Ruth Herne - The Lawman's Second Chance

Jenny would have. She’d loved to laugh with him. She took his serious job and serious side and made their lives humor-filled and easy care. Right up until the day of her death she’d tried her best to fill him with warmth and laughter.

Much of the joy had died with her, but it didn’t feel that way today. Today he felt...better. Much better.

“Dad, can we go see the fountains? Please?” Becky grabbed Alex’s hand and tugged him left. “Do you mind, Lisa?”

“Not at all. Emma and I need to make some choices. Then I’ll input them into the computer program and see what it recommends.”

“The computer plans the garden?” Emma looked deliriously happy at the idea of a machine doing the work for her.

Lisa laughed. “It gives us a launching point. And the hard work is yet to come. Soil preparation, weed killing and planting, then mulching. Then watering and more weeding.”

“Good thing we didn’t plan a vacation this year,” Alex told Emma.

She nodded, serious. “It really is, Dad. The book from the library said new plantings require constant attention.”

Alex didn’t mention that he had no energy to plan a vacation after accepting this job with a new troop. Moving three kids. Buying a new house. Sorting. Arranging. He’d even gotten a few rooms painted on his days off.

Lisa put an arm around Emma’s shoulders and hugged her, laughing. “I love this kid. You go on and do whatever you’d like, because Emma and I can talk gardens all day and not miss you one little bit.”

He couldn’t resist the gold-plated opening. “Not in the least?” He held two fingers up with virtually no space between them. “The tiniest bit?”

Something changed in her eyes. A hint of warmth and understanding read his not-so-silent message that maybe he wanted to be missed. Just a little. And despite her shadowed reluctance, he thought she longed to play along. She sighed, glanced away, then drew her gaze back slowly. Very slowly, as if fighting reluctance and losing. “A smidge. Perhaps.”

“I’ll take a smidge. For now.” He let his gaze linger a few beats longer than necessary, letting her read between the lines, then smiled, grabbed the girls’ hands and moved toward the fountain display, whistling. He hadn’t felt like whistling in a long time.

But he felt like it today.

* * *

“Okay, we’ve got the basics.” Lisa hit the print button on her laptop. “Now let’s see what the computer gives us.”

The printer clicked, whirred and whizzed as it delivered multiple copies of the basic plan.

“Oh, Lisa, I love this.” Emma took the front view into her hands and her wide smile said they’d hit pay dirt. “I’ve never seen a prettier garden. Can we really do this?”

“If your Dad approves,” Lisa told her. She had gone with a medium level budget by downsizing the bushes and adding more annuals. Landscaping four sides of a house could be cost-prohibitive, and she didn’t want Alex to feel shackled to expensive ideas. With a young family, things had plenty of time to grow before he’d have to worry about graduation pics or prom nights in the garden, snapping pictures of Emma in a fancy ball gown.

“How’re we doing, ladies?” Alex’s voice pulled Lisa back into the present. She laughed and waved him in, then made a face at his empty hands. “Did you drown them in my fountains, Alex? Please say no.”

“Naw. They were good today so it wasn’t even a temptation, but thanks for the idea. I’ll keep it for future reference. Your sister-in-law...”

He arched a brow as if questioning the relationship or searching for a name. Lisa went to name first. “Caroline. Yes?”

“Took them for juice and cookies. That was after Becky noted how Emma got to come the other day when you were handing out freebies all over the place.”

“Caro’s a softie.” Lisa winked at Emma. “I’d have let them starve.” She turned her attention to the gardening layouts and handed a copy of the front and east side to Alex. “What do you think? This is without pockets of color from annual flowers.”

“And life as we know it would be remiss without pockets of color.”

She ignored that he was teasing her for her choice of words, and smiled. “Yes, it would. I love color.”

“Especially pink,” Emma added.

Lisa turned, perplexed, saw Emma’s gaze sweep the outdoor displays, and understood the girl’s assumption. Without pausing to consider the possible fallout, she took advantage of a God-given opportunity. “Oh, you think that because of our breast cancer campaign. I’m actually a bold color person myself. Reds, golds, fall tones. But when you’ve walked the walk, it’s important to join the mission to find a cure, right?”

Emma stared at her, confused. And maybe a little nervous?

Alex’s face stilled. He glanced around the office and paled, as if hoping he’d misheard. His crestfallen expression said he hadn’t.

Pictures of the Fitzgerald family throughout the last ten years lined the walls. Local commendations, benefits they’d hosted, people they’d helped, the growth of a family business chronicled a decade of success. But in the more recent area, photos of Lisa with the telltale chemo hats lined the wall with all the rest.

A part of her hated those pictures. Another part championed them as a battle won. And the extra curl in her current hair was an interesting change from the straight locks she’d had for twenty-eight years. Soft curls and waves? She didn’t mind them at all, but she minded the look that dulled Alex’s eyes. The pain she saw on Emma’s face.

Emma recovered first. “You had breast cancer?”

Always direct, Lisa refused to sugarcoat things. “Yes. Five years ago.”

“Oh, Lisa.” Emma reached out and took her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

Lisa wouldn’t have expected grown-up empathy in ten-year-old eyes, but Emma was a one-of-a-kind kid. “Thank you, honey. As you can see, I’m doing quite well now.”

“I’m glad.”

Emma’s expression said more. Alex looked battle-worn and possibly shell-shocked, but Lisa had faced that reaction before. She’d seen it on her husband’s face every day for nearly six months, until he packed up, saying he couldn’t stand the idea of waiting around for her to die.

Yup.

She recognized the body language. And it still stuck a knife-like pain into her heart, because if the conditions had been reversed, she’d have stayed and fought with Evan.

“So.” She stood, handed Alex the four sheets of paper, handed a second set to Emma, and said, “Let me know if you approve this, Alex, and we’ll get things going. We’ve got a few weeks to get rid of old plantings and perennial weeds so we start out with good weed control.”

“Good weed control is important,” Emma told her father, repeating what Lisa had explained earlier. Emma didn’t appear to notice her father’s sudden silence. Lisa couldn’t notice anything else. “That makes our job easier in the long run.”

“Weed control. Dig up old stuff.” Politely dismissive, he held the papers up, moved outside, called for Becky and Cory to head for the car, and started toward the SUV. “I’ve got to get these guys home for supper. Thank you, Lisa. I’m sure this is all fine. I’ll get back to you on the details.”

Cool. Crisp. Concise. A business deal.

She felt ridiculously hurt, a ludicrous response, because she’d just met this man a few days before. Something in his face, the humor and warmth she’d witnessed made old wonders and wishes spring back to life inside her. And even though she couldn’t act on those feelings, she couldn’t deny it felt nice to be admired.

But he’d drawn the curtain closed on humorous repartee the minute he saw the pictures of her during her year-long fight. She’d refused to hide during chemo and radiation, and she’d scheduled her bi-lateral mastectomy for early January so she’d have plenty of recovery time without messing up Christmas-tree and wreath sales. She’d used all of her strength to battle this disease, and maybe win the war. Only time would reveal that.