Dmitri and Jasper had an arrangement. They had worked it out in the hospital the day before while they waited for the results of Dmitri’s bloodwork.
Dmitri had been lying there in a cold sweat, his arm flung over his eyes to block out the light, when he became aware of Jasper’s intense gaze. He moved his arm and opened one eye.
“How ya feelin’?” Jasper asked.
Dmitri sensed true concern in him, and though he hadn’t known Jasper long, he felt like they could be friends.
“Like a geyser erupted in my stomach,” he answered. “Yourself?”
Jasper smiled. “Just fine, thanks. No nut allergies that I know of.”
Dmitri’s skin was pasty, and he grimaced at the mention of nuts. Jasper frowned.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I will be,” Dmitri assured. “Once my heart rate normalizes.”
Jasper pulled up a seat next to the hospital bed. “I figure you and I should have a talk, Dmitri.”
Something about the way he said it made Dmitri’s stomach flip. It wasn’t a good feeling. Dmitri didn’t say anything, so Jasper went on.
“I need to know exactly what your intentions are concerning Sadie.”
“Sadie? I plan to stay as far away from her as possible.”
Jasper got a good laugh out of that.
“No, no,” he said as he rubbed tears from his eyes, “seriously.”
Dmitri raised up on one elbow. “What makes you think I’m not serious?”
Jasper took note of his expression and sobered. “Oh. That bad, huh?”
Dmitri laid back. “You tell me.”
Jasper ran a hand through his hair in thoughtful concentration. He seemed to be wrestling with a dilemma, and Dmitri didn’t have the strength to help him out.
Finally, he decided to be honest. “Here’s the thing, Dmitri. I’m trying to decide right now if I should defend Sadie to you and explain how she’s really not all that bad and she just has these crazy strings of bad luck now and then…or whether I should let you go on thinking she’s jinxed so you can get the heck out of Dodge.”
Dmitri looked at him.
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
Jasper jumped up out of his chair. “Does everybody know this?” He paced fretfully, and Dmitri couldn’t help smiling.
“What can you do? Love shows.”
Jasper sighed and sank back into his seat.
“Then Sadie’s blind, because she hasn’t noticed anything.”
Dmitri considered this. “Perhaps she hasn’t wanted to notice anything.”
Jasper lightened. “Ya think?”
“It’s possible. She doesn’t seem like the type of woman to really… embrace such things, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you kidding? I think love probably scares her to death.” He paused. “She keeps losing the people she loves,” he softly noted.
The two men sat in silence for a time. Dmitri rubbed his stomach, mentally crooning to soothe himself and occasionally sneaking glances toward Jasper, who was chewing his lip in silent contemplation. A nurse came in to check on them and lingered for quite some time over Dmitri, fluffing his pillows, refilling his water, checking his temperature, asking if he needed anything…. He treated her politely without being flirtatious.
After the nurse left, Jasper addressed him again. “You’re sure you don’t have a thing for Sadie?”
“A thing? Oh, you mean do I think she’s cute?”
“Yeah,” Jasper confirmed.
Dmitri shrugged. “Sadie is a very pretty woman, but I fear she is too…what did she call it? Accident-prone, for me.”
Japer grinned delightedly and with a dreamy sigh said, “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”
Dmitri couldn’t help thinking that if Sadie was crazy then Jasper must be too. They were perfect for each other.
Jasper snapped out of it. “In that case, Dmitri Velichko, I think I’m going to need your help.”
The sermon that Sunday morning was on forgiveness. About how God granted second chances and people should too.
Sadie found herself sinking lower and lower into her seat as Dmitri listened with attentive interest. What made matters worse was the man who sat in the very back of the church—the last row on the left-hand side. Sadie had noted him when she entered but pretended she hadn’t seen as she took her seat halfway up the aisle. Dmitri took the end beside her, amid many a jealous glare shot at Sadie from numerous single, eligible young ladies.
Sadie didn’t notice any of them. She was too concerned with whether the guy in the back had seen her.
The guy was Mac.
And the sermon was for her. She was sure of it.
“What kind of life would that be like?” Pastor Samuel asked. “What kind of love is that like? To forgive the worst of transgressions—to love despite the most horrific of misdeeds? Jesus was mocked, spit on, and despised for what crime? Because He loved. Not only loved of His own accord, but He demanded that very thing from those who followed Him. What kind of God demands you to love not only your own enemies…but your neighbor’s enemies? Your best friend’s enemies? Even the enemies of your child? What kind of God does He think He is?” the pastor demanded, before answering his own question.
“A God who weeps with you. Who cries your tears and then wipes them away. A God who sees your worst and loves you in spite of it while all the time cheering for the very best He knows you can be. What kind of God demands that we forgive our enemies? A God who forgives His. A God who forgives us.”
Sadie felt a lump form in her throat. She couldn’t resist the urge anymore. She glanced over her shoulder, back at Mac. He didn’t see her gaze, though. His eyes were closed, and there were tears on his cheeks.
Sadie wasn’t even sure he’d heard the pastor’s words. But it looked like he’d felt them. Maybe that was the better way to receive them anyhow. She turned back around.
When the service ended, Dmitri thanked her profusely for inviting him. He’d been looking for a church for some time and thought that maybe this could be it. He wanted to go speak with the pastor, but he had to ask her something first.
She waited politely, all the while wondering if Mac was still sitting in the back row. She dare not look.
“Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked.
Her eyes, which had wandered surreptitiously to the side, suddenly flew back to his face. His expression was open, innocent of deceit. His cool blue eyes reflected honest invitation, and his perfect white teeth were aligned in a smile.
What? Really? Had yesterday’s experience affected his short-term memory? Didn’t he realize she was jinxed? From the expectant way he was grinning at her, he was apparently serious.
Oh…why not. “All right,” she conceded. “If Jasper is willing to babysit, that is,” she amended. Something about suggesting that Jasper babysit while she went out on another date with Dmitri twisted her tongue and made her feel as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of Tabasco.
It hurt.
But Dmitri grinned broadly. “I doubt Jasper will have a problem with it.”
Oh? And how do you know so much?
She only smiled weakly.
“I’ll call you,” he told her.
“All right,” she agreed.
“Do you need a ride home—you and Kylie?”
She shook her head. “We’ll be fine. Thanks.”
He rushed off to speak with the pastor. Sadie turned. Just as she’d thought, Mac still sat in the back row…watching her.
She made her way down the aisle, stopping to greet acquaintances as they called her name. One mother thanked her for the party—Billy hadn’t stopped talking about it since he’d returned, telling a fascinating story about poisoning one of the guests. She hadn’t known it was one of those murder-mystery parties. Sadie didn’t tell her otherwise. Smith and Jones cackled behind their hands as she went by, but she smiled brightly at them, taking a stab at the forgiveness thing by genuinely wishing them a wonderful afternoon.
They stopped laughing.
By the time she reached Mac, he was waiting for her. She didn’t know what he expected, nor what she was there to offer. The sermon had spoken to her but not enough to warrant forgiveness for nearly thirty years of bitterness and disappointment. She gripped the back of a chair and attempted to offer a stepping-stone, if nothing else.
“Would you like to have lunch with Kylie and me?”
Mac’s smile found its way straight to her soul and warmed her with the assertion that she had made the right move.
“There’s nothing I’d like better, Sadie girl.”
Mac knew, from Jasper, that Sadie and Kylie had a tradition of eating Sunday luncheon at Suncatchers each week. Kylie didn’t get to come into the restaurant much otherwise, but Sundays were special. She and Sadie sat at the same table—beneath Kylie’s display of sun-catchers—and talked, Mac supposed, about anything and everything mothers and daughters share. At times, Jasper said he would join them, when he wasn’t visiting his aunt. But sometimes he knew it was best to give them their girl time.
Now, sitting in the atmosphere his daughter had worked so hard to create, amid her mother’s collection of suncatchers, with Kylie chattering at her side, Mac felt another piercing stab of regret for the years lost, the moments squandered, the time spent.
How could he have wasted so much?
Sadie and Mac didn’t do much talking over lunch. What was there to say, after all? Kylie easily filled the void, however, with her chatter about the birthday party, the cake, Jasper running off to the hospital, and “Grampa” tearing apart the volcano to get Jasper’s keys.
Kylie dunked her french fries into her ketchup (three dunks per fry, precisely) and then chewed them around a mouthful of words about yesterday’s adventures. Mac answered questions when asked but mostly sat basking in the glow of the girls’ companionship.
His girls.
He tried not to think of them in quite that light, considering that Sadie hadn’t said a word about actually forgiving him and letting him start over. But it was difficult not to see them that way. They were both such a delightful blend of him and Amelia.
They had long chestnut hair—long like Amelia’s, brown like his own—and matching chocolate eyes. Their skin was smooth, and their noses slightly indented at the tip. Amelia’s had been the same. Sadie’s lips were like hers, but Kylie’s were a little wider than Sadie’s. Must be Ned’s mark on her, Mac thought.
And then there were their mannerisms. Kylie dunked her fries just like Sadie had as a child. Most times when Mac sailed back into town, he’d take Sadie out for a burger and fries. And she’d dip each fry three times in the ketchup before popping it into her mouth. Just like Kylie was doing.
Mac looked at Sadie now. She chewed a bite of her salad and nodded at Kylie’s latest comment. She doesn’t even know, he thought sadly. She didn’t remember. But of course not—why should she? He hadn’t given her much worth remembering.
“You used to do that, you know.”
This sudden declaration, after so long in silence, caused both Kylie and Sadie to instantly fall quiet and turn their heads. Embarrassment shot through him.
“Do what?” Kylie asked.
Mac dropped his fork, wishing he hadn’t spoken aloud. Sadie’s soft voice eased him, however.
“Do what, Mac?” she echoed Kylie’s question.
He cleared his throat and gestured at Kylie’s fingers, still clutching the ketchup-coated spine of a fry.
“Dip your french fries in ketchup three times before eating them.” Despite his self-consciousness, he smiled his typical sad smile at the memory. “Three times. No more, no less. I’d take you for cheeseburgers and fries at—”
“The Bridge Diner,” Sadie filled in.
He nodded. “Yeah. You always got—”
“A cheeseburger, plain, except for relish and mustard. And french fries, the crimped kind, and the edges were always a little burnt.”
“But you liked them that way,” he whispered, stunned that she remembered such details. She’d only been a little girl. They’d stopped going to The Bridge by the time she turned twelve.
“And you had the Big Burger with all the toppings except onions— never onions—and your fries were always crimped too,” she said. “If I ate all mine, you’d give me some of yours. And we had milkshakes. Strawberry for me, vanilla for you. You’d give me a quarter for the jukebox and tell me to choose any song I liked.”
Mac felt his insides tearing in two. “And you always chose Elvis Presley.”
“ ‘It’s Now or Never.’ “
“It was your favorite,” he said.
“No.” She frowned. “It was yours. That’s why I picked it.”
Their table fell silent once more, the tension stretching in a palpable plane between them. Mac’s appetite disappeared, but it was Sadie who pushed her plate away. Kylie glanced at her mother’s unfinished food and then laid her tiny fingers over top of Sadie’s.
“You dipped your fries like Kylie?” she asked in her breathless child’s tone.
Mac was blinking rapidly. “She did, Kylie. She did.”
“Why don’t you do that anymore, Mommy?” she asked.
Sadie didn’t say anything.
“Mommy?”
“We’ll talk about it later, baby.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable.
The quiet that followed was extremely awkward. Kylie couldn’t stand it for more than a few moments.
“Grampa, Kylie wants to thank you for her birthday gift,” she said.
He smiled at her, his heart twisting with happiness. “You’re welcome, Kylie girl.”
Sadie emitted a choked sound from deep in her throat, and Mac looked her way in concern. Clearing her throat, she changed the topic. “Jasper said you got a job.”
Mac turned his attention away from Kylie and picked up his fork once more. He was having the herb-crusted chicken, at Sadie’s recommendation. He hadn’t eaten much of it, but it wasn’t because he didn’t like it.
“At the mechanic’s shop.”
Sadie nodded and reached for her plate again, pushing a section of her lobster salad around the rim of the dish. “Do you like it there?”
“Only been there a couple days. Hard to tell yet.”
She nodded again. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“That old motel on the outskirts of town. I’ve stayed there before, a time or two.”
Mac hadn’t always stayed at the house when he’d come back to town over the years.
Sadie stiffened her spine before saying, “Mom left a couple of things for you. We’ve been keeping them at the house. A few old letters, I think. Some books. I don’t know if you’re interested in them—”
“Of course I’m interested.” He met her eyes squarely this time, and his tone indicated his hurt that she would assume he didn’t care.
She looked down at her plate. “Well, whenever you want them, you can come and get them. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”
Mac knew better than to remind her that he didn’t plan on going anywhere either.
Lunch sort of went downhill after that. Kylie insisted on her ice cream and regaled Mac with tales of Tommy Fitzkee’s grandmother, even suggesting that Mac should date the old woman so they could find out whether Tommy had lied about the wooden leg.
Mac told her he didn’t think that would be a good idea. “It’s not polite to date a person just because you want to find things out about them,” he explained to Kylie.
Sadie bit her tongue when he said that and reached for her water glass.
“You should date a person because you find them interesting and because you’re starting to care about them,” he continued.
Kylie listened with rapt attention, and Sadie bitterly wondered whether she would have had the good sense to leave Dmitri Velichko alone if Mac had stuck around for more than five minutes while she was growing up.
After their meal was finished, Mac offered to drive them back home. Normally Sadie would have insisted on walking, but Kylie’s eyelids were sinking like rocks. Sadie knew that if Mac didn’t give them a lift, she’d be carrying Kylie the whole way.
By the time he pulled into the driveway, Kylie had already sagged against Sadie, her mouth turned upward in sweet, blissful sleep. Ah, the sleep of the young.
“Do you need help getting her inside?” Mac politely offered.
Sadie shook her head and expertly hoisted Kylie into her arms. “No thanks. I’m used to it.”
She sat in the truck a moment longer than necessary, staring at the front door of her house. Pastor Samuel’s words kept drumming inside her head.
What kind of God demands that we forgive our enemies? A God who forgives His. A God who forgives us.
Sadie blinked several times. What would her mother have done if Mac were here? An even better question occurred to her: why couldn’t Amelia have lived long enough to hear about Mac’s remorse?
Then again, maybe if she’d lived, Mac would never have felt regret.
What kind of love is that like?
“I didn’t mean it. About the Elvis song.” Sadie looked at him. “It was always one of my favorites too.”
Then she opened the door and stumbled out of the vehicle with Kylie before Mac could say anything in reply.
Sadie laid Kylie down for a nap, waited as long as she could bear it (which was about three and a half minutes), and then went to the phone and dialed Jasper’s number.
Brrriiing!
“Please pick up…”
Brrriiing!
“Please pick up…”
Brrriing!
“Oh, please—”
“Please what?”
She sank to the ground with relief.
“Pick up,” she answered, surprised at the thrill she felt at the sound of his voice.
“I did pick up,” he replied.
“I know—I meant, please pick up.”
He didn’t say anything.
“That’s why I was saying please, because I wanted you to pick up. I—oh, never mind.”
“No, wait, wait!” He sounded frantic. She wondered if he thought she planned to hang up on him.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Of course I’m here.
“Good.”
She sat on the floor with her legs tucked up tight to her chest. “How did your visit with Aunt Matilda go?”
“Enlightening as always,” he remarked. “She ordered a pack of Depends from the waitress at the restaurant.”
Sadie clapped her hand to her mouth and stifled a giggle. “She didn’t!”
“Oh yes, she did. And she insisted on leaving a tip that included two Rolaids coupons and a six-year-old prescription for hemorrhoid medication.”
Sadie burst out laughing.
“Sure, you can laugh,” Jasper reminded her, “because you weren’t there. But I think one day you’re going to be as senile as she is.”
“Mmm. And will you be so sweet as to take me out every other weekend like you do her?” she teased him.
“I’d take you out every other weekend right now, if you’d let me.”
The suggestion sobered her, but it left her curious too. “Sure. You would now, while I’m still young and attractive and have all my teeth.”
She could tell he was smiling when he answered, “Sadie, I’d take you out even if you were bald, toothless, and only had one leg.”
“Malibu Ken and I would be a matched set, then. Maybe you should try Tommy Fitzkee’s grandmother. Kylie has her number if you’re interested.”
“What?” He sounded thoroughly confused. Kylie must never have mentioned Mrs. Fitzkee to him.
“Never mind.”
There was a brief lull.
“So, how was your day?” he asked her.
“Not bad, I guess. I went to Dmitri’s this morning to apologize. He came to church with us.” She paused. “Mac came along to lunch.”
“To Suncatchers?” Jasper sounded surprised. Little wonder, after the way she’d railed on Mac’s presence all week.
“How’d that go?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she softly replied. “Like old times but reversed. Like I was the one taking him out now, and I held all the power on who got to leave and who had to stay.”
A pause.
“How did that make you feel?” Jasper wondered.
Sadie thought about it for a long moment, her eyes tracing the patterns in the wallpaper: blue-and-white lines running parallel from floor to ceiling. Like her and Mac. Running parallel and never intersecting. Same direction, no common ground. “Sad,” she finally answered. “It made me feel really sad. Like I wanted him to have the control back, but I was scared about what he’d do with it if I gave it to him.”
“Maybe you’ll have to learn to trust him again.”
“He still hasn’t given me a lot of reason to do that.”
“Coming to Kylie’s birthday party was a start,” Jasper pointed out.
“That’s just the problem, though. What if he keeps coming around and gets her attached to him, and then he leaves her? Can you imagine that? Think about how attached she is to you. If you ever left us— if you ever left her—” There was a rising edge of hysteria to Sadie’s voice, and Jasper caught it.
“Sadie,” he stopped her, “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispered. “You don’t know. People leave. They leave all the time—whether they mean to or whether they don’t. They still go.”
Jasper didn’t say anything at first.
“Don’t be scared, Sadie. Remember the time you got stuck in the tree house?”
“Jasper, we were nine.”
“Remember?” he pushed. “You couldn’t see the steps to find your way back down. You were scared, and you started to panic. And remember what happened?”
Sadie felt the edges of anxiety begin to soften into something far more comfortable. “You talked me down. And you stood on the ground. In case I fell.”
“That’s right.” He sounded pleased that she’d remembered and outlined it so clearly. “I’ll always talk you down. I’ll always be there to catch you if you fall.”
“But what if…” She hated to suggest it, but it lingered in her mind nonetheless. “I used to hear Mac talking to my mom. Every time he’d come back, he’d say it was for good. That he wasn’t leaving. I believed him, the first six times I overheard him say it. And then I realized it was just something he said. That it was like this thing he couldn’t help. No matter what he said, he always ended up leaving.”
“I’m not Mac, Sadie.”
She knew that. But she couldn’t make herself believe it.
“Why did you kiss me?” she asked him.
“Why do you think I kissed you?”
“I don’t know; that’s why I’m asking.”
He answered more quickly than she thought he would. “I kissed you because I couldn’t imagine not kissing you anymore.” He paused.
“Why did you kiss me back?”
“What? I didn’t kiss you back.”
“You most certainly did.”
“I did not!
“You did.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Of course I am—I’m crazy for you.”
Sadie nearly dropped the phone. “Jasper Reeves, after all this time, are you saying that you’re—you’re… .well…are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Jasper!”
“Am I what?” he repeated.
“Are you…you know.”
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“Oh, but I am.”
“But you can’t… Wait. You’re—what did you mean when you said ‘I am’?”
“Sadie, how many times are you going to do that?”
“Until you answer me.”
“I think you can answer yourself. I’ve gotta go now—things to do. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Wait! Jasper! Tomorrow…” She felt like scum. “Dmitri asked me out to dinner tomorrow.” She winced. “I said yes. Can you—”
“No problem.”
She frowned. “Jasper, are you really—”
There was a click. Sadie stared at the phone. Had he hung up on her? Was he angry? And exactly what did he mean when he said he was…? He couldn’t be… But he said he was! But he never said what exactly.
Sadie felt a massive headache coming on.
Great.