a poignantly needy one as if they were two sides of the same coin. She knew that he was not a believer but that he was respectful enough of her beliefs to discipline his language and behavior so as not to offend. She also knew that his kiss could make her heart explode, his tender touch could curl her toes and his joy could make her positively giddy, all of which seemed to war with the purpose for which God had brought him here, or purposes, as the case might be.
His lifestyle and her own felt at odds, and too many mysteries remained for her comfort, mysteries she increasingly longed to uncover. She thought of this Cherie with whom he was supposedly involved and wondered why she had not put in an appearance by now. Were Stephen her own boyfriend, even if they were just casually dating—and she suspected there was nothing casual about it—Kaylie knew that she would not be so inattentive. She knew, too, that he was a man of whom her father was not likely to approve. Perhaps, she mused, if her father came to know him as she did…
Oh, but what was she doing? Building castles in the air. Forgetting her purpose. Yielding to temptation.
She looked at Stephen, smiling with undisguised delight, and knew that her heart, and perhaps even her faith, was very much at risk.
Chapter Eleven
Despite Kaylie’s private misgivings, lunch became a relaxed, drawn-out affair. Brooks was the first to leave, but the aunts lingered until the heat, rising into the nineties, drove Hypatia and Odelia indoors. Mags always seemed oblivious to the temperature and trundled off to the greenhouse. Kaylie didn’t find the temperature uncomfortable, either, but she was surprised when Stephen suggested that they sit out on a pair of chaises near the fountain.
“Are you sure? It’s not too warm for you?”
“No, I love the heat.”
“But you spend so much time on the ice.”
“Maybe that’s why I like it warm the rest of the time. Spending half my life on sixteen-degree ice has given me an appreciation for the other end of the spectrum.”
“Sixteen degrees!”
“Yeah, that’s why I have to keep moving back there even when the puck’s in play on the other end of the court. It’s not all that cold, frankly, if you’re actually skating. That’s why hockey gear is designed to wick away sweat and why I like a little heat.”
“All right,” she conceded, “we’ll stay, but not too long. The last thing you want to do is get a sunburn on top of everything else.”
“True.”
She pushed him over to the nearest chaise and held the chair while he managed the transfer.
“Ah,” he sighed, stretching out. “Most comfortable position I’ve found in quite a while.” He caught her hand as she claimed the second chaise and lifted his face to the sun. “The Dutch love to bask in the sun, you know. Swim, too.”
“Really? I thought it was very cool there.”
“Most of the time it is, but they do get a little summer, and at the very first sign of it, they hit the water.” He chuckled, as if remembering. “It’s funny when I think about it. My dad lives out in dusty west Texas where you’d think they’d crave water sports, but the only time I can remember seeing him in a bathing suit he was wearing boots and a cowboy hat.”
Kaylie smiled at the mental picture. Curiosity swelled, and she gave in to it, quietly asking, “Why don’t you see your father now?”
Stephen blew out a breath through his nostrils. “Well, you have to understand how it was with my parents. Mom was an exchange student at Texas Tech when she met my father. When she got pregnant, he insisted on marrying her or having custody of me. I think he was afraid of exactly what happened, that she’d run back to the Netherlands with me. She was never really happy in the marriage, and she hated west Texas. She and I traveled back and forth between the Netherlands and Texas for years, until we were spending more time there than here. They used to have terrible fights about it. Finally, when I was eight, they divorced. My dad begged me to stay with him, but…”
“She was your mom,” Kaylie supplied simply.
Stephen nodded. “They both wanted me, you know? And that was great, but it was also a kind of burden. I couldn’t be with them both at the same time, and Holland was more my home than Lubbock by then. My father and I had almost become strangers.”
“He berated you, didn’t he?” Kaylie asked gently, indignant on Stephen’s behalf. “Called you a mama’s boy and a sissy.”
“What?” Stephen looked over at her in surprise. “No! Where’d you get that?”
“From what you said in the ambulance.” She tried to recall his exact words. “Something about not being a pansy, a mama’s boy.”
“Oh, that,” he said, shrugging dismissively. “That was the best thing my dad ever did for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look,” he said, shifting slighting over onto his left side in order to face her, “when I was sixteen I came back to the States to play triple-A hockey. It was my first step toward the pros, and my dad arranged it all for me. He drove to Colorado and convinced a coach there to give me a tryout, flew me over here, hired me a private trainer to get me re
ady and shelled out a fortune in fees.”
“You obviously made the team,” she said, and he nodded.
“I did, but it was tough sledding that first year. We practically lived on a bus, playing and practicing in different towns all over Canada and the U.S., but nowhere near Lubbock.”
“Not surprising,” Kaylie commented.
“More than once I called my dad to come and get me,” Stephen went on. “The first time, he did. Drove all the way to Minneapolis. Within a week, I was begging him to take me back. After that, whenever I’d call, he’d, well, he’d say whatever it took to keep me fighting for my spot on that team. Some of those phrases he used became my private mantra. Two years later, I won a full scholarship to college in Wisconsin. From there, I got picked up by the AHL and a year later signed with the Blades. My dad opened the door to all that for me.”
“Your father may have opened the door, but you did the hard work,” she pointed out.
“True, but I’m not sure I’d have stuck it out if he hadn’t egged me on that first year.”
“So why the estrangement now?”
Stephen shifted over onto his back again. “It’s just that there’s always been this distance between us. We haven’t spent more than a couple weeks at a time together since I was eight. Then, when I went off to college and he was no longer paying the bills…” Stephen rubbed his forehead, admitting, “It was my fault. Mom didn’t like letting me come back to the States, and she expected me to spend my summer and holidays with her, and I wanted to hang with my buddies, you know? Team becomes everything when you’re a kid on the road like that. There just didn’t seem enough of me to go around, and Dad felt I chose Mom and Nick over him.”
“Nick?” Kaylie asked, immediately latching on to that name. It was as if a shutter came down.
