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The light in Nana's upstairs bedroom winked out at the grounds below when Jake pulled his car back through the estate's gate after a long, aimless drive down beachside roads. The soft glow called to him like a homing beacon.
Jake parked his car and walked quietly inside the main house. He needed to talk to Nana, but he felt so betrayed that he didn't know how he could face her. Had she always known? He felt trepidation in every inch of his veins, but he couldn't turn around now. He needed to know.
"Nana? Are you still awake?" Jake tapped gently at her bedroom door. The century-old hinges swung silently as the door opened.
"Come in, my boy. I had a feeling I'd see you tonight." She walked to the sitting area off the main bedroom and perched on her favorite antique settee.
Jake sank into a tufted wingback close by and tilted his head back to where it rested on the solid upholstery. "I don't understand, Nana. Everything's such a mess."
"I'm not going to take Sam's tirade lying down. I need to pray about it some more before I figure out the best way to handle things," Nana said thoughtfully.
"Pray about it?" Jake tried not to roll his eyes. This isn't what he'd come upstairs for.
He already knew this praying nonsense didn't get anyone anywhere. He needed to look no further than sweet, God-fearing Gracie, who prayed with her whole heart about her grant money. All she received in reply was a letter telling her "Better luck next time."
"What are you shaking your head for, Jake?" Nana leaned in close and stared him down. He couldn't tell if she was trying to be playful or not. Something inside told him to go with the latter. "Do you have a problem with prayer?"
"Nana, God's got better things to do than to figure out a way for you to get even with Sam Pennington."
"I said I needed to know the best way to handle the situation." She sat on the edge of the settee, looking like a queen. "Your father would have been interested in getting even. But then, he never prayed a day in his life. And although he was my son, he led a miserable life. A relationship with God would have given some meaning to his days beyond dollars and cents."
"He had a company to run, Nana. I don't agree with how he treated people, but you have to admit the bank accounts didn't suffer while he ran the show."
Without replying, she rose and walked to the ornately carved mahogany bookshelf in the corner of the room. "Mm-hmm," she said, running her finger across the top of a section of older books, then pulling one out.
Diana Peoples stood in front of her grandson and put a small volume in his hands. Printed more than a century before, it felt slick to the touch, as though many hands had held it and turned its pages. The black letters pressed into the red cloth cover read "The Peril of Port Provident," above a dramatic engraving of a family. Jake assumed the book was yet another history of the Great Storm of 1910, the defining moment in Port Provident's history.
"Open it to chapter ten," Nana said simply. He complied, leafing through the pages and absently noting how much thicker the paper felt compared to the slick, mass produced sheets in contemporary publications. "Now, what does the chapter title say?" Her voice carried clearly, amplified by the high ceilings and shining wooden floors of the sitting room.
"John Peoples Prays to Put Port Provident Back on the Map," Jake read as dutifully as a student at a school desk.
Nana broke her dearly held etiquette rules as she sat on top of the coffee table behind her. Her grandson fidgeted on the cushion of the stately chair, uncomfortable under the weight of Diana's heavy stare.
She reached over the top of the book and tapped the top of the page for emphasis. "That man is just a legend to you. A story in a book that's more than one hundred years old. A name you've seen on buildings and plaques around town. But I knew him. He was my father-in-law. And he started a business when he was twenty years old that brought this town back to life. He built homes for people who'd lost everything. And he didn't do it because it looked good on a balance sheet. John Peoples started Peoples Property Group because he prayed about how to help his fellow citizens and God led him to the answer. His son knew that. His grandson rejected it. And it breaks my heart that his great-grandson doesn't understand it."
Jake's eyes burned. He stared at the letters on the page, unable to even blink. John Peoples Prays to Put Port Provident Back on the Map. Why had he not known this about the founding of the company? Had the distance between Jake and his father caused an even greater distance between Jake and the Peoples family history?
"What does this mean for me, though, Nana?" Jake felt like a child all over again, needing reassurance from his elders. He needed more than reassurance tonight. He needed answers to questions too bitter still to put into words.
"I don't have the answers, my sweet grandson. But I know Someone who does." She took hold of the book and folded it closed. "We'll figure it out. I told you, I'm not going to let Sam Pennington spread his vicious gossip about our family."
Her voice rang with the pure steel possessed by generations of Texas women. Jake knew if he hesitated, he'd lose his nerve. He had to lay it all out now. The hurt, the betrayal, the pain caused as today's daggers severed him from the only family he'd ever known.
"But you've always known it's not gossip, haven't you, Nana? He's telling the truth." The black cloud surrounding him blew a cold wind as he confronted the grandmother he'd always loved so fiercely.
Nana's breath floated away like a gentle butterfly. He could hear the exhale above the stark silence.
"Well, yes. I have, Jake."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
He needed to hear the answer. An answer that, in his heart, he already knew. But hearing her admit that she'd kept such a secret from him felt like a punch to the gut.
"I tried to protect you. Your mother couldn't work through her problems—she just drank her way around them. I knew you couldn't rely on her." Nana paused and closed her eyes, always a sure sign to Jake that she was choosing her words carefully. "And your father clearly took out his anger at your mother and her infidelity on you. But you just needed someone to love you. I thought by keeping quiet, I was doing just that."
"All my life I knew something didn't add up. This is a small town. Everybody talked. Most behind my back, but some to my face. It hurt." The bitter bile of memory rose in Jake's throat. "I always kept my chin up by telling myself that they were liars. Because you wouldn't have told me I was your special grandson if I wasn't really yours."
Nana opened her mouth to speak. Jake held up a hand and cut her off. He'd never treated his grandmother with such casual disrespect before. He'd never felt he had a reason to before, either.
"I told myself they were all liars—and that for whatever reason, my father was the biggest liar of them all." Jake looked straight at Nana but didn't see her clearly with his vision clouded by years of hurt and anger. "It turns out you were the liar, Nana."
Jake pivoted, his leather shoes spinning slickly on the antique silk rug below. He turned for the door, unwilling to let Nana speak. He didn't want to hear her try to mount a defense. He'd heard enough for one day.
In fact, he'd heard enough for a lifetime.
Jake walked back to his apartment in the carriage house without another word to his grandmother. One thought kept running through his mind. Could the same faith that formed the bedrock of Gracie's family actually be at the core of the man who was, at least, his namesake? Could he find a way to truly know for himself?
He should have been thinking about his next move, what he would do from here. What work prospects did he have now? Where would he go in order to meet his obligations?
Instead, his mind couldn't focus on the here and now. It kept spinning with thoughts about the post-hurricane actions of the first John Edward Peoples, so many years ago. Jake's inattentiveness to everything around him caused him to catch his toe under the edge of the jewel tone-colored area rug. He tripped and landed on the plush carpeting. The fall interrupted Jake's inner turmoil and he surveyed life from his new, more lowly perspective. Jake grimaced as he realized, with a touch of irony, he had just been brought to his knees.
The wind kicked up outside, the howl reverberating across the windowpane. Jake didn't feel alone inside the small living quarters. Instead, he felt prompted, like a youngster being supported on his first bike ride without training wheels.
"I don't know how to do this. I've never really prayed before in my life. But I want to know how I'm supposed to make sense of today. I came back to lead my family's company, and now it seems I've lost my family and my company. And along the way, I made Gracie lose her home and her business. I don't want to be like that. I want to be like my great-grandfather. I want to help people build better lives. What should I do?"
Jake looked around, half expecting to see a sign that would let him know he'd been heard, but he couldn't make out much of anything in the dark carriage house.
The moon shone through the open curtains at the back of the small room. A few clouds began to gather at its edge. The gathering storm clouds made him think of the recent events in his own life.
The moon reminded him of his walk on the beach with Gracie. She inspired him. They handled life's curveballs so differently. When faced with losing his home and law practice in Austin, Jake filed for bankruptcy and left town. But when a similar situation literally knocked on Gracie's door, she turned to God, family and friends—and kept working to find another way to keep her dream alive.
Even now, when she knew the grant money wouldn't land in her bank account, she still believed that God would work all things out for good, as she'd so often said.
"Can you really make something out of this mess, God? Gracie seems so sure You have a higher plan for her. Do You have one for me, too?"
Again, no audible reply. Just a gentle reminder of another conversation with Gracie.
"I don't want to hear some fancy words you learned in a class for your MBA," she'd snapped at him in the condo parking lot. "When you hear 'P&L' you think of a profit and loss sheet. I think of people and love."
He'd gotten it all wrong. The measure of true success came in numbers of lives touched, not numbers of dollars in a bank account. Just as the chapter in Nana's book showed. El Centro wasn't a drain on the economy of Gulfview Boulevard, as he'd recently tried to convince the City Council. Instead, it was the only business in the area that generated the kind of profits that mattered.
The man he'd always known as his great-grandfather brought Port Provident back from ruin by investing in the lives of others. This special city didn't need another condo development. It needed personal development.
Jake got up off his knees. He owed a special person in his life a special apology, and then he had a phone call to make.
"Thank you," he whispered, dashing out of the carriage house like a firefighter en route to a rescue.
––––––––
"Bubble bath, take me away." Gracie poured a capful of lavender-scented body wash under the faucet of running water. The familiar floral scent soothed her nerves.
The whole day seemed so unbelievable. Losing the grant. Losing her school. Losing her home. Losing Jake. She'd only known him a short time, but his decision to withdraw from her life tore her heart like an angry bear's paw.
His last words to her at the church shredded her heart to ribbons.
Gracie knew she'd be rebuilding her life soon. Somewhere, there would be a new home, and somehow, a new school. She only wished she didn't have to add a new Jake to the growing list.
As though there could be another Jake.
In a short time, she'd come to appreciate him more than she'd ever expected. When he first knocked on her door, he was her enemy—an adversary from the other side of the tracks. But in spite of their differences, she'd found they had common ground. The wind crackled through fronds of the palm trees outside her window, and the first droplets of the summer storm released from the clouds above. Gracie wished her whole day would blow away with the gusts and the rain.
Gracie stopped the flow from the bathtub tap. She looked at the water and was struck by how, in such a short time, Jake had completely filled up her life in the same way the bubbly liquid took over the claw-footed bathtub.
On this night, when they'd both been given a rude awakening from their hopes in life, did Jake's thoughts race through his mind at the same warp speed hers seemed to travel? She didn't know, and his last words to her made it very clear that she couldn't reach out to ask.
The heavy sound of the brass knocker on the front door cut into Gracie's musings. She knew it would probably be Gloria, bringing cookies or brownies, or some other pity party-appropriate food purchased at the church fund-raiser. A smile crossed Gracie's lips. Chocolate within arm's reach would make the bubble bath even more of a haven from a cruel world.
She tied the knot tightly on her purple terrycloth bathrobe and walked down the stairs. With every step, the downpour outside intensified. "Hold on. I'm coming." Texas storms were known for changing from mild to malicious in just a minute's time.
"Jake! What are you doing here?" She couldn't believe her eyes. The water made his hair seem two shades darker, and beads dripped from the tendrils framing his face.
He still wore the dress clothes from his meeting today, and the cotton button down wetly molded to his every angle. Only hours ago, he'd said he was stepping out of her life. But here he stood, on her front porch.
What brought him back?
"I'm calling it off, Gracie." A crack of thunder popped from the storm cloud overhead. He drove all the way to her house to rub it in?
"I heard you loud and clear at the church, Jake. Our friendship is over. I know."
Jake took two steps closer. Gracie stepped back, both in confusion and to allow him through the door.
The clouds outside made the night even darker, and she'd only flipped on one light switch as she'd walked down the stairs. But even in the dimly lit entryway, Gracie thought she could see the emerald flicker that had been absent earlier today. Jake's eyes no longer appeared dull and lifeless.
He shook his head. "No, not you and me, Gracie. I made a mistake in saying that. But I made a bigger mistake in pushing the City Council for the Maximized Revenue Zone."
"What?" Gracie's eyebrows shot straight for her hairline. "I don't understand."
"I'm calling Carter Porter and asking him to withdraw the proposal. You can keep your school," Jake said.
Had she just taken a hit to the back? She couldn't catch her breath. Suddenly, as the old hymn said, peace like a river flowed. All the day's stress melted away, taking the worry of the whole week along with it. And she hadn't yet dangled even one toe in the warm lavender bathwater upstairs.
"I can keep my school?" She forced her arms to remain at her side instead of reaching out to hug Jake.
Gracie didn't want to overstep any boundaries. Everything today shifted from one extreme to the other so rapidly that it almost made her seasick.
"But what about your condo's swimming pool?"
"Well, the project's not mine any longer, remember? And without me, I imagine the company will go back to the original blueprint. The board never even listened to my proposal for the expanded amenities."
Gracie tore her gaze away from Jake and looked around the ground floor. She surveyed the classrooms, plastic tables in neat rows with folding chairs arranged in regular intervals. She paused briefly at her office, where her secondhand desk chair would support her for many days to come.
Gracie's wounded heart mended and swelled with joy. God hadn't misunderstood her prayers after all. He'd saved her school.
"Let's get you a towel. Wait right over there." Gracie pointed at the guestroom as Jake followed two steps behind on the way up the tall staircase. She went into the bathroom and grabbed the towel she'd laid out for herself. The bubbles that had piled up so frothily just a few minutes before had now all faded back into the water. But enough bubbles percolated through Gracie's bloodstream to more than make up for their absence.
You can keep your school, Jake had said. Could she keep him in her life, too? She didn't want to allow herself to think too hard about exactly what her heart meant by that.
When Gracie walked into the guestroom, Jake gratefully took the towel and began to roughly dry his hair, then wiped up the small puddle below him on the floor.
"I didn't mean to barge in on you like this."
"It's okay. I was just alone with my thoughts tonight. I left the church not long after you did."
The springs of the twin bed creaked as Jake sat heavily on top of the pink ring quilt covering it. "I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you, Gracie. You reached out to me after reading that grant letter and I wasn't there for you."
"You were dealing with your own issues today, Jake. It's okay." Gracie leaned against the doorframe.
She remembered the hollow feeling inside when she'd watched him walk away. But he'd come back to her. That was all that mattered.
"No, it's not. And Nana reminded me of that. God puts us into the paths of others for a reason." He pushed still-damp hair out of his face.
She wanted to tell him that it would all be forgiven if he'd just say he didn't mean the part about staying out of her life forever. "Well, yes, He does. But that isn't what they teach in the MBA program, and you've made that clear before. When did you start listening to God?"
"When I realized that's my family's strongest legacy—not a company." Jake locked eyes with her.
Gracie could sense the seriousness in their clear green depths.
"Nana showed me a book tonight, written after the Great Storm of 1910. It talks about how Peoples Property Group got started. The company is a means to an end, but it's not the only way I can live out the vision of my great-grandfather. I am no longer part of the company, but I still want to be part of the work he was called to do—to help others build up their lives."
Gracie straightened up. Jake got her attention.
"You were right, Gracie. It's about people and love, not profit and loss." He stood and walked over to her. The room lit up from a full flash of lightning out over the nearby gulf. The accompanying thunderous boom made the house sway on its pier-and-beam foundation.
She reached out and clutched Jake. Gracie knew she would have even if there had been no storm. She wanted to hold onto him forever. She wanted to hold onto this feeling in her heart forever. All her life, she'd known she left her homeland to find something new.
When Jake said her own words back to her, she knew she'd found not just a friend, but maybe more.
––––––––
Although Jake wanted to stay much longer and talk about the future with Gracie, he needed to take care of some important business right now.
"I'll see you tomorrow. I want to take you out on a real date." He waved as he ran off the porch and across the asphalt to where he'd parked his truck. Today's events tossed his future up in the air. He didn't know what he would do for a job once he cleaned out his desk Monday morning.
But what mattered most is that Gracie would stand by his side.
As soon as he shut the door to the car, Jake dialed Carter Porter's number. It went straight to voice mail. "Carter, it's Jake. Look, I need you to take the vote on the Maximized Revenue Zones off the table for Monday's meeting. It's not something I'm interested in pursuing any further. Call me if you have questions. If I don't hear back from you, I'll assume everything's taken care of."
He hung up the phone and drove back to the carriage house. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Jake loved it when a plan came together. Especially when he knew it was God's plan.
The phone rang almost as soon as Jake disconnected the call to Carter Porter.
"Jake?" Jenna's soft whisper sounded wet with tears.
"Jenna, I'm so sorry. I owe you an apology." He needed to make things right with his sister. He'd treated the news of her pregnancy exactly the same way his father would have treated a major announcement of Jake's.
"It's okay, Jake. I've been on the phone with Nana." She gave a weepy little hiccup. "It's not right what Sam did to you."
Jake pulled his truck into a parking spot alongside Gulfview Boulevard. He wanted to be able to give Jenna his full attention, not be distracted by the drive back home.
"No, it's not. But I'll be okay. I didn't know that at first, but I do now." A smile of recognition crossed Jake's lips as he spoke. "You were right, you know."
"About what?"
Jake watched the waves below get splashed with raindrops and remembered a few days back when Jenna gave him a stern warning in his office. "You told me not to forget the important things in life. It wasn't that I'd forgotten them, Jen. Until tonight, I never really knew what they were."
His heart broke a little for the person he had been, the person who had always struggled to live up to unrealistic expectations.
Jenna didn't reply immediately. "So what did you learn? What are the important things to you?"
"Family. Faith. Doing what you can to help others." Jake answered his sister swiftly and without doubt. "Being an uncle who cares. Jenna, I'm really sorry for how I reacted to your news. I want to be there for you and for the baby. I want to remember what truly matters in life."
"Really?" Jenna's voice peaked on the last syllable. "You mean that?"
Jake nodded, confirming it to himself as much as Jenna. "I mean it. I know that Sam Pennington's revelations mean I'm only your half-brother, but that doesn't matter to me."
Jenna cut him off. "It doesn't matter to me, either. You've always been my brother. You always will be. No DNA or gossip will change that. And I want my baby to grow up knowing that the Sam Penningtons of the world will not win in the end. You and me—we're family, Jake, no matter what anyone says."
"I'm glad you feel that way, Jenna. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"I know something you can do," Jenna said.
He'd do anything for Jenna, and he wanted to prove it to her. He wanted to build an extended family who laughed together and supported each other in good times and bad, just as the Garcias had. "What? Name it."
"Come with me tomorrow to my prenatal appointment. I've transferred from the hospital's OB/GYN practice to a midwife at that little birth clinic on the corner of Sixth Street, next to Provident Medical Center—and they have Saturday morning appointments. I scheduled it then because I thought Mitch could come, but I forgot he has to fly out of town for a conference. Will you come with me? They'll be doing an ultrasound. You can see your niece or nephew for the first time."
Why not? He could clean out his desk any time. He'd probably never have the opportunity to see Jenna's baby on an ultrasound screen again.
"Absolutely, Jenna." His heart leapt at the thought of being there for Jenna and her baby.
"Great." Jake could hear only smiles—no more sniffles—coming from the other side of the line. He would be there for Jenna.
This should have been the loneliest night of his life. Instead, he'd found his relationships and his purpose renewed. He'd found out the true meaning of really mattered in life—people and love.
