A Gift of Time (The Nine Minutes Trilogy Book 3) (43 page)

Dillon was
too little to realize his older brother Jason had a different father, but we
knew one day we would tell Dillon our story—and all about the man he’d
been named after.

Our quiet
moment was interrupted when the twins started shouting in unison, “Jason and
Pappaw are here!”

We turned to
see Jason and Micah walking up from the rear of the little church. They must
have come the back way, as we hadn’t heard Jason’s truck. Micah now walked with
a cane, but it did little to slow him down.

Jason was
now seventeen years old and would be graduating high school soon. He had
transitioned extremely well after our move here and had made good, solid
friends in our little mountain town. He’d grown especially close to Grizz’s
father. We smiled as we heard Micah grumbling out loud to Jason.

“Still can’t
believe my grown son thinks it’s okay to look like a woman. Long hair and
earring.” Micah trudged toward us. “If I’d-a been the one to raise him, I’d
have pushed that nonsense outta his head a long time ago. What’s he going to do
next? Put it up in a bun like his Aunt Tillie used to wear?”

Aunt Tillie
had died peacefully in her sleep just a year after we’d moved here. We’d
insisted that Micah move back into his home to be with us. We were grateful
that he’d agreed. He made our family, our home, feel complete.

“Do you have
a rubber band or hair tie?” Grizz whispered.

I pulled
back and peered up at him. “Don’t you dare! You are just going to antagonize
him. I’m not giving you a hair tie to put your hair up in a bun.”

“Why not?”
He batted his eyes. “You never know. It might just start a trend.”

“A man bun?”
The corners of my mouth quirked. “That’ll be the day.”

I took my
ponytail down and handed him the band. I was secretly enjoying the playfulness
he was showing. I loved how easily he’d fallen into a relationship with his
father. Even when they agreed to disagree about something, there was always an
undercurrent of love and respect.

“Where are
my kisses?” Micah called as he approached the kids.

They both
ran to him, and I noticed Ruthie elbow her brother out of the way.

“Ruth
Francis!” I put my hands on my hips. “Tell Dillon you’re sorry and let him hug
Pappaw first!”

After giving
his Pappaw a kiss and a squeeze, Dillon’s interest immediately went to his
older brother, Jason. Dillon adored Jason, and I loved how much Jason adored
him back.

I reached
for Grizz’s hand to walk toward our family when I looked up at him. The man bun
wasn’t looking too shabby on my husband. Actually, it was looking pretty darn
hot. I gulped.

We were
walking hand-in-hand toward the group when Grizz asked me, “Has Mimi called?”

“No. She’s
not calling until she gets to Pumpkin Rest. She has almost an hour until she
gets there.”

Mimi was on
spring break from college, and like every spring break for the past few years,
she’d spent it at a Christian retreat in the mountains. They weren’t allowed to
have their cell phones or any link to the modern world. We’d dropped her off
the first year, and since we approved of the place and the wonderful people who
ran it, we’d let her travel there by herself the last few years.

Not that we
had much choice. Mimi would be twenty-two this year and a college graduate. She
was an adult. But she would always call us from the last place she could get a
phone signal—a tiny little town called Pumpkin Rest—just to
reassure us. It consisted of a small grocery store, gas station, pharmacy and
diner, all in the same building at the center of a crossroads and very similar
to the town we now called home.

We finished
our picnic, and I gathered garbage and packed away the leftovers. The kids were
in the church playground, and Jason was pushing them on the swings. Grizz and
Micah were having a conversation about motorcycles. Micah was speaking in a
soft voice and trying to get Grizz to tell him that just because he still rode
his bike and we spent an occasional long weekend away from the mountains, Grizz
was no longer engaging in anything illegal.

“You don’t
have to worry, Preacher,” I heard Grizz tell him. “I’ve told you before, I like
getting away with Ginny on the bike. I’m not breaking any laws by riding.”

Grizz caught
my eye and called over, “When is your foul-mouthed, nutty sister coming back
up?”

“You’re one
to talk,” I grinned. Grizz did his best to keep his profanity at a minimum
around the kids, but he still slipped a little. Actually, he slipped a lot. I
winked at him. “You know you love Jodi. What, not excited about her visit?”

He hmphed
and muttered, “Yeah, I’m shit-the-bed excited, Kit. Your sister’s visit will be
the highlight of my year.”

“Stop being
such a grump.” I playfully tugged on his man-bun which was starting to grow on
me. “You love my sister and you know it. She’s funny and always good for a
giggle or two.”

“I don’t
giggle, Kit.”

His
expression was so serious that Micah and I burst out laughing.

Micah had
just asked a question about Jodi’s travel plans when my cell phone rang. Mimi.

“Hey! You’re
at Pumpkin Rest?”

The
connection was a bit crackly, but her voice was strong and sure.

“Yep! I just
filled up and am now eating the best homemade biscuit with honey in the world.
You’d love it. Then I’m heading for the camp.”

“You’ll text
when you get there? And use the code?” I added.

The camp was
so far out of tower-signal range she couldn’t make or receive phone calls;
however, oddly enough, text messages went through.

“Yes, Mom.”

I could hear
the smile in her voice. We had established a code, a safe word only Mimi knew.
I knew I was overly cautious, but who could blame me after the life I’d lived?

“But after
that, you know I have to turn in my phone, so you won’t hear from me again for
ten days,” she said. “I’ll text when I’m leaving and, of course, I’ll call when
the signal improves.”

“I know. I
just hate not being able to communicate for ten days.”

“I’m sorry
for that, Mom, but you know how important this retreat is for me. And you and
Dad have visited the place. We have this same conversation every year.”

The static
was increasing, and I knew she must’ve been walking. I was hearing about every
third word, but I got the gist of what she was saying.

“Oh, my
gosh!” I heard her exclaim.

“Mimi, what
is it? Are you okay?” Grizz caught my eye, his body on immediate alert.

“Yes!” She
sounded giddy. “It’s fine, Mom. I just ran into a friend! It’s...”

I couldn’t
hear the name.

“Who did you
run into, Mimi?” I covered my left ear with my hand to block out any noise from
my end, but already my heart had returned to a normal thud. She’d said it was a
friend. Probably somebody she would be seeing at the camp.

“Mimi?”

“I’m here,
Mom.” There was no indication in her tone that anything was wrong.

“What friend
did you run into?” I asked, more calmly this time.

Again I
couldn’t hear the name she repeated.

“Mom, I’m
going to run. I’ll text you when I get there. Stop worrying. I couldn’t be
safer. I love you and Dad, and tell the munchkins I’ll have presents for them
the next time I come home.”

“Okay,
honey. I know you’ll have a great time and—”

My phone
gave three quick beeps, and I knew we’d been cut off. I was sending a text to
her when one came through.

Sorry. Awful service. Will text you
later. Love you.

I texted
back,
Love you too
.

I hadn’t
noticed Grizz and Micah had stopped their conversation about my sister and had
been listening to mine. I explained the conversation, then looked at Grizz
sheepishly.

“I can’t
help it. I’m a mother.”

He was
sitting at the end of the picnic bench, and he turned so he could pull me down
onto his lap. Softly, he kissed the side of my neck.

“You are the
most wonderful mother a child could ask for. You raised a beautiful young lady.
Just the fact that she would rather spend her last college spring break at a
Christian retreat than on the beach tells me that. Never apologize for being a
mother, Ginny.”

I looked at
him and saw not only love but admiration in his eyes. I knew my decision to
marry him had been the right one.

I remembered
asking him once what had changed him when he came back into my life after I’d
worn the bandana. He used to be in such a hurry, so impatient to get what he
wanted. And still he’d courted me the second time around with a patience and
gentleness I’d never seen from him before.

“I’ve been
given a gift, Ginny,” he’d told me.

“A gift? You
mean a second chance?”

“Yes, a
second chance, but even more importantly, a gift. A gift of time.”

“I don’t
know what you mean.”

“Time is the
real gift, Ginny, because it’s the one thing you can never get back.”

We had
finally come full circle. Back to the way it was meant to be.

He was my
first love. He was a true love. And after all the wandering and searching our
hearts had done over the years, we had finally found peace.

We had
finally found home.

The End

A Note To My Readers

(Warning: Contains Spoilers)

Thank you for reading A Gift of Time. I hope you enjoyed reading it as
much as I enjoyed writing it. Yes, this is the final book for what I’ve always
referred to as “the three Gs”—Ginny, Grizz, and Grunt—and I feel
confident that I’ve finished the trilogy by answering all or most of your
questions. For those of you who fell in love with one or more of them, I’m sure
they will show up in future spinoff novels that I may write for some secondary
characters. My mind is already reeling with possibilities!

Your patience and love for these novels is
so humbly appreciated. Thank you, my reader friends. Thank you.

About the real Tommy: It wasn’t until I
finished this novel that I remembered the “real” Tommy. Tommy was a
five-year-old boy who I met on the playground of my apartment complex when I
was about fourteen. I was pushing my little sister on the swings when he walked
up to us and asked if he could play. I would later discover he was the foster
child of a couple who lived above us. He was a quiet and shy little boy, and I
wish I could remember what happened to him. We moved away soon after, and it
wasn’t until I was writing the dedication for this book that I remembered him.
Yes, his name really was Tommy. Coincidence? Well, you know what I believe.

About Hope: I cannot tell you how long I
have waited to tell the story about Hope, the kitten that ran up Ginny’s
shoulder. This really happened to a friend of my parents. He had lost his only
son in a car accident and was not able to move past his debilitating grief over
that loss. He was driving on a desolate stretch of road with his wife when he
pulled over and did exactly what I described in this story. Like Ginny, he
knelt and cried out to God for a sign that He was real and that my parents’
friend would be reunited with his son in Heaven. A tiny kitten ran up his arm
and started licking his tears. I guess I don’t have to tell you that kitten
found a forever and permanent home with this loving couple.

About Tommy/Grunt: I know my Tommy lovers
are disappointed. I can promise you that nobody cried more than I did when I
wrote about Tommy’s death. I’d always intended for him to lose his life, and if
I’d continued with the scheming Tommy/Grunt that was in my original manuscript,
it wouldn’t have been this difficult. I had originally written this character
as a manipulative and conniving teenager who grew into an even more
manipulative and conniving adult. However, when I decided to go back and tell
“young” Grunt’s story in Out of Time, I couldn’t go through with my original
version and had to delete almost half my manuscript to rewrite him. I couldn’t
help myself. Little Grunt stole my heart. His horrible childhood could have
certainly justified some of his actions, but I decided against it. I wanted a
character who rose above the dysfunction and abuse he’d suffered. Tommy outgrew
his teenage ways and became a loving and caring father and husband, which made
it all the more difficult to write what I had to write.

This has always been my story, and you have
just read how I always intended it. Yes, some things changed along the way, but
the end result is what it was always meant to be.

All my love,

Beth

The
Nine Minutes Trilogy Playlist

"The Star Spangled Banner" Jimi Hendrix

"Into The Mystic" Van Morrison

"Sharing The Night Together" Dr. Hook & the Medicine
Show

"Layla" Derek & the Dominos

"Follow You Follow Me" Genesis

"Baby, I Love You" The Ronettes

"Run Like Hell" Pink Floyd

"More Than A Feeling" Boston

"Don't Look Back" Boston

"Harper Valley P.T.A" Jeannie C. Riley

"Summer Breeze" Seals & Crofts

"Nights In White Satin" The Moody Blues

"Dreams I'll Never See" Molly Hatchet

"Sweet Talkin' Woman" Electric Light Orchestra

"Hush" Deep Purple

"White Room" Cream

"Baby, I Love Your Way" Peter Frampton

"Magic Carpet Ride" Steppenwolf

"More Than a Woman" The Bee Gees

"I Will Survive" Gloria Gaynor

"If I'd Been The One" 38 Special

"I'm No Angel" Gregg Allman

"Love Can Make You Happy" Mercy

"You've Got Another Thing Comin’" Judas Priest

"Dancing Queen" ABBA