“Tower restoration?”
He had to hand it to the kid. In his shoes, Mark doubted he would’ve been able to keep from gloating.
“They put it together while you were gone,” Billy said easily. “Bring up the projected budget for two thousand three. It should be there.” Billy explained that the vestry had also agreed that the church bell was in dire need of repair and had decided to have it lowered and then shipped to a man in Georgia who specialized in the arcane art of repairing cracked church bells.
“Run that by me again,” Mark said. “It cost how much?”
The figure didn’t sound any more sane the second time around.
“The man died,” Billy said, “and the job was cancelled. The bell is in storage and the money is there waiting to be put to good use.”
He found himself impressed again by Billy Owens’s selflessness. “Would you be interested in heading the committee I’m putting together to push the day care idea forward?”
“Actually that’s sort of what I want to talk to you about. I’ve been offered a pulpit in Missouri. A small church with a growing congregation in a suburb of Kansas City. I spoke to Marianne about it, and while she’d rather stay here too, we both feel it’s an opportunity that we can’t ignore.”
An idea began to take shape in the back of Mark’s mind. “I think I can speak for everyone in town when I say we don’t want to lose you.”
“And I don’t want to be lost, but our savings are pretty well depleted at this point. We have three kids and this offer has come along at the right time.”
“When do they need an answer?”
“I said I’d let them know after the Fourth of July weekend but I don’t see much point to waiting.”
Mark was silent for a while. “You wanted the pulpit here at St. Stephen’s, didn’t you?”
Father Billy nodded. “I fought the good fight, but the best man won.”
Mark looked at the young man and smiled. “I’m not so sure of that.”
Pinecrest Village
“Looks like you’re ready for the Fourth around here,” Kate said as she kissed Charlotte on both cheeks. “Uncle Sam is manning the reception desk out front.”
“That’s Kenny Gruenwald,” Charlotte said with a laugh. “He was John Raitt’s understudy in The Pajama Game years ago. If I’m still here at Christmas, you can catch his Christmas show.”
The words Of course you’ll still be here wanted to pop out, but Kate knew better. Charlotte was long since past the need for empty reassurance. She had somehow learned the secret of enjoying every day and not worrying about the clouds gathering on the horizon.
“Let me see you.” Charlotte motioned for Kate to turn around.
“This is a great dress, isn’t it?” Kate pirouetted. “I’ve had it for years but—”
“You look terrible.”
“I knew it was too young for me. I’m going to be a grandmother. I probably should pass this on to Gwynn and—”
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte demanded. “Have you seen your doctor? Have that overpaid son of a seacook run some tests. Make him earn his money. Are you nauseated? Are you having any pain?”
“I’m fine,” she said, faking a laugh. “Although I’m not too crazy about hearing how terrible I look.”
Charlotte considered her long and hard. “I thought you would be on your way to New Hampshire by now.”
“I thought I told you I wasn’t going.”
Charlotte shook her head. Her sparkly chandelier earrings brushed her fragile shoulders. “You didn’t tell me. Father Mark told me when he phoned yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.” Charlotte’s look could only be described as imperious. “I’m disappointed. I thought you were your mother’s daughter.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “You know my mother?”
“We all know your mother. She spoke at our Living the Good Life Longer Festival two years ago.” The imperious expression on her face grew downright saucy. “If only she’d shown up when I was in my eighties and Tony Biondino was still alive . . .” She sighed lustily. “I would have shown him a thing or two.”
Kate poured them each some juice from the carafe on the side table. “Maeve is definitely memorable.”
“You sound disapproving.”
“Not at all. I’m all in favor of living life to the fullest.”
“Well, then, dear Kate, why aren’t you doing it?”
She sat up a little straighter. “I think I am.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“And, with all due respect, Charlotte, I don’t think you know me well enough to pass that judgment.”
“I know a coward when I see one.”
Had Charlotte been thirty years younger, Kate would have walked out. Unfortunately she had been raised to respect her elders and so, seething, she stayed where she was.
“I resent that statement,” she said with as much restraint as she could muster.
“You would have no need of resentment if you were on the road to New Hampshire.”
“Charlotte, I’m not sure what you think you know about Mark and me, but what happened between us is nobody’s business but ours. I appreciate your concern, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The world changes, young lady, but people don’t. You may think you’re the first woman to experience love but you’re just one in a long, long line that started with Eve.” She leaned back against her pillow and closed her eyes and for a moment Kate was afraid something terrible had happened, but then Charlotte’s eyelids snapped open and she was a young woman again, a woman who was willing to do whatever it took to be with the man she loved.
“My George worked for a British firm and he was being sent to Hong Kong. He asked me to marry him but I hesitated. I couldn’t imagine leaving behind all of the new freedoms and opportunities, so when he left, he left alone.”
Kate listened as Charlotte spun out the story. Charlotte and George corresponded for months. He was an ardent, persistent suitor but then one day a letter arrived that seemed different to her. Charlotte sensed that maybe she had waited too long, that her reluctance had been perceived as disinterest when what it really was, was fear.
“Love was a dangerous thing,” Charlotte said. “At least that was what I believed when I was twenty-two. I had seen my sister take to her bed and turn into a recluse because the man she loved didn’t want her any longer. The thought that that could happen to me was terrifying.”
But even more terrifying was the chance she might lose the love of her life. So Charlotte did the only thing she could do: she went to Hong Kong to tell George what was in her heart.
“You traveled alone from New Jersey to Hong Kong?” Kate was awestruck in the true sense of the word. “Weren’t you terrified?”
Charlotte shook her head slowly. “Once I made up my mind, nothing could stop me. We all have a choice to make when it comes to our lives, and I chose to be happy.”
“I know your story has a happy ending,” Kate said, gesturing toward the array of family photos propped on the nightstand, “but what if it hadn’t? What if the worst happened and you traveled all the way to China to be with him and he didn’t want you anymore? Your heart would have been broken!” Not that she saw a parallel between Charlotte’s situation and hers . . .
Charlotte reached for Kate’s hand and held it tight. “A broken heart isn’t the worst thing that can happen, Katherine. Never giving your heart to another is. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Twenty-four
July 4—French Kiss
“Whoever came up with the idea for the Sidewalk Sale should be severely chastised,” Kate said as she stifled a yawn.
“I second that.” Sonia poured herself a double espresso. “Eight a.m. on a holiday is a punishable offense.”
“We’re an antiques shop, not Target,” Kate grumbled over her decaf. “I absolutely refuse to put anything over twenty dollars out there o
n the street for people to paw over.”
“Guess that rules out the Georgian china you bought on your last trip.”
“I’d say it rules out just about everything in the inventory,” Kate said.
“Look what I found!” Liz popped out of the storeroom with two 1940s-era Uncle Sam figurines and a set of red, white, and blue stars-and-stripes plates from the early 1960s. “They’re not antique, but they sure play into the Fourth of July theme.”
They were off and running. By the time the first tourists hit Main Street, they had an eye-catching display set up on the table.
“You keep looking at your watch,” Sonia remarked as they left Liz outside to keep her eye on things. “Got an appointment or something?”
“Nope.” It was nine-fifteen. If she drove the speed limit, she could be at the Greenwood Fourth of July Barbecue by five. Not that she was planning to do anything that crazy. Just a what-if. “I’m surprised we have activity so early.”
“You did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Looked at your watch.” Sonia put down the early Wedgwood beaker she was wrapping for an online customer. “Do you have to be someplace?”
And just like that she knew what she had to do.
“I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, Sonia,” she said as she gathered up her belongings and stuffed them into her enormous leather bag, “but you’re right. There is something I have to do.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Sonia looked puzzled and a little concerned. “Maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine.” She had never felt better in her life. “I’m going to take a few days off, Sonia. You and Liz can hold down the fort, right?”
“Sure we can.” She grabbed Kate’s arm. “You’re going back into the hospital! I’ve heard that sometimes those procedures have to be redone and—”
“I’m not having another angiogram,” Kate tossed over her shoulder as she dashed for the back door. “I’m going to New Hampshire.”
She cut across the parking area they shared with Blake’s Flowers and Geneva’s Spice Shop.
“Nice display, Kate,” Geneva called out as she emptied some trash into their mutual Dumpster. “Hope I get some of your overflow.”
She didn’t have time to stop and shoot the breeze with Geneva or the crowd at Danny’s Coffee Shop or the gang from the bakery. She didn’t even wait for the light to turn green at the corner of Stuyvesant and Main. She darted into traffic (all three cars of it) and practically pole-vaulted to the other side.
She felt like an explorer heading into uncharted territory. She had no map or guide, only her heart to keep her on course, and her heart was telling her to hurry before it was too late.
She broke into a run. She hoped Dr. Lombardi knew what he was talking about when he said she was one hundred percent. Maybe she should phone Maeve and ask her to ride along with her, or maybe she could grab a flight out of Newark Liberty. What was wrong with technology anyway? Why hadn’t anyone figured out a way to transport love-struck people to their lover’s doorstep before they had time to lose their courage?
She ran past the Goodwins’ crazy Irish setter, the Mac-Dougalls’ skateboarding grandson.
What if she couldn’t find him once she got there? She didn’t know the town or the people. She couldn’t wander up and down the main street asking for the pastor’s address. What if he wasn’t even there? He had friends in New Hampshire. He had family. He could have begged off on the festival and gone off somewhere else . . . with somebody else.
No. She refused to think like that. He would be there. He would listen to what she had to say. He would—
Actually she had no idea what he would do. She knew what she hoped he would do, what she prayed he would do, but when the moment came only God and Mark had a clue.
She started to laugh. That was what happened when you fell in love with a priest. You started thinking like one. The truth was, there were no easy answers. Sometimes there were only questions. But that was no reason not to take a stand.
She turned onto Indigo, slipping on a patch of wet grass near the Terhune house. She glanced at her watch. Almost ten o’clock. Five minutes to grab something to eat. Five minutes to pack. Another five for the unexpected. She could be on the road by ten-fifteen, on the highway by ten-thirty.
She ran past the Drake house, the Eliott house, the empty Voorhees house, and then skidded to a stop at the foot of her driveway.
A beat-up pale blue Honda with New Hampshire plates was angled next to her Miata.
A tall, lanky figure rounded the corner of the house and for the second time in her life she thought her heart would stop beating. His head was down. His dark hair glinted with gold and red highlights in the summer morning sun. He wore jeans and the Grateful Dead T-shirt and suddenly she couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been part of her life, her heart.
He took another step and then glanced up. Their eyes locked and suddenly she was in motion, flying up the driveway straight into his arms. Her defenses were down. Her heart was wide-open to love for the first time in her life.
“I drove all night,” he said, kissing her hair, her forehead, her nose, her mouth. “I had to see you.”
“I ran all the way home,” she said, running her hands through his hair, down his shoulders, across his chest. “I was going to drive up to New Hampshire to be with you.”
“I can’t live without you, Kate.” He looked exhausted but happy, deeply happy, and her heart soared with hope. “I’m coming back to New Jersey.”
“I like New England. I could—”
“You’re not listening.” His eyes met hers. “I’m coming home.” It would take another month to straighten out the details, but he had worked out a plan to hand over the reins of St. Stephen’s to Father Owens in a way that made everybody happy. “I should be back down here around Labor Day,” he said. “To stay.”
The question “Why?” burst out before she could stop it.
“Because I love you.” There was nothing forced about the declaration, nothing fake or practiced. He spoke directly from his heart. He cupped her face with his hands. “Why were you driving up to New Hampshire?”
“Because I wanted to tell you—” Her throat closed against the enormity of the words. This was it. The point of no return. Once she said those words her life would be changed forever. She would be changed. “I wanted to tell you that I love you.”
There were kisses that turned a woman inside out. There were kisses that melted her bones. And then there were kisses that promised her a future more wonderful than anything she had ever hoped for.
“I want you to know what you’re getting into.”
“I read the Mitford books,” she said and he laughed. “I know it won’t be easy.”
“My days as a small-town parson are probably over. Right now I don’t know what the future holds for me.” He wanted to continue working with the elderly and people battling substance abuse, but he had closed those doors when he went back to Greenwood. Only time would tell which ones would reopen for him.
“I’m not exactly the ideal companion,” she said cautiously. “I’ve been poring over books about Episcopalianism, but nothing’s changed. I’m not sure what I believe in or why. I haven’t been to church in years. I don’t want to be a liability.”
“I know who you are, Kate, and I don’t want you to change for me or for anyone. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”
That was the most beautiful declaration of love she could ever ask for.
“Change is good,” she said. “If I hadn’t changed I wouldn’t be standing here with you right now.” Sometimes change hurt but it was all part of living.
“You Jersey girls don’t scare easy, do you?”
“The thought of losing you scares me.” The thought of how close she had come to living her whole life without knowing how it felt to be in love terrified her.
He dropped to one knee in the gravel driveway and took her hands in
his. “You don’t have to give me your answer right away,” he said, “but I don’t want you to have any doubts about where this is going.”
He wanted her heart, her body, her soul, her future, and he was willing to give her everything he had in return. He wanted to build the rest of his life with her and he wasn’t afraid to put his own heart and soul on the line and tell her so.
Life didn’t come with guarantees. You never knew what the fates—or God—might have in store for you somewhere down the line. She could hide from love forever or she could take that leap and hope the net really would appear.
There were a thousand questions yet to be answered, but only one that really mattered.
Choose happiness . . . choose happiness . . .
It turned out she was her mother’s daughter after all, and so she did the only thing a French woman could do: she chose happiness.
She finally chose love.
Epilogue
Coburn, New Jersey—one year later
The first time was always the hardest.
Daniel Mark Dempsey was eleven weeks and four days old and his very tired, very young parents were going to spend their first night without him.
“We should’ve stayed at your place,” Mark said as Andy lugged in the last of the baby bags. “Is there anything left at home?”
Andy grinned at his father-in-law. “Gwynnie wanted me to dismantle the crib and bring it along, but I had to draw the line somewhere.”
“Good thinking,” Mark said. “Any more stuff and you’ll have to hire a sherpa.”
“Gwynnie!” Andy shouted up the staircase. “If we don’t leave now we’ll miss check-in!”
“It’s a long drive,” Mark called out, “and lots of traffic. Better get moving.”
“She doesn’t want to leave the baby,” Andy said. “She wanted to bring him with us.”
Mark grinned at the young man he had come to respect and love. “I think Kate and Maeve might have something to say about that.” The two women had been counting down the hours until Danny was all theirs to fuss over and spoil.
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