Summer Breeze (6 page)

“That’s partly what I’m worried about,” she said. “If anything bad happens to Luke, you know Lydia will blame herself. They’re twins, Derek! When things began to get so bad with their father—or maybe it was before that—I told them to keep an eye on each other. I shouldn’t have done it. You can’t expect a child to take on such a heavy responsibility.”

“But that’s why my mom came down from St. Louis. She’s here to help.”

Kim’s lips shut tight, and she rose from his lap. “Your mother had
no
idea what to do today,” she told him as she tucked aluminum foil around the brownie pan with a lot more force than Derek thought necessary. “When she called, she sounded practically hysterical. I was sure Luke had gone into a coma or the house was burning down or something.”

“Hysterical?”

“Dr. Groene and I were working on a difficult wisdom tooth extraction when the receptionist opened the door to say I had an emergency call. You know how Dr. Groene feels about interruptions during surgery, but what could I do? When I answered the phone, your mother was so frantic that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what had happened. Lydia was crying in the background, and Miranda was babbling, and it was pure bedlam. Guess who finally got on the line? Luke. He told me that Lydia and Grandma Finley were both freaking out. Your mother was trying to turn off the computer in the middle of Lydia’s efforts to print the diabetes data. Luke was furious. Just like the other evening, he insisted that we all think he’s going to die, and maybe we even want him to die so he won’t bug us so much, and—”

“Now hold on, honey,” Derek cut in. “I’ll set Luke straight on that nonsense in the morning. He’s got this crazy notion in his head, and everyone’s reinforcing it by pushing the panic button every two minutes. I’ll talk to Lydia, too. She violated the house rules by using the computer. Did you ground her?”

“I couldn’t. Oh, Derek, I didn’t have the heart. I know they fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but Lydia loves her brother so much. That’s why she was researching diabetes on the Internet.”

“Which is against the rules. What did you say to her about that?”

“What could I say? There wasn’t anything I could do. I just left work as soon as I could, drove home, and made brownies with her.”

“Kim, you can’t do that to Dr. Groene. He relies on you.”

“I know. Of course I know! He tells me all the time. He postponed a lot of appointments while I took all that time off. But, Derek, this was about family.”

“You can’t intervene every time there’s a problem at home. Mom and the twins have to learn to manage things. If you come running whenever they have the least bit of trouble, you’re going to lose your job.”

“Is that what you care about? My job?”

“I care about it, but—”

“Don’t you see what’s happening, Derek? Everything is falling apart. I need to be here for the kids—”

“
No
. No, you don’t.” He stood, took her shoulders, and turned her around to face him. “Kim, you’re as spooked as Lydia, and it’s not doing Luke a bit of good.”

“How can you say that? I’m the one who helped him learn to take care of himself. I keep my eye on him constantly in case something happens. I monitor him and check on him—”

“Yeah, you watch him like a hawk. The kid is scared he’s going to get pounced on every time he moves. You’re too protective, Kim. You’ve got to let him go a little bit—Lydia, too.”

“You’re the one who wanted to ground Lydia.” She pulled away and set the brownies on top of the microwave. “Sometimes you can be so harsh, Derek. All your rules and regulations! It’s like you don’t understand how this has affected all of us. You were happy when everything was normal, but now that Luke is sick, you’re coming down too hard on us.”

Derek gritted his teeth, trying to keep from saying something he might regret. He had been married to Kim for three years, and he certainly did know how the family interacted. He also knew that these so-called rules and regulations were what kept things functioning. Exhausted from hours on the water and frustrated with the drowning case that was drawing so many blanks, he had little energy for an argument with his wife in the middle of the night.

They both needed sleep. They needed a break from the chaos.

“Let’s just hit the hay,” he said.

“Derek, I waited up for you because I wanted us to talk! We have to
do
something. I’m giving this all I can, and you have to do your part. We have to take some kind of action here. You make these rules, but I’m telling you things feel out of control.”

“Whether you like it or not, Kim, rules are important. That’s how the world functions—laws and regulations. Everything needs order so the people in charge can have some control.”

“But you won’t even talk to me about
what
rules and regulations. We need to sit down and make a plan.”

“I’ll make the rules right now: Computers are still off-limits without you or me around. Helmets and kneepads still have to be worn while biking. Grandma watches the twins if they want to swim. And Luke’s kit goes everywhere.”

Kim tucked a tendril of her dark brown hair behind one ear. “Yes, Officer Finley.” She gave him a mock salute. “Aye aye.”

Derek gazed at her long, pretty neck and the soft sweep of her nightgown. He reached for her and took her in his arms. “Will that make it better, baby?” he murmured against her ear. “You know I love you. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. You are the most beautiful, amazing lady,” he said, tracing a finger down her neck. “All these years, and I finally found you. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

“It wasn’t luck, Derek. God brought us together,” she said softly. “We have to trust Him to keep us strong.”

Confident that he had solved Kim’s latest crisis, Derek began unbuckling his gun belt. He was pulling it from his waist when he heard something slide off a shelf in the living room and land on the floor with a crash. In a split second, Derek had snapped his .40-caliber Glock from its holster and aimed it in the direction of the noise.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

“Ow! Ouch!” His mother’s voice echoed clearly into the kitchen. “Oh, nuts. Now what? Derek? Derek, honey? Is that you? I heard something … people talking … arguing. I can’t find the light switch, and I’ve knocked something off the piano, and, well … I’m barefoot. Derek?”

Letting out a deep breath, he felt the adrenaline rush begin to subside. He pushed his weapon back into the holster and snapped it shut.

Kim’s dark eyes flashed up at him. “We don’t have a piano,” she whispered.

“But we do have my mother,” he muttered back.

Kim laid her head against his shoulder. Derek wrapped one arm around her, flipped on the foyer light, and stepped into the living room to assess the damage.

“The meeting of the Tea Lovers’ Club will now come to order,” Esther Moore announced as she tapped her china cup with the side of her spoon.

Patsy Pringle watched in amusement as the clusters of tea drinkers ignored poor Esther. The group had been gathering around tables in a sunny corner of Just As I Am every Wednesday afternoon since the club formed. And from day one, Esther Moore had been trying to impose
Robert’s Rules of Order
on the others.

Several times Esther had referred to herself as the club’s president, only to be reminded that the TLC had no officers. She regularly took meeting minutes and kept them tucked away in her purse. But whenever she brought out her notebook to read, the whole room begged her not to keep any records in case someone had accidentally gossiped the week before. So far as Patsy knew, “no gossiping” was the only rule the group kept, and she had laid down that law herself.

“I have several updates from last week,” Esther said, still tapping her teacup. “I think you should all hear the minutes.”

Cody Goss, seated beside Patsy, began snickering. “Minutes,” he whispered to her. “Minutes are on a clock, not in a notebook. The big hand points to them, because Brenda told me that. … Hey, Mrs. Moore,” he called out, reaching clear across the table to bump her elbow for attention. Manners were not Cody’s strong suit. “Hey, nobody can hear what you’re saying, Mrs. Moore. If you want people to listen up, you might as well stop hitting your teacup with that spoon and just whistle.”

Before Patsy could react, Cody lifted his fingers to his mouth and blew. The earsplitting screech brought conversation in the salon to an instant halt as everyone clapped their hands over their ears. Everyone, that is, except Opal Jones, who was ninety-four and deaf as a fence post. She owned a pair of hearing aids but hated to wear them. While the echoes of Cody’s whistle died down, Opal took a sip of tea and then calmly rearranged her napkin on her lap.

“There,” he announced, grinning from ear to ear. “My daddy taught me how to get people to pay attention. Whistling is pretty easy if you practice.”

“Gracious sakes alive, Cody Goss!” Esther frowned at him. “You’ve nearly scared the dickens out of us.”

“Okay,” Cody said nervously, eyeing Brenda Hansen.

Patsy knew Brenda had been making a valiant attempt to teach Cody some social skills. The look on Esther’s face would have withered most people’s confidence. But Cody was cut from a different cloth.

He glanced at the ladies gathered around the room and said, “I’ll help anyone learn how to whistle. I’m good at it.”

“Thank you, Cody,” Brenda spoke up. “Maybe after the meeting.
Outside
.”

“Okay.” He nodded and poked a bite of chocolate cake into his mouth.

“As I was saying,” Esther resumed while she fished around in her purse for her meeting notebook, “I believe we should begin. Kim, would you like to introduce your guest?”

Kim Finley stood and laid a gentle hand on the shoulder of the slender, deeply tanned woman beside her. “This is Derek’s mother, Miranda Finley, from St. Louis. She’s here to spend time with the twins while I’m at work.”

“Well, isn’t that nice,” Esther commented. “We’re pleased you could join us this afternoon. I guess Derek is watching Luke?”

Kim reddened slightly at the obvious reference to her son’s medical problems. Patsy hadn’t been able to talk to Kim last Sunday at the dock, though she had tried. There were just too many people—Cody, Steve and Brenda Hansen, and Miranda Finley had all clustered around her and the twins. Even with that many people clamoring for Kim’s attention, Patsy knew how private her friend was. Kim wouldn’t want to discuss her son’s diabetes in such a large group.

Acknowledging Esther’s question with a nod, Kim sat down beside her mother-in-law. Miranda had been chatting with everyone at their table. Patsy was pleased to note that Miranda’s short, spiky hair tipped with pale blonde highlights was going to need regular care at a good beauty salon. Her roots were showing already.

“First I’d like to catch us up on last week’s items of discussion,” Esther continued. “One of our dear founding members, Ashley Hanes, was kind enough to ask her husband to build a bridge over the Hansens’ drainage ditch. Brad completed the project last week, and he did a lovely job. But with the summer construction business heating up, he doesn’t have time to paint it. Would some of us like to take on that job?” By now she had her notebook out and was running a pencil down her list.

Patsy decided to check the tea bag supply. These women tended to deplete it in a hurry. Cody could just about gulp a teacupful in one swallow.

Besides, she didn’t need to hear the minutes. Patsy knew more about the goings-on in Deepwater Cove than anyone. While she styled hair or painted fingernails, her customers talked. Sometimes she had trouble concentrating on the topic, like when they were explaining how to crochet an afghan or deal with the latest hitches in Social Security or Medicare. But usually she listened.

As Patsy restocked the tea bags and sugar cubes, she noticed Brenda Hansen across the room. The lovely blonde woman reminded Patsy of a golden yellow crocus bud emerging from a deep blanket of snow—the first sign of spring after a long, bleak winter. Hope flourished in her bright green eyes, and joy radiated from her glowing pink cheeks. If Patsy guessed right, Brenda was beginning to fall in love. And the object of her blossoming affection was none other than her good-looking husband himself.

“All right, we’ve got a painting committee,” Esther said, keeping a fragile hold on her authority as the women began to refill their teacups. They had started murmuring again, so Esther raised her voice a little. “Now, Brenda and several others—including me, if I may say so—pitched in and fixed up Patsy Pringle’s front flower bed the other day. How do you like it, honey?”

Patsy sat down again and nodded. She wasn’t much for speeches. “It was a real nice surprise when I drove up to my house,” she said. “I like it just fine. Thank you all for helping me out.”

“You’re welcome,” Cody replied, though Patsy was fairly sure he hadn’t been a part of that particular project. In fact, Cody spent most of his time going from the salon to various houses in Deepwater Cove—dusting, mowing, gutter cleaning, window washing, and doing myriad other tasks the neighbors paid him to perform. A couple of weeks ago, Brenda had helped him open a bank account, and Patsy imagined the boy would be close to a zillionaire before—as he liked to put it—he crossed the Jordan and passed on to glory.