Summer Breeze (35 page)
Catherine Palmer lives in Missouri with her husband, Tim, and sons, Geoffrey and Andrei. She is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University and holds a master’s degree in English from Baylor University. Her first book was published in 1988. Since then, Catherine has published more than 40 novels and won numerous awards for her writing, including the Christy Award—the highest honor in Christian fiction—in 2001 for
A Touch of Betrayal
. In 2004 she was given the Career Achievement Award for Inspirational Romance by
Romantic Times BOOKreviews
magazine. More than 2 million copies of Catherine’s novels are currently in print.
Dr. Gary Chapman is the author of
The Four Seasons of Marriage
, the perennial best seller
The Five Love Languages
(over 3.5 million copies sold), and numerous other marriage and family books. He is the director of Marriage & Family Life Consultants, Inc., an internationally known speaker, and host of
A Growing Marriage
, a syndicated radio program heard on more than 100 stations across North America. He and his wife, Karolyn, live in North Carolina.
C
harlie had his mind on tomatoes as he drove around the curve that led to his clapboard house with its neatly manicured lawn. Feeling a little itchy for change, he had tried some different varieties this year. In the past, Esther had wanted only beefsteak and cherry tomatoes. Beefsteaks for their sandwiches and cherries for their salads. But Charlie had put in three new bushes as an experiment—pear-shaped romas, a yellow variety, and even one that had a hint of purple to it. To his surprise, Esther thought the new tomatoes tasted delicious, and she had enjoyed showing them off at Deepwater Cove’s Labor Day barbecue.
Having decided to be bold with peppers in the coming spring, Charlie was pondering the difference between sweet bells, anchos, and jalapeños when he heard a loud bang from the direction of his carport. He saw the back end of Esther’s long bronze Lincoln traveling forward at ninety-to-nothing. The car had already taken down one of the wooden support posts holding up the carport’s roof. Now it crashed through a second post and sailed off the four-foot-high concrete wall that divided the driveway from the backyard.
Charlie stepped on his brake, gaping in disbelief as the Lincoln flew through the air and then slammed down a good ten feet onto the lawn. The hood popped open and the horn began to blare. And the car kept going, careening across the grass as steam billowed from the engine and the hood bounced up and down like a jack-in-the-box lid. Somehow the Lincoln swerved around the purple martin house before grazing the trunk of an oak tree and mowing down a walnut sapling. Then it hurtled toward the thin strip of beach and the lake edge beyond.
His heart frozen in his chest, Charlie put his own car in park, jerked back the emergency brake, and threw open the door. Was someone stealing the Lincoln? Had it rolled down the driveway on its own? Or could that dark shape in the driver’s seat be his wife?
“Esther?” Charlie took off at a dead run. The Lincoln was now barreling toward the shed. Charlie had built it a few years before to store his riding lawn mower and tools. Just as the car reached the shed door, it veered to the right.
“Mrs. Moore! Mrs. Moore, stop!” Cody Goss suddenly burst from the house, leaped off the end of the carport, and raced past Charlie. “Mrs. Moore, the post office is the other direction!”
With the Lincoln’s horn still blaring, Charlie could hear little else as he watched the car miss the side of the shed by inches. It pulled around in a tight curve, swayed toward the lake again, and then rolled to a sudden stop beside a lilac bush. Smoke billowed out from under the hood, and steaming water gushed onto the ground. The unremitting horn sounded louder than ever.
Cody reached the car five steps ahead of Charlie, but as the young man grabbed the handle, the door swung open. Esther surged up from the driver’s seat, shoved her way past Cody, and headed up the slope in her high heels.
“Where’s the mail?” she shouted. “I’ve got to get to the post office before it closes.”
“Mrs. Moore, you had an accident!” Cody called after her as she marched toward Charlie, arms flapping in agitation.
“Esther, what on earth?” Charlie caught her by the shoulders and forced her to stop. “Are you all right, honey? What happened?”
“I can’t find the mail,” she snapped. “Cody keeps moving it, and I’m late for the post office. Those bill aren’t going out today unless I—”
She looked up at her husband and seemed to see him for the first time. “Charlie?”
“Esther.” He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. “Oh, sweetheart, you scared me half to death.”
“I don’t know … I’m not sure what happened, Charlie.”
“You drove the Lincoln out the wrong end of the carport. You’ve been in an accident, honey. Let’s sit you down.”
“Where’s my purse?”
“Here, sit on my jacket.”
“On the grass?”
“Yes, right here. I’ll help you.” He pulled off his lightweight jacket and spread it out for her. Then he eased her down onto the lawn. “Now catch your breath, Esther.”
“What did Cody do to my car?” She glared in the direction of the shed. Cody was leaning into the driver’s side of the Lincoln. A sudden silence sounded loud as he somehow managed to turn off the horn.
“Look at that boy,” Esther grumbled. “He’s gone and wrecked my car. I knew we never should have taken him on. You think you can trust someone, and then … where’s the mail, Charlie? I’ve got to hurry to the post office. And my hair. Good heavens, I’m late for my set-and-style.”
As she checked her watch, Charlie noticed a discoloration on her wrist. “You’re hurt! Esther, honey, let me see your other arm. Oh, for pete’s sake, sweetheart, you’re all bruised up.”
“Esther? Charlie, what happened?”
He looked up to see their neighbor Kim Finley hurrying across the lawn with her twins in tow. “Charlie, is Esther all right?”
“We heard the crash!” Lydia sang out.
“Your carport roof is caving in, Mr. Moore,” Luke added as they neared the couple seated on the grass. “You lost the two middle support posts.”
Behind them, Charlie noticed Brenda Hansen and Kim’s mother-in-law, Miranda Finley, moving toward the scene. Suddenly it seemed like half the neighborhood was descending on the Moores.
“I wish Derek was here,” Kim cried as she knelt in the grass at Esther’s feet. “He’s got all that first aid training. Charlie, it looks like she might have hit her head. Her face is beginning to swell.”
“Whose face?” Esther asked. She was looking from one person to another. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“You drove the wrong way out of the carport,” Cody told her. “You meant to go backward, but you went forward. We need to call 911 right now, because that’s what you do when someone has an accident. Even if they don’t look hurt too much, they could be hurt inside, and that’s why the doctor needs to check them. I saw it on TV when I was at my aunt’s house and all I did was watch TV and eat vegetables. They said to call the ambulance no matter what.”
“I’ve already called.” Brenda Hansen, crouched beside Esther, took her hand. “Do you remember getting into your car?”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone. I need to get to the post office. And Patsy’s expecting me for my set-and-style.”
Charlie had noticed a lump growing in his throat, and he tried to speak around it. “After you got into the car, honey, why did you put it in drive instead of reverse?”
Esther gazed at him, her blue eyes misty. “Did I do that?”
“Do you recall driving off the end of the carport?”
“I saw the birdhouse, that’s all.” She blinked a couple of times, and then she turned to where the car was still sending up clouds of steam. “I looked up, and the birdhouse was coming right at me, so I turned the car a little bit. And then there was a tree.”
“Two trees,” Cody said. “You did some fancy steering, Mrs. Moore. You missed the birdhouse, the trees, and even the shed.”
“Well, what do you know. …”
“We know you scared us halfway to deaf!” Cody exclaimed. “I still can hardly hear. But I got the horn to quit, and here are your keys. I switched off the engine all by myself.”
Charlie reached up and took the keys. The Lincoln wouldn’t be going anywhere soon, if ever again, he realized. The front end looked somewhat like an accordion, and the smell from the smashed radiator still hung in the cool late-afternoon air.
“I hear the ambulance,” Esther said. “Oh, goodness, I don’t think that’s necessary. But I guess we ought to go and thank them anyway for coming out this far.”
As she moved, Charlie saw her pretty face crumple in pain. “You sit right here with me, Esther,” he said, tucking her under his arm. “Just the two of us. We’ll sit here together, and everything will be fine.”
