Making His Way Home

“You left before I had a chance to give you this.” The man stopped at the edge of the blanket and waved an envelope under Grace’s nose. “It’s the roster with the names of the people who signed up for your first tour.”

“Thank you, Mayor.” She practically snatched it out of the man’s hand.

“You look familiar.” The man’s attention shifted to Cole now. His snow-white mustache, waxed into points, hung from the shelf of his upper lip like icicles. “Do you have family around here?”

Cole didn’t know what to say, not sure he was comfortable claiming a relationship with Sloan, one based solely on DNA.

To his surprise, Grace stepped into the silence. “This is Cole Merrick, Mayor Dodd.”

“Sloan’s grandson?”

“That’s right.” The words stuck in Cole’s throat.

“Sloan would be thrilled to know you’re back, son.” The mayor clapped him on the back. “That piece of land meant a lot to him.”

Cole smiled.

“It means a lot to me, too, sir.”

The down payment on a new plane.

Chapter Four

“I wanna drink, Mama!”

Grace heard the cheerful announcement a split second before a preschool girl popped up on the other side of the beverage table set up in the corner of Daniel Redstone’s barn. A pair of big blue eyes locked on the glass dispenser of ice-cold lemonade that Grace had filled before the square dance started.

“All right.” The girl’s mother repositioned the sleeping infant cradled in her arms and smiled at Grace. “We’ll take one cup, please.”

Grace ladled the lemonade into a plastic cup and the woman reached for it at the exact moment her daughter tugged on the strap of the diaper bag to get her attention. It started a chain reaction. Lemonade sloshed over the side of the cup, soaking the mother’s shirt, and the baby woke up.

The woman’s smile disappeared as a piercing cry rent the air.

“Here, Mama!” The girl snatched a napkin from the stack and the rest of them followed, sliding off the table like a miniature avalanche.

Now the woman looked as if she were about to burst into tears. She tried to bend down to pick up the napkins and the diaper bag bumped a corner of the table.

“Let me help,” Grace said quickly as the tower of plastic cups began to sway. She reached for the diaper bag, but suddenly found herself holding the baby, swaddled in a blue blanket, instead.

“Thank you.” The children’s mother began to blot the moisture from her shirt with one of the napkins as she collected the rest of them from the ground. Once Grace recovered from her initial surprise, she smiled down at the infant in her arms.

“Hey, sweetie,” she whispered. “Do you have a smile for me?”

To Grace’s wonder, he stopped crying immediately and stared up at her, his expression changing from absolute misery to utter delight in the blink of an eye. The scent of baby powder and lotion washed over Grace, sweeter than anything she would find at a perfume counter. The tiny legs pedaled inside the blanket and Grace chuckled.

“How many do you have?”

Grace glanced up and met the woman’s knowing gaze.

“How many?” she repeated.

“Children.”

“I...none.”

“Really?” The look of astonishment on the woman’s face was flattering. “You look like someone who knows her way around babies.”

The compliment wrapped around Grace’s heart like a hug.

“Not yet,” she murmured, reluctantly turning the baby over to his mother.

The woman planted a kiss on her son’s downy head. “Well, you will someday,” she declared. “And trust me, even with all the commotion and chaos, there’s nothing better than being a mom.”

As Grace watched the family make their way over to one of the benches that lined the interior walls of the barn, the secret she’d been keeping stirred in her heart and brought a smile to her face.

In God’s timing, when the adoption agency she’d been working with finally called, she would discover that particular truth for herself....

“Is the lemonade free?”

A pack of adolescent boys jockeyed for position in front of the beverage table and Grace smiled. “Yes, it is.”

When they left five minutes later, Grace had to refill the dispenser and open another package of napkins. She was in the process of filling more cups of lemonade in anticipation of another wave of thirsty dancers when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The temperature rose several degrees, weighting the air and making it difficult to breathe.

Two possibilities collided and neither one would bring the evening to a pleasant conclusion.

Either she was having some kind of allergic reaction to the egg salad or...

Grace slid a cautious, sideways glance at the entrance of the barn. The ladle in her hand tipped sideways, sending a stream of lemonade running down the side of the cup and onto the checkered tablecloth.

What is going on, Lord? If this is some kind of test, I should have had a chance to study for it!

Because Cole was framed between the rough-hewn timbers of the doorway, backlit by the setting sun as if he’d been photoshopped there. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his angular jaw and the strands of dark hair across his forehead were carelessly mussed. The sleeves of his lightweight cotton shirt were rolled back to reveal tanned forearms. Both hands tucked into the front pockets of faded, boot-cut jeans.

It wasn’t fair that the casual look totally worked for him, Grace thought.

The square dance had started less than an hour ago, but if she had a dollar for every time someone had asked her about the “gorgeous guy” who’d bid on her basket, the city council wouldn’t need the money they’d raised at the box social. Grace could have singlehandedly funded the new playground equipment at the park herself.

Not only that, Kate and Abby had ambushed her in the parking lot, anxious to hear all the details about the lunch she and Cole had shared.

Her friends had all become engaged or married over the past few years and for some reason, it wasn’t enough that they’d found their happily ever after. They were committed to making sure that Grace found hers, too.

They weren’t happy to discover that he wasn’t going to be at the dance.

“I don’t understand,” Kate had huffed. “Jenna and Dev were standing right next to Cole during the auction and she said that he looked thrilled when he won your basket. What’s the matter with him?”

Grace remained silent, knowing there probably wasn’t anything wrong with Cole. But based on the way her heart started thumping like a bass drum whenever he smiled, there was definitely something wrong with her.

Because Grace had already been exposed to that smile, you’d think she would have built up, oh, some sort of immunity over the years.