Pearl of Great Price (30 page)

With a funny half-smile, Micah returned to his conversation, and I picked my way across the demolition debris until I was standing about where I thought the cabin used to be where we’d found Brynna. A sadness crept into my heart, like I was missing something I’d never really had the chance to know.

I felt Micah’s hand on my shoulder. “Looks different, huh?”

“I hardly recognize the place. You’ve done a lot since the last time I was here.” My gaze swept the back of the house, and I noticed the brick patio and retaining wall were gone, leaving a wide swath of bare ground. I released a shaky breath.

Micah drew me to his side. “I know it looks bad right now, but when we finish, it’ll be like new.” A strange light came into his eyes. “Like nothing ever changed.”

“Like new?” I shot him a puzzled frown.

“Come with me, Julie. I’ve got something to show you.” Taking my hand, Micah strode toward his pickup. He reached in the open driver’s side window and pulled out a long cardboard tube. Uncapping one end, he withdrew a rolled drawing and spread it open across the hood of the pickup.

Looking past his shoulder, I studied the architect’s full-color rendering of the completed resort. It looked nothing like the modern split-level condominium complex I’d seen in the drawings Micah had posted in the La Quinta suite.

It looked everything like how I’d pictured Pearls Along the Lake in its heyday, from the sky-blue gingerbread trim on the main house to the string of pristine white cabins marching along the shore.

And in the legend at the bottom right corner, instead of H
AMILTON
H
AVEN
, the artsy block lettering read P
EARLS
A
LONG THE
L
AKE
.

“Micah, it’s beautiful.” Prickles danced up my spine. I stared at him with puckered brows. “But . . . why?”

He leaned against the front grill of the pickup, tucking me under his arm as he gazed across the lake. “For you, Julie. To give you back what was stolen from you. And for me. Because I realized it’s the only way I’ll ever put the past to rest.”

C
HAPTER 35

Work continued on the resort through the rest of a long, sultry summer, and I visited often to check the progress. Micah seemed so proud of his work. He smiled more and laughed freely, as if some neglected garden deep inside him were springing to life. In mid-August he canceled the lease on his Hot Springs apartment and rented a small house with a fenced yard, then selected one of Brynna’s puppies as his own. The other two also went to loving homes, I’m happy to say, one to my pastor’s family and the other to the Swap & Shop’s own Maddie Barton. (Maddie’s five cats raised a protest, but I was told they adapted quickly.)

I sat next to Micah on his back stoop one evening just enjoying the quietness, his company, and a few stolen kisses that made my lips tingle with the hunger for more.

Much more.

We drew apart from one such blissful moment to see Micah’s puppy, aptly named Pepper because of the black-and-white flecks on his chin, chasing a grasshopper across the lawn. He tripped over his own big feet, tumbling like a roly-poly bug, and Micah and I both laughed out loud.

Then a shivery sigh shook me, and I reached for Micah’s hand.

He squeezed back. “What are you thinking, Julie?”

“Oh, same as always.”

“Renata?”

“Who else?” I propped one elbow on my knee and rested my chin in my hand. “I was just thinking it’s a shame she’ll never know the joy of loving on a puppy.” I’d given about five minutes’ consideration to driving one of the pups over to Little Rock and offering it to Renata. What better way to show her what a devoted companion a dog could be . . . and maybe breach the stone-cold wall she’d erected between us?

Except I figured the puppy and I both would get the same chilly reception.

Pepper got bored with the grasshopper and presented his belly for Micah to scratch. Micah willingly obliged. “Have you heard from Renata even once since she spent those two weeks at the Swap & Shop?”

“Believe me, I’d have told you if I had.” The only word I’d gotten from her after she left was a big brown UPS truck pulling into our parking lot to deliver a large parcel addressed to me. Inside were the clothes I’d arrived with that first day, plus all the shoes and outfits she’d given me. Those items I’d promptly turned over to Dovie and Royce Buckles to be tagged for resale in their Glad Rags booth. I needed no reminders of my bizarre and thankfully short-lived stay in the lap of luxury.

Micah’s jaw muscles worked beneath his beard. “It’s for the best, her leaving you alone.”

“I know, and I’m trying as hard as I can to put it behind me and move on.” My shoulders sagged under a weight that only grew heavier and heavier, no matter how hard I tried to shrug it off. I leaned my head against Micah’s arm. “You—us—it’s the one good thing that’s come out of this mess.”

Pepper yipped and nibbled my bare toe. Laughing, I tickled him behind his ears. “And you and your mama dog, of course.”

“Speaking of dogs . . .” Micah shifted so our knees were touching. A shy grin lit his face. “I’ve been working on a surprise. I hope you won’t be mad that I went behind your back, but I didn’t want to say anything until . . .”

“Micah?” I tilted my head to stare into the shadowy depths beneath his thick, dark brows.

He lowered his gaze, and his voice softened to barely above a whisper. “In the short time we’ve known each other, it’s become pretty clear what’s most important to you. Your grandpa. The Swap & Shop. All your friends in Caddo Pines.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and smirked. “And your pets, naturally.”

His words made me smile deep down where all my best memories reside. I sat straight as a broomstick and tucked my hands into my lap. “You’re leaving out one hugely important thing.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“You.”

Grinning, he pulled me into the crook under his arm and released a huff, his breath hot against my cheek. “Are you going to let me tell you my surprise or not?”

“Okay, okay. Tell me your surprise.”

“Humph. If
that’s
your attitude—”

“Micah!”

His raspy chuckle drained off some of my crabbiness. “Okay, here goes. I’ve asked my architect to draw up some plans to remodel the Swap & Shop.”

Not exactly the surprise I was imagining. My eyes got wide, and I pulled in a long breath through my nostrils. “Wow, that’s really nice of you, Micah, but we can barely cover our expenses as it is. There’s no extra money in the budget for remodeling.”

“You don’t understand. This is something I want to do for you.”

“But you’re already rebuilding the resort for me. I can’t let you—”

“Now hear me out, okay? Instead of those flimsy plywood booth partitions, I’m thinking office-grade cubicles with adjustable shelving.” He spoke with his hands, his eyes taking on a distant look. “And we can enlarge and modernize the apartment, add some conveniences to make life easier for your grandpa. I’ve seen how he huffs and puffs going up and down the stairs, so we’ll put in an elevator shaft accessible from inside or out. Then maybe a deck and pergola out back, and a fenced yard where the pets can play . . . Julie?”

My mouth must be doing that fish thing again. There were a jillion things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t seem to put two sensible words together.

Micah just laughed. “Is my Julie finally speechless?”

“No—yes—but why—?” While I tried to decide whether I should be thrilled or annoyed or downright terrified at having him move into my life in such a huge and tangible way, one teensy part of me got stuck on those two little words—
my Julie
.

“Because I love you, that’s why.”

“Oh, Micah, I love you, too!” For a while we just sat there, me clinging to his neck and trying to catch a full breath, Micah rubbing his hands up and down my back like he was trying to ward off chilblains. Which maybe he was, because I couldn’t stop shaking. My eyes started welling up, so I pulled away before I soaked Micah’s plaid button-down.

He lifted my chin with one finger and brushed away my tears. “So you’ll let me go ahead with this?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Micah. This is no small thing. And Grandpa—I can’t even imagine his reaction.”

“Maybe he’ll finally understand how much I care about you, about everything and everyone who’s important to you.”

The alarm beeped on Micah’s BlackBerry, signaling it was time to go in and check the frozen lasagna I’d put in the oven. I agreed to think on the idea, and Micah agreed to let me find the best time to spring the offer on Grandpa. The secret smile he gave me as we shared salad-tossing duties made me wonder if the Swap & Shop remodeling project was only one phase of a much larger renovation plan, one that would tie Micah and me together for the rest of our lives.

~~~

In the meantime, life at the flea market went on as usual—life so good I could hardly stand it sometimes. For now at least, Grandpa, Sneezy, and Brynna were the only family I needed or wanted. Micah and I, though growing closer day by day, were both still feeling our way through a maze of mixed-up emotions.

I did slowly introduce Grandpa to the idea of making some improvements to the Swap & Shop, mentioning just a change or two at a time so as not to overwhelm him. When I explained the ideas were Micah’s and that he wanted to give it to us as a gift, Grandpa balked at first.

“Think of it this way, Grandpa,” I suggested over our raisin bran one morning. “Just like the joy you get from finding new homes for castoffs, Micah will take great pleasure in breathing new life into this old building.”

“Yes, but I’d feel so beholden to him. Seems an awful big investment of time and money for someone who ain’t got no stake in the place.”

I pushed a bran flake around the edge of my bowl. “I think maybe he’d like to have a huge stake in this place. If you’d let him, Grandpa.”

One corner of his mouth pulled downward. He tugged on his earlobe. “Is that what you want, Julie Pearl?”

“I think it is.”

A hurting place in my heart found healing as Grandpa moved nearer to accepting Micah as part of my life, part of
our
lives. And while love bloomed between me and Micah, I also took great joy in watching the deepening romance between Sandy and Clifton. They did indeed seem like a match made in heaven. What Clifton lacked in polish and education, he more than made up for with his charm and wit, and Sandy had always brought out the best in Clifton in a way no one else ever had.

Sandy and my grandpa both, that is. The more Clifton learned about flea market operations, the more responsibility Grandpa gave him. Clifton’s auto mechanic skills easily adapted to small appliance repair, which meant higher profits for the Swap & Shop when we could sell an oldie-but-goodie toaster or record player that actually worked.

Summer eased on into September. My twenty-eighth birthday snuck by with not much more fanfare than a dinner cruise aboard the
Belle of Hot Springs
with Micah. Afterward, we joined Grandpa, Sandy, and Clifton at the apartment, where we gorged ourselves on vanilla ice cream and the lopsided German chocolate cake Sandy baked especially for me.

My gift from Micah was the blueprints for the new and improved Swap & Shop, and when I unrolled the pages across the kitchen table, all I could do was stand and stare in awe. “Look, Grandpa, it’s just like I told you. There’s the elevator, and a fancy new snack bar, all those nifty cubicles for our vendors, and even a porch out back with a glider where you can watch the sunset.”

Grandpa tucked his arm around my waist and squeezed. “It’s the way I always pictured it, Julie Pearl. The way I’d’ve done it up years ago if I’d had the wherewithal.” He looked across the table at Micah and gave a solemn nod. “This is a fine thing indeed, and I thank you.”

I thumbed away a tear and let the laughter bubble up through my chest. “Yep, now the real fun begins—figuring out how to stay in business while all this work is carried out.”

“Not to worry,” Micah said. “We’ll do it in stages, keep the dust and disruption to a minimum.”

So it was that along about mid-September, the Swap & Shop began its transformation. As promised, the crews Micah hired tackled only two or three vendors’ areas at a time, and always on a weekday when we were closed or weren’t expecting much business. Installing the elevator was the biggest challenge, requiring us to give up a big chunk of storage space behind the front counter. But the tradeoff was well worth my peace of mind in knowing Grandpa could continue living and working here for as long as his dear old heart would allow.

At the end of a long, exhausting Tuesday in early October, when Grandpa, Clifton, and I had finally finished cleaning up and restocking after a horrendously busy weekend, I hauled myself out of the shower, pulled on a clean pair of jeans, and dragged in fifteen minutes late to our weekly young adult church gathering.

Pastor Ed, the only one over thirty-five in our group, looked up from his Bible as I sidled into an empty folding chair. “Glad you could make it, Julie Pearl. We’ve been talking about what the Bible says about wealth.”

How apropos, considering how wealth had played into my confusing summer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there again, but discussion continued, and I tried to contribute the occasional insightful tidbit. More often than not, though, my thoughts wandered into areas I’d tried too long to avoid. Like the fact that Micah seemed way too wrapped up in fixing my life. Apparently, recreating Pearls Along the Lake just like it used to be hadn’t been enough—and whatever Micah did, he did in style. Both at the resort and at the Swap & Shop, he’d ordered top-of-the-line materials so everything would be perfect. He’d even ordered a glittery new Swap & Shop billboard for the highway turnoff and placed glitzy half-page ads in the Hot Springs and Little Rock newspapers announcing the “grand reopening of Hot Springs’ most picturesque and enchanting lakeside resort” scheduled for late next spring.

It suddenly hit me. Micah’s obsession wasn’t about putting the past to rest, or the impossible idea of giving me back my lost childhood. It wasn’t even about making life easier for Grandpa or boosting our flea market business. No, Micah’s extravagant gifts were really about buying forgiveness, paying for his and Renata’s mistake. I had to wonder what the going rate for a clear conscience amounted to these days. Would Micah ever be satisfied he’d spent enough?