A Love Like Ours (20 page)

He leveled a narrow stare on her.

“One.” She held up a finger. “A renewed relationship with the Lord. I’m not a Christian counselor for nothing. I wouldn’t do the counseling part unless I could do the Christian part, too. Whatever things you’ve done that you regret cannot be atoned for by anything in this world except the blood of Jesus Christ. Once you realize that, then you simply have to lay your regrets at the cross and accept His grace.”

He had a lot of regrets. And it was certainly true that he’d learned that he, himself, had the ability to atone for none of them.

“Two.” She held up a second finger. “Remembering.”

Now he knew she was crazy.

She mounded her hands in her lap, calm and at ease. The kind of calm and ease he’d give anything to experience, even for an hour.

“You see, the more you try to avoid your memories, the more power you try not to give them, the more power you end up handing them. The idea is to relive your worst memories. Second by second, over and over.”

Jake said nothing.

“Does that make any sense to you?”

“Some.”

The muffled sound of the TV cut away. Karen straightened, cocking her head. Then she hopped down from the stool. “Mollie’s having a seizure. Excuse me.” She hurried out, leaving the glass doors open.

Jake didn’t want to see Mollie having a seizure. On the other hand, there might be something he could do to help, so he wasn’t going to hide in the scrapbooking room like a pansy.

Mike passed Karen going the other way down the hall. “I’m getting her suction machine.”

Jake followed Karen at a distance. She went to Mollie in her wheelchair and rested her hands on her head, gently rubbing. “I’m here, Mols. I’m here, my sweetheart.”

Jake took in the situation with a sweeping glance, seeing it through the eyes of a man trained to be a sergeant of Marines. They’d already turned off the TV and killed the lights. “What can I do?”

“You can pull the curtains, if you wouldn’t mind,” Karen answered.

He did so.

Mollie continued to seize.

“Maybe you and Harold could step outside for some fresh air?” Karen looked pointedly from Jake to Lyndie’s grandpa.

The old man hadn’t moved from his recliner. His hands gripped the armrests. He’d focused his attention on the carpet, the lines of his face tight. It must be difficult for this man—who’d fought in Korea and outlived his wife—to bear his granddaughter’s suffering on top of his other griefs.

“Sir?” Jake extended a hand to him.

Harold took it.

“Dear God”—Karen continued massaging Mollie’s scalp—“Please be with Mollie. Please ease her pain and help her to breathe. We invite you here, into this very room, to bring us peace. To rescue our girl.”

Jake held back a section of the curtain and opened the sliding door for Harold. The two of them emptied onto the patio, where there was no sickness or prayer. Nothing but the tall trunks of trees and spreading branches for as far as Jake could see.

“Would you like to take a seat?” Jake asked.

“I believe I’ll stand.” Harold and Jake continued to the edge of the porch.

“How often does Mollie have seizures?” Jake leaned against the porch rail, setting his hands against it.

“Three times on a good day. Could be as many as fifteen on a bad day. Today’s been a pretty good day.” Harold took a deep breath, his frail chest lifting beneath his green golf shirt.

Jake wasn’t one to fill silence with meaningless talk, so he just let it sit.

“Native Dancer,” Harold said, out of nowhere. In the distance, birds chirped. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Do you mean the racehorse?”

“Excellent racehorse. One of the greats, in other words. I saw him race myself, you know. At, ah, Saratoga. He won all of his starts his first year. That must have been nineteen fifty . . .”

“Nineteen fifty-two.”

“Yes. And how many starts?”

“Nine.”

“That’s right. Nine.”

Karen opened the slider and sent Jake a grateful look. “Mollie’s doing fine now.”

“Good.”

She ducked back inside.

“Native Dancer,” Harold stated, “had more than twenty starts in his career, and he only came in second one time. At the ol’ Kentucky Derby.”

“That’s right.”

“I mention him because he was a gray horse. They called him the Gray Ghost of Sagamore because he was raised and trained at Sagamore Farm there in . . .”

“Maryland.”

Plenty of intelligence shone from Harold’s faded eyes. “Don’t
you
have a gray stallion in your barn at Lone Star?”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

“Might be you’ve got the next great gray champion.”

Jake nodded, noncommittal.

“In order for a horse to become a champion, there’s someone important who first needs to believe it can happen.”

Jake waited.

“His trainer,” Harold said, looking Jake right in the eyes.

Thirty minutes later, Lyndie’s phone chimed to signal an incoming text. She set aside the canister of whipped cream she’d been using to crown her coffee. Since she’d failed at concentrating on her art after returning from Whispering Creek, she’d decided to concentrate instead on a mocha, heavy on the chocolate and whipped cream.

She checked her phone and saw that the text was from Jake.

If you’re sure you want to jockey for Silver Leaf
, he wrote,
I’ll give you the chance
.

A stunned breath broke from her lips, followed by a wide grin.
“Yes!” She peered at the words on the screen in astonishment and gratitude. Easter was tomorrow, and no one could have given her a better Easter gift.

A new text arrived.
Take time to think it over
, he typed.

I don’t need time to think it over
, she wrote back, her fingers flying.

I was afraid of that
, he replied.

I’m sure, POSITIVELY sure, that I want to jockey for Silver Leaf
.

L
yndie sliced off a portion of the beautiful cake Celia had made for the Porter family Easter lunch. Vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. It sat on a serving table at the side of the room surrounded by clearly inferior dessert offerings like cherry pie and banana pudding. Goodness. The rich scent of the buttercream hung in a nimbus around the dessert, making Lyndie’s mouth water.

She should try to bring this cake to life via a storybook. She could write about a girl who liked to bake? Who was . . . hmm . . . a baker of birthday cakes?

Lyndie lifted her cake plate with one hand and her coffee cup with the other and wove through the numerous tables toward her seat while mentally scrolling through possible story ideas.

The James family was celebrating Easter in high style this year thanks to the Porters, who’d insisted they join them for lunch. The Porter Sunday lunches Lyndie had attended in the past had been very casual affairs held at Jake’s parents’ house. They’d involved paper plates, a barbecue grill, bags of chips, and an abundance of red meat.

For Easter, however, Meg and Bo were hosting the gathering of forty or so at their home, a home that managed to hit both
luxurious and rustic notes. Their rambling one-story ranch house had been built from Texas stone. It featured stunning wood floors, comfortable seating arrangements, cozy fireplaces. Meg and Bo had situated the house on a hill on a corner of Whispering Creek Ranch far removed from the horse farm. An abundance of windows let in light and framed views of rippling Texas land.

Lyndie spotted her parents and Mollie sitting with Jake’s parents at a table near an oil painting of wildflowers. They’d all recently finished a feast of ham and side dishes. Some guests were too unpleasantly stuffed to consider dessert yet. Some, like Lyndie, were merely pleasantly stuffed. Some were halfway to snoring.

Lyndie slid past someone’s uncle and into her chair. Dru, Jake’s younger sister, sat to her right. Ty sat to her left at the head of the table, Celia next to him, Amber next to Celia, and then Jake, followed by Porter family cousins. Their long rectangular table had been covered in a tablecloth so pale a pink that it almost looked like ivory, accented with floral arrangements of peonies, roses, and tulips. Tiny porcelain bunnies peeked out at Lyndie from hiding spots near the bases of the flower vases.

Ty held his baby son with one hand and used his other to help scoot in Lyndie’s chair. “Bo just stopped at the table and told us we should congratulate you because you’re going to be riding Silver Leaf in his race this week.”

“Yes.” She settled her coffee and cake onto the table. “I’m really excited about it.”

Everyone congratulated her, which then kicked off a conversation about Lone Star Park, which led to chitchat about Lone Star’s recent renovations.

Lyndie glanced at Jake. He gave her a subdued nod, both grave and yet—dare she hope—warm? Whatever it was, there in his eyes, it had the ability to make the space between them hum.

Thinking back on the exchange between them in the warm room yesterday, she was glad that she’d had the nerve to touch him and to say the things that she had. Jake could have no doubt
now that she cared about him, that she wished to help, and that he could talk to her.

She watched Jake say something to Dru, then lift an eyebrow at Dru’s response. It had been a joy to watch him interacting with his family over lunch. He was not an outgoing man. But here, with this group, he wasn’t cold or withdrawn, either. Lyndie had been very aware, since he’d taken his seat at the table, of every word he’d spoken to his cousins, of his posture, of how much he’d eaten. Her attention kept returning to him the way a compass returns to north. Right now, for instance, she knew that he’d crossed his muscular arms over his chest, which had caused the fabric of his white dress shirt to tighten over his shoulders, that he’d rolled back the sleeves—

“Lyndie?”

She startled. “Hmm?” Celia, Ty, and Amber were all watching her. Since Amber hadn’t maintained ties to her own family, Meg had pretty much adopted Amber and Jayden into hers.

“I was just telling Amber that I’d love to go to the track on Thursday and cheer for you,” Celia said to Lyndie. “Can I wear a big hat?”

“Sure.”

“Any excuse to wear a big hat is a good excuse,” Celia declared.

“I agree!” Amber said. “I’ll find someone who actually owns a big hat and then I’ll borrow it. I want to come, too.”

“Can we all fit into Meg’s owner’s box at Lone Star?” Ty asked Jake.

“Yes. All of you and then some.”

“If I can get the time off work,” Dru said, “I’ll come, too.” The youngest Porter sibling, a full ten years younger than her brothers, was pretty much the most beautiful woman Lyndie had ever seen in her life. Lyndie’s vague memories of a crying infant with a puff of dark hair had ill-prepared her for the adult version of Jake’s sister.

At twenty-two, Dru had already attained the confidence and poise of a woman twenty years older. Long, straight brunette hair,
so dark it was almost black, fell halfway down her back. Her sculpted features were almost icy in their sharp loveliness. And she had the same startling eye color as Ty. A clear turquoise blue so rare and bright it hardly seemed real.

“Are you nervous at all, Lyndie?” Amber asked. “About riding as a jockey again?

Lyndie carefully sectioned off a bite of cake. “No. Just really glad for the opportunity.” No sane jockey raced Thoroughbreds without a degree of nervousness. But whatever amount of nervousness she felt was so fully eclipsed by eagerness that it wasn’t worth talking about in front of Jake. “I didn’t get many opportunities with horses of Silver Leaf’s caliber back when I was riding. This feels like a second chance. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I’m all for second chances.” Ty gave Celia a crooked smile, then leaned back in his chair with his baby tummy-down on his broad chest. Little Hudson blinked heavy eyelids. “It took me more like four or five chances before I finally convinced you of my obvious desirability,” he said to his wife.

“I’m still not convinced,” Celia said wryly.

They all laughed, the sound causing the baby to jerk and raise his head. “Shh,” Ty crooned, wrapping his big hand around Hudson’s head and gently guiding it back down. “Your mother’s just talking smack again. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Ty tugged Celia close and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

Dru groaned. “I cannot believe that two of my brothers are this hog-tied over their wives.
My
brothers! They used to be so . . .”

“Normal?” Jake supplied.

“Lonely?” Celia offered.

“Available.” Amber’s voice held a note of regret.

“I was going to say,” Dru continued, “that Bo and Ty used to have a drop of testosterone in their bodies. Especially you.” She pointed at Ty.

“Speaking for myself,” Ty drawled, “this body still has plenty of testosterone left.”

“I can vouch for that,” Celia said.

“It’s embarrassing,” Dru persisted. “All this mushiness. Isn’t it, Jake?”

“Very.”

“I don’t like mushy.” Dru had recently returned to Texas after serving four years with the Marines. She’d immediately been hired by a private security firm in Dallas. According to Jake’s mom, Nancy, Dru regularly traveled to pistol shooting competitions and was so skilled with a gun that she’d become Grand Champion Pistol Shooter of the Universe or whatever title they gave to the best female shooter alive.

It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Dru with a pistol in her hand. Today she’d dressed in a tailored gray suit jacket, killer jeans, and wicked black high heels. Dru was a lynx. The rest of the women at their table were house cats in comparison.

“I like mushy.” Amber raised her hand. “I’d definitely like someone to go mushy over. And so would Lyndie.”

Um . . . Should she try to kick Amber under the table to stop this conversation before it began? A slicing motion across the throat might be too obvious.

“Didn’t you two make an agreement to each go on three dates?” Ty asked. He adjusted Hudson, now fully asleep, his small hands fisted on either side of his face.

“Yes,” Amber answered.

Lyndie could feel heat climbing up her neck into her face. She didn’t dare look toward Jake.

“We’ve gone on one of our dates so far.” Amber took a sip of her coffee. “Next weekend we’ll go on the second one. It’ll be a Japanese-style blind date called a gokon.”

“Would anyone else like coffee or cake?” Lyndie asked, a trifle desperately.

“Nice try,” Dru murmured.

“A go-what?” Ty appeared highly amused.

“A gokon.” Amber answered. “Should be fun. Right, Lyndie?”

“Yep.” Because the square dancing sure had been a bundle of delight.

“Why are you going on group dates instead of one-on-one dates?” Dru asked. Dru, who could probably force a man to his knees with date proposals just by looking him in the eyes.

“One-on-one dates would be great,” Amber told Dru. “But since no one we want to date has asked us out yet, we’re having to get creative.”

Lyndie laid her palms on the tablecloth. “No one wants dessert or coffee? Really? What about you, Cousin Lennie? Cousin Starlene?”

“Lyndie received a lot of attention at our last group date,” Amber continued. “Both of the guys she danced with have been asking her out ever since—”

“Excuse me.” Jake rose from the table so suddenly he drew everyone’s attention. Without a word, he exited the room in the direction of the back porch.

Dru watched Jake’s retreat. “That was odd.” Slowly, she swiveled around to peer at Lyndie, her brows pinched together. “Do you know why he stormed out?”

“No.”

Entirely too much intelligence gleamed in the depths of Dru’s eyes.

“As far as the dating scene goes,” Celia said to Amber, “I still think Will McGrath is perfect for you. He’s gorgeous.”

“I’m sitting right here!” Ty protested.

“I noticed you there, showboat. You’re gorgeous, too. Eat cake.” She pressed his plate into his hands.

“Who’s Will McGrath?” Dru asked.

“A local fireman,” Lyndie answered. Had Jake left his family’s Easter lunch?

“And who’s he perfect for?” Dru wanted to know.

“Any single woman with a pulse,” Celia replied. “But especially Amber here. I haven’t given up, Amber. I’m going to find out when he’s working this week, and then I’m going to have you deliver some baked goods to the fire station for me. What do you think?”

“Oh! I’d love to deliver baked goods to the fire station.”

“Then consider it done.”

“What about Lyndie?” Dru asked. “Who’s perfect for her?”

Celia looked at Lyndie with speculation. “We’re still working on it.”

Jake had not left his family’s Easter lunch. Lyndie knew this because after a covert, trying-to-look-casual search, she’d spotted him in a far corner of the backyard. He was sitting on one of the two Adirondack chairs positioned there, and he had Addie, Ty and Celia’s six-year-old daughter, on his lap. One of Addie’s hands rested trustingly on Jake’s shoulder. She gestured with her other hand as she talked. Jake listened attentively, nodding now and then, giving Addie an uneven smile of fondness. Lyndie didn’t know how the little girl was reacting, but that smile of his was thoroughly and completely captivating the big girl—herself.

Brutal events had toughened Jake, yes. But he still had the capacity for love and devotion.

Lyndie parked Mollie’s wheelchair on the edge of the enormous two-level flagstone terrace that spread out behind Meg and Bo’s house. “What do you think, Mols? Can you feel the sun and the breeze? There are several children playing out here. Hear them?” She described the scene to her sister.

A short distance away, Meg had set up a kids’ table. Big, plastic blow-up chicks sat in chairs at the head and foot. Earlier, when all the kids had been sitting and eating, they’d worn bunny ears. At the moment, about half the children were playing a rowdy game of tag on the manicured stretch of lawn and beyond, in the wooded areas that encircled the house. Not many—other than Jayden and a towheaded blond toddler—still wore their bunny ears.

Lyndie let the charm of the setting soak into her. Surely there could be no more perfect home to be raised in than this one, and no better parents to do it than Meg and Bo. She caught sight of Meg, speaking with two of the young mothers.

From all she’d heard, Meg and Bo were dealing with infertility
by holding tightly to each other and trusting God in the way that Lyndie’s family had learned to trust Him: as fully in the seasons of peace as in the seasons of doubt.

It must have been painful for Meg on some level, to put together such a wonderful Easter celebration for the kids included in the extended Porter family when she wanted children of her own.

Across the yard, Jake lifted Addie onto his shoulders. As they passed beneath trees, Addie reached up and tickled the leaves with her fingertips, giggling.

Meg parted from the women she’d been speaking to and came toward Lyndie. She wore a pink-and-white dress and silver heels that threw glints of light as she made her way across the flagstones. Meg had blond hair like Lyndie did, but Lyndie couldn’t help but note that Meg’s hair was
much
better behaved.