He tried to stretch his legs and arms. Gavin considered himself in good shape, but right now his body did not agree. Tara reached out her hand, and he took it and moaned as he stood.
She chuckled. “You’re too big to hole up in this hallway to sleep.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You were afraid I might slip out during the night, too upset to be responsible for my actions.”
“Nah, I like sleeping in odd places regularly. It ups my skill set.”
“At what, moaning and walking like a man three times your age?” Tara shooed him. “Go.”
He hobbled out of the hallway. “Your strong suit isn’t mercy, is it?”
She laughed. “It’s not, actually.” She went into the kitchen, to the coffee maker, and began making coffee. “My strong suit is motivating people to do as I tell them. Seems to me that since you were the first person I exercised that skill on—and a mere toddler at the time—you’d have that figured out by now.”
Gavin sat on a stool at the bar, rubbing his face. “Seems like.”
She snapped her fingers. “Why are you not already awake?”
“It takes me a while.”
“Every day?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s odd. How do you manage that as a firefighter?”
“Training.” He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and yawned. “Lots and lots of training. When the station alarm goes off anytime during the night, I’m out of bed and dressed at least a full minute before my brain has stopped dreaming.”
“I guess the solution to that is I need to get your mom one of those fire station alarms or a reasonably close facsimile.” She set a cup of coffee in front of him.
He grabbed her wrist. “Don’t.” He deeply enjoyed her sense of humor—what little he got to see of it. “I beg you.”
She laughed hard and pulled free. “It’ll be under the tree come Christmas morn. But I won’t be here to enjoy its merits.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “It’s time for me to go home.”
Gavin was wide awake now. His feelings for Tara were broad and varied, apparently spanning time from when he was in diapers until right now, and he was in no way ready for her to leave. “How soon?”
“In a few days, maybe a little longer. Some of the answer to that depends on things I don’t yet know, like flights and other important stuff.” She motioned from his mug to his mouth. “Drink. Get awake. We have stuff to talk about.”
“I…I’m awake. Definitely awake.” And deeply disappointed, but he knew this was coming at some point.
She made the same motion again, and they both sipped on their coffee for a few minutes—him sitting at the island, her standing behind it.
Tara set the cup on the island, keeping her fingers through the handle. “Before waking in the hospital, I saw and talked to my brothers in heaven.” She pulled something out of her pocket, rested her arm on the island toward him, and opened her palm. “I’ve had this since I was eighteen.” She shared the story of it, from the time Darryl tossed it on the porch and stood on it, saying he was rock climbing, until it came up missing and Darryl tried to find it for her.
“How did you find the rock?”
“I didn’t. Maybe a friend did while going through the debris at the cabin while I was in the hospital unconscious. But no one has volunteered that information, and it seems they would. Still, the truth is I won’t ask, and I’ve told no one else of the vision…or dream. I need to believe that maybe God gave me a miracle in the midst of the tragedy.”
Gavin put his hand over hers, cradling the rock between their palms. “You hold tight to that possibility, Tara.”
She studied their hands, and her eyes slowly moved to his. “You don’t think it’s wrong or maybe a bit crazy to hold so tightly to the hope that the rock is a miracle while knowing if I talked to friends about it, someone could tell me the real story?”
He traced the edge of the rock with his finger, touching her palm as he did. “However it got into your hand, it was love that brought it to you. Whether that love was from a friend who found it or from God Himself, love put it there.”
She covered her face with her free hand. “Sometimes their deaths feel pointless. They weren’t trying to save someone. They weren’t in a war or rescuing people from fires. Nothing in anyone’s life is any better for the loss, only worse. So very much worse.” She drew a ragged breath and put the rock in her pocket. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “Clearly I still have a lot of things about life and death to work through.”
Gavin cradled his mug, unsure if he should go to her or reach across the island and take her hand. “Life is a breath, Tara. Even if their deaths were pointless, their lives weren’t. Their lives changed you, and you’re here to make a difference in others because of that change. Death can’t be pointless unless we let it be.”
She stared at the granite island. “The span of our years is as nothing before Him,” she whispered. “Every one is but a breath. Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it. Our life is like the morning fog. We were made to live and love and know Him, but on this earth we will not stay long. In Him, we win even when we lose, so choose to be strong. Faith, hope, and love are living gifts inside us, though their appearance may change as life marches on, but do not let any battle steal your victory song. Strength and light and love must go on.” She lifted her head.
“That’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, and I’d forgotten about it. Thank you.” She drew a breath and smiled. “It’s something Sean and Darryl and I came up with and would recite at the end of a hard day.” She chuckled. “It’s a mishmash and paraphrasing of a few Bible verses and some words from the ‘C. S. Lewis Song,’ and we made it our own.” She took a few deep breaths and slowly released them through pursed lips. “Okay, then. I’m fine again for at least the next sixty seconds.”
He ached when he thought about the roller coaster she was on, but he couldn’t free her of it. No one could. They sipped coffee in silence.
She went to the coffee pot and grabbed the carafe. “By the way”—she refilled his mug—“the house and property are yours.”
“What? No. Absolutely not. That’s not what Sapphira intended.”
“You’re keeping the house and land. Finish taking the house apart, demolish it, and divide the land. The whole nine yards.”
“I just covered this two sentences ago, Tara. The answer is no.” Were they going to move from sharing heartfelt, deep things to arguing?
“I have news for you, bud. The house and property are legally yours, and you can’t make me take possession of them.”
Apparently they were going to argue.
His mind was made up, and she wasn’t winning this one. “Fine. It’s all mine, and when I’m finished with all the necessary steps, I’ll put the money in your account.”
“Giving me large sums of money that I’ve asked you not to is flirting with stalking or some other law I don’t know about. I have the right to remain poor if I so choose, not that I’m actually poor. But that aside, my right to be poor is in the Constitution…or not. But I’m not allowing you to give me the money.”
Heavens to Betsy, she was spellbinding—whether addled, grieving, or perky. He fought to hear her words as her countenance held a light he didn’t want to take his eyes off of.
“No, Tara. I don’t want those things that Sapphira intended for you to have. And it’s not against any law.” At least he didn’t think it was. Who knew? “It definitely doesn’t make me a stalker.”
“It makes you a bit…loopy, for sure. Giving me the money makes no sense, Gavin. You’re going to ignore my wishes, plunk it into an account for me anyway, and then you’ll go bankrupt, and your mom will lose her place and possibly her business. Forget stalking charges. I’ll be able to have y
ou committed.” She folded her arms and rested them on the island, leaning in. “Look, I get how you feel. You have ethics, and I’m messing with your sense of fair play. But you have no legal rights to win this one. I know what I know, even when I’m too confused to know anything.” She frowned. “What did I just say?” she whispered and shook her head.
“Your playfulness is much appreciated, but the answer is no.”
“Wrong. As it turns out, everything became yours legally yesterday. Sapphira and God deemed it so. It’s yours, and you can’t make me take it. I hold the power in this situation, not you. So the answer is whatever I want it to be. I say you’re keeping everything. You can’t win, so drop it and be happy.”
Ire ran through his veins. He stood. “You don’t fight fair.”
She came around the island. “But I banked on the fact that you would.” She tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek.
The power of the kiss entered his body and spread, reaching inside every sleeping hope and awakening it. He longed to pull her into his arms and kiss her. But that would be a huge mistake. She didn’t have any of those feelings for him. Even the kiss was from her to a friend, one she’d learned was connected to her childhood. She was just now able to feel anything other than misery. Still, he wrestled with his desire, won, and then plunked onto a barstool. “It’s good to see you doing so well.”
“Thanks. I had a God moment last night. I think it lasted about three hours. I know I’ll grieve the rest of my life, sometimes unbearably hard, but I’m a vessel again, ready to figure out life and walk in love toward those who are still on this earth.” She sat on a barstool. “I’d like to keep everything from the painting room, including the shiplap, to use on a project yet to be determined, but I have nowhere to store it right now. Can you store it for me?”
“That would be the absolute least I could do for you.” He ran a finger around the mouth of the mug, wishing it wasn’t too soon for her to step outside of her grief so they could see where this relationship could land. “You don’t have to go. There’s a place for you here in our lives.”
“Thanks, but no. This is your life, and mine is in North Carolina. But I may take you up on that one day.”
His heart about ruptured, and he was glad to be sitting down. “Seriously?”
“I think anything is a possibility right now. I need to tend to things, and as I do, I’ll know what the next step is, just like I knew I needed to stay here rather than go home with Hadley and Elliott, even if I stayed because I imagined a young man whispering stay. Maybe it wasn’t my imagination. What do I know? Seriously, the answer to that is I know it’s almost time for me to go. Learning my identity was the unfinished business, the reason I couldn’t leave earlier.”
“I’m not sure we can figure out who we are through any single incident.”
“True. And I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with my life. I need to figure it out. Can I cope with living in the cabin? I have to try. But not right away. I’m going to wander for a bit first, maybe stay with different friends as I work up the courage to live in the cabin again.”
“Sounds smart.”
“Necessary, I think. And I like the idea of starting a nonprofit of some sort to honor Sean and Darryl, but I’m not sure I’d be very good at pulling it together.”
“I’ve never thought this of anyone before, but I believe you can do anything you set your mind to.”
She seemed unsure. “My brain doesn’t feel clear or powerful like it used to, but thanks. On a different topic you need to make those firemen buddies of yours pay for their antics the night I came to the station.”
She’d grabbed his attention anew, as if she didn’t already fully have it. He scratched his head. “What?”
She cupped both hands around her mouth and made eerie ghost sounds. “Maaaarrrrryyyy.”
“You knew?”
“I knew something weird was going on, but it took a few days for it to dawn on me that they were harassing you about me, or rather Mary. How’d they know?”
“The only thing they knew is that I’d chased a supposed ghost down the beach, and they dubbed you Mary because of the ghost folklore on the island. But I think the Glynn Girls set them straight the night we talked at the fire station. If they’d known the real story, they wouldn’t have—”
“No explanation needed. Save your breath for plotting to get even.”
“Tara.” He mocked complete shock.
She chuckled. “Am I telling you my idea or not?”
Amusement at her asking a similar question to one he’d voiced during their first real conversation made his heart flutter. “You are.” For the first time in his life, he second-guessed his decision to be a fireman. Even if inklings of feelings for him ever stirred in her, she wouldn’t allow them to grow. He was sure of it. She wouldn’t choose someone with a career of going into burning buildings. She’d lost too many loved ones to willingly enter a relationship with someone whose career was hazardous.
She raised a brow. “Use their teasing and my leaving to your advantage.”
“How?”
“Seriously?” She tapped the island with her fingers. “You need help to make your balloon payment on time, and the news from yesterday threw everything off schedule. Since I’m leaving the island soon and you need help, tell them I was your childhood friend who returned to the island with a head injury and their antics ran me off. Then let them know you need help with Sapphira’s house.”
He broke into laughter. “That’s mean.”
“Yeah, so much meaner than wagging a ghost costume out a window and playing that music while I’m sitting on a bike in front of the firehouse.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Changing subjects, you were right about my need to do something positive concerning my loss. Since Sean and Darryl aren’t here to continue their lives, I need to find a way to continue something in honor of them. I don’t have any idea what that is right now. But if God can pull beauty out of ashes, there’s something He wants to do in my life. I’m in search of what that is.”
“I’m really going to miss you.” Was he saying too much?
Curiosity reflected in her eyes, and she started to say something, but his mamas burst inside carrying plates of food while shushing one another.
“Oh.” Dell’s eyes grew wide. “You’re up.”
“I am.” Tara smiled. “And I woke up sleepyhead too. We’ve had coffee, shared secrets, talked shop, argued, and made up. Now the food has arrived.”
“Argued?” Julep asked. “What could you possibly have to argue about?”
“Uh.” Tara rubbed her chin. “Before we reveal that, just remember I’ve won, and it’s not open for debate.”
“Sounds ominous…and interesting.” Luella set a covered serving plate on the counter.
Gavin told them what was going on, and the four mamas stood there like granite.
Tara raised a brow. “Done deal.” She spread her opened palms at them. “Breathe and move on. Not Sean nor Darryl nor I had any desire to uncover money when we planned this trip. Thanks to each of you, I got what my brothers wanted me to find here—to understand my roots, to learn how I came to be and why things played out in such a confusing way, and to find out if I had any family.” Tara’s eyes misted. “And apparently I do.”
His mamas’ stances went from rigid to mush as they enveloped her in a group hug. Gavin put his arms around all of them, and they stayed that way for a bit, enjoying the gift of knowing Tara. Her brothers should be here as the ones who introduced her into their lives, but despite the circumstances they had come to know her.
“Okay.” Gavin stepped away and clapped his hands. “Food. Why are we hugging when there is food?”
Sue Beth picked up a plate from the stack she’d brought in. She put food on it and held it out to Tara.
“Oh, no way.” She took it and held it out to Gavin. “I’d like a plate with less than half that amount.”
Luella poured coffee into a row of mugs. “So what’s the plan, Tara?”
“I know I’m ready to see my church family and small group. And I’m sure Sean’s and Darryl’s many friends could use a hug and someone who really cares about their loss and confusion to listen to them. I’m ready to step out in love, wherever it takes me.” She looked out a window, suddenly seeming far away. “So I head back to North Carolina in a few days. I’m not sure I’m ready to stay at the cabin yet, but I’ll do some out-of-the-way mountain climbing and visit friends, and”—she shrugged—“figure it out as I go.”
Luella’s gaze seemed fixed on Tara. “You know good places to climb in North Carolina that are outside of the highly publicized ones?”
“Definitely. Mountains, small towns, B&Bs. Western North Carolina is home, and I know it well.”
“How would you feel about having some company?”
“Company?”
“My publisher would love for me to write a travel guide about rock climbing in western North Carolina—although I doubt I could climb a rock, much less a mountain.”
“You could. It might be a bunny slope, but you could do it. The real thrill would be rappelling down a huge mountain. Come with me if you want.”
“I’ll swanee.” Luella gasped. “I never thought I’d get to do a travel guide like this. I’ll drive. When do we leave?”
“Lu.” Gavin gave her a look. “I’m trying to assure her she has a place here, and you’re trying to get her to pack before breakfast is over.”
“I know there’s a place for me here.” Tara made a sweeping gesture at the lot of them. “And I thank you, but I need to find my place in my world, the new one that doesn’t include Sean or Darryl. Since we don’t need plane tickets, I’d like to leave in a few days. Doable, Lu?”
“One hundred percent. Dropping everything spur of the moment to travel is what my life is built around, and my publisher will be excited to hear about this venture.”
As the Tide Comes In Page 28
