The Single Dad Finds a Wife (17 page)

“Thank you so much for allowing us to visit,” he told Mrs. de Silva. “As I mentioned on the phone, Jeremy was a patient here a few weeks ago. And after seeing Maria at the Common Ground clinic, he's been very worried about her.”

“She is doing much better, all praise be to God,” Mrs. de Silva said. “We have not stopped praying.”

“Neither have we,” David told her.

“Daddy.”

He smiled down at Jeremy.

“We won't disturb you long,” he told the woman.

Mrs. de Silva smiled at Jeremy. Then, taking his free hand, she led him to the bed where little Maria was bandaged and looking miserable. She turned from the muted television and looked at them.

David made the introductions. Mrs. de Silva's eyes widened when she realized who Spring was.

“Thank you for helping my Maria,” she said, giving Spring a hug.

At the girl's bedside, Jeremy reached into the bag and pulled out a white plush teddy bear. It wore a pink-and-green-polka-dot scarf around its neck. The girl's face lit up when she saw it.

“You need a bear,” he told Maria, thrusting the toy at her. “It will make you feel better. I was sick and got Beau. You have to give her a name.”

She wasn't able to move the lower part of her body, but she held tight to the teddy bear.

“Amelie,” she said.
“Su nombre es Amelie. Gracias.”

Mrs. de Silva gasped, and David asked what was wrong.

“She has named the bear Amelie. Amelie was her best friend. She moved away a year ago.” Tears filled the woman's eyes, and she wiped them away with a handkerchief she pulled from a pocket. “The two, my Maria and her friend Amelie, had matching pink-and-green dresses. She has missed her friend very much. Your little boy has made her very happy. Thank you.”

Watching from a few steps away, Spring covered her mouth, overcome by Jeremy's sensitivity and concern and the Lord putting them all in the right places at the right times.

Despite the language barrier, Jeremy and Maria seemed to be enjoying each other's company. David eventually had to remind him that Maria needed rest just like he had after his tummy surgery.

“Would you let us pray with you before we leave?” David asked.

“Sí,”
Mrs. de Silva said. “And please pray for my brother. He is very upset about what has happened. It was an accident, but he blames himself. My husband and I have tried to tell him it was not his fault, but...” She shook her head sadly.

“Of course we will,” David said. He held a hand out to Spring. The three adults formed a semicircle around the bed. Jeremy put his hand on Maria's arm, and David led them in prayer.

Back in the SUV, Spring twisted in her seat and told Jeremy, “What you did for Maria was very nice.”

He nodded. “She needed a bear. But she should call it Beau.”

Spring smiled.

David started the sport utility vehicle and announced, “Next stop, the bazaar and picnic.”

* * *

Spring had initially thought that it would be all right for David and Jeremy to meet her at the picnic. But as David followed the direction of an usher managing traffic in the church's parking lot, she was glad that he'd insisted they would pick her up at her house.

Not only had her mother seen David in a light other than as adversary, she'd met and seemed as smitten with Jeremy as Spring was. And then the stop at the hospital. David had clearly followed through and had even talked with Maria de Silva's mother in advance of their visit.

She couldn't think of a more perfect day, and it had barely gotten started for them.

Jeremy's enthusiasm was contagious. He practically vibrated in his booster seat in the backseat of David's SUV.

David parked at First Memorial Church of Cedar Springs.

In the backseat, Jeremy bounced in his seat and pointed out the window.

“Look, look, it's a clown! He's throwing balls!”

The colorful clown juggler, much like a pied piper, was walking around, pausing to hold court as people arrived in the parking lot and then leading them toward the festivities.

“Hurry, Daddy! We're going to miss him!”

David and Spring shared a smile.

“He'll be here all day, buddy.”

Jeremy's feet kicked the seat as he squirmed.

“Many kids Jeremy's age are afraid of clowns,” Spring quietly observed.

David grinned. “Not my boy. So far, about the only thing I've discovered that he's afraid of is going to bed.”

Spring laughed as David cut the engine. “My mom used to say that my youngest sister, Autumn, was like that. Too afraid she would miss something.”

“That's Jeremy.”

“Daddy, can we get out now?”

“On my way, buddy.” David got out of the SUV, came around and opened Spring's door for her, then opened the back door to release Jeremy.

“Hurry, Daddy.”

“I'm hurrying,” David said with a smiling glance over his shoulder at Spring.

He undid the restraints, and Jeremy bounded from the booster seat and into his arms.

David glanced at Spring. “This was really a great idea,” he told her. “I'm glad you invited us.”

As he put Jeremy down, Spring reached across the backseat to the small picnic basket filled with cookies to share. “I'm glad you decided to come. This picnic is a First Memorial tradition. It's a lot of fun. It was incorporated into the full Common Ground community picnic weekend and has just gotten better every year. And,” she added with a nod toward Jeremy, “it seems to have gotten his mind off Maria.”

Jeremy grabbed his father's hand and Spring's free one to tug them forward.

Spring was struck by the image the three of them made.

They looked like a family.

And it felt right, so very right.

While Jeremy chattered between them about the fun they would have at the church picnic, Spring stole a glance at David...and caught him staring at her.

She wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

“This feels right,” David said.

She didn't cast her gaze away, and she didn't feign either indifference or misunderstanding.

It did feel right. The way things were supposed to feel between a man and a woman.

“Yes,” she told him. “It does.”

The next two hours were spent going from booth to booth at the picnic. Each of the church's auxiliary groups had tents set up along the perimeter of the church's lawn. Each booth featured a game or activity, and there was something for people of all ages. Picnic tables laden with food and big barbecue grills were in the middle.

While the children watched a puppet show, a preview of what was to come the next day at The Fellowship, David and Spring signed up to play a round of Bible trivia.

The picnic and bazaar, while hosted by First Memorial, was open to all of the Common Ground community so there were plenty of faces from the three congregations who were meeting for the first time.

“Remember,” the host dressed in a tweed jacket said using the hyper voice of a television game show host. “You must answer each trivia item in the form of a question. And remember, if you don't, the points automatically go to your opposing team.”

Two teams of four stood facing each other, the men versus the women. They were on opposite teams, and Spring wondered if David had any idea how competitive she could be. She waved at him and grinned. He was about to find out.

“You're going down,” a tall man on the other side taunted.

“That may be the case,” the brunette woman next to Spring responded. Spring couldn't remember if she'd introduced herself as Marcy Marian or Marian Marcy. Marcy or Marian then pulled out a tangle of keys and shook them. “Just remember who got you here and who has the keys to the car and house.”

That rejoinder earned laughter from all the competitors.

Twenty questions later, the men looked stunned to have been defeated by the team of women, who'd broken out into an impromptu cheer led by Marian.

“I was head cheerleader in high school down in Fayetteville,” she said as each of the four women collected an envelope from the moderator.

“Congratulations, ladies. Each of you wins a gift card for a free book from the Common Ground Bible bookstore and two free pastries at Sweetings. Whether or not you decide to share with those losers over there is your business.”

“Hey,” Marian's husband said, approaching with the men. “They had a ringer on their team. She teaches Sunday school.”

“And if you came sometime,” the teacher replied, “maybe you would have known some of the answers.”

“Don't be a sore loser,” Marian said as she linked her arm with her husband's. “If memory serves correctly—and it does—you were the main one advocating men versus women.”

“That's right,” David said as he joined Spring. He slipped his hand into hers. “The rest of us wanted to go mixed doubles.”

“You're just saying that now so you don't sleep on the sofa tonight,” one of his teammates said, slapping David on the back.

Spring's face flamed, and David sputtered.

“We're not—”

The sharp clanging of cowbells interrupted his dissent.

It was a call to arms for teams in old-fashioned family games like a three-legged race and corn hole, which involved tossing small beanbags into holes on an elevated platform and board.

Lovie Darling made good on her promise to meet Jeremy at the picnic, and the two teamed up for a tiny tikes and partner beanbag toss that ended up being more competitive for the kids than the adults' version was. She remained civil but not warm to David, and, like several others at the picnic, she eyed her daughter and the architect with more than passing curiosity and confusion.

After the games, the ministers of the Common Ground churches, directed by Reverend Dr. Joseph Graham of First Memorial Church, led the combined members of the congregations and their guests in grace and a fellowship song on the lawn.

* * *

By the time Spring and David settled on the blanket she'd brought with heaping plates from the serving tables, Jeremy had dozed off.

“Poor little guy,” Spring said, brushing hair along his forehead. “He's all tuckered out.”

“He's had a full day,” David said. “I'm beginning to think fireworks will go on without us tonight.”

Spring sat cross-legged with her plate in her lap and cut a small piece of barbecued chicken. David was reaching for his own plate when his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He put the plate on the blanket and pulled it out to glance at the display. The number had a 919 area code. Cedar Springs. Since it was Saturday afternoon, Spring was with him and his mother would have used her own cell with its Charlotte area code, he got a bad feeling about the call.

“Excuse me,” he told Spring. “I need to take this.”

She nodded, and he answered but didn't get up to leave to take the call in private.

The caller on the other end was Gloria Reynolds, the Cedar Springs City Council clerk.

“Mr. Camden,” she said, “so sorry to disturb you on the weekend. I tried your office yesterday and they said you'd already left for the day and were out of town.”

“No problem, Ms. Reynolds,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Spring mouthed “Gloria?” and he nodded. She put her plate of chicken, baked beans and chips to the side and watched him.

“Something has come up having to do with your plans for the multi-use development,” Gloria said. “Can you be at city hall at eight o'clock Monday for a meeting?”

David's mind raced with possibilities—none of them good. The first being that if a call from Cedar Springs had come in to his office in Charlotte, his team would have immediately notified him whether he was in the office, down the hall or on the moon. While the planning commission had approved his work, their vote was simply a recommendation to the city council. The elected body, not the appointed one, had the final say and authority to enter into binding agreements with firms like his.

“That's not a problem at all,” he told Gloria Reynolds. He knew not to ask a single yes-or-no question when trying to ferret out information. So his question to her was short and to the point. “What's changed with the project?”

“Just some developments the mayor wants to keep you abreast of with regard to your proposal.”

David didn't like the sound of that at all. What would prompt an unscheduled meeting first thing Monday morning, not to mention a Saturday off-city-hours telephone call to tell him and what he believed to be fiction about calling Carolina Land Associates on Friday?

He tried, unsuccessfully, to glean additional information from the clerk, but she was closemouthed and circumspect in what she said.

With a grimace, he pocketed the phone.

“What's wrong?” Spring immediately asked.

“I don't know,” he told her. “There's been a special meeting called about the plans.”

Spring shrugged. “I wouldn't be too concerned. It could be anything.” Then, after a beat, she added, “With luck, it will be to cancel the whole thing.”

He took the dig in the spirit in which it had been made. “Smarty-pants.”

Spring grinned.

David could spend the rest of this otherwise perfect summer day wondering and worrying about what was going on, or he could enjoy his time with this beautiful woman.

“So,” she said. “You never told me to what I owe this surprise weekend visit by the Camden men?”

“I told you,” he said. “I missed you and wanted to see you.”

He was not at all sure what she might say about his candor, but it was out now.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again and then her shoulders slumped a bit.

Seeing her struggle and not wanting to hear a rejection, he reached for his plate and a knife and fork. “So, what did you think about my modifications?”