Authors: Julie Lessman
“So … hear tell you signed up to volunteer at Camp Hope.” Resting against the base of one of Mamaw’s gnarled oaks, Jack accepted a frosty iced tea from Lacey during a break from building the wedding gazebo. Across the yard, Matt and Nicki bantered with Justin to the ping of hammers and country music from Matt’s iPad, ironically blasting Dolly Parton’s
I Will Always Love You
while Lacey smiled down. Nodding his thanks, he took a swig, drinking in the heady scent of Coppertone and sawdust along with his lemon-flavored tea. An odd sense of pride warmed him inside that Lacey hadn’t lost her passion for a cause near and dear to his family’s heart. Swiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his paint-stained T-shirt, he peered up through sun-squinted eyes. “Just to be safe, though, you might want to keep an extra change of clothes in the car.” He grinned over the rim of his Dixie cup, remembering all the times Lacey had jumped in the lake fully clothed over a dare or lost bet, delighting the kids to no end.
And him.
Her mouth dropped a full inch as she slacked a leg, hands perched on the hips of her blue-jean cutoffs. “Are you clairvoyant or something, O’Bryen? For heaven’s sake, I just committed to Miss Myra this morning—how on earth did you find out already?”
Chucking an ice cube into his mouth, he arched a brow. “Besides the fact you’re completely predictable?” He crunched on the ice, a grin surfacing while it crushed and crackled against his molars. “Camp Hope is still a top priority for my family, Lace, so we all volunteer during the summer when we can, even Mom.” He winked. “I was there after you left today, treating a couple of the kids in sick bay when Miss Myra gave me the good news.”
Her gaping mouth edged into a smile while she shook her head, plopping down on the lawn to sit beside him, body butted to the base of the tree just like him. “No kidding? I knew your sisters still volunteered, but I didn’t know you were involved too.” Knees cocked, she snatched a handful of clover stems from the lawn and started tying them into necklaces like she and his sisters used to do when they were kids. “I ran into Cat and Shan at the archery range while Will gave me the grand tour.” Her mouth twisted as she bent to focus on tying a knot in two stems. “Shan gave me a hug, of course, but I swear the temperature dropped twenty degrees from the ice in Cat’s eyes.” She grunted. “She sliced the bull’s-eye clean through, but something tells me she was aiming for a whole ’nother target in her mind.”
He chuckled. “Knowing Cat, I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet, but she’ll come around. Trust me—up to a month ago I would’ve been taking target practice right beside her.”
She peered up in a sideways glance, a cross between a smile and a smirk hovering on her lips. “But not anymore?”
He assessed her for several seconds, suddenly aware that most of the bitterness he’d harbored toward Lacey had somehow ebbed like the tide, leaving behind the rich and fertile ground of a prior friendship he’d treasured. “Nope.” He emptied his drink straight up, then set the glass aside while he propped hands behind his neck, absently studying the smattering of holes and stains in his work jeans. “I never thought seeing you again would be a good thing,” he said quietly, “but I was wrong.”
His eyes flicked up to meet hers, and for the first time he realized that whether it was lover or friend, Lacey Carmichael was someone who would always possess a place in his heart. A tomboy little sister with whom he’d teased and arm-wrestled along with Cat and Shan before she morphed into the sassy girlfriend with whom he wrestled in a whole new way. The perfect antidote to an overly serious egghead, one she’d single-handedly taught how to laugh and live and love in a way he had never experienced before. The little brat had become part of his DNA, it seemed, robbing him of a part of his soul when she’d left him behind.
Until now.
Now having her back in his life—no matter the capacity—had allowed the tide back in, slowly filling in some of the gaps in his life. A smile curved on his lips as he watched her fiddle with the clover, her very presence helping to ease the quiet ache in his heart. “I missed you, Lace. Not just ‘us’ together, but
you
. Your friendship, your fun, your crazy perspective on life that helped broaden my own. I missed having you as part of our family, whether it was the little pest next door or the girl I used to fish and laugh with in between kisses down on the dock.”
His heart clutched when a film of moisture glazed in her eyes, and with a swell of affection, he carefully swept a few silky strands of hair over her shoulder. “And I know deep down that Cat will feel the same once you two finally talk.”
She expelled a heavy sigh, the motion appearing to deplete her as she tucked her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top. “Sure hope it goes better than it did with my dad,” she whispered, a rare malaise weighting her words.
He fought the urge to bundle her in his arms like he used to whenever she and her dad had fought. His jaw hardened at the memory of the high-and-mighty surgeon who had time for everything but his own flesh and blood, and Jack vowed he would never let his practice get in the way of loving family. He gentled his tone. “What happened?” he said quietly, wishing he could give Ben Carmichael a piece of his mind.
And his fist.
She gave a tiny shrug. “Oh, he was cold, as expected, a stone wall higher than that silly hedge between him and the rest of the world.”
“Did he talk to you at least?”
Her laugh was harsh. “‘Grunted’ might be a better word, but he did finally let me in after I wore out his doorbell, so that’s something, I guess. Or I should say he let Mamaw’s
pie
in.” A knot ducked in her throat as she stared aimlessly into the yard, the buzz of a circular saw almost drowning out the low drone of her voice. “He asked me why I was there, and I told him I wanted to heal our relationship. ‘We don’t have a relationship,’ he said in that clinical manner of his, ‘that ended the night you cursed me at your mother’s funeral, saying you wished it were mine instead, and that I was dead to you.’”
Jack winced, well aware that Lacey’s temper and tongue had gotten the best of her at times, triggering Ben Carmichael’s well-hidden temper like nobody else could do.
Except maybe me
, he thought with a grimace,
once I started dating his daughter.
Suddenly the calm and collected doctor next door was as cold and belligerent to Jack as he was to his defiant daughter, causing them both a world of heartbreak.
A world of heartbreak.
A vile prophecy if ever there was. A shiver chilled his skin as his jaw clamped tight.
Expelling a weary breath, Lacey slumped against the tree, grabbing more clover to add to her necklace. “He’s right, of course. I’m the one who turned him out of my life for eight years, so who am I to expect him to welcome me back with open arms?”
Jack’s lips took a slant. “Uh, the only flesh-and-blood relative he has?”
Her laugh was bitter. “The only kind of blood Ben Carmichael cares about is the kind he’s paid to pump through patients’ hearts.” She caught her breath and suddenly sat straight up, a smile of wonder dawning on her face as she held up a piece of clover. “Hey, look at this—a four-leaf clover,” she said with genuine awe, blinking at him in that wide-eyed, little-girl way that had always melted his heart. “Do you have any idea just how rare that is?”
His studied her with affection, offering a tender smile despite the faint cramp in his chest. “Yeah,” he said softly.
As rare as someone who brings sunshine to your soul.
A giggle popped from her lips as she carefully tied the final two stems of her clover to create a full circle. “Who knows? Maybe my luck has changed.” She tilted her head to give him a bright smile with a twinkle of tease. “Or my faith, I should say.”
“So …” he said, anxious to bypass any talk of her newfound faith, “how many days are you volunteering at the camp and what’s Miss Myra got you doing this time?”
That was all it took to get her off and running with a glow of excitement. “Well, it’s three days a week for now since I’ve already committed to several of Mamaw’s projects, but I’ll kick that up to five when I can, at least until I start my new job in Savannah in August. I told her I’d do whatever she needed—counseling, office work, cooking, cleaning or chief bottle-washer, but when she heard I had a degree in communication arts with a minor in special education, that sealed the deal. Seems her current batch of kids has a fair number of dyslectics and slow readers—five or six or so, ages seven through fourteen—so I’ll be taking over a small class she’s put together to help improve their reading skills.” She paused, sobriety dimming the excitement in her face. “Hey, what do you know about a little tyke named Debbie Holbrook?”
“Debbie?” Rifling in his glass, he popped another ice cube in his mouth, his chest both warming and cramping over the little orphan who’d stolen his affections the first day she’d hopped off the bus, skinned knees and all.
All the kids at Camp Hope were wards of the state, orphans or in between foster-care homes at the moment, all short-changed in the realm of home life or health. But few had endured in their short lives what Debbie had. A sigh breezed across his lips as he stared blankly into the yard, his heart melting along with the ice in his mouth. “Well, the good news is she just finished treatment for leukemia last month,” he said quietly, gaze fixed on Matt and Nate while they nailed a sheet of lattice to the back of the gazebo, “and I’m happy to say the little sweetheart is now in remission.”
He upended the rest of the ice and crunched hard, his smile as stiff as his jaw. “Which is good ’cause she has a host of other problems to deal with, not the least of which are dyslexia and impaired learning.” A pop sounded when he fisted the Dixie cup. “All due to a mother who abused both drugs and alcohol, not to mention her daughter.”
Lacey’s harsh intake of air broke into his thoughts, drawing his gaze to her face, which had paled considerably. “Oh, no …” she whispered, the raspy croak of her voice telling him eight years may have passed, but it hadn’t changed the care and compassion that had always run deep in Lacey’s soul.
He swabbed his face with his hand, never more grateful for the medical degree that allowed him to reach out to kids like Debbie. “Apparently she was a mess when she was born according to Doc Miller, Myra’s good friend at Atlanta’s Children’s Shelter, which is where Debbie is from. She’s already had surgeries for a cleft foot and lazy eye, but her vision is still pretty poor due to cataracts that need correction. Her mother abandoned her at the age of three when the heart issues cropped up.” His lips thinned, voice as bitter as the bile that tainted his tongue. “But not before her boyfriend got his licks in with everything from broken legs to dislocated shoulders.”
“Oh, God bless her …” Pain threaded Lacey’s voice.
He slid her a sideways glance, unable to keep his remark free of rancor. “Yeah, well, I guarantee there wasn’t a whole lot of that going on.”
“What kind of heart problems?” she whispered, obviously ignoring the venom in his tone.
“An atrial septal defect.”
Her tan faded to a pasty white. “No … not a congenital heart defect,” she whispered, her voice raspy with pain.
“Afraid so. Just one of the many birthday gifts her mother gave her—a moderate-size hole in the septum between the left and the right atria, which doctors are hoping will close up on its own, but there’s no guarantee.” He tunneled blunt fingers through damp hair while he expelled a cumbersome sigh. “Which means the poor kid might be looking at surgery down the road on top of everything else she’s had to contend with.”
Lacey nodded, her gaze lapsing into a faraway stare. “You know, for some strange reason, I felt a kinship with her the moment I saw her, and now I know why.” The graceful lines of her throat shifted while moisture glazed in her eyes. “She’s an orphan with a sick heart that only God can heal, and sometimes I feel the same.”
Jack bristled at Lacey’s reference to God, wondering if this was how she’d felt years ago whenever he’d pushed the issue of faith. Snatching the crumpled Dixie cup from the grass, he hopped to his feet, not very successful at taming the scowl on his face. “It’s been my experience that God’s a lot better at breaking hearts than healing them, Lace, but God or man, I’m pulling for you both.” He extended a hand to help her up and she took it, her look of sympathy getting on his nerves.
“Not God, Jack,” she said quietly, the solemnity of her words giving him pause. “Human beings. God’s the One Who picks up the pieces, remember?” A sad smile shadowed her lips. “You were the one who taught me that.”
Blood warmed his cheeks at the very notion of his former girlfriend now preaching to him. “Yeah, I did,” he said with a wry bent of his mouth. “Too bad I’m not buying it anymore.”
“Okay, people, reinforcements are here,” Justin called from Mamaw’s patio door, arriving late with Sarah after a Home Depot run. He toted a tray of Mamaw’s homemade subs while Sarah followed behind with a fresh pitcher of tea. “The food kind, the tool kind,
and
the people kind, who hopefully will do more than just sit around and guzzle tea.”
Matt seared Justin with a narrow look from the bottom step of the gazebo, where he sat tipping the last of his drink along with Nicki and Nate, sweat rolling down their faces. “Hey, Dipwad, we’ve already put in several hours, I’ll have you know.” His gaze flicked to Jack and Lacey with a crooked smile. “Or at least some of us have. Those two over there have spent the last thirty minutes jawing in the shade.”