The Sweetest Gift (The McKaslin Clan: Series 1 Book 2)

by Jillian Hart

  Had she heard him right? Reeling, Kirby turned to the window, her mind spinning. Had he called her beautiful? No one had ever said that to her.

  She was plain. She knew that. But the man meant to love her, the one God made especially for her, wouldn’t think she was plain.

  No. He would think there was something special about her. That’s the way true love went, right?

  So either Sam Gardner needed a serious eye exam or he was simply being charming or he earned another check mark on her list.

  “By the way—” he leaned close so his words were a warm tickle against her ear “—we’re going to the best bakery ever.”

  “How do you know? Have you gone to every bakery in the world?”

  His eyes twinkled at her. “Yes.”

  “Liar.”

  “You’re awfully sassy for such a nice girl. My aunt was all wrong about you.”

  “Why? Just because I question you doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.”

  “A good person would agree with me.”

  “You’re impossible—has anyone ever told you that?”

  “All the time, but I’ve got you laughing. You don’t look as sad as you did in the hospital. You have history with little Sarah, don’t you?”

  “Sarah’s been a patient of mine over the last few years. I’m doing shift work, whenever I can, until my new job starts, and I took care of Sarah in the peds unit. I also volunteer at the free clinic and saw her there, too. She’s had a hard time.”

  “But she has you to take care of her. She seemed happy to see you. You were a comfort to her.”

  “I was a friendly face.”

  Much more than that, Sam thought. He ached—his body, his heart, his soul. Not with a physical pain, but an emotional one. And how was that possible?

  How had Kirby gotten past the titanium walls protecting his heart? She was making him feel, and he didn’t like it. Life was easier when he accepted what was and didn’t try to look for the impossible. For the good.

  He was a faithful man. He believed in God, he believed in grace, he believed in heaven and the goodness there. But here, on earth? No, he was too disillusioned to even try.

  What about Kirby? What was she doing to him? And why was he letting her affect him?

  He hopped to his feet. He couldn’t sit still. He stretched in the wide aisle, the dozens and dozens of seats and booths empty as the ferry rumbled, ready to set sail.

  Outside, the endless blue waters of the sound gleamed—as perfect as a sheet of blue diamonds. Sam saw the amethyst mountains and emerald foothills and the crystal brilliance of the city where he used to live with his wife. When he’d believed he’d find a good life with the woman he loved.

  When he’d been captured, all he’d thought about, all he’d prayed for, the only thing that had kept him going was to see her again. To be with her. To hold her in his arms and never let go. To finally have a place where he belonged.

  The ferry bumped to a start, jarring him out of his memories, away from the dark and into the light of the present. The big bulky ship chugged as slowly as a tugboat away from the dock and into the impressive waters. Another ferry, packed with commuters, passed them by, ready to dock.

  Once they were on their way, the water stretched ahead of them like paradise.

  Paradise wasn’t meant for a man like him. Wasn’t that clear to him by now? After all he’d been through?

  “Come on, let’s see if we can spot any dolphins.” He didn’t look at her. He wasn’t sure she was following him.

  He led the way through the glass doors and onto the unprotected deck where the wind stung like ice, but it was such a wonderful and free feeling to cling to the railing and watch the ferry slice through the water.

  Sam hung over the railing just enough to see into the ocean far below. “No dolphins. Maybe once we’re farther out.”

  “I have this irresistible urge to give you a little shove.”

  He chuckled, straightened. His dark eyes tried to sparkle, but they were shadowed. Troubled. “You’re not nearly as nice as you look, Kirby McKaslin. Maybe I have a few irresistible urges of my own.”

  “I know how to swim.” She gripped the rail, knowing full well that he’d never toss her over. Her chin shot up, so he knew she wasn’t afraid of him. “I used to be a certified lifeguard. That’s how I put myself through college.”

  “As a lifeguard? Did you teach little kids to swim?”

  “Yes, and I loved it. I was teaching those children a valuable skill, one that could save their lives one day.”

  “I was a lifeguard, too.” That amused him, that he and Florence Nightingale had that in common. They were about as different as he figured they could be. “I lifeguarded afternoons and weekends when I was a teenager. It kept me out of trouble and put my energy into something constructive. I worked the beaches just over there.”

  He gestured to the span of public beach west of the city, which was rapidly gliding past them as the tongues and islands of land surrendered to the powerful Puget Sound.

  “It makes you sad to remember that.” Gentle those words. Her hand covered his with a warm, assuring touch.

  He could feel the comfort flow from her to him, from her tender heart to his well-defended one. It startled him. Troubled him.

  He was a tough guy. He didn’t need comfort. He didn’t need to turn to a woman who would only let him down in the end.

  Then why couldn’t he seem to make his hand move away from hers? He was a fully functioning male. He had control of his limbs and digits. He could command his fingers. So why was her hand still on his, satin soft and delicately boned and consoling?

  He watched the distant shores drift past. Was he sad? “Yep. My dad died from pneumonia when I was five. It was rough. We had some very hard times. My mom was on her own, and I was a latchkey kid. I’d come home to our apartment after school, and I didn’t like the empty feeling when I got there. So I went out and hung around with a not so good crowd.”

  She might as well know the truth about him. Know that he’d never been a Boy Scout. He wasn’t a good guy who flew volunteer flights out of the goodness of his pristine, perfect Christian heart. In too many ways he was still serving his country, doing what he could to make a difference.

  That didn’t make him altruistic.

  No, just the opposite. He was deeply flawed, and when Kirby figured that out, she’d either think she could try to heal him and save him or she’d keep her distance from him.

  It was fine. He could handle it. He was prepared. He’d never let her close enough to hurt him.

  “You probably have a charmed life, though, so you don’t know what it’s like to be surrounded by sad memories. That’s why I don’t live here.”

  She pulled her hand away and swiped windblown hair out of her eyes. Maybe he was imagining it, but she looked sad, too. Her mouth thinned into a tight, hard line. “Maybe I do know about that. Maybe my life hasn’t been charmed.”

  “I hear you come from a good family with money and one of the best ranches in the county. Ruth waxes on about what fine people the McKaslins are. You were probably cheerleader and homecoming queen.”

  “No, but my four sisters were.”

  “Not you?” He said the words kindly, as if he knew what it was like to be lost.

  “I’ve known sadness.” She stared hard into the water, as if that would make her confession come more easily. “My oldest sister, Allison, died in a plane accident several years ago. It was a private plane headed for a Christian retreat. The Cessna had mechanical trouble and went down.”

  I was on that plane, too, she meant to say. But the words didn’t come.

  “I’m truly sorry.” He took her hand and held hard, tight, protective.

  That single day had been the worst of her life. She had the scars to prove it. Physical and emotional. “Nothing has been the same since. I’m not the same.”

  She blinked hard, staring deep into the water churning and swirling around the boa
t’s iron hull. No one could possibly know the depth of her grief. Or her guilt. Some nights she woke up with a loss too wide to fill. Prayer hadn’t closed it. Not thousands of prayers.

  “Sometimes,” she told him, “people aren’t what you think.”

  “No. Sometimes they are a good deal more.”

  Sam liked her. He really did. Kirby was beautiful, not in a stunning-supermodel way. Not in an every-hair-in-place, makeup-done-just-so kind of way.

  No, her beauty was subtle, the way the dawn came in the far north. So quiet, you had to listen and watch for it. But when it came, the unassuming light glowed like grace over a frozen world. It made a man’s heart fill and brim over.

  And she didn’t seem to know that’s what she was. That’s what she did to him.

  She swept stray locks of hair out of her eyes with a slender hand. He remembered the gentleness she’d shown to little Sarah. Kirby’s sensitive healing hands had taken care of so many sick and dying.

  And she had her own hardships, her own losses. He’d misjudged her. Underestimated her. What strength she had. What kindness.

  He hadn’t resisted the sudden urge to take her fingers in his. Smaller and more fragile, her hand fit in his palm.

  She was as soft as spring rain, that sweet drizzle that made the leaves bud and the grass grow and the flowers dare to bloom. When he touched her, that’s how she affected him. As if there was hope for him. For the permanent winter in his soul.

  And he knew better.

  That’s why he placed her hand gently on the rail and turned away, strangely aching, and searched the waters for those elusive dolphins.

  He did not touch her again.

  As the girl behind the cash register handed her a pastry and a steaming tall raspberry mocha with whipped cream in a pretty paper cup, Kirby had to wonder. Had she done or said something to upset Sam?

  After paying for their food, he turned and walked away from her without a single word. Not “I’ll find us a table” or “That muffin sure looks good.” Nothing polite or casual.

  He’d joked with her this morning and during the first part of the ferry ride, but now he was distant and silent. Had she offended him in some way?

  Maybe she ought to add this to her list of desirable characteristics: does not act in a confusing manner.

  Kirby balanced the big cup of coffee and her enormous croissant on a pretty stoneware plate and followed Sam. He was already seated, his coat slung over the back of the empty chair beside him, head bowed as he muttered a silent grace. Then he gathered the croissant egg-and-cheese sandwich with both hands and bit into it like a starving man.

  She stared at him. She hadn’t imagined it. He’d said grace. He was a man of faith?

  “Sorry, I should have waited,” he apologized when she joined him, “but I’m half-dead with hunger. Ready to drop at any minute. You’d have to administer a coffee IV straight into my arm to revive me.”

  “Don’t rely on me. I’m just as hungry and exhausted as you are. I’m ready to fall face first onto my plate.”

  “You look about as beat as I feel.”

  “I think the adrenaline is wearing off.” She bowed her head, uttered a brief grace and reached for her double mocha. Espresso slid over her tongue and down her throat. Yep, that was just what she needed.

  “If heaven has a bakery, then this one is it,” he said between bites. “It’s good to know there will be pastry in the afterlife.”

  Kirby took a bite of her cheese croissant. Buttery flakes fell apart on her tongue, crepe thin and sheer perfection. As exquisite as the food was, she was more drawn to the man across the table.

  A man of faith? She could see it in him. There was a serious side to this man who liked to make her laugh. A very serious side.

  “The view is heavenly, too,” he said as he dug in to his second croissant sandwich.

  Kirby’s tension drained away at the soft lull of the waves on the shore below, just outside the window. A beautiful place. The beach was rocky, and evergreens grew right up to the shore. The waning sunlight gleamed like polished glass on the moody gray waves. A big white-and-green ferry, the same one they’d ridden in on, honked long and loud, then eased away from the dock, loaded with cars and passengers headed toward Seattle.

  “It must be a nice way to live. To commute by ferry.” She tried to imagine it for herself, but couldn’t. She wouldn’t want to live anywhere but in Montana.

  “This is the view I kept in my head when I needed to remember why I thought joining the army was a good idea. When I was being shot at. I used to tell myself I would come here, when I retired, and live near the water in peace.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not the peace part.”

  “Do you think you’ll be happy in a small town in Montana?” Kirby looked around her, at the bustling city and its inviting skyscrapers and every entertainment under the sun—theater and universities and museums.

  “I have a helicopter. I can fly anywhere I want. I like Montana. It has a lot of good qualities I wouldn’t trade for anything. Like wide-open spaces. Sincere people. Clean air. A quiet neighborhood.”

  “The downside is moving in next to me.”

  “I’ll suffer through, somehow. Except one thing is going to be intolerable, and I might as well get it off my chest now. If we’re going to be neighbors, I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

  “Of what?” She looked sincere, caring and concerned. As if she would fix whatever it was, if she could.

  It was wrong to tease her, but he couldn’t help it. She brought out the worst in him. “There’s this odor wafting over the fence.”

  “Are you saying my yard stinks?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, and it’s only going to get worse when those long green stem things start to bloom. If I see one rose peeking over the fence into my yard, I’m going to kill it. Deadhead it right there. I’m a man, and I have a man’s yard and I’m not putting up with dainty little roses peeking over the fence to mock me.” He winked and polished off the last of his sandwich.

  There was the Sam she knew and liked. Glad he was no longer so quiet and distant, she did her best to rise to the occasion. “Why, will a few pretty flowers diminish your value as a man?”

  “Absolutely. Leo and I don’t do flowers. Unless I forget to pull weeds and they bloom.”

  “That’s too bad. I was going to offer you some of my cuttings. Oh, and I have the cutest little stepping stones. I have extra, if you’d like them.”

  “Please. Stepping stones. What I need is a big hammock. Maybe an extra refrigerator on the deck so I don’t have to go inside to grab a soda.”

  “Plus, it will be handy when you have your band members and biker-gang friends over for a backyard music jam.”

  “Good idea.” He was really starting to like her. It had been a long time since a woman had come along who could make him laugh.

  This was the problem with getting to know someone. At first glance, she looked a certain way and he could make assumptions about how she was. If he hadn’t been with her through the night and into this morning, he would have thought she was like one of those perfect girls on TV sitcoms, the kind that had no real troubles. Not ones that couldn’t be resolved in thirty minutes, anyway.

  That wasn’t Kirby. He was close enough to see the faint lines in the corners of her eyes and by her mouth made by sadness. The furrows in her brow that told him she had plenty of worries. She had known sorrow.

  Yet she was strong and self-sufficient. She had her own house, her own car and a nursing degree. In her spare time she saved little girls’ lives, and when she smiled it was a wholesome beauty he saw. The genuine thing.

  It wasn’t so easy not to care about her now.

  He stared at the window, troubled. The lap of water on the shore, an eternal rhythm, one from the start of time, should have by all rights comforted him.

  It didn’t.

  He felt flawed next to her. A wounded soul who was too tarn
ished to be near her. The food in his mouth turned to sand and he stood and pushed out of his chair.

  He walked away without an explanation. Left his jacket and his wallet on the table, and his coffee steaming. Kirby watched him with big startled eyes as he pushed out the door and into the cool wind from off the water.

  He stood at the shoreline and let the wind beat at him and the sound of the restless water pull at him until it subdued all the pain.

  Did she approach him? Or did she wait for him to come back on his own? She had no clue what to do as she hesitated on the steep bank. The wind kicked up and she shivered.

  He looked so alone as the storm rolled in, a solitary figure surrounded by a world of gray. He stood like a warrior of old, feet apart, spine straight, shoulders back, head up, as the rain came in a fine curtain of darker gray.

  Well, he certainly couldn’t stand out here in this weather without a coat. As if the elements had decided for her, Kirby tripped down the rocky slope, careful not to spill the coffees she held or drop the bakery sack or her heavy shoulder bag.

  Behind her, car tires whispered on the damp pavement and a few shoppers dashed to their parked vehicles, splashing through the already building puddles. Women chatted through the wind and rain as they unlocked their SUVs. The world around her felt normal and connected.

  And the man on the beach was set apart. Alone. Isolated.

  Sad. That’s how he seemed to her as she waded toward him through the shifting dirt and rocks beneath her sneakers. The water, as gray as the clouds and as pensive, lapped at his boots. He was wet from the rain.

  “Sam?” She wasn’t sure he’d heard her over the growing storm. She stepped closer.

  He had to have heard her, but he remained as still as a statue. She could feel his pain like the rain on her skin. “Sam?”

  “Yeah. I know. The ferry’s getting ready to leave. Guess we should go.”

  He sounded distant, as if he wasn’t really there. Overhead thunder crashed, a metallic sound that rumbled through the clouds for miles, echoing like gunfire.

  He closed his eyes, swiped his hand over his face, wiping away the wet drops from the rain. He looked ghost pale, and his eyes were so dark, it was as if he’d shuttered his heart and soul completely.