Lacey didn’t see Jay again until Sunday. He was in his uniform, getting out of his patrol car, and she pulled into the church parking lot. He was leaning against the car parked next to hers when she opened the door of her car.
“Need some help?” He reached for the back door. “I can get Rachel.”
“Oh, okay.” But not really okay. Not when there was an incredible distance between them.
“You should come and see Dandelion today. I have a halter on her and she could use some attention. The more we mess with her now, the easier she’ll be to handle as she gets older.”
“I can do that.”
“Lacey, I’m sorry about the other day. I thought I could do the picnic.”
“Don’t apologize, Jay. It was a mistake on both our parts. We should stick to friendship. I think we might be good at being friends.”
He nodded and smiled again, but then his gaze shot past her. “I don’t recognize that car.”
A cop. She’d somehow forgotten that he was a cop. She turned, wondering why a car would intrigue him. It was church, and the whole idea was for people that didn’t normally come to attend. That was a good thing.
The car in question was moving too fast and the right front tire was a spare, the doughnut kind that looked like it belonged on a bike. And the woman behind the wheel was Lacey’s mother.
“This can’t be happening,” Lacey muttered. Her heart did a painful, nervous squeeze.
“Who is it?”
“My mother.” Or the woman who claimed the title. Forgive. The word rolled through her mind, because it was necessary to let go, and to forgive.
“I’m with you.” His voice was strong, and he didn’t move away from her.
He was with her. A friend. And yet he didn’t share secrets. She blocked thoughts of Jamie, previously a name whispered in connection with his, but not a real person. Now she felt very real. She was living, in a surreal way, in Lacey’s dream house.
Lacey’s mom parked her car and got out. Deanna Gould was nearly fifty, but still tried to look like a woman in her twenties. In short skirts and tank tops, her hair dyed a brassy blond, she didn’t pull off the younger look. Her makeup was garishly bright and her smile was stiff. A hard life had aged Lacey’s mother.
“That’s my grandchild,” Deanna yelled as she approached them. “And don’t think your cop friend scares me.”
“I’m not here to frighten you.” Jay still held the car seat that carried Rachel. Lacey stood close to him, feeling a little protected because he was near. For the moment she pushed aside the hurt she’d felt when he walked away.
“Well, I’m here to get that baby.” Deanna crossed skinny arms in front of her.
“You can’t take her.” Lacey found her voice and her strength. “I have custody of Rachel. She’s not going with you.”
Movement out of the corner of her eyes. She turned and saw several people standing in the doorway of the church. Her stomach tightened with dread. Her old life had invaded Gibson.
“She’s my granddaughter and you’re not the good little girl you want these people to think you are.”
“Maybe not, but she’s with me and she’s safe.”
“She’s my grandchild.” Deanna’s face crumpled and she looked ten years older. Lacey felt sorry for her.
“I’m not going to keep you from seeing her. I’m also not going to let you take her.”
“I’ll get a lawyer.” Deanna took a few steps closer, looking as if she might really try to grab Rachel and run. Her gaze glued to the baby, and then traveled up, to Jay’s face. “You can’t keep me from getting her.”
“We’re going to court, Mom. I’m going to adopt her.”
“You? With your record?” Deanna laughed, a harsh laugh.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Why don’t we all go into church and we can talk about this later?” Jay, calm, in control. Lacey felt like her insides were shaking as badly as her legs.
“Go in there?” Deanna looked past them, eyeing the church and looking less than sure. “Well, if it means seeing my grandchild, I guess I can.”
Wonderful.
Jay touched Lacey’s back. She wanted to move closer to his side. She didn’t. Instead she walked a little taller, telling herself she could do this. She could walk through the doors of this church with her mother. She could face people who had become like family to her. These people who had prayed for her mom, for her brother and sister.
It had been easy, praying for a mother who lived four hours away. Having her here, walking through the doors of the church, wasn’t as easy. This was reality, and it was glaringly bright, like a spotlight in the dark, shining into the corners of Lacey’s past, highlighting who she had been before she came here.
Reality.
She shuddered and Jay reached for her hand. His hand was warm and strong, his fingers clasping hers. The security of his touch was undone by the look her mother shot at her, a look that accused and mocked. Lacey knew that this day changed everything.
“You must be Deanna Gould, Lacey’s mother.” Pastor Dan reached for Lacey’s mother’s hand, greeting her with a smile that was genuine. It was the smile that Lacey couldn’t work up to.
“That’s me.” Deanna looked past him, no longer smiling, no longer looking confident.
“Welcome to Gibson, and to our church.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Deanna peeked through the doors into the sanctuary. “I’ve seen enough and I’m not going in there. Lacey, I’ll be waiting in my car for you to finish up your little charade here.”
“It isn’t a charade, Mom.”
“Oh, I think it is. Why don’t you let me keep Rachel while you’re in church?”
“No, she’s going with me.” Lacey took the baby from Jay. “You can see her later.”
Deanna Gould shrugged, and with a smile, she walked away. She had always walked away when things got tough. Lacey watched from the doorway as her mom got back in her car. And instead of waiting, she started the old sedan and drove away.
* * *
For some reason, Lacey had convinced herself that her mother would be gone when she got out of church. Deanna wasn’t gone. Her car was back in the parking lot, windows down. Deanna was drinking a soda and blowing smoke rings out the window.
Lacey felt the stares of people she considered friends as she crossed to her car parked next to her mother. She tried to block her imagination from telling her what people would say about her. She tried to block thoughts of dinner tables and comments about Lacey Gould.
“Hey.” Bailey hurried toward her, blond hair free, skin glowing with the health of her pregnancy. “Don’t run off.”
“I have to go.” Lacey held the seat with Rachel. What had she thought? That this would be easy? That she’d be able to take this baby and raise her with no one objecting?
“Do you want us to come with you?” Bailey glanced in Cody’s direction. Her husband stood a little distance away, Meg at his side. He nodded and smiled. Friends who wouldn’t let her down.
She didn’t want to think about other people seeing her there with her mother, hearing her mother’s accusations.
“I can handle it.” Lacey smiled because she felt stronger now. She could do this. “She wants to see Rachel, that’s all.”
“You call if you need us.” Bailey gave her a quick hug. “Don’t forget that you have friends.”
“How could I forget?”
Lacey buckled Rachel’s seat into the back of the car and walked around to her mother’s open window. Deanna Gould blew another puff of smoke and dropped her cigarette out the window. Lacey stepped on it.
“Ready to go?”
“Do you have something for lunch?” Deanna lit another cigarette.
“I put a roast on this morning. I take it you’re staying?”
“Where’s your Christian charity, Lacey?”
“It’s here, don’t worry.” She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Follow me.”
“My car won’t start.”
Lacey resisted the urge to sigh. “You can ride with me.”
The Lord won’t give you more than you can handle. Pastor Dan had preached that sermon a month ago. It had been a fresh message on verses sometimes tossed around to help cover someone else’s troubles. But the meaning was strong, that God would help us through whatever situations we faced. He would give us the strength and grace to make it through trials and tribulations.
God wouldn’t leave us to drift alone.
He even had a plan for Deanna Gould being in Gibson. Lacey couldn’t think of what the plan might be, not at that moment. Maybe it would be one of those hindsight things that she would figure out later.
Later, when she wasn’t thinking how her mother’s presence would rock the boat that was her life.
“Stop looking like I’m the worst news you’ve ever had. I think giving that baby of yours up would qualify for that. And here you are, thinking you can replace that kid with Corry’s baby.”
“Stop.” Lacey started her car. She watched Jay’s patrol car leave the parking lot, lights on. He must have gotten a call. “Stop trying to beat me down.”
Her mom buckled her seat belt. “I’m not beating you down, just being honest. You are who you are, Lacey. You’re not someone that a guy like that cop dates, not for real.”
“Stop.” Lacey pulled out of the parking lot, her foot a little heavy on the gas. “Keep this up and I’ll take you back to the church and I won’t let you see Rachel.”
“I’ll get a lawyer and make sure you don’t get to adopt her.”
Lacey couldn’t stand to lose more. She couldn’t handle the thought of losing her heart, losing the baby and losing the community that she loved. “You can’t do that. I have an approved home study and Corry signed over custody.”
Deanna Gould looked out the window, shrugging as if it didn’t matter. “I need money to get home.”
It all came back to money. Lacey didn’t hold back the sigh, not this time. “I don’t have a lot of money.”
“I can’t get home with a broken-down car and ten bucks.”
“Fine, I’ll give you some money. And there’s a mechanic in our church who can probably get the car running. I’ll buy you a used tire tomorrow, to replace the spare.”
“Don’t forget to let me know that you’ll pray for me. Isn’t that what you always say when you call? When you used to call, that is.” Was that hopefulness in her mother’s tone?
Lacey’s heart thawed a little. “Mom, I pray for you all the time.”
And someday, someday she knew God would answer those prayers. Maybe this was a start.
* * *
Lacey’s car was at home. Her mom’s car was still parked at the church. Jay pulled his truck down the drive and parked behind her sedan. He didn’t get out. He felt as if he was tangled in a spiderweb of emotion and the more he tried to untangle, the stickier it got.
He didn’t know how to be in Lacey’s life, and all day he’d thought about how to walk away without either of them getting hurt.
And here he was, parked in her drive, waiting for her to come outside. He opened the door and stepped out of the truck as the front door of the house opened. He told himself he had just stopped by to check on her. People were worried. He was worried.
She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, her auburn-streaked hair pulled back with a headband. She smiled and wiped her hands on her pants.
“I was doing dishes.” She shrugged.
“I wanted to check on you. Pastor Dan and a couple of other people called this afternoon. They were worried.”
“I’m fine.” She glanced over her shoulder, looking less than fine and a little worried. “Her car isn’t running and I need to find a tire to replace the spare so she can go home.”
“I’ll go take a look at the car.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She spoke as if he was a stranger, less than a friend. That didn’t add up.
“Lacey, are you sure everything is okay here?”
She smiled then and glanced over his uniform. “I don’t need police backup, Jay. I’m used to dealing with her games. She wants money to go home, to leave Rachel and me alone. I’ll give her what she wants if it means an end to this.”
“Don’t let her manipulate you that way.”
She shrugged slim shoulders and smiled a little. “You make a great hero. But really, she’s not going to hurt us. And after everything she said about me today, it’s better if I stick to myself for a while until this blows over.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that people will talk. I’m not the church Sunday-school teacher or the nursery worker. I’m not Lacey who works at the Hash-It-Out. I’m Lacey from St. Louis and I have a police record. I’m a fraud who sneaked into this community and pretended to be someone I’m not. And now everyone knows.”
Jay brushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “Lacey, you can’t believe that’s true. The people here care about you. You’re a part of their lives.” His life. He cared. He looked away, getting his thoughts together. “And you didn’t hide who you are. You told the people closest to you, and the rest didn’t really need to know.”
“My heart knows that. My brain only knows that my mother is here and now everyone is looking at me like I’m someone they don’t know.”
“It’ll blow over.”
“And if it doesn’t blow over?”
“It will. Right now you feel like it won’t, but if you think back, nothing like this lasts forever. It settles down in time. That’s how a small town works.”
“Thank you, Jay. I’m glad we became friends.”
He nodded and walked away. Friendship. He had a lot of thinking to do. Lacey thought they had friendship, and that would have been an easy option for them both. Friendship didn’t include strings. Friendship should have made walking away easy to do.
This felt anything but easy.
* * *
Lacey walked back into the house and found her mother on the sofa with Rachel, hugging the baby close. Had Deanna Gould ever held her own children that way? Lacey couldn’t remember. She remembered boyfriends, drunken parties and men that she and her siblings hid from.
Lacey remembered an empty pantry and selling herself on a street corner because her siblings were cold and hungry and she had exhausted every other avenue of hope.
They had all escaped in whatever way worked for them. Lacey ran. Corry turned to drugs. Chase joined the marines when he turned eighteen.
For years she’d had nightmares of that life. Now she had dreams that included Gibson and a small house in the country. Maybe even a cowboy. Someday.
“She’s a beautiful little girl.” Deanna kissed Rachel’s pink baby cheek. “I really messed up our lives, didn’t I?”
Lacey shrugged and sat down in the easy chair across from her mom. “I don’t know, Mom. I guess you did. It wasn’t an easy way to grow up.”
Deanna’s eyes watered. “I’m not sure if I can change my life. I’m too old. I really am glad you found something better. It makes me so angry sometimes, that you chose this place over your own family, but I guess it makes you happy.”
“It does make me happy. And this will be a good place to raise Rachel. She won’t have to worry…”
“I know, I know. Don’t accuse me, okay?”
“I’m not. Mom, I forgive you.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Let it go. Lacey sighed. “Jay is going to look at your car.”
“Are you in a hurry to get rid of me?”
“No.” She knew that was a lie. “Mom, I don’t mind you being here, but I don’t want you to cause problems.”
“I’ll mess up this pretty life you’ve built for yourself?”
“Maybe that’s what I feel. I don’t know. But I won’t let you have Rachel and I won’t let you manipulate me.”
“Lacey, I don’t have a house to go back to.”
Lacey wanted to cry. She wanted to hit something and scream that it wasn’t fair. Her mom shouldn’t be able to come here and do the same thing she’d been doing all of Lacey’s life: create instability. Lacey had her life organized and settled, the way she’d craved during her childhood.
“I guess you don’t want me here?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.” Lacey stood up and reached for Rachel. “But what about you taking Rachel? What kind of game was that?”
Her mom shrugged. “I knew I couldn’t take her. I guess I thought if you had money, you’d give me some to get rid of me.”
“I don’t have money. Corry already stole it all.”
Lacey walked out the front door to the porch, Rachel cradled and protected against her chest. She heard laughter and glanced in the direction of the Blackhorse house. Wilma Blackhorse stood in the yard watering her flowers, and from the way Jay jumped and ran, Wilma must have sprayed him with the water hose.
A normal family. Lacey’s heart ached, empty because she wanted that space in her life filled with people that would be that for her. She wanted a family that didn’t crash and burn as often as other families sat down for dinner together.
She wanted people to come home to, to share dreams with and to lean on. She didn’t want to lose what she had in Gibson.