Angela Hunt - A Time To Mend

Jacquelyn laughed. “Go on, check things out, have fun,” she said, waving the dog away. “It’s a holiday.”

Craig came toward her, his biceps bulging under the weight of the picnic basket. “He’s only a dog, Jacquelyn. He hears everything you’re saying as ‘blah blah blah.’”

“I disagree,” Jacquelyn said lightly, not willing to spoil the beautiful day with an argument. “He understands more than you can imagine.” She turned to give Craig a hand with the basket. “And he’s smarter than the average dog.”

“Yeah, right,” Craig answered, but there was no malice in his tone as he lowered the basket to the blanket.

“What on earth did you pack in here?” Jacquelyn asked. She knelt and lifted the lid. “It weighs enough to hold food for ten people!”

“Just a little something to get us through the afternoon.” Craig slipped to the blanket beside her. His strong hand closed over her wrist and his brown eyes sought hers. “I wanted this to be a special day. Something we would always remember.”

A blush of pleasure rose to her cheeks. A special day! Abruptly she looked away, afraid he would read her eyes and know how desperately she wanted to hear that he was ready to marry her. She was more ready than she’d ever been. The past weeks with unpredictable Jonah Martin had convinced her that she wanted safety, logic, dependability in her life…and if she were married to Craig, maybe her heart wouldn’t jolt and her pulse pound every time Jonah Martin’s voice rang through the clinic corridor.

“This looks like fried chicken,” she said, lifting out one of the neat containers he’d packed into the basket. “Umm, it smells good. But I can’t believe this came from the grocer’s deli.”

“It didn’t. I got everything from Just Desserts.” He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “They do more than great cheesecake.”

“Potato salad—” she pulled another container from the basket “—and fresh-baked croissants?”

“With honey butter.”

“And what’s this?” She lifted out a plate-sized blue tin and shook it. Something rattled inside. “Cookies?”

“No, we have cheesecake for dessert.” His dark eyes glowed with a secret. “Open it.”

She grinned and pried the lid off, half eager, half afraid to discover Craig’s surprise. A cry of relief broke from her lips when she opened the tin and found four giant-size dog biscuits.

“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Craig remarked dryly, watching her. “I suppose the way to a woman’s heart is through her dog.”

“You are too much.” She leaned forward and lightly planted a kiss on his cheek. Though this wasn’t the surprise she’d been expecting, at least he was showing some interest in one of her guiding passions. Sometimes, especially when he canceled a date or forgot to show up for dinner, she wondered if he cared about anything other than his business. But he was an entrepreneur, a hard worker, a man who marched to his own drummer…

He helped her unpack the rest of the basket, then they arranged the feast on the blanket and began to eat. Though Bailey came over and looked at the food with frank longing in his velvet eyes, he seemed content to take one of his dog biscuits and retreat to a shaded spot under some bushes.

As Bailey delicately nibbled at his treat, Craig explained his latest ambition—an expansion of his custom car lot. “I see us opening a high-end, quality division for pre-owned vehicles,” he said, using his fork to chase a slippery cube of potato around his plastic plate. “Nothing but Mercedes, Cadillacs, BMW’s, upscale cars. They hold their resale value, and a lot of corporations surrender them at the end of a one-or two-year lease. The companies have no personal stake in the vehicles, so they don’t quibble over trade-in value. There’s a fortune to be made in that market, and I think I may know how to make it.”

“That’s great, Craig.” Jacquelyn nodded automatically and let her eyes roam over the lake. A half-dozen boats were crisscrossing the crushed diamond water, each dragging a skier or two. The whooping and hollering of the boats’ occupants reached even the shore where they sat. Several other families and couples had decided to picnic at this beach, too, though most had spread their blankets and opened umbrellas nearly at the water’s edge. Occasionally a small child splashed into the water or walked through the sand with a bucket in hand, an anxious mother not far behind.

Inexplicably, tears welled in Jacquelyn’s eyes. Her own memories of early childhood were sketchy, all but obliterated by the heavy, dark memories of her mother’s five-year battle with cancer. More recent memories were painfully clear: the long hours of waiting in the nondescript hospital lobby during her mother’s surgeries, the painful sounds of retching, the smell of disinfectant.

But she and her mother had run along a beach like this one; she had faded photographs to prove it. Surely there had been a living warmth in the sun, a delicious joy as mother and daughter laughed and splashed together under a sudsy blue sky. But the memory, the reality of it, had been buried far beneath all those other alive, unspeakable agonies.

Her father had managed to shelve the past and get on with his life. After five years of quietly mourning his wife, he began to date. And after Jacquelyn graduated from college and returned to Winter Haven, her father had presented her with the keys and deed to the house. While she stammered in surprise, he announced his forthcoming marriage to Helen, a quiet, serene woman who’d been his steady companion for several months. He would move to Helen’s condo, he told Jacquelyn, and she should keep the house. The neighborhood was settled and safe, the perfect place for a young, single career woman.

How could he walk away to begin a new life and leave her with the old one? Jacquelyn wondered. He had given her a house haunted not by spirits or ghosts, but by memories that had wrapped themselves like an invasive tumor around every piece of furniture, every dish towel, every picture on the wall.

For a fleeting instant Jacquelyn wondered if her father thought the memories would bother her less than they did him, but the place seemed strangely sterile when Jacquelyn returned. During her four years away at college her dad had repainted, sold a lot of the old furniture and installed new carpet throughout the house. The place was tidy, functional and sorely in need of a feminine touch.

And so Jacquelyn thanked her father and moved into the house which had belonged to her parents. During the five years she had lived there, she stenciled and upholstered and wallpapered until the old house now resembled an English cottage. A sloping bed of colorful perennials lined the narrow sidewalk that led to the street, and a white iron fence provided a safe boundary for Bailey. All in all, the place became a haven. Hers.

But even the safest and most pleasant of havens grew dull after a while. Jacquelyn was not so insecure to think that she needed a man, but she knew her life had definitely been fuller since meeting Craig. He did not thrill or challenge her—except to occasionally tax her patience—but she found him a pleasant friend. He understood her ambition; she appreciated his. And if her dad could marry for companionship, why couldn’t she? Love was for teenagers and romance novelists. After working all day with emaciated, weak, disease-damaged bodies, Jacquelyn found the idea of passion strangely wearying.

“So what do you think?” Craig’s direct question brought her thoughts abruptly rushing back. She flushed miserably, knowing she’d have to confess that she hadn’t been listening.

“What do I think?” She made a face. “I think you should tell me—”