Barefoot Bay: Divine Interruption (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 11

  She whirled around. “Oh!” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

  Matt played down the situation by waving his hand. “Needs to be replaced anyway.” He made eye contact with her and hoped she’d soften, but she spun on her heel and stormed across the parking lot.

  “Let me explain,” he shouted after her, but she blazed a trail that went right past his truck and up to the street.

  “I let it go too far. I should have told you sooner,” he tried again, but she was out of earshot, and his words were drowned out by the end-of-day traffic building on Center Street.

  Matt jumped in his truck, started it up and went after her. He pulled up next to her as she walked with determined strides at the side of the busy road. “Get in. You’re gonna get hit out here.”

  She was angry, but she wasn’t stupid. She yanked open the door and hopped into the passenger seat.

  “Bring me home,” she said and buckled her seat belt with a forceful snap.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you,” he said.

  Her head whipped around. “How about, ‘I have a daughter.’ That’d be a good place to start.”

  He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “And how would you have reacted to that?”

  “I probably would have asked to meet her.”

  “Doubtful,” he muttered.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He leveled her with a look. “Are you saying you’d still want to ‘make a go of it’ with me if you knew I had a nine-year-old child?”

  Andi looked out the window.

  “Exactly what I thought.”

  “No,” she shot back. “You don’t get to assume you know how I’d react. You didn’t tell me under normal circumstances. I would have reacted differently if I hadn’t found a picture and had the details filled in by Gloria.”

  She had a point. He meant to tell her a handful of times, but his fear that she’d run kept him quiet.

  “And what about poor Lily? You kept your daughter a secret. How do you think that would make her feel if she knew?”

  Regret and shame covered him.

  “This isn’t something you keep secret if you care about someone,” she continued. “You had plenty of opportunities to tell me.”

  “When?” He didn’t disagree, just wanted to know when she thought would have been a good time to share such game-changing news.

  “How about when I told you about my tattoo and my father. Or when I shared my poetry with you.” She dropped her forehead into her hands. “I sang to you, Matt.”

  He grunted. “Not the same.”

  Her face crumpled. “Not the same? I bared my soul to you. I trusted you with that part of me. I’ve never shared that with anyone.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not saying what you shared wasn’t important. Those things just aren’t...game-changers.” She looked like she might disagree, so he explained. “Telling me why you got your tattoo or that you write poetry isn’t something that would make me run away. Having a child is...”

  “A game-changer,” she supplied and looked out the window again.

  “I wanted to tell you—”

  “But you didn’t. You probably figured I’d be gone in a few days, so why share such an important part of yourself with me, right?”

  “No,” he said, and just then his phone buzzed. He silenced it and looked back at her. “Really, no, that’s not it at all.”

  She shook her head and put her hand on the dash. “Stop the truck.”

  “We’re on the causeway.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

  “I want to go home. Turn around. I’m not feeling well.”

  “But bingo...”

  “Who cares about bingo, Matt?”

  “Millie,” he said and her eyes fluttered closed.

  “Fine. Drop me off but I don’t want you to stay. I’ll take a cab back to my mother’s house.”

  Matt bit the side of his cheek. He wasn’t going to let that happen. And he didn’t want this to be how their story ended, either, but he couldn’t imagine the perfect words to fix the situation. In some ways, this had been a self-fulfilling prophecy. He was so afraid he’d lose Andi when she found out about Lily that he’d actually made this happen by waiting too long to tell her.

  They pulled into Circles of Care and he didn’t even have the truck in park before Andi jumped out and hustled across the parking lot.

  “Andi, wait. I need to tell you—”

  She threw a look over her shoulder. “A little late, Matt.”

  He jogged ahead and opened the front door for her, then got hold of her shoulder. “Before we go in there, I need to tell you something.”

  She pulled her phone from her pocket as she blew past the check-in desk on her way to the dining hall. “It’s already six-fifteen. You’ve made me late, so why don’t you—” she turned to him with sadness in her eyes “—just go home.”

  Matt slowed to a walk as the distance grew between them. She neared the closed doors of the dining room, and just as she reached for the metal handle, both doors flew open and loud shouts of, “Surprise!” spilled out from inside.

  Colorful balloons and streamers filled the entryway and Fancy placed a tiara with a large 30 on Andi’s head. Matt edged close enough to see the color drain from her face.

  “Did you know about this?” she asked without looking at him.

  “Know about it? He planned it!” Fancy said and wrapped her in a hug. “Happy birthday, my dear.”

  Ginger ushered her into the room. “We’ll have some cake and play a little bingo in honor of your birthday,” she said. “Millie’s looked forward to this party all day.”

  But Millie didn’t look happy to Matt, tucked behind a corner table, a scowl on her face. A few others tried to sit at her table, but she quickly shooed them away.

  “I think Millie’s trying to save the table for you,” Matt whispered in Andi’s ear.

  She swung around to give him a brief acknowledgment, then headed toward her mother. Pulling out the chair next to Millie, she sat down.

  Fancy brushed up next to Matt. “She’s not having a good day at all,” she said. “I thought about calling you to cancel the whole thing.”

  “Andi’s not having a great day either, so this should be interesting.”

  They both stepped closer. When Andi greeted her mother, Millie slapped her hand on the table, making the silverware rattle.

  “I have been trying to save these seats for hours now,” she said, her eyes beady and dark. “Is it too much to ask to leave an old lady alone?”

  Ginger materialized at her side. “Who are you waiting for, Mill?”

  Millie picked up the bingo dauber and unscrewed the cap. “Are we playing bingo or not?”

  Matt eased into a chair across from them and saw that Andi’s eyes were bordered with tears. This wasn’t the surprise he’d had in mind at all—Andi, an emotional wreck in partial thanks to him, and Millie unaware that the girl sitting next to her was her daughter.

  One of the staff members handed out cake and the start of bingo was announced. During the fourth round, Andi pointed out a number her mother missed, and Millie went ballistic, accusing this girl of trying to steal her bingo card.

  “Mom, I’m just trying to help you.”

  But Millie grew more visibly flustered. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  Andi’s face fell and she touched her mother’s arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” Millie cried, pushing her dauber and card across the table.

  In surrender, Andi held up her hands to show she meant no harm, and that’s when Matt moved to her side.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, cradling her in his arms.

  And she let him.

  There was a commotion behind him as Fancy and Ginger tried to calm Millie, eventually taking her to her room, but Matt stayed focused on Andi.

  Finally, she looked up at him. “Will you please take me home?”

  “Of
course,” he said and smoothed the hair from her cheek.

  The whole surprise party came and went in a blur, and in the car, he burned with the words he wanted to say, but the lines all sounded hollow in his mind. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “About Millie. About your job. For not telling you about Lily.”

  Andi was stoic, staring straight ahead, and he knew he had to break through to her.

  “I was afraid,” he continued. “I felt so much so quickly and I was afraid I wouldn’t be enough for you, especially if you knew the truth.”

  “So it was better to lead me on until I was completely in love and then share something so important?”

  Hope soared in his heart. So she was in love with him, too?

  She turned in her seat and met his eyes, but it wasn’t the tender gaze he’d hoped for. “How does it work being a pastor who had sex outside of marriage and now has a daughter to show for it?”

  His gut ached from the punch, even though she sounded less accusing and more curious. “It’s been a scarlet letter of sorts that has followed me around, but Hope Presbyterian has been very forgiving. I was raised here and my mother has been active in the church since before I was born. If you want to know what real grace looks like, you’ll see it in the way this church membership embraced me and Lily. I can guarantee other churches would have turned me away in a heartbeat.”

  Andi shrugged. “I think it was brave for you to continue on the same path even though you didn’t know how people would react.”

  He thought for a moment. “With all that being said, please understand that I don’t regret Lily for a second. If I had to do it all over again, suffer the same judgment because of my chosen profession, I would do everything exactly the same. God truly can take our sins and turn it into something good. Lily is proof of that.”

  Andi nodded like she understood. “What about her mother?”

  “Samantha. She lives on the mainland in south Naples with her husband. They had a son together a few years ago. I see Lily every Wednesday evening and every other weekend. We make it work and I thank God every day that I have her.”

  He pulled into Millie’s driveway. “I wanted to tell you about her, I really did. And with Lily out of town I was even more hesitant, because I wanted to talk to her first—”

  “Gloria mentioned that might be the case.”

  “Of course she did,” he grunted and put the truck in park. “Either way, it was fear that kept me from telling you about Lily, but I won’t let fear stop me now from telling you how I feel about you.”

  * * *

  Even in the darkness his eyes were comforting, but Andi harbored an anger that she wasn’t ready to release yet. No matter what he said.

  “I’m in love with you, Andrea.”

  But then there was that.

  “The first time I saw you when you swung open that church door like you meant business and I shook your hand, it was like an electrical current instantly made me want to know you better,” he said.

  With one hand on the door handle, she narrowed her gaze. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, but she did recognize the electricity he talked about. She’d felt it then and she felt it now. Even through the frustration and fatigue.

  “There’s just so much...” she said, making a mental list of the changes she’d experienced in the last week: her mom’s health, her job, her heart. Could she really expect to come out ahead if she went against the dots she’d carefully laid out for her life? Was it even possible to draw new ones? Was it wise to consider a move across the country, living in her mother’s house until she found a place of her own, starting her own business. And, of course, there was Matt and Lily. They were naturally a package deal.

  Her heartbeat kicked up a notch. “I have to think about it.” She picked up her purse and got out of the truck. Matt didn’t stop her, but remained in the driveway until she opened the front door. Then he slowly backed the truck down the driveway.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Andi woke to a text message from Matt: I’m sorry. It took everything in her not to text him back.

  Then she received a list at noon of the foods on the barbecue menu and an invitation to stop by. But she stayed put inside her mother’s house, packing boxes and nursing her wounds.

  Now, at nearly five o’clock, her phone dinged with a new list, Things I love about Andrea Morgan:

  Her smile

  Her laugh

  Her poetry

  Her heart

  Our future

  Andi clicked off her phone and stepped onto the porch to peer down the street. If she really wanted to see Matt’s house, where he was probably still hanging out with his family, she’d have to stand in the middle of the street.

  And that would be a little obvious.

  She went back inside and grabbed her purse and the keys to the rental car. A trip to the Super Mini Mart Convenience Store could fulfill two needs: more empty boxes and a frozen pizza to comfort her.

  She’d spent the day sorting her mom’s things and boxing up Dwight’s clothes for donation to Heaven’s Helper, a food pantry and thrift store located across the street from Hope Presbyterian. The activity kept her just busy enough to avoid thinking about her future or the fact that her flight home was tomorrow at noon.

  Inside the Super Min, she leaned against one of the freezers in the back of the store and pulled the pepperoni pizza to her chest, welcoming the cold through the thin material of her T-shirt. She dropped her chin to rest on the plastic packaging and prayed in a whisper, “God, what do you want me to do?”

  “It’s just a pizza,” a voice behind her said. “Not really something to get all religious about.”

  Andi spun around to see a short woman with copper-colored hair and dark roots sizing her up. Her nametag said Charity, but Andi knew by the scowl on her face that her mood was anything but charitable.

  “Just making sure you’re not stealing anything,” Charity said, her brown eyes locked on Andi. “Or drunk. We get lots of drunks in here on Saturday nights.”

  “I’m neither,” Andi said, following the woman to the register.

  “You’re Millie’s daughter, aren’t you?” Charity said, pounding buttons on the register.

  “I am. How did you—”

  “I just know. Total’s six-ninety-eight. She’s in a home now, ain’t she?”

  Andi nodded. She didn’t like the term home, but she would pick her battles. She remembered Matt telling her Charity was the one who called Dwight when Millie was outside yelling at customers, but she also knew from Matt that this woman was the last person she wanted to debate semantics with.

  “Still lost as a goose?”

  Andi’s head flipped up. “Excuse me?”

  “Dementia, right?”

  She handed Charity a ten and shoved her wallet back into her purse.

  The battle was picked. “I’d prefer you not talk about my mother that way.”

  Charity pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “Well, I’d prefer people not talk to me at all, so seems we’ve got something in common.”

  Andi flinched and stepped away from the counter.

  “Don’t forget your pizza, Minnesota girl,” Charity said and slid a plastic bag over the counter. “You sharing this with Pastor Cooke?”

  She snatched the bag from the counter and headed for the door without answering.

  “Don’t be living in sin now.” Charity cackled at her own comment. “I heard from the old folks you two got pretty cozy the other day.”

  Andi pushed open the front door and let the overhead bells jingle Charity out of her mind. She was just getting into her car when she heard someone call her name. She turned quickly, her heart pumping in preparation for another run-in with Charity, but instead saw Gloria scurrying across the parking lot toward her.

  “I don’t have a lot of time for small talk,” Gloria said. “Just stopped in to get some aspirin in case I have a heart attack.”

  “Oh no—” Andi reac
hed out and touched her hand. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Gloria said, her lipstick as bright as ever and her little eyes magnified by those enormous black frames. “Just saw a special on Dr. Oz this afternoon and thought I’d take some precautionary measures.”

  “Make sure you talk to your doctor first,” Andi said, and felt like she sounded too much like one of those commercials.

  “Enough small talk,” Gloria said, slicing through the air with her hand. “I need you to forgive Matthew for not telling you about Lily.”

  Andi looked skyward. Really, God, this is who you sent in answer to my prayer?

  Gloria reached out and squeezed Andi’s wrist, right over the tattoo. “Be gracious to others because God has been gracious to you.”

  Andi blinked hard. “It’s not that simple...”

  Gloria squeezed again. “Oh, but it is. Forgive Matthew.”

  “I’m not sure I can, especially when he didn’t trust me enough to tell me about Lily and just figured I’d bolt if he did tell me—”

  Gloria clucked her tongue. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  Andi looked down.

  “Try anyway. Forgive anyway. I know you won’t be disappointed.” She turned to walk away, but then looked back. “This is the path that will heal your soul. I can promise you that.”

  Andi reached out her hand. “It was you,” she said. “The day of Dwight’s funeral in the church parking lot.”

  Gloria shrugged. “I’m not a prophet or anything. Just knew the minute I spotted you flying across that parking lot like a bat outta h-e-double-toothpicks that you needed to be slowed down. God sent you to Mimosa Key for a reason and it’s far greater than anything you could have imagined.”

  Gloria rushed away as quickly as she’d come.

  Andi felt the woman’s words resonate to her core. And while the eccentric older woman delivered plenty of nuggets for a good poem-turned-song, Andi wasn’t sure there was much more to them. At least not in reality, where her carefully placed dots had gone all askew.

  * * *

  Andi knocked twice at Matt’s front door before Maggie answered, her hair in a tidy braid again. The hug she gave was completely unexpected, and Andi suddenly wished she’d showered and put on a little make-up before coming over, but when she’d turned on Hibiscus and saw his truck in the driveway, her heart took the wheel and she wound up turning in.