A Time to Surrender (38 page)
“What do you want?”
“Skylar home and a grandchild.”
He laughed.
She had seen gift boxes from Max for her under the tree in the sala. Most likely they contained a pretty sweater—winter at the hacienda was colder than where they used to live near the coast—and a novel she would have mentioned to him in passing at one time. Perhaps a skirt. He had been paying very close attention lately.
He gave her the small box. “Not to rush you, but Rosie and her dad are already in the kitchen. Jenna and Kevin are on their way.”
“Rosie and Esteban are here? It’s only eight o’clock!”
“Potluck to him means working in your kitchen.”
She chuckled. The chef and owner of a Mexican restaurant adored her state-of-the-art kitchen. “Is this his coffee?”
“Yes.”
Christmas could wait. She reached for the mug and savored her first sip. The schedule called for the closest family members to gather for brunch midmorning. They would then open gifts, play games, and relax. Others would join them for dinner, including Hawk and Amber Ames. Some would spend the night in guest rooms.
“Oh, Max.” She gushed. “We are so blessed. I can’t imagine anything I want—”
“Just open the box,” he growled and took the mug from her.
She laughed and began unwrapping. Inside the first box was a ring box and inside that lay two neatly folded papers. Curious, she opened the one that looked like a receipt and grinned. “Season tickets to the symphony.
Two
of them?” She looked at him.
“I’ll be going with you.”
“You hate the symphony.”
His brown eyes twinkled. “That was the old Max. I’m ready to learn how to appreciate it. I want to.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
She unfolded the other paper. He had written a note. “Our new home lacks two things: a grandbaby and a baby grand. I can only give you one.”
Claire gasped. They had sold their old upright piano with the house. There had been just too much to put in order at the hacienda. Some parts of her life went by the wayside. Except for occasionally pulling out her violin, music was one of them.
Max said, “It’ll be delivered tomorrow. I’ve got your old music group lined up to play here next week.”
“Oh, Max!” She scooted across the cushion and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
“It was a good one?” He kissed her neck.
“It was a good one.”
L
ater that day, Claire fell silent often just to feast her eyes on the scene before her. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have portrayed a more evocative family Christmas gathering.
They had it all, from decorated tree to toasty fire to a mess of opened boxes and wrappings. From grandparents to the orphaned grandchild from Vietnam to those few friends who might one day become family. From the wounded war veteran to his wife setting his crutches on the floor beside his chair. And the one sorely missed—the one out of town who could not be with them—waited on the other end of the phone line.
Max had answered the phone, accepted the collect-call charges, and immediately held it out to Danny. “It’s Skylar.”
Danny planned to see her the next day during visiting hours. He tore across the room now and caught Max’s toss of the phone midair. “H’lo! Skylar!” The rest of them pretended not to eavesdrop.
They didn’t have to do so for long. Danny whooped loud enough for the horses to hear.
He turned to them, a grin stretched across his face. “Her sentence got reduced!” He spoke again into the phone. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That’s great. I will. I love you, too, Sky.”
Indio was clapping and shouting. “Woo-hoo!”
Max said, “What happened, Danny?”
“Well.” He paused, obviously struggling to pull himself together.
“God happened. They arrested Fin Harrod and a couple others in Nevada. One thing led to another. Skylar’s attorney and the judge got involved. Her time was reduced to three and a half years.”
Claire didn’t know how her heart could leap and sink at the same time, but it did. Three and a half years was, of course, less than six years. Maybe the good behavior aspect would make an impact, too, and she would get early parole. Still . . . Skylar wasn’t coming home tomorrow. Or not even next month.
Indio caught her eye. “Merry Christmas from the Father.”
Claire nodded.
C
ut!” Erik shouted. “Cut!”
Everyone stopped in their work of cleaning up the sala to look at him.
He was on his hands and knees, pulling something out from under the couch. “We are not finished with this scene. It’s another gift. To . . . let’s see . . .” He peered closely at the slender box. “To Rosie! From no name!” Grinning, he gave it to her.
Claire smiled to herself. She was perfectly content to have Erik not living with them. His dramatic tendencies had worn on her as a young mom. It was right for those days to be over.
Rosie looked at Erik suspiciously. “You just happened to find this under the couch? This very minute?”
“Yes, Officer,” he said in his deepest, most sarcastic, voice.
She laughed. “Okay, okay. I will put the cop to rest.”
“Attention, everyone! Rosie is opening a gift. Let’s show her due respect here. Come on, come on. Have a seat.”
Amid laughter and protests, Rosie sat back down and opened the gift. As a DVD inside a plastic case came into view, Claire wondered if this was, at long last, the mysterious video Erik and Nathan had been working on.
Rosie stared at it. “It’s a disk without a label.”
Erik huffed. “You promised to put the cop to rest.”
She laughed.
Danny said, “Rosie, you have got to quit encouraging his tedious witticisms.”
“Well, I kind of like them.” She walked over to the television cabinet and opened its doors. While she set things up, Erik directed the others to hush.
Within moments background music played and the television screen displayed opening credits.
Rosa Maria Delgado: A Tribute. Created and produced by Erik Beaumont, with all my heart and some help from Nathan Warner.
Rosie said, “Did I die?”
Her father harrumphed. He was a large man and did it well. “Rosita!” he snapped. “Have some respect for this gringo.”
She smiled.
The video continued. There was a biography complete with old photographs of Rosie as a little girl with her now-deceased mother. Esteban talked through much of it. Family friends were interviewed. Then the Beaumont interviews began. Along with Claire’s rambling—Erik had not cut a word of it—the others spoke about meeting Rosie. While Claire had reminisced about her time with Rosie after the shooting, Max and his parents described the incredible moment she brought Tuyen into their home for the first time. Danny and Lexi remembered Rosie as a kind policewoman who offered to help them in spite of the fact she had arrested their brother.
Like Claire, they all revealed a profound fondness for her. Danny stated solemnly that although she revealed a serious lack of judgment by dating Erik, he was grateful for the attention she gave the hopeless, troubled man.
Esteban took center stage again. He faced the camera, his native Mexican features drawn together in a somber pose. “Rosita, the following message has been approved of and paid for by me, your father.”
“Not paid for.” Erik’s voice was in the background.
“But the words flow well, don’t you think?” He grinned.
The scene was replaced by Erik seated on the same couch. He wore a dark suit and red tie from his TV anchorman days and smiled the killer smile that accounted for his 80-percent female audience.
“Rosie,” he said. The camera followed him as he slid onto one knee on the floor. “I love you dearly. Will you marry me, please?” He held out a ring. The camera focused in on a diamond sparkle, and then the screen darkened, the music faded.
The group was hushed. Claire glanced around through her tears and saw Lexi, Jenna, Tuyen, and Indio wiping their own. Nathan, Kevin, and Danny grinned. Ben looked as smug as if he’d thought the whole thing up himself. Max took her hand.
Erik dug into his jeans pocket and knelt before Rosie. Like on the video, he held out a diamond.
Rosie appeared to be in a state of shock. “You wanted witnesses, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “Backup. We all love you.”
“I suppose if I marry you, I get the whole family?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“Then yes.” A smile lit up her face. She sniffed, cried, and giggled.
A collective “Aww” went round the room and then pandemonium erupted with cheers, hugs, and a much-admired diamond sliding onto Rosie’s finger.
Claire melted into Max’s embrace and whispered a prayer of thanks. Erik had really taken the step she feared he might never have found strength to take. And Rosie was ready to meet him in it.
Would Nathan and Lexi get to that place? And Tuyen? Hawk was a comfort to her. Could he settle into marriage?
Kevin’s physical healing set records. He would get his prostheses in a couple weeks. Skin grafting would be done on his left arm and make the burns less obvious. Emotionally, though, would he and Jenna ever be ready for a child?
And Danny and Skylar. Could any more bricks have been thrown onto their path?
Max kissed the top of her head. “You’re thinking too much.”
“What?”
“I can hear the gears clicking and clacking from here.”
She smiled. He knew her too well.
How did Indio do it? Steer the tandem, serve as matriarch, cover them all with consistent prayer—and yet not be always tied up in knots?
She watched her mother-in-law hugging Rosie, struck again with the woman’s peace in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. “God is good” would be pouring from her lips into Rosie’s ear.
God was indeed good. And He was the One who steered the tandem from up front.
Claire hugged Max and consciously took her foot off the imaginary brake. She wasn’t in charge.
Seven months later
F
ew things unhinged Jenna Beaumont Mason. She could do cool, calm, and collected. She could do serene. She could go with the flow. She could chill.
Honestly, she was married to a Marine.
But try as she might, she could not talk around the lump in her throat.
Kevin smiled down at her, his eyes laughing beneath the bill of a Padres cap. They sat on bleachers in the Shamu stadium at Sea World on a hot summer day with thousands of other people. Far below, in the clear pools, enormous orcas swam gracefully.
He said, “You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll cry. I am crying.”
“That’s okay.” He waggled his brows. “You’re not worried I’ll fall flat on my face?”
She shook her head. Kevin moved with amazing agility with his prostheses. Artificial limbs. Plural. He needed three of them to make a thigh, a knee, a calf, an ankle, a foot.
“You’re not embarrassed about the way I look, I know that.”
People stared at his prosthetic leg whenever he wore shorts. They stared at his left arm’s odd color and texture whenever he wore short sleeves. Jenna had learned to receive their pity and horror with poise. She smiled and said he had been in the war. She explained to anyone still looking how his new leg worked. Wasn’t it fascinating?
No, she didn’t feel embarrassed. To have Kevin home alive and living with her was all that mattered.
He was still in the service, working on the base. They had moved near it. She was teaching summer school there. Their new circle of friends included some of the men he’d served with and their wives. Every day was a gift that she received with gratitude.
Kevin kissed her cheek. “Then what is it, pretty lady?”
“I-I’m just so happy,” she whispered. “I finally get to do this because I want to.”
He smiled. “I love you.”
A loud voice resonated from the sound system, and a hush fell over the crowd. Jenna and Kevin knew what was coming. Friends had told them to expect it.
As “America the Beautiful” played and scenic nature slides filtered across enormous screens behind the pool, the announcer asked all the servicemen and their families in the audience to stand.
Jenna practically flew to her feet. Kevin rose beside her, along with hundreds of others across the stadium. The crowd applauded loudly and long.
She tugged on his sleeve. He leaned near to catch her words.
“I am so proud to be your wife, Kevin Mason.”
He grinned and touched the small bump protruding at her waistline. “And I am so proud to be standing here with both of you.”
M
y heart overflows with gratitude for all who came alongside during the writing of this novel.
Thank you to my coauthor, Gary Smalley, for the definitive work on relationship and the willingness to explore it through fictional characters.
Thank you to so many who filled needs for words, technical information, insight, and prayers: my “John girls”—Elizabeth, Tracy, Kaiya, and Aliah; son Christopher John; brother Tom Carlson; Troy Johnson; Carrie Younce; Peggy Hadacek; Dr. Scott Hicks; Carla Genack; Kelly Farmer; Todd Kahley; Kim Moore; Susan Meissner; Peggy Wright; Patti Hayes; Pam Farrel; all the folks at Church of the Advent; and Adam Kokontis.
Thank you to my professional partners: Lee Hough, Ami McConnell, Leslie Peterson, Jennifer Stair, and everyone at Alive Communications and Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Thank you to my mom, Mary Carlson, for making it all possible in the first place.
And as always, thank you to my most wonderful husband, Tim.
In keeping with the other titles in the Safe Harbor series,
A Time to Surrender
references concepts found in Ecclesiastes 3. There is a time to uproot, to throw away, to lose, to give up. These all speak of surrendering.
1. Discuss what the characters give up in this story. It may be material things, attitudes, strongholds, or something else.
• What does Claire as a mother surrender?
• Jenna as a young wife?
• Danny as a confident-in-his-viewpoint believer?
• Skylar as a keeper of secrets?
• Ben as the father of an MIA son whose fate has been learned?
