Heart of Grace (Return to Grace Trilogy #1) (7 page)

“Can we meet for lunch?”
“I’m in Montana,” Angela typed, and then clicked the
“send” button.
“When will you be back? I want to see you.”
She bit her lip, hating the surge of frustration he always
managed to draw out of her, even over instant message.
Angela closed her eyes. “No,” she typed.
Almost two full minutes passed without a response from
Jeffrey. Angela imagined he was working up his anger. He had
probably written half a dozen messages that he didn’t send.
Finally, a message came across her screen: “Very well.
Goodbye.”
She closed her files, unable to bear them, and opened a
browser to pull up her bank account information. There wasn’t
enough to sustain her for three months. At least she didn’t
need to worry about rent, but she still needed to eat and there
were her credit cards and the storage unit to pay for.
Angela closed the laptop and rested her elbows on it,
letting out a long sigh, her chin in both hands. The espresso
machine whined. Needing to calm the nervous fluttering in her
veins, and hating everything about this moment, she stood and
walked outside.
Flags flapped along the boardwalk posts. Pretty white
flowers overflowed from terra cotta pots. A man swept the
walk in front of his store.
Across the street, a girl carried a tray of lemonade to people
seated at patio tables. One of the patrons was the girl Angela
had met at the arena office when she first returned to Grace.
She sat with a boy who slouched in his seat and stared idly at
the umbrella over their heads. The girl –
Tina
,
was it
? – set a
straw in her lemonade and looked up from her glass. Noticing
Angela, Tina stood and waved enthusiastically.
Angela barely managed to return the wave before a kid on
a bike rushed by. She lurched to the side to avoid a collision.
The man sweeping his stoop yelled after the kid to slow down.
Then the man called across the street, “Mrs. Markey, good
day!”
Angela followed the direction of the man’s gaze. Maisy
Markey arranged flowers on a display rack outside her dress
shop. Angela barely recognized her. The old woman’s hair
once been dark brown, but she had let it go completely gray.
Aside from dresses, Maisy sold whatever else held her
fancy, whether it was tiny toy cars, plastic windmills, or flats of
garden flowers. Once she had set out power tools for sale,
because the local handyman decided he was moving to South
Dakota and she figured folks would need to learn how to mend
their own squeaky screen doors once he was gone. Today she
sold flowers.
Maisy stopped fussing with the flowers and looked across
the street, her hands at her thin hips. “Hello John!” she said.
“Fine day it is!”
And then Maisy’s gaze fixed on Angela. It was too late to
duck back into the coffee shop. Maisy tossed both hands into
the air and waved her over.
“My, my, Miss Angie Donnelly!” Maisy said as Angela
approached. “Why just this morning, Mrs. Bradley and I were
taking our morning walk and she told me you were back!”
Angela smiled at Maisy’s penchant for using such formality
with the name of her closest friend.
“How are you, Mrs. Markey? You look well.”
The old woman clucked and shook her head. “I almost
didn’t recognize you, but it’s hard to miss that red hair and fair
skin. Though the hair is a bit blonder now, isn’t it? You’re
prettier than I remember. Oh, now, don’t blush. You always
were a shy child.”
Since Angela’s return she had been called shy by three
different people: Cole, Mrs. Bradley, and now Mrs. Markey.
The idea was absurd, but she supposed people were inclined to
see her as they had known her long ago. They would not know
how she had changed. And yet, she realized she was twisting
her fingers in the strap of her laptop bag and she didn’t know
what to say.
Just as she would have done with a child, Maisy took
Angela by the hand and led her to the flowers.
“Aren’t these beautiful?” she asked, her tone soothing. “I
went to the nursery to buy a new fig tree, and I just couldn’t
resist them. Have you ever seen dahlias so bright?”
However foolish she felt, Angela rubbed a petal between
her fingers, smiling at the thought of flowers for sale in front
of a dress shop.
“They are gorgeous,” Angela said, “and they smell lovely.”
“Won’t you come inside for some tea?” Maisy took
Angela’s hand again and tugged her toward the door.
She almost agreed to go in. She found herself wanting to
talk with this woman who never lost her smile. She wanted to
sit in those soft chairs and let them swallow her up in the
warmth and fragrance of Maisy’s shop, which had always been
a favorite gossip spot among locals. Maisy Markey still treated
her customers as if each one were special. She served them tea
and cookies and never considered that she was keeping them
from spending their money.
“I’d love to come inside,” Angela answered apologetically,
“but maybe some other time.”
“Oh, well why don’t you take some flowers? Just some
dahlias to give you a smile when you see them. A gift.” Maisy
beamed and clapped her hands together, pleased with the idea.
A half hour later Angela was sent on her way with several
flats of dahlias, along with some sweet alyssum and marigolds.
Maisy had explained that the little white and gold flowers were
to protect the dahlias from insects, but Angela knew she had
been duped into planting a garden.
****
She had never before tilled the earth, but she figured it
couldn’t be very hard. She was without the necessary tools, but
she found a serving spoon in the guest house kitchen that
could work as a makeshift shovel, and a glass pitcher would
serve as a watering can. She chose a strip of land beside the
front porch.
Having donned her workout clothes once again, Angela
knelt beside her garden-to-be and got to work.
After two hours, she resigned herself to the fact that a
spoon did not double as a shovel, and gardening was much
tougher than it looked. Hot and sweaty and frustrated, she sat
back on her heels and closed her eyes to do some yoga
breathing.
A low chuckle pulled her from her meditations.
“Is that a spoon?”
Still sitting on her heels, Angela opened her eyes and
looked up at Cole, squinting from the glare of the sun. “I
couldn’t find one of those little shovels, but this works just
fine.”
“Trowel.”
“What?”
“Trowel. That’s what those little shovels are called.” He
squatted beside her and picked up the spoon, grinning at her
over the bent metal.
“Shut up.” She took the spoon from him.
“Why are you doing this?” Cole gestured to her halffinished flowerbed.
“I don’t know.” She sat back on her bottom and curled her
knees to her chest. “I ran into Maisy Markey in town.”
“Say no more.” Cole rolled his eyes. “Now I understand.”
Angela laughed. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the
yellow envelope in his hand.
“From Mr. Bradley. He brought over some papers for me
to sign and asked me to give these to you. They’re documents,
family paperwork…that sort of thing. They were found in a
nightstand that sold in Henry’s estate sale.” Cole paused
thoughtfully. “You don’t have to take it. I can keep it for you.”
“I doubt there’s anything in here that I haven’t seen a
thousand times already.” Angela brushed the worst of the dirt
from her hands. She took the envelope from him and lifted the
flap.
She sifted through the contents and found what looked like
a diary, and then the usual family documents: birth and death
certificates, school records and the like. Angela stopped and
solemnly examined her mother’s death certificate. When Cole
asked her what it was, she turned it to him so he could see.
Cause of death: complications from osteosarcoma.
Bone cancer.
“Just usual family paperwork,” she said. She was about to
put it – and the memories – away, but then she pulled out a
thickly folded pack of papers. The date at the top sucked the
breath out of her. She dropped the envelope and the rest of
the documents to the ground, focusing on the papers in her
hands.
“What is that?” Cole scooped up the envelope and the
fallen documents.
“My medical records…from that night. He kept them.”
Seven

Cole ushered her into the house. She was like a rag doll,
her face frozen and expressionless, and her arms limp at her
sides. He urged her to sit on the couch and then went to the
kitchen to get her a glass of water.

“I’m fine,” she said when he returned with the water, but
she didn’t look at him, and she hadn’t moved a muscle since
he set her on the couch.

He sat beside her and sighed, feeling as useless as he’d been
the night they got the call. Seventeen-year-old Angie, the
woman-child who had stood stoically at her mother’s funeral
just hours before, laid in a hospital bed nearly beaten to death.
The entire town knew her father had done it, but when it came
time for Angie to talk to the cops she high-tailed it out of town.
There was no proof and without her cooperation Henry had
never been officially charged.

Cole took the papers from her and tossed them onto the
coffee table. He didn’t need to read them to remember the long
list of injuries she had suffered. He had seen her that night
when he went to the hospital with his dad. She had been in one
of those emergency room beds, hooked up to machines and
barely breathing. Her lung had collapsed, her skull had been
smashed open and her face was swollen beyond recognition.
The town pastor had been called; no one had expected her to
live through the night.

She still had a faint scar just below her left cheekbone; he
could see it if the light hit her at the just the right angle. And
there were other scars; non-visible wounds that still haunted
her eyes. He hooked a finger under her chin and turned her
face toward his.

“I’m sorry.” The unsteadiness of his own voice surprised
him. “I shouldn’t have let it come to that.”
Angela shifted from his touch and diverted her gaze.
The guilt hit him as hard as it had that night, when he had
watched her struggle for life and he knew he was to blame.
Cole hadn’t been the one to strike the blow, but he might as
well have been.
“Why didn’t you make Henry pay?”
She straightened her posture. “I was in the hospital for
almost a month. He took enough from me. I wasn’t about to
let him take months more while I waited out a trial. I had an
apartment lined up and a class schedule waiting for me in New
York.”
She looked up at the ceiling. “He said it was my fault that
my mom died, that she lost the will to fight the cancer because
I was leaving them to go away to college. And then he called
her horrible things. He said I was no better than her. I yelled
back. So stupid. I knew better.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Ang.”
Amusement curved her lips, but it did not reach her eyes.
“I haven’t thought of this for years. I swore I’d never come
back to Grace. And here I am.”
“Grace is different now. You’re different.”
“No.” She looked away. “It’s always the same.”
“Are you talking about the town or about yourself?”
“Maybe both.”
The movement of some leaves on a tree caught his
attention and he looked out the window. Lavender and orange
streaked across the sky, the lingering glow from a late summer
sun. He had dozens of things to do before nightfall, and his
ranch manager had already gone home. The rest of the ranch
hands had their own jobs to do.
He knew he should leave to handle the responsibilities of
his ranch. He looked at Angie. She stared back at him
questioningly, vexed by his silence. He smiled and tugged on
the loose bun in her hair, if only to ease the strain a bit. “Why
do you always wear your hair up?”
She smoothed a hand over the bun. “I don’t know. It’s
easier, I suppose, more convenient.”
“You got any working clothes?”
“I thought we were taking the weekend off.”
“We are. Do you have any jeans?”
Angela looked at him suspiciously. “I bought a pair when
I was in town yesterday.”
“Fine.” He picked up his hat and headed for the door. “Put
them on and meet me by the main stables.”
“Cole?”
He turned just before he reached the door.
“Is there even any point in arguing?”
“Don’t worry, darlin’.” He turned the doorknob and
stepped outside. “I don’t plan to put you to too much work.
See you in about twenty minutes.” He closed the door and left
her frowning after him.
****
The last remnant of sunlight stained the sky lavender.
Angela trekked across Cole’s land and neared the stables,
feeling silly for bothering to take a shower and reapplying her
makeup.
He was likely to make her muck out the stalls, or
brush the horses.
She stopped abruptly when she rounded the corner and
saw Cole with a horse’s hoof between his knees, his head bent
as he scraped around the shoe. She could tell he was having a
hard time with the task, his cast making his hand almost
useless.
She felt a wave of pity for the man who relied on his
physical ability. His entire livelihood depended on the use of
his hands. But then, she imagined he had become accustomed
to broken bones and other physical injuries. He would have to,
which is why he was able to finish the chore.
Cole set the horse’s leg back down and turned fully to the
cinnamon mare. He stroked her coat lovingly. “There you are,
my girl. All fixed.”
Angela stepped out of the shadows. Cole noticed her, his
brow furrowed. He tried – and failed – to stifle his laugh.
Self-conscious, Angela laid her hand over her stomach and
looked behind her. “What?”
Cole shook his head and bent to pick up a saddle. “You
put on makeup?”
She raised her fingers to her cheek, wishing he hadn’t said
that.“I always wear makeup.”
He lifted the saddle onto the horse’s back and glanced at
her over his shoulder. “Fine.”
Angela stepped defiantly toward him. She was irritated
enough to pick a fight. “Since I got here you have criticized me
for the way I dress, how I wear my hair, and now the fact that
I wear makeup. This is who I am and I won’t tolerate your
criticism.”
“It isn’t who you are, Angie.” Cole tightened the saddle
straps with a zip of leather through steel rings. “You’ve
polished up your appearance, and you sure do look pretty. But
I still see an awkward little girl with freckles.”
“Awkward.” Just the mention of that word made her
feel
awkward. “Again with the criticism.”
He looked up at the fading sky and sighed. “That isn’t what
I meant.”
“Oh?” She cocked her head, daring him to explain.
He turned from his task and set his fingers on his hips.
“The make-up you wear and that thing you do with your voice
doesn’t match the rest of you. Like it or not, your success
hasn’t taken away what you hoped it would. You’re still
innocent, Ang. So innocent, you don’t even know it.”
“Innocent?” She scoffed. “I’m hardly that, Cole.”
“Not so you can see. It’s buried under all the rest. Coming
back is hard for you. You’re remembering things, aren’t you?
Things about your father.” He paused and swallowed hard, his
Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Things about me.”
“Thank you Dr. Cole.” She turned from him, but he pulled
her back around.
She sighed. “What do you know of any of this, anyway?”
“Not enough,” he said pointedly. “It’s been fifteen years,
Angie, and a few days ago if you would’ve asked me how often
I thought of you, I would have said hardly ever. But now that
you’re here I realize I’ve thought of you more than I knew. It’s
been there all along, my thoughts of you, in everything I’ve
done.”
“It bothers you that I’m here, that you have to deal with all
of this. With me.”
“It does bother me.” He stepped closer. “But not the way
you mean. Seeing you again after all these years matters,
Angie.”
His quiet voice was enough to break her resolve, but she
held onto it tightly. “Why does it matter? Why should you care
about any of this?” she asked.
“We grew up together.”
“You hated me.”
“That’s not completely true. You know that, Ang.”
She wanted to ask him about that afternoon by the pond,
but the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes reminded her of the
years that had passed, and the futility of going back.
“Now, allow me to introduce you to Dixie,” Cole said
quickly, forcing a smile. “She’s a gentle girl.”
Angela rubbed the horse’s nose, flinching when Dixie
nudged against her hand. She hadn’t touched a horse in fifteen
years.
Cole made a few more adjustments to the gear and then
patted the horse’s flank. “She’s ready for you, hop on up.”
Angela quickly looked from the horse to Cole. “No, I
don’t think I should-”
“Come on. This time I won’t even make you muck stalls
first.” He wiped his hands on his jeans and picked up his
discarded shirt. “Let’s go for a ride.”
“Cole, I can’t. I don’t remember…” But she allowed Cole
to prod her to Dixie’s side.
“Need help up?” he asked.
“No.” She rolled her eyes, but grabbed the saddle. “I can
still do this.” She stuck a foot in the stirrup and pulled herself
up, swinging her other leg over the horse.
Cole put his shirt back on and mounted his own horse.
“Now, Dixie just needs gentle commands.” He took up
position next to her. “She’ll follow the motions of your body.”
Angela picked up the reigns and gripped the horse with her
knees to keep herself from sliding off. Dixie responded by
stepping forward at a slow, steady walk. Angela gasped and
jerked, grabbing hold of the mane. Dixie shook her head and
stepped back nervously.
“Shhhhh.” Cole leaned to rub the horse’s nose. “She can
sense that you’re nervous. Relax. It’s like ridinga bike.”
Angela took the reins when he held them out to her and
sat up straight in the saddle. Her pulse scrambled erratically.
Had the ground always been so far away from the back of a
horse?
She looked toward the forest beyond the meadow. The
newly risen moon hovered just above the tree tops, its light
mingling with the last remnants of daylight in an ethereal glow.
She took a deep breath and lightly tapped her heels against the
horse’s ribs.
Dixie obeyed and started walking. Angela squeezed the
horse with her knees, her knuckles white from the tight grip on
the reins. She found her balance after a few moments, her body
gradually remembering how to move with the horse.
A bubble filled in her chest; peace overwhelmed her. Tiny
firefly sparks speckled above the tall grass of the meadow,
dancing to the rhythm of the chirps of crickets and cicadas.
Cole and his horse took step beside her. She flashed him a
mischievous smile. “Nuclear fireflies.”
He winced. “You remember that?”
“How could I not?” she teased as they walked their horses
side by side. “I convinced myself my skin was turning green
and that my fingers were tingling and they were going to fall
off. All because I had touched ‘nuclear’ fireflies.”
He laughed deeply. “I was twelve and you asked me a
question I didn’t know the answer to. I had to come up with
something.”
“Well, fortunately, my mother reassured me that fireflies
do not get their glow from drinking toxic waste.”
“And your mother told my father. It cost me a day cleaning
out the glick trench in the stables.” He winked at her. “I was
so mad at you for telling on me, but it was worth it just to see
the look on your face. I think you did turn green for a minute.”
Angela
laughed
as
they
walked
through the fireflies,
sending them flittering about. “It wasn’t the first time a man
has lied to me. Just the first lesson of many.”
“So you’re saying I ruined you for all other men?”
“No, you saved me. Thanks to you I was made well aware
of their lies.”
“What if not all of them tell lies? Ever consider that?”
Instead of answering, Angela kicked her heels into Dixie’s
side and took off at a full trot. Cole frowned after her for a
moment, and then directed his horse to follow. He kept up
with her over the small hills and flower dotted meadows, past
the main house and into the woods. She slowed as the mass
of trees thickened.
She had asked why it mattered to him and he pondered the
question now, wondering if it had more to do with himself than
with her. He could tell himself he still saw her as the child he
should have protected, but the woman she was now mattered
even more to him than the child she had been.
She had put her hair up again in a messy bun, showing off
the long line of her neck. Who’d have thought little Angie
Donnelly would turn into the woman who threatened his
resolve as no other woman could? The way he figured, it would
do them both a lot more good if he thought of her as a sister,
rather than a woman.
The path widened and he strode beside her. She angled her
chin toward the full moon, the light filtering through the trees.
When she lowered her gaze to meet his, she smiled and said
“thank you, Cole.”
“My pleasure, Ang.”
“It’s Angela,” she chided, although her smile brightened.
Cole cut his horse in front of hers, taking up a trot as the
path cleared a bit more. She followed him further into the
moonlit woods and toward the old creek that ran through his
property and what had once been Henry Donnelly’s land. In
fact, if memory served, he believed they had crossed the
property line and they were now on what used to be his former
partner’s land.
He took his horse down the steep bank of the creek. The
water would rise in spring from the melted snow, but now it
was barely more than a trickle, maybe a foot deep and three
feet wide.
Cole reached the water’s edge. “Hey Angie, you ever swim
in this creek? Michael and I used to hunt crawdads. Then we’d
take them up to the river and use them as bait.”
Angie stood at the top of the bank, staring at a spot just
beyond the opposite bank, her face stone white.
Cole spun his horse around. “Ok, it’s easy. Dixie knows
how to get down, you just haveto tell her to.”
“I’m sorry. I have to go back. It’s late.” Without waiting
for him, she turned her horse and took off in a cloud of dust
and dried leaves. He let her go, knowing he could have caught
up to her easily. But she needed to brood. Something had upset
her, and he would find out what, but not yet.
When he reached the stables twenty minutes later darkness
had completely fallen. He took his horse, named Oliver after
the orphan in the play, and settled him in for the night. Dixie
had also been settled in. Angie had thought to remove the
saddle and bridle, leaving them on a bench. Cole picked up the
gear and spent the next half hour tidying the stable. By then he
figured he had given her enough time.
She opened the door a full two minutes after he’d knocked.
Book in hand, she stood in the doorway, blinking up at him
through the porch light.
He stayed outside in the cool summer night and tilted his
head in offer for her to join him. She set down the book and
stepped onto the wooden porch in her bare feet. She wore
cotton pajama pants and a plain white T-shirt, her hair loose
over her shoulders.
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against
the post. “Why’d you run?”
She stiffened. “I didn’t run.”
He pushed away from the post, his boots creaking as he
stepped to her. “What did you see, Angie?”
He slid his hand to her cheek, needing to keep her gaze on
his. Her breath caught in her throat, and he watched in silence
as her eyes filled with tears.
“The memories.” She said, fighting to keep the sob from
breaking through. “They just keep trying to come back. I can’t
stop them. I did. I blocked it out, I kept them away for so
long.”
He wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumb.
“At the creek.” She leaned in, her forehead resting against
the side of his jaw, drawing from his warmth. “You were
talking about swimming and crawdads and all I could think
about was the time I ran away from home and hid in the rocks
on the south bank. I made it almost half a day before he came
and got me.”