Take a Chance on Me (12 page)

“Mom, I have everything under control. Grandpop will come home with me and I’ll look after him until he gets back on his feet—”

“Besides, we’ll be home soon anyway.”

Those last words silenced her. She could hear the overlap of her final words repeated on the far end of the phone. Then, nothing.

“Honey, did you hear me? I said your father and I are coming home. We’re working on temporary replacements, and we should be home in a few weeks.”

Claire scrounged up her voice. “Why? Grandpop is fine.”

Her father’s low, solid voice took over. “Darling, we’ll be packing up his house, having a garage sale, getting the place ready to sell. We had an offer a year or so ago from the Christiansens, and it’s time we moved your grandfather into someplace more secure. And I’ll bet you’re ready to move on, huh?” Laughter punctuated his words.

She didn’t have to smile for their benefit, because, well, they couldn’t see her. In fact, she doubted if they’d ever really been able to see her. See how she loved Deep Haven.

She slapped another mosquito. The night had suddenly turned into a war zone.

“I’ll bet you’ve got a tidy nest egg saved up after all those years at Pierre’s,” her mother said. “It’s probably not too late to start applying to colleges. You know, I just read an article about a woman who graduated for the first time with a medical degree at the age of fifty-five. So you’re not an oddity, honey. Plenty of people wait to continue their education.”

Keep saying it, Mom, and you’ll believe it.

“I . . . haven’t . . . I’ll look into it, Mom.”

Oh, what was wrong with her that even at the age of twenty-five, she couldn’t just tell them the truth?

Her father’s voice came back on the line, softened. “You know, Claire bear, if you wanted to come back to Bosnia with us, you’re always welcome.”

“No, Dad.”

“Your mother could use help in the clinic. Maybe just for a year.”

She waited until she heard her voice on the other end; then his own words finished. “I know you love your work, but . . .”

“Honey, are you still bothered by the nightmares?”

Oh, she’d regretted letting Grandma tell them about those. The year she’d woken up screaming, trying to erase that last summer on the mission field. “No. I’m fine.” A little lie, but for their own good. “It’s just . . . maybe I’m not supposed to be a missionary.” There, she said it. After twenty-five years, they should know the truth.

“Claire. Everyone is called to spread the gospel. The Lord said, ‘Go and make disciples.’”

She didn’t want to have this argument on the phone. Especially since a large part of her agreed with him. When a person became a Christian, the overwhelming grace should prompt her to want to reach out to others.

Not stay at home.

Not hide in Deep Haven.

“We’ll talk about it when we get there. Until then, think about where you might want to go to college. Maybe you and your mother could take a trip, make a visit.”

Still trying to treat her like she was seventeen, a senior in high school, her whole life ahead of her.

Instead of the superior-size disappointment she turned out to be.

“When are you arriving?”

“We’ll e-mail you with our flight information. But we’ll rent a car. We don’t want to be any trouble.”

Trouble was exactly what they were being. “I’ll keep you posted about Grandpop.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart. I talked with Dr. Samson earlier.”

Then why—?

“Love you, Claire bear. Go with God.”

“You too, Mom.” She hung up. Killed another mosquito. Let the night wind rake over her, raising gooseflesh.

Go with God.

To where?

He was probably as disappointed in her as her parents were. She got up and walked around the back of the house to the door, then went inside, climbing the stairs to her apartment. Two rooms, with two tiny bathrooms, the kitchen on the main floor. She had rented it when the landlord, Liza, moved out. The empty bedroom she’d turned into a music room of sorts, her keyboard set up, her guitar on a stand.

She went in, sat down at the keyboard, played the chords of sheet music Emma had recently given her. The Blue Monkeys were supposed to play tomorrow night for the crowds gathered for the fireworks.

Honey, are you still bothered by the nightmares?

Her father’s words hung in her mind. She let the sound die out, until only her heartbeat remained.

Sometimes, yes, she still saw them, the three men who broke into her father’s office at the clinic. Her hand went to her forehead,
to the bump there, still slightly pronounced, where they’d smashed a metal pipe against her skull.

She’d lain there in a puddle of her own blood, watching as they looted the clinic, unable to cry out, only one word on her lips.

Jesus.

She had said it over and over and over until she finally blacked out. Until her father—fresh out of surgery—arrived.

He’d had to wire her jaw shut, but she’d woken the next day without brain damage. She could be thankful for that.

Yes, she still had nightmares. And daymares sometimes, whenever someone walked up too quickly beside her. She fought headaches—probably imagined—and for a long while, maybe a year after the attack, her jaw ached every morning. As if she’d been grinding her teeth at night.

Grandma had purchased her a mouth guard, slept in her room in the other single bed, and held her in her arms when she woke screaming.

Her parents probably never knew that part.

Not when they had so many other concerns, like children without parents, children without eyes or limbs. Children who had seen far worse.

At least Claire had her grandparents.

She got up and sat in the window seat. Looked out at the stars. Wished she could reach for one, hold it to her chest.

But God had apparently stopped hearing her wishes, not to mention her prayers.

She closed her eyes, hearing her words to Ivy.
God may be silent, but He’s never absent.

If only she believed it.

IF HE WERE A SMART MAN,
Darek would call Ivy, tell her that he’d made a terrible mistake.

The log split where his ax cracked it, and the pieces fell off the block into the sawdust and pile below.

He’d been charmed by Tiger’s lopsided, sticky smile and lost his head a little.

He set another log on the block, stepped back, and swung.

What did he think—that she’d step into his life with her bright, cheery smile and suddenly they’d be a family? Tiger would have a mother and everything would feel right and whole?

The log split, flipped off of the block, landing in the pile.

Darek should stop this before somebody—like Tiger—got hurt.

He picked up another log and balanced it on the block.

“Sheesh, Dare, last time I checked, we were just having a little campfire, not burning Rome.” Casper came up behind him wearing an Evergreen Outfitters shirt, the sleeves torn off, and carrying two cans of Coke. He handed one to Darek. “Mom sent this out.”

Darek put down the ax and worked off his gloves. Woodchips layered his sweaty skin—he needed a shower before Ivy arrived. He’d called her yesterday at the courthouse, leaving a message with her secretary giving her directions to the resort.

Could he possibly hope that she hadn’t received it?

Darek took the Coke, pushed back his baseball hat, and wiped the cold can across his forehead. Closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he found Casper tossing the wood into the wheelbarrow. Oops, he had chopped more than he’d realized.

But once he’d gotten going . . .

Casper leaned against the wheelbarrow. “What’s eating you?”

Darek shook his head. Setting down his soda, he slid on his gloves and picked up another log.

“Dude, seriously. We have enough wood for the winter. Last time you chopped with such a frenzy . . . well, you and Felicity got married about six weeks later.” Casper lifted an eyebrow.

Darek made a face. “I made so many mistakes with her. Starting with getting her pregnant.”

Casper took a sip of his Coke.

“It was so unfair to her. I didn’t want to marry her—and she knew it. But what could we do?”

“I don’t recall Mom and Dad saying you had to get married.”

“It felt like the right thing to do.”

“Did you love her?”

Darek sank his ax in the wood block. “I don’t know. Maybe.
We had fun together. But that summer—well, I’d heard she’d been hanging around Jensen, and . . .”

“You went after her because you didn’t want him to get her.”

Darek picked up his Coke and finished it, then tossed it in a nearby garbage can. “Move so I can wheel this to the fire pit.”

Casper stepped aside, and Darek grasped the handles of the wheelbarrow. He felt his brother’s eyes on him as he started to push it.

“Okay, yes. Probably I wanted to win. He had this huge house, the boat, his fancy Mustang.”

“So you thought you should have the girl.”

“Something like that.”

“Except you weren’t prepared for what that meant.” Casper finished his own Coke, tossed the can in a recycle bin beside the path. “Move over. I got this.”

Darek relinquished the wheelbarrow to his brother.

Crickets chirped in the forest as they walked along the path, through the heat trapped between the trees. His feet crunched on thick, dry needles, tinder to a fire if a blaze ever started.

It was days like this that raised the hair on the back of his neck. All of Deep Haven County could go up in flames with one careless camper or a well-placed lightning strike.

“You miss firefighting.”

He glanced at Casper.

“It’s the way you pick up the needles and break them, testing their moisture levels. And the way you watch the sky. You miss it. The adventure, the hunt for fire, the battle.”

He and Casper had that in common, at least. The love of adventure. Being four years older than his middle brother had always seemed to distance them. Casper and Owen were a better
fit—especially with their love for hockey. Darek hadn’t loved the game, just played it because he didn’t like basketball. He did love the ice, the cold frost on his face on a crisp winter day.

Shoot, he just loved being outside, the world in his grasp.

“Yeah, I guess. I’ll never forget that day I walked into our apartment, about two weeks after we got married. There was a message from my pal Jed from the Jude County Hotshots, and they needed me for a fire. Felicity looked at me like I had said I was going to war. Then she cried; I packed and left. Didn’t see her again for three months.”

“The Colorado fire, right?”

“Montana. The Colorado fire was the next June. Tiger was about three months old. That time I was gone until September.”

They’d reached the beach area, where their father, long ago, had created a fire pit with benches that circled it. It looked out over the lake, where the afternoon sun turned the water to a rich sapphire, a few boaters spraying diamonds into the sky. He could smell barbecues and hear laughter trickling across the lake.

Almost on reflex, his gaze went to Jensen’s place. No barbecue there; it looked uninhabited.

Casper parked the wheelbarrow and Darek began to load wood into the pit, creating a tepee.

“I didn’t want to come home. I didn’t miss her—didn’t even miss Tiger. He was just this nuisance to me. I had my plans. I wanted to be a fire manager. And I didn’t care that Felicity hated it. I was a real prize back then.”

“I remember,” Casper said, starting to unload the rest of the wood in a neat stack to one side.

“Yeah, well, I’m not proud of it. The worst part is, the last thing she said to me was ‘You’re so selfish.’ And . . . I was.” He looked
at Casper. “I was. I can’t believe I seriously considered letting the Holloways have full custody of Tiger. I nearly walked away from him. Now he’s my entire life.”

“So you’re not a selfish jerk anymore. That’s a good thing.”

Darek’s encounter with Nan Holloway rushed back at him. Maybe he still was. He stuffed birch bark and woodchips around the base of the fire tent. He’d leave it there until tonight, when they were ready to have their campfire. Then they’d head to town, where they’d watch fireworks over the harbor.

Casper had finished emptying the wheelbarrow. “So why the mountain of wood?”

“Because I hardly deserve a second chance with a woman.”

“What woman?”

Darek got up, brushing off his hands. “The woman who bought me the other night.” He made a face. “That came out wrong. I mean, at the VFW fund-raiser. Her name is Ivy—she’s the new assistant county attorney.”

“Does she know about Felicity . . . and Jensen?”

He frowned, shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. Why would she? I told her my wife had died, but frankly, I don’t want to go back there. I’m trying to move on. To build a new life.” Or at least considering it. “I saw her at the grocery store, and she was . . . she was nice. And good with Tiger. I guess something took possession of my brain and I asked her over tonight.”

Casper raised an eyebrow. “To hang with the family?”

“I know. What was I thinking?”

“I think you’re either partaking in some self-sabotage or you really like her.”

“I don’t know her well enough to really like her.”

“After tonight, you will.” He clapped Darek on the shoulder.
“You might be surprised. This could be a good thing. A fresh start. You aren’t the guy you were five years ago. Take a chance, Dare.” Casper gave him a smile. “So she’s a looker?”

Darek let his memory roam over the woman he’d seen at the VFW, then at the grocery store, trying to decide which version he liked better.

“Yeah. She’s got this pretty red hair, green eyes, a smile that could knock the wind out of a guy—”

Casper was shaking his head.

“What?”

“You’re right. You don’t deserve her. I think you need to introduce her to me.”

Darek grinned and reached for him, but Casper danced away.

“You know, I bet she’ll take one look at me and forget all about you anyway, Dare.”

“You think so.”

Casper took off running.

“Yeah, you’d better run, punk!” Darek yelled after him, grinning.

Take a chance.

Okay. Maybe it was time to leave the past behind, start over.

He stopped in at the lodge and found his mother tossing together fruit in a giant watermelon-boat salad. Tiger sat at the counter, working on a flag coloring sheet she’d downloaded from the Internet.

“I’m going to take a shower. Can you keep an eye on him a little longer?”

“Tiger and I are doing great. And Gracie should be home soon to help with the potato salad, so take your time.”

He landed a kiss on her cheek, then headed out to his cabin.
Overhead, he heard a peal of thunder. Maybe they wouldn’t have a campfire tonight. But that was okay—they’d congregate on the veranda at the picnic tables near the grill. Maybe their guests would swing by for the root beer floats his mother promised them. Casper would probably regale them with some recent diving adventure story, and Grace would add in a tale about a tourist down at Pierre’s. Darek would wrap Tiger in a blanket and the tyke would fall asleep on his lap, or maybe Amelia’s, and . . . and then he and Ivy would watch the fireworks.

Maybe the chaos of his family was too much for a first date.

But he was a package deal, so she should know that from the start.

He showered, shaved, and pulled on a clean T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and sandals. He debated, then added some of the aftershave his mother had gifted him at Christmas.

He was returning to the lodge when he spotted a car in the gravel parking lot, something unfamiliar. A red Nissan Pathfinder.

Darek slowed, pushed away the strangest twinge in his chest, and entered the lodge through the deck.

There she stood, leaning over the granite counter, a crayon in hand, helping Tiger fill in the red stripes of his flag. She wore a lemon-yellow sundress, a pair of beaded sandals, and her hair was gathered into a messy ponytail. Flag earrings dangled from her ears.

Ivy looked up at him and smiled, a sweetness in her beautiful eyes.

Right then, everything stopped. His breathing, his heartbeat. His words.

This was it. Everything he wanted, right here. A fresh start with a woman who didn’t know him, didn’t know his past.

His last, and best, chance.

Darek had no idea what kind of paradise he had here.

The Christiansen family owned the most gorgeous swath of two hundred acres in northern Minnesota. The resort sat on the shore of a glorious lake, and a woodchip path edged by rocks wound through the property, connecting twelve log-sided cabins, all with freshly painted red or green doors, a spray of impatiens in the window and deck boxes. They all faced the view, Adirondack chairs on the decks perfect for reading a book or listening to the loons at night.

A lodge house featured a giant stone patio with a built-in grill and picnic tables under a pavilion, and beyond that, a trail led down to a point where a campfire ring suggested long conversations while sparks flickered into the night.

“It’s beautiful, Darek,” Ivy said as she walked with him. He’d given her a tour, pointing out places where he’d played as a child, trees he’d climbed, the rope swing. She pictured him as a teenager, swinging out over the water.

What might it be like to grow up in one place, to see your history every time you stepped outside?

Tiger would have that. He ran ahead of them on the path, chasing a yellow Lab.

“What’s the dog’s name?”

“Butter. Actually it’s Butterscotch. My father got the dog for my mother after she lost a baby.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it was after Amelia, a surprise pregnancy. Of course, a dog’s no substitute for a child, but Butter seemed to try. She followed my mom everywhere. She’s about fourteen, and we live in fear that she’s not long for this world.”

The dog ran up to them, holding a slimy ball in her teeth. Darek pried it out but only tossed it down the trail. Butterscotch waddled after it.

“This is an amazing place to grow up.”

“That’s the bulk of our business—return guests who spent their childhoods here and want to share it with their children. Too bad the kids aren’t interested in their parents’ legacy.”