Love Starts with Elle (20 page)

“Because having Tracey-Love makes me think of things I never considered
before.” She brushed her hands down the side of his face, caressing his lips with
her thumb.

He sat back on his knees. This talk was nonsense.“If something happened
to me, would you marry again?”

“If I fell in love, yes. She’d need a father.”

“I’m her father.”

“I know, but baby, if one of us dies,Tracey-Love would need another man
or woman in her life.”

Heath got up and walked over to the fire and stirred the coal. “Can we
stop all this talk about dying? No one is dying.”

“We need to be ready for whatever life hands us. Of course, we aren’t
dying before our time, but, Heath, we have to prepare for every scenario. If not
for ourselves, for our daughter. I want you to promise me.” She met him by the
fireplace and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his
back. “Promise me you’ll fall in love again. Marry a woman who loves you
and Tracey-Love.”

He hated this discussion. “No, I’m not promising anything related to
your death, or mine.”

“Heath, you must. Promise me. Promise me. Promise me.”

Heath woke, gasping. Sweat gathered on his forehead, and in the dark room he couldn’t get his bearings. What time was it? By the manmade light slipping through the drawn window slats, he guessed it to be the middle of the night.

The intensity of the dream clung to him as he clicked on the bedside lamp. So very real. When did he and Ava ever have such a conversation?

Invincible Ava never considered death, even when she danced with danger. Heath was the cautious one, making out the will, setting up disaster funds, trust funds, buying insurance.

Tracey-Love stirred on her side of the bed. Heath leaned over to check on her, sweeping her hair from her face. Home two days from the hospital, she was doing well, but he still worried, still carried the effects of his sleepless ER night.

The cottage was hot, and as Heath made his way to the thermostat, the old floor creaked under his feet.

It’d been a little while since he’d dreamt of Ava, and he didn’t like it now anymore than he did then. In the weeks after her funeral, Heath dreamed of her screams and cries for help, exhausting himself in fruitless rescue efforts. He’d wake up drenched, legs kicking, the bed linens toppled onto the floor.

In the living room, Heath bumped the thermostat down a degree, and in a few seconds, fresh air circulated.

He walked to the kitchen and flipped on the light. Two a.m. Opening the fridge for a bottle of water, he caught the white and blue of Ava’s letter waiting for him on the windowsill.

“We were lucky, Ava. The doc said it was a mild case of viral meningitis.” He twisted open the water, taking a long swig. “She’ll be weak for a few weeks, but should be running and playing like any healthy girl by the end of June.”

Another deep swig.

“I was scared, babe. I can’t lose her. And for the first time, I let myself be really mad at you.”

Without consideration, Heath fired the half-f water bottle against the far wall. It hit the tile and puddled.

He banged out the kitchen door onto the porch. The gentle humid night rebuked his anger. He dropped to the edge of the iron rocker, whispering his emotions to God. First about Ava, then Tracey-Love being sick, and finally his behavior toward Elle.

Man, he’d been a bear to her when she’d arrived at the hospital. He groused and grumbled because she wasn’t ready at his beck and call. But who’d gotten up at 1:00 a.m. to drive him to the ER, without one word of complaint? Not one hint of “You owe me.”

She never defended herself when he suggested, rather rudely, she should remember to charge her phone battery. Instead she apologized again and drove them home in comforting silence, stopping by the pharmacy to fill a prescription and waited as he ran into Publix for Gatorade and juice. And when Tracey-Love asked for her new dolly, Elle hunted high and low. Discovering Heath had left it at the hospital, she drove back to get it.

Living in her house, imposing on her hospitality, he’d acted like a world-class jerk. He’d make it up to her. Figure out a way and make it up to her.

FIFTEEN

Between Caroline’s e-mail, Candace’s ridiculous accusation of sabotage, and Pastor O’Neal’s Sunday morning reminder that Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice,” Elle needed to do some come-to-Jesus soul searching.

At thirty-one, raised in church, she could not confess she confidently knew the voice of her Lord.

Sitting in the chapel, second pew, right side, Elle felt like a blank slate. She had nothing going on in her life but Him, and for the first time, she felt completely surrendered.

And she liked it.

At the altar, Miss Anna remained vigilant, pacing back and forth this morning instead of kneeling.

How many years had the older woman been coming here, keeping watch? Forty? Elle’s respect for her deepened. Don’t mistake prayer for inactivity.

Closing her eyes, she offered her thoughts as a sacrifice to the Lord, gave Him her affection. But when a foreign thought flipped across her mind—“What do you want?”—her eyes popped open to a quickened pulse.

Me? What do I want?

“What do you want?”

Elle sat forward, peeking around.
Are you talking to me?

“What do you want?”

Open a gallery and—
“What do you want?”

I just said, open a gallery—
Arguing with herself, fine existential moment.

“No, tell Me what you want.”

Her heart raced. The challenge was not from her mind but from Him.

Miss Anna stopped pacing and stood quietly with her head bowed.

Okay, what do I want?
Elle settled down, shoved aside expectations and preconceived ideas, and lowered an empty bucket of desire through her soul.

I want to paint. I want to get over my fears, forget what my professor said
to me and paint.
There, she admitted it.

She waited, listening, sensing the life on her confession. Yeah, she wanted to paint. After six years of denying her heart, she wanted to paint. God knew, just like Caroline said. Elle wondered how long His question had hovered in the heavens, waiting for her to be still.

Forget Dr. Petit. “
I recommend a day job, Elle. You won’t make a living
as a painter.”
God wanted her to paint.

When she glanced over to Miss Anna, the woman was eyeing her.

“I think God is telling me to paint.”

“Then do it.”

“But how do I know when God is speaking and not my own—”

A white feather fluttered in the space between her and Miss Anna.

“Another one,” Elle breathed.

Miss Anna snatched the feather from the air. “Been a long time since I’ve seen one of these.”

Elle stood by her prayer mentor. “I have another one in my studio. What do you think they mean?”

Miss Anna handed Elle the feather. “God reveals Himself to us in creative ways. We’ve gotten so used to just the preaching and singing, I bet He feels a little boxed in sometimes.”

Elle had certainly put Him in a box and on the shelf.

“Well, an hour or so of prayer and one white feather, I’d say we had a good morning.” Miss Anna ambled up the aisle with her Bible tucked close. “Going home to tend my garden before the sun beats down on me.”

“Can I give you a ride?”

Miss Anna laughed as she shoved open the chapel door.

Brooks and Dunn blasted from iTunes. The ceiling fans whirred. And Elle painted. Digging in her paint box for a tube of titanium white, she squeezed a dab onto her palette.

After her confession and encounter with God during prayer, she’d left the chapel with a surge of creative energy and decided not to let it pass. If she only painted for God and herself, so be it.

“Elle, hey, it’s me.” The knock on the door resounded with the bass drum of the music.

“Heath?” She jerked open the door. “Come in? How’s Tracey-Love?”

“Fine, watching a DVD. We went to the doctor this morning and he’s pleased with her recovery. What are you doing?”

“I,” she said with a tip of her head, “am painting.”

“Good for you.” He came around to see the canvas. “Feathers?”

“You don’t like it, do you?” She lowered the music.

“Insecure, are we?”

Elle showed him the two feathers she’d arranged on blue silk and set in a stream of sunlight. “These . . . just appeared.”

“Appeared? Out of nowhere?” Heath reached for one. “May I?”

“Yeah, I had another one but gave it to Candace.” Elle recounted the feather story while mixing burnt umber, cobalt blue, and the white with her pallet knife. “Weird, isn’t it?”

“Why not feathers? Isn’t there a Bible verse about the shadow of His wing?”

Elle brushed a bit of the blue on the canvas. Too light. “Read that verse yesterday.”

Heath returned the feather to Elle’s arrangement. “I’m sorry about my attitude the day we brought TL home.”

She flicked the tip of the brush at him. “Forget it, I understand. I’m sure my attitude would’ve been worse.”

“Don’t excuse me. It was wrong.” He walked over to the paintings leaning against the wall. “These yours?”

“Yeah, from college and my year in Florence. A few from studying at the student’s Art League.”

He pulled the unfinished
Girls in the Grass
from the pile. “This is incredible, Elle.”

“Heath, it’s not even finished.”

“Yet I feel like kicking off my shoes and running in the grass.”

Elle dropped her chin to her chest, curling her shoulders forward. “Don’t patronize me, McCord.”

She’d started
Girls in the Grass
during a hard summer between graduating college and growing up, during her term at the Student’s Art League when all her doubts solidified.

Heath leaned the painting against the wall and picked up the one next to it. “Would you go to dinner with me?”

She looked around at him. He studied her painting of Coffin Creek under fog. “Dinner?”
Like on a date?

“Dinner. I want to make it up to you for the other night.” He glanced at her, raising the painting. “Can I buy this?”

“Buy it? You can have it. And you don’t have to make up anything to me, Heath. You’d have done the same for me.”

“I know, but I want to . . . please. Can I give you a hundred for it?”

“What? No, take it, please.”

He came over to her, leaning so close her eyes could only see his. His scent filled her senses. Her skin rippled. “A hundred dollars. An artist is worth her hire. And you wouldn’t have chewed me out for a dead phone battery. Dinner?”

Swallow. “F-fine.”

“Tomorrow night at six?”

“Tomorrow at six.”

Chet McCord propelled the Hawk P-36 into the blustery headwind.
The aircraft shimmied with each frigid blast and his arms already
ached from holding her steady. A picture of Kelly lodged in the
instrument panel fell beneath his feet.

Nothing but soup up here today. What’s the use of dawn patrol
when there ain’t no dawn? For a moment, Chet fought a slight panic,
the grip of claustrophobia. If he lost his instrument panel . . .

The radio crackled. “Chet. Do you read me? Over.”

A voice. Pike from Signal Corp calling to wish him good morning
and remind Chet he wasn’t alone in the world. He picked up the
radio mike. “Did you figure out you owed me more money?” Chet had
taken him in poker last night and Pike was none too happy about it.

“The opposite—you owe me money. There was a miscalculation.”
His laugh crackled over the radio. “What are you doing taking
off on a morning like this?”

“Knitting Grandma a sweater. What do you think I’m doing?”

“Get down, McCord. You’re flying right into a big squall with
fifty-mile-an-hour gusts. Don’t fool around with this. The boys at
the weather station say it’s a humdinger.”