The Promise of Rainbows (10 page)

Her flesh was suddenly hot to the touch, and her fingers were shaking. He made himself remove his hand.

“What kind of a scene would you like me to paint?”

He kicked his legs out in front of him and put his hands behind his head. Better to keep them occupied after that brief, alluring touch. “I’d like a scene from Dare River. Maybe with a canoe and some birds. And a dock.” He was making it up on the spot since he didn’t have a clue. All he knew was that he wanted something personal from her, something from her creative place—like one of his songs that would never fade. “You’ll come up with something.”

Her knee started jumping, and her foot tapped the ground. He counted the beats.
One-two-three. Four. Five-six-seven. Eight.
There was anxiety in the music she was making—and excitement.

“I’ll work up some sketches for you to look over,” she said, her eyes glazing over.

He knew that look. People said he got that look when he was stringing a melody together for a new song. It was reserved for that special land of imagination, a place he loved to visit.

“That sounds fine.”

Then she laughed, coming back to herself. “You do realize this is going to take a while, right?”

“I do,” he answered, trying not to grin. The longer the better, as far as he was concerned. Perhaps he should build a guesthouse at Redemption Ridge as well. That way he’d have another project for her to work on when she finished the main house.

“We should probably walk back,” she said, rising from the bench and fussing with the silver buttons on his denim jacket.

A heron flew over the water and alighted in a pine tree across the way as Jake stood as well. “Maybe you can paint me one of those birds.”

She looked out across the river. “They are pretty majestic, aren’t they?”

Her steps were slow as they walked back, and he matched her stride. It was as though neither one of them wanted their time alone to end. And wasn’t that crazy? He was going to see her often as she helped decorate his house.

But he knew better. Being with her now—in the sunlight by the water, with the light shining off her hair—well, there was romance and magic here. It made the man in him want to sweep her up and never let her go.

When he opened the door to the back of the house for her, she gave him a shy smile that made his heart race. God, she was so pretty. He wanted to curl her hair around his finger to see if it felt as soft as it looked. Heck, he wanted to
tell
her she was pretty.

“Thanks for walking with me,” he said quietly instead.

She nodded, and he touched her back as she went through the door. The muscles there jumped. He quickly removed his hand.

“How was the walk?” Tory asked them as they reentered the family room.

“Jake! You’re back!” Annabelle pushed off the floor where she was playing with her dog. Barbie, was it? The poor thing. He felt worse for it than a turkey trussed up for Thanksgiving, what with the hot pink bow around its neck and the rhinestone collar. To his mind, no dog should be dressed up like a mini debutant. His own dog would never have allowed it. Not that he would have tried.

“The walk was pleasant,” Susannah answered for him, her tone more than a little pointed.

“The weather seems so nice,” Rye commented, and Jake shot him a warning look.

He’d known Rye a spell, and the man wasn’t the type to converse about weather.

“I need to get on home,” Jake said, and Annabelle ran over to him and tugged on his pant leg.

“You can’t leave!” she cried. “I need someone to push me on the swing.”

No one hated to disappoint a little girl more than he did, so he sank to one knee in front of her. “Perhaps we can do that another time.”

“Promise?”

He’d given up on making promises years ago, knowing he wasn’t always able to deliver on them. Sometimes forces bigger and greater than he was had a way of changing things out from under him. “I’ll do my best.”

J.P. picked Annabelle up and threw her in the air, causing her to giggle. Barbie barked, and Rory’s dog joined in the chorus.

“Let’s all say goodbye to Jake and thank him for coming today,” J.P. said, tickling the little girl. “He probably has things to attend to.”

Jake didn’t, but that wasn’t the point of him leaving. He walked over to Rye and shook the man’s hand. “Thanks for having me over, and congratulations again to you and Tory. You’re going to be wonderful parents.”

“Thanks,” Rye said, putting his arm around his smiling wife. “I have more learning to do on that score, but I have the best teacher. I never imagined I’d be a father, but now I’m as eager as a kid waiting for Christmas. The next six months are going to be endless.”

“And then the baby will be here,” Tory said, patting his chest. “The time will go fast. Even the famous Rye Crenshaw can’t hurry nature along.”

“More’s the pity,” Rye said with a snort. “If I could shorten the time a woman needs to be pregnant, my female fans would love me even more than they already do.”

That earned him a playful punch in the stomach from his wife.

Jake said his goodbyes to everyone, and J.P. held Annabelle up so she could kiss his cheek.

“Bye, Jake. Do your best to remember about pushing me on that swing.”

Oh, what a sweetheart she was. “I will. And you make sure to remind me if I forget.”

“I’m good at reminding people,” she declared, making everyone laugh.

Shelby and Sadie kept their faces composed, but he could see the grins they were fighting. Both of them smelled something in the air between him and Susannah—like everyone else apparently. Jake was going to have to be careful here. His friends were involved, and so was this family. These were relationships he treasured. He wasn’t going to mess that up.

Someone linked arms with him, and he looked down to see Susannah’s mama. He tensed up again.

She simply smiled. “I’ll walk you out.”

Susannah gave her mama a narrow-eyed look, but Jake nodded to her to assure her he’d be fine. She gave him another soft smile, which made his heart feel like it weighed less than a sheet of music.

“I’ll see you soon, Susannah. We have a lot of furniture to buy.”

He almost winced at the lame goodbye. What he really wanted was to kiss her cheek and smell the honeysuckle fragrance of her hair as he whispered how much he’d loved being with her down by the water.

“We do indeed,” she said, a smile flickering on her face.

He made himself turn away, and with her mama’s determined arm linked through his own, he walked out of the room. Later, he’d tell Rye that it wasn’t like he thought between him and Susannah. Well, it was. He
was
attracted to her. He just couldn’t act on it until he was okay. Yes, he’d gone to church—a huge step for him—but it didn’t guarantee he’d be cured.

At the front door, Jake turned to say goodbye to Louisa, but she ignored him and kept their arms linked. She was one determined woman.

When they reached his truck, she stood beside him in the silence. The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was alight with a swath of blue streaked with orange and pink.

“Something on your mind, ma’am?” he finally asked.

“My sermon got you all stirred up,” she said as bold as a red barn in a green pasture. “Are you still recovering from your service to our country?”

It was difficult to keep her gaze, but he made himself. “Pardon me for saying so, ma’am, but that’s an awfully personal question.”

“It’s Louisa,” she told him, releasing his arm and crossing hers over her chest. “And it
is
personal. As personal as it gets. The question I’d like you to consider is this: do you want to recover?”

For a moment, his tongue felt too thick to answer. “That seems like a ridiculous question.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes,” he ground out. “More than anything.”

She gazed at him thoughtfully, and suddenly all he could feel was her compassion. “I see some veterans for counseling. I’m assuming you’ve tried everything else.”

“I have,” he answered crisply.

“Veterans don’t see me as their first choice, but I’ve managed to help a lot of them in my church. If you’d like, I’m sure a few of the men would be happy to speak with you about our time together.”

Did he really want to open that box of horrors all over again? And with her? She was Susannah’s mama, after all.

“Are you sure you want to make the offer? It’s not exactly…pretty.”

“I’m not especially fond of ‘pretty’ myself. Life is about experiencing the full spectrum, don’t you think? It’s what being human is all about.”

“I wouldn’t wish this spectrum on my worst enemy, ma’am,” he told her. “War isn’t what I want for this world.”

Her smile was brief. “It’s not what I want either, but it exists, and you experienced it. Others have, and others will again. I don’t like divorce or child abuse either, but they exist too. Grace is how we overcome it and then do what we can to help others heal.”

Heal.
There was that elusive word again. “I’m afraid some things can’t be mended.”

This time she shook her head at him. “I don’t believe that. I won’t say it’ll be easy, but if you want healing badly enough, you’ll find it. Showing up today at my church told me you want it. Badly enough to sit through my sermon and not walk out like another might have.”

He grimaced at that.

She laughed. “I’ve had people walk out, Jake. I know it’s not about my words.”

He felt that way about his songs, so he understood. Sometimes people were just haters, and that was on them. “I
do
want to be okay again. More than anything.” And dammit, if it wasn’t hard to admit it to her, both as a preacher and Susannah’s mama.

“Anything we discuss will be completely between us. I know you have relationships with people in my family. You can trust me, Jake.”

He realized he was fidgeting, and he forced himself to stop. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, ma’am.”

“It’s Louisa, and you don’t have to be completely sure of me yet.” She patted his chest again. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you the names and numbers of some of the men I’ve helped. You can talk to them and see what you want to do. Come once and try it. You might be surprised. Some men don’t think I’m tough enough to hear their stories. Those men are wrong.”

“The steel in your spine isn’t in question…ah…Louisa.” He dug into his pocket for his phone. “Give me your number, and I’ll call you right now so you have it.” If he didn’t, he might just up and leave. Maybe when he talked to some of the other vets she’d helped, he’d be more sure of her.

She dictated her number, and he let it ring twice before hanging up. Her smile was open and generous, and he found himself smiling back at her in spite of his now greasy stomach.

“You want to date my daughter,” Louisa said suddenly.

“Are you always this tenacious?” he asked, his head darting back. “No offense, but you’re like a pit bull.”

Her smile only widened. “Why, thank you. I like being a pit bull for God. Trust me, I’ve dealt with enough men to know some of them have to be poked, prodded, and pulled along to get them to open up. You open up in your music, but not many other places. Am I right?”

“I…don’t like talking about my time in the Army.” He paused. “I don’t much like talking about myself period. Even for my career. I just want to sing.”

“J.P. was a lot like that,” she said, her gaze tracking back to the house. “It’s why he left the stage and decided to write music with artists like you. The other stuff was starting to spoil the thing he loved.”

Jake understood. Sometimes he found himself considering whether the price of fame was too high. But every time he thought about what else he might do, nothing came to mind. He was a singer. Going back to the Army would never be an option.

“I should go,” he said, walking to the driver’s side of his truck. “I’ll talk to the vets and let you know what I decide.”

“You still didn’t answer me about Susannah,” she said, and darn it all, if she didn’t step right up to him and look him straight in the eye. “You’re afraid to date her because you’re still suffering from PTSD. Hiring her as your decorator was to keep her close to you. As a move, it’s not a wise one, but I understand it.”

He kicked at the ground. Had he said a pit bull? She was as fierce as a fire-blowing dragon intent on finding a chest of gold. “Is this between us?”

She nodded crisply. “Confidentiality kicked in the minute we left the house.”

“Then,
yes,
I really like your daughter. She’s amazing…but I’m…well, I’m broken.”

He took a few steps off and clenched his fists. He wanted to hit the frame of his truck, which wasn’t at all like him, but she was stirring up so many deeply buried feelings. More than she had with her sermon.

“You’re not broken, Jake,” she told him, putting a hand on his back and rubbing it in soothing circles. “You just need to remember that you’re whole. I want to help you remember, and I hope you’ll let me. I’ll send you those names.”