Tepid sweat seeped across her brow and upper lip. To her fingers’ touch, her cheeks swam, clammy. Priscilla rocked her head side to side, a cry grappling within her throat as it attempted to become free. The dark, guttural moan scraped along the interior of her neck and emerged into the bright morning, waking her as it did.
She sat up. Priscilla held a hand to her cheek, caught between a memory that kept her anchored to her past and the new day that dawned before her.
She glanced out the window, remembering the minor surgery she’d had. If it had worked, who knew what her life would look like now?
“Are you almost ready?”
She nodded her yes.
“As a reminder, we’ll go in and make a small incision,” the doctor said. “With your good health and level of fitness, you should be up and back at life within a couple of weeks. Probably sooner.”
She remembered the hope that had ballooned within her at the thought of fixing her infertility issues. Not that anything had ever been proven in that regard. But when Leo had finally agreed to try for a child and nothing happened, the doctor had a hunch. She was hopeful that the procedure he was proposing would take care of it.
Priscilla closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and tried to shake off the memory. She slid out of bed, slipped her feet into a pair of furry slippers that she’d found on one of her excursions to Florida to visit her parents. The softness of those slippers invited her back into the present, the feel of them comforting against her skin.
She tucked a pod into her espresso machine, virtually patting herself on the back for splurging on this gift after she moved. Admitting her addiction to caffeine was the first step, she reasoned. So, instead of spending dollars daily at a high-end coffee house, she could make it herself.
With the espresso brewing, she padded over to the small window seat that overlooked a greenbelt and park. This rental condo was small and pricey—just about everything was by the coast. But what sold it for her was the seat that looked out onto a small park. There she saw everyday life: dogs and their owners, couples and solitary walkers, children climbing all over playground equipment.
The picture of idyllic living.
She retrieved her espresso, gave it a shot of cream, and returned to the window. If she were ever told she had to give up coffee in the mornings, her fallback would be to inhale it instead. Maybe the aroma alone would be enough to wake her up in the mornings. She laughed at the thought and admonished herself to drink up, and as she did, another less hopeful memory made its way back into her mind.
“You have a rare blood type. Do you have any family members with O negative who we could ask to give blood?” her doctor asked.
“I don’t understand. Why would they need to do that?”
“It’s just a precaution. If for some reason you needed a blood transfusion during the surgery, then we’d have it at the ready. I’d ask you to give us some of your own blood, but I’d prefer not to with the medication I have you on.”
“I see. Well, my husband has the same blood type as I do.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Ask him to come in as soon as possible. We’ll take some blood and test it, and if you don’t need it—I don’t think you will—then we will give it to the blood bank.”
Priscilla took a long sip of her hot coffee, drawing deeply of the memory of that time. She had gone home and asked Leo to go back to the hospital with her to give blood.
But he balked.
“Not my thing,” he said. He kissed her temple. “Hey, I’ll be there when you wake up and I’ll drive you home and fix us some dinner. Anything you want, babe, but”—he screwed up his face and stuck out his tongue like he’d just tasted cod liver oil—“you know I can’t stand needles.”
Priscilla took another look out the window at the lush park that teemed with life. Turned out, she had the procedure but never had a chance to find out if it had solved the issue—soon after, she learned of Leo’s infidelity.
She had come a long way, and not just in miles. As Priscilla took another sip, she determined to lock unfavorable memories away ... for good.
A week of deadlines, phone calls, and all-around burying his head in work had passed. As he drove out to the center for his weekly Money Smart class, Wade’s cell phone rang.
“Hello, Candace.” He purposely forced thoughts of Priscilla’s hunch about the woman out of his mind.
“I wanted to give you a heads-up about something.”
“Shoot.”
“Your friend, you know, Priscilla? Well, she’s here. I hope that’s okay.”
His pulse revved slightly before plummeting. “Did she say why?”
“Oh, yes, of course. She asked if she could come out to teach some of the girls to braid their hair—remember how some of them asked last time? I said yes, of course, and I want you to know she’s been fingerprinted.”
“I see.”
“Of course, there hasn’t been time for processing, and then I realized you were coming out today too, and, well, I second-guessed myself.” She paused. “Should I have called you or one of the other board members first?”
Wade pictured her in the lounge with the teens, her red hair flowing behind her, laughter on her face. The girls would likely be crowded around her. He pictured Amber, Morgan, Staci, and Mari as they clambered for Priscilla’s attentions.
Inexplicably, his thoughts faded to a dark shade. What did she want from him?
Candace’s voice cut in. “The board is always saying that the thing we’re lacking other than money is—”
“Volunteers,” they said in unison.
“No need to call me,” Wade said, finally. “If I introduce you to someone who I am also introducing to the kids, you can consider that my endorsement.”
Candace sighed, relief in her voice. “Thank you. That’s what I was thinking, truly. She seems to be doing fine without a lot of input from me, which is perfect since I have to meet with the drywall contractor this afternoon.”
“That’s right. The plumbing issue.”
“The leak in the kitchen has been taken care of, thankfully. But the damage to the wall is going to take some work.”
And money, Wade thought. He pulled the car into the lot behind the building that housed the girls’ lounge. Right now they would probably be talking about hair and other girlish essentials, and though he wouldn’t admit it readily, he had parked here on purpose.
“Thank you for your call, Candace. I will stop by your office after my meeting with the board.”
He hung up, but lingered. Rather than exit his car, Wade sat for a moment, watching Priscilla’s shadowy yet unmistakable figure through a window. One of the girls—Amber, perhaps?—sat still as “Cilla” worked with her hair like it was moldable art. Her hands moved with fluidity, one of them occasionally accenting the air with animated gestures. The other girls encircled her, yet gave her space. He smiled. Priscilla exuded confidence and poise, her lively demonstration drawing the girls out of their usual screen-induced trance.
Maybe her sudden interest in the center had less to do with him, and more to do about ... her. He couldn’t move, his mind turning his thoughts over as he watched Priscilla speak to the girls.
Suddenly and with a flourish he did not see coming, she grabbed Amber’s braid—or was it a ponytail?—and yanked. Hard. He squinted, jutting his face closer to his windshield. Was she ... was she really grabbing the young girl’s hair with all her strength? Yanking her upward, as if to make an example of her? Wade’s fist clenched. He exited his car and threw shut the door, questioning himself as he did. Hadn’t he just concluded that Priscilla’s presence at the center was perfectly natural? Welcome, even?
Had he lost his mind allowing a stranger such access to the girls?
He pushed open the front doors and stalked down the hallway toward the girls’ lounge. He should have told Candace that the drywall could wait, that she needed to keep an eye on things. Wade barreled through the lounge door, his lungs clenching, not bothering to knock, which was his usual protocol when entering the girls’ space.
The door, flung open now, hit the wall behind it with a thwack. Screams filled his ear, the girls crowded around Priscilla, and they were ... laughing?
Priscilla stood in the midst of them, a hand on her hip while her other hand held up a torso-less head by a long, thick braid, high in the air. She turned at the sound of him entering the room, a triumphant smile on her face.
That smile of hers assessed him somehow. Relief and a bout of nausea rolled through his gut. “What ... what’s going on here?” he said.
She tucked that body-less head into the crook of one arm and cocked her hip like she held a basketball. “I didn’t know you’d be here today, Wade.” She swept a gaze over the girls and back to him. “The girls and I were working on our styling skills.”
“Oh-ha-ha!” Amber said, breaking from the pack. “You thought she was tearing one of our heads off!”
Staci and Morgan collapsed onto bean bags chairs, tears accompanying their screams and chortles. Amber pointed at Wade, his expression open and gaping, and Mari followed after her, the two of them hopping and shouting over one another.
“I know it’s true,” Amber said, barely able to get the words out. “I saw you sitting in your car, staring at us.”
Priscilla tilted her head to one side, that smile on her face teasing. “Is this true, Mr. Prince? Did you think that I, uh ...”?
“Decapitated one of us! Hahahaha ...” Amber put her head on Priscilla’s shoulder, tears streaming down her freckled cheeks. “That’s the best, Cilla.”
He felt ... exposed. Annoyed. Embarrassed. But as he watched the pandemonium of cheerfulness in what was often a rather somber room punctuated with fits of sarcasm, he could not help but roll his own eyes at his knee-jerk take on Priscilla’s teaching skills.
Wade shook his head, unable to conceal his smile, albeit a self-deprecating one. “All right, settle down,” he said, unable to look as stern as he attempted to sound.
Priscilla turned her full attention to the girls and handed the mannequin head to Staci, who promptly placed it back on a stand that looked much like a tripod. The girl sighed. “Best day ever.”
As he backed out of the room, Wade’s smile faded. Why had he jumped to conclusions like that? The girls had seen right through him. And Priscilla? Undoubtedly, she questioned his ability to reason. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, soothing away the ache that had settled there.
Wade began to sense fissures in the protection he had built around himself, and he did not like that one bit. From the moment he had met Priscilla out on the inn’s lawn, warning flags had alerted him to be on his guard. She seemed ... well, too good to be true. Now as he thought back on the ridiculous way he burst into the girls’ lounge, he wondered if perhaps he had been hoping to prove himself right.
Well, that was something ... else. Priscilla pressed her lips together, a curl of laughter rising. Wade had barreled into the room with mental guns drawn.
So dramatic.
Maybe she should have mentioned to him that she had planned to come out here to meet with the girls. But she hadn’t seen him lately, so was alerting the press expected? She glanced around the room as the girls packed up their things. Once the idea of getting involved here, of putting feet to her thoughts, had entered her head, there was no turning back.
Pretty much the way she’d lived her life for as long as she could remember.
Amber caught her eye.
“Have you changed your mind?” Priscilla asked her.
“Yeah. I think so.” The strawberry blonde tilted her head to the side, eyeing herself in the mirror. “I mean, you could try. If you want to.”
“Absolutely.” Priscilla patted a chair. “Here. Sit.”
Amber plopped into the chair. The other girls took notice and put their things down again.
“You gonna get a waterfall braid?” Staci asked.
Amber glanced at Priscilla, her eyes upturned and questioning.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Priscilla said. “Watch closely. I’ll talk through the steps so that you can all learn how to do this.”
She parted Amber’s hair and gathered a thick section. “Okay, so here I’m going to divide this section into three parts.”
The girls all leaned forward, observing.
“We’ll start with the back piece, cross it over the middle like this.” She demonstrated. “Then take the front section and cross it over the middle next.”
She moved slowly through the process, careful to allow each of the girls enough time to learn what she was doing. They watched as she continued as she had started, and added hair to each new strand, creating a French braid.
“Okay, now here’s where you need to pay extra attention.” She held up the section of Amber’s hair that she was working on. “You’ll want to drop this front section down now and pick up a strand of hair behind it instead. Okay? Now, cross it over the middle instead of that piece you just dropped down.”
Several “oohs” punctuated the silence of the room. When she was finished, she brushed Amber’s unbraided hair and turned her around. “Voila!”
“That’s awesome!” Mari said.
Morgan clucked her tongue. “Piece of cake.”
Priscilla leaned forward so her cheek was nearly touching Amber’s. “What do you think? Do you like the look on you?”
Amber nodded. Her eyes glistened.
Priscilla frowned. “Is something wrong?” she whispered. “Do you want me to take it out?”
The door opened with a click and Wade stood at the entrance, quiet, his dark brows framing piercing eyes. Priscilla’s throat caught and she looked away, back to the young girl who had shown unexpected emotion.
Quickly, Amber wiped her eyes with her fingers and shook her head. She jumped out of the chair and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Are you ready to go?” Wade asked, oblivious to the moment he’d had a hand in ending. “I thought we could walk out together.”
Priscilla swung a peek at Amber, who no longer looked as if she had just lost her favorite bracelet. Mari and Staci had slung their backpacks over their shoulders and were now examining Amber’s hairstyle closely.
Wade cut in. “If you’re ready, that is.”
She grabbed her bag, said goodbye to the girls, and they walked out together. “You drove all the way out here for a pretty short meeting,” she said to Wade as they strolled outside into the afternoon sun. In the short time that she had lived on California’s central coast, she’d learned that the weather was far less predictable than points south. Or inland, for that matter. The summer heat outside of the center was stifling, but she could arrive home in under an hour and find a marine layer had moved in and she would have to pull on a sweater.
“I’m not actually leaving right now.”
“No?”
He slowed his pace as they walked beneath the canopy of an evergreen. He leaned his head to one side, looking at her. She’d seen him do that before, but usually his eyes narrowed, as if scrutinizing something or someone. Priscilla had always figured this was one of the reasons for his success—he took his time considering all the angles about a deal before moving in.
He stopped and reached a hand to her elbow. This time, his gaze looked soft, his eyes round and inquiring. “I’m sorry that I—that I charged into the room like a madman.”
She felt a little sorry for him now. “For the record, I would never characterize you as a madman.”
“But?”
She smiled. “No buts. I wanted to clear that up. That’s all.”
He shifted. “But ... you do consider me to be difficult. I can see that in your eyes.”
“You make me sound like I have been judging you.” She shook her head. “If you knew me at all, Wade, you would know that I find it exhausting to live as judge and jury. That’s not me.”
He lifted his eyes from a downcast gaze. “Surely you have your opinions, though.”
She laughed lightly now. “Of course I do, darling. We all do. The trick is knowing which ones matter enough to act on and which should be filed in a virtual shredder.”
“That’s quite a trick.”
“It is.”
“I can’t say that I don’t agree with what you’ve said, although I do find it difficult at times to upset the inertia of constant motion.”
“Ah. There is where we are different. I crave rest as much as I crave purpose. They are not mutually exclusive, I have found.”
His dark eyes startled. Wade watched her face, as if formulating a response in the pause. He leaned his forearm on the trunk of the tree, his expression wistful. “You may find this difficult to believe, but despite a schedule that does not include much in the form of rest, I agree with you.”
“I can tell.”
His eyes narrowed, but not in a condescending way. “Really? How so?”
“Look at the center, for example. The rest of the world sees a well-suited man marching by with a phone stuck in his ear, always working a deal. But these kids?”—she waved an open palm toward the building where directionless kids could find their way—“They light up around you and the people you have inspired to be here. They see someone who values purpose as much as laughter or rest, as you’ve given them that.”
He shook his head. “I’m not a perfect guy.”
“Well, darlin’, I know that too.”
He swung a full-mouthed smile at her. “See? You do have opinions in there. I knew it.” He paused, still smiling, and darted a look around the tree-lined street before returning his attention to her. “There’s a coffee place at the corner and I could use a cup. Join me before you leave?”
She agreed and they began to walk toward a strip mall several houses down from the center. The heat had zapped her appetite, but she liked the thought of a caffeine-infused iced coffee to keep her company on the ride home.
As they waited for their orders, Priscilla took a seat at a table toward the back that overlooked a wooden barrel overflowing with sweet peas. Corporate coffee had its perks, so to speak, but this place reminded her of climbing the steps up to her Aunt Jo’s porch and slipping into the kitchen through the back door. The cafe even smelled liked home.
Wade handed Priscilla her coffee and took the seat across from her.
She didn’t wait for an awkward moment to form. “You mentioned the other day that there were some funding issues with the center. Has the situation calmed some, I mean, after you’ve emptied your savings and all?”
He jerked a look at her. A smile settled on his face, as if he understood she was teasing.
“Seriously,” she said. “Are things better?”
Wade took a long sip of his coffee. He set his cup down. “Somewhat. But let’s not talk about that right now—tell me instead about your interest in EduCenter.”
“It’s not all that complicated, really. I have something to offer and the time to offer it, so I jumped in.”
“There has to be more to it than that.”
She gaped at him. “Why does there have to be?”
He took another swig of coffee. A delay tactic, perhaps?
She continued. “Now that we’re done talking about me—”
He coughed out a laugh. “Oh, is that what we’re doing?”
“Why, yes, of course.” She smiled openly at him now. “You mentioned you have a sister. Is she involved in the center?”
At the mention of his sister, Wade frowned. His gaze dropped to his cup, where it lingered in his hand. He blew out a sigh and returned his focus to her, though his expression had dulled some.
“Did I bring up something that you’d rather not talk about?”
He shook his head distractedly. “To answer your question, yes, my sister, Gwynnie, has at times visited the center. In fact, my niece, Sadie, is treated like a princess whenever she comes along.”
“Rightly so.”
“Yes,” he said, his face deadpan, before recovering. “Actually, I’m in the doghouse with her right now.”
“I can’t imagine why.” She was good at deadpanning too.
He pointed at her briefly. “You know, if you were one of my employees I would have to consider firing you for such a remark.”
“Well, then, good thing I’m happily employed.”
“Here’s the thing: My sister had a disastrous marriage. I never wanted her to marry her husband, though I’m glad she did because my niece is an incredible creature.”
“But you still don’t like that she ignored your advice about marrying him in the first place.”
His eyes caught with hers. She knew she had drawn a trickle of blood.
“The bottom line is that Dak—her ex—squandered the money our father left us.”
“While you turned yours into millions.”
“Now you’re making me sound like a jackass.”
She gave him a kind smile. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“I wish she would have stood up to him. Better yet, why didn’t she come to me? I could have advised her—she knows I would have.”
“Did he bully her in any way?”
Those dark eyes of his turned even darker. “Not in the way you mean.”
“How do I mean?”
“He didn’t beat her. I would have known and I would have taken care of it.”
“Sounds like that would have involved cannoli or something,” she said in her best imitation.
Wade turned an incredulous look on her. Understanding appeared to dawn and with it, a small smile. “Like that scene in The Godfather. Right.”
“I’m not talking only about a physical act, Wade. Some foes can be quite subtle in their mistreatment.”
His smile faded and he stared at her for a long beat. She surmised that she’d said too much, the conversation becoming too personal, uncomfortable.
When he didn’t respond, she added, “I wish your sister the best as she moves on. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a chance to meet sometime.”
“Gwynnie would like you. I can see that you are on her side already.”
Priscilla rolled her eyes, unconcerned with how “unladylike” it may have looked. “Please. I’m not taking sides here. All I can say is that we all have different strengths. Your sister was a working mother—pretty heroic if you ask me. Maybe she thought her husband was honorable and that he would do for her what she didn’t have time or energy to do for herself.”
Wade didn’t reply, but Priscilla couldn’t seem to stop herself. It was as if she were on some type of roll. “Really, Wade. How is it different from you handing over a million bucks to EduCenter in its time of need?”
“It’s not the same.”
She pursed her lips and stared him down for a beat. “Here’s how I see it,” she said, finally.
He scoffed, his eyes lively. “Oh so now you’re going to tell me how you see it?”
She leaned forward, pointing at him. “Seriously. Your sister trusted her husband. If I’m not mistaken, you said they married in church. Was it a Christian ceremony?”
“How would that matter?”
“Well, darling, that means he promised to love her as Christ loves the Church. And that means Christ would not steal from her. She trusted him, and he failed her. It’s on him.”
She sat back triumphant.
He considered her, his eyes unwavering, the telltale sign he gave when he was mulling something intensely. Finally, he began, “I wish ...”
“You wish?”
The unwavering eyes gave way to a flash of defeat. “That things had been different.”
“Don’t we all?” She exhaled and slowly shook her head. “We can’t redo anything but we can grab opportunities to start fresh.”
He drained his coffee cup, his eyes trained on hers. “Like moving across the country to the best coast.”
She stared back at him. “Something like that.”