Just to See You Smile (2 page)

Twenty years later

Britte Olafsson hated goodbyes.

In no hurry to say another one, she inched her white Jeep down Acorn Park Lane. At last she parked, a short distance behind a U-haul trailer. And there she sat, lost in goodbye thoughts.

Naturally, there had been the unavoidable loss of elderly grandparents. Perennially, on the last day of school, she had dreaded the parting with yet another favorite teacher. The ongoing departure of pets—and on the farm that included cows and horses—never ceased to stun her.

The first almost truly unbearable goodbye occurred when she was 13. Her best friend moved across the country. Again, at 16, her next best friend left. Three weeks before graduation, a senior boy, a close friend, died in a car accident.

In college she had tried
not
to make best friends, an impossible challenge at a small Michigan school where she spent four years playing basketball with four other women who knew her better than anyone ever possibly could. Of those four, the nearest now lived 300 miles away. Then there had been Eric—

Britte opened the car door, jumped out, and slammed it shut.

And now there was Isabel Mendoza.

A cold November wind whipped Britte's ponytail against her cheek as she jogged across the front yard. Frozen grass
crackled beneath her running shoes. Snow wasn't yet in the forecast, but the steady north wind left no doubt that winter had arrived. Crummy day for moving.

Britte recognized her brother's lanky form backing against Isabel's glass storm door. She pulled the door open for him. “Hi, Brady.”

“Hey, sis.” He turned, his arms hugging a kitchen table chair, and stepped down to the sidewalk. “Where's your coat?”

“I'm wearing a coat.” She saw Isabel's favorite padded rocking chair now approaching, carried by someone hidden behind it. She kept the door open and waited.

Brady tsked, only half jokingly. “How many times do Mom and I have to tell you? A warm-up jacket does not count as a winter coat.”

“Yeah, well, it's 30 degrees and you're bundled up like an Eskimo, ready to race a dogsled across the tundra. You're going soft on me!”

Walking toward the truck, he called over his shoulder, “Windchill is five degrees. You'll get sick, Itty-Britty!”

The nickname was a taunt left over from their childhood, his final zinger that typically caused her to smile. At the moment she didn't feel like smiling. She shouted, “Brady, your persnickety side is showing! Has Gina seen your persnickety side yet?”

The door shifted in her hand. She pulled it wider, making room for the rocker's exit. The high school principal came into view, carrying his usual stoic demeanor right along with the chair. “Mr. Kingsley!”

“Afternoon, Miss O. Thought I recognized your coach's voice.”

“Who roped you into this?”

Only a slight lift of his brows changed his expression. “Your brother has a way with words.”

She laughed. “Tell me about it. I grew up with Mr. Motor Mouth. At least he's put it to good use by writing books for a living.”

As he continued down the sidewalk, another kitchen chair appeared in the doorway. Big Cal Huntington had an arm looped through it. He carried a second one behind him. “I can't believe you two call each other ‘miss' and ‘mister' outside of school.”

“Habit. We can't risk some student overhearing us and realizing teachers and principals actually have first names. Our mystique would be destroyed in no time. Hey, congratulations, big guy! Engaged, huh?”

“Yep.” The deputy sheriff grinned in a distracted sort of way as he lumbered down the steps. It was the same grin Brady wore these days, the one that must have spread across Isaac Newton's face after the apple whacked him. They, too, had been hit over the head by a new law, the law that governed their hearts and sent them scurrying off to buy engagement rings. She grinned to herself. Watching these guys fall in love amused her to no end.

Brrr!
Britte dashed into the house, her nose and fingers numb from the cold.

Isabel's front room was a disaster. Her things were making their way out to the U-haul, while Lia's furnishings were shoved willy-nilly out of the way. The men had previously made quick work of moving Lia out of her apartment above the pharmacy and into the rental house Isabel was vacating.

The sound of female chatter drew her down the hall. She found Isabel and Lia in a bedroom making up the bed.

“Hi, Isabel. Lia!” she cried as she wrapped the pharmacist in a bear hug. “Congratulations! Mom told me the news this morning!”

“Oh, thank you, Britte. I am
so
happy.” Lia returned the hug and then held out her left hand. The sparkle of a diamond mirrored the one in her dark, almond-shaped eyes.

“It's beautiful. Cal's out there grinning like he just won a million bucks. Actually, I think he has.”

Lia smiled and caught the bed sheet Isabel was tossing her way.

Britte plopped down on the carpet. “Hey, sorry I'm late.”

Isabel threw her a smile. “You're not late for lunch, Coach.”

“Impeccable timing, if I do say so myself.” She gave her friend a thumbs-up. “You know, if you had planned more than a week in advance that you were moving from Valley Oaks to Chicago, I could have rearranged my practice schedule.”

“It's the day after Thanksgiving. You shouldn't make those girls practice on a holiday weekend!”

“It was a simple shoot-around and only mandatory for the coach.”

Isabel tucked in the sheet. “I hate the thought of missing your game Wednesday.”

Their eyes met, acknowledging the unsaid. Isabel would miss every game this season after three years of not missing a single one.

Lia piped in and eased the tension in that calm way of hers, “Next Wednesday? Chloe and I will be there! She loves basketball now. Come to think of it, she loves all sports now.” She grinned. “Probably has something to do with Cal enjoying them.”

Isabel burst into laughter. “You think?”

Britte sighed to herself. Couples were cropping up everywhere. Cal and Lia. Brady and Gina. Isabel was moving to take a new job and live near Tony Ward, a likely candidate for fiancé in the not-too-distant future. Was there something
contagious in the village well-water system? She always drank bottled water.

“Isabel, where's Tony?”

“Picking up pizzas for lunch.”

“Sounds good. So what's with Mr. Kingsley? How'd he get involved today?”

Isabel shook a pillow into its case. “Britte, you make him sound like an old man. What is he, 37, 38?”

“Something like that. He's my principal. As in my immediate boss. He has a permanent ‘mister' aura about him. Can't seem to get his first name onto my tongue. What is it, anyway?”

Isabel threw the pillow at her. “You're hopeless. Cal never takes a moment off from being a cop. You never take a moment off from being the prim-and-proper schoolmarm, except during basketball season, but now it's even worse. Schoolmarm morphs into fire-breathing coach.”

“You have a problem with that?” She threw the pillow back.

Isabel just shook her head in reply and straightened a blanket.

Lia cleared her throat and flipped back her bobbed, jet black hair. “Um, I've seen Cal take quite a number of moments off from being a cop.”

Britte and Isabel collapsed into laughter.

Lia's deadpan expression didn't change. “But you're not getting details.”

Britte gasped for a breath. “Puh-lease! I don't want any details! All this romance is getting just a little overdone for my single taste.”

Lia smiled. “Cal and Brady invited
Mr
. Kingsley. They've been playing basketball together at the Community Center. They thought it appropriate to include him; make the new guy in town feel welcome.”

Britte pushed out her lower lip in a sort of facial shrug. “No problem. The more the merrier. Lia, how long before we move you into Cal's house?”

She laughed. “Not long at all.”

“Oh, really?”

“Some of my stuff is already there. I've just brought the minimum here.” She sat on the bed. “Did you hear about last night?”

“A little. Did Pastor Peter really threaten to tackle Brady?”

“He did. Your brother is quite the talker, isn't he? He doesn't give an inch.”

Britte laughed. “You've noticed.”

“And of course you both know Cal isn't normally a talker, but the two of them got going with Gina's dad, Reece. They squabbled like little boys over who had the right to reserve the church first for a wedding. So Gina, her mother, and I talked. Maggie has no problem with them renewing vows on Friday night. And,” she said, grinning, “Gina and I think a double wedding the next afternoon would be perfect.”

“Double wedding!” Britte clapped and whooped. “I like it!”

“It turns out that neither of us have definite ideas about a big, fancy wedding. We're both delighted with small and simple and letting the mothers plan it.”

“I'm sure the guys agreed with that.”

“Not until this morning! We all met early in Peter's office and figured it out. It'll be the weekend after Christmas. So.” Lia raised her hands, palms up. “I know it's fast. I only met Cal a few months ago, but he's everything— No, he's
more
than everything I ever hoped for in a husband. He loves Chloe as if he were her own father.”

Isabel's dark eyes shone. “And we all know that's a major tap from God. Cal never kept it a secret that little kids bothered him, to put it mildly.”

Lia nodded. “We trust God is directing traffic every which way here. We see no reason to wait.”

Britte said, “It'll probably be a tax advantage, getting married before the year is over.”

Lia laughed. “That's exactly what Gina said.”

“I knew I liked my brother's choice for my sister-in-law. But how can you plan all this in less than six weeks and during the Christmas season?”

“Maggie and my mother are chomping at the bit at such a challenge. Mom knows Chicago shopping, and Maggie has connections through her work in women's apparel.”

“And Brady knows flowers,” Britte added.

Everyone laughed. His extravagant habit of sending flowers to Gina was well known.

Brady appeared in the doorway. “I heard my name. What are you all laughing about?”

Britte stood, hurried over to him, and flung her arms around his neck. “Woo-hoo! The wedding's set! I'm laughing because I am so, so happy for you!”

He returned her hug and whispered, “Thanks, Itty-Britty. Thanks.”

For a moment or two, the fire-breathing coach blinked repeatedly. It just wouldn't do to have salt water dousing the flames.

Of course Britte knew his first name. It was Joel. Mr. Joel T. Kingsley.

From her perch now on a kitchen countertop, she balanced a paper plate stacked with pizza slices and watched him across the crowded room. He sat at the table with others, eating and occasionally almost smiling like a regular person. To a certain extent, he even resembled a regular person. Short hair, just this side of a buzz cut. A shade of black, the kind that would turn to iron gray because that color fit his disposition. Bit of an elongated face with furrows already embedded in his forehead and jawline. Nice ears. Yes, he had nice ears…attached lobes, not flappy ones like Cal's.

Unlike a regular person, though, he exuded
military,
appropriately enough considering he was an ex-serviceman from the Marine Corps. He wasn't as tall as Brady nor as broad as Cal, but his ramrod posture and clear, deep voice effortlessly commanded the attention of students and staff alike. She guessed that at one time he must have been accustomed to giving orders. That fit his leadership position, and yet to her way of thinking, the man was just a bit out of sync in his role as high school principal.

He had made sweeping changes at the school, an unsettling action despite some good results. Teachers for the most part adopted a wait-and-see attitude. The community hadn't yet reached a consensus on whether or not it approved. On the other hand, the students thought he was great. Britte estimated their approval rating at 74 percent, unheard of in her experience.

Which all added up to the fact that, after five months in town, Mr. Joel T. Kingsley remained an enigma to her.

Britte glanced around. Isabel sat close beside Tony. Cal sat on the other side of the sink, also atop the counter, sharing his pizza with Lia, whose arms were crossed on his knees. Gina and Brady stood beside Britte. He had his arms around his fiancée in a bear hug, warming her. She had just arrived
a few moments ago, wearing only her veterinarian's lab coat over a turtleneck sweater and jeans.

All couples.
Yes, there must be something in the water.

“Gina,” Brady's tone chided, “I'm taking you shopping today. You've got to get a winter coat. This isn't California.”