Threads of Hope: Quilts of Love Series (12 page)

Brady waved at the valet when Nina met him again. “How did the bidding go?” His hand resting on her shoulder, he moved her toward the exit.

“Bidding?”
The quilt. You left to bid on the quilt
. “I don’t know . . . I . . . I missed it.”

Outside, the night air pushed against them like a damp sponge. Brady led her to a pearl white Mercedes so polished it could have been lifted from a velvet case. The valet opened the door, and Nina eased onto the soft leather seat and welcomed the cool air coming from the vents.

Brady adjusted his seat belt and, as the car pulled away from the hotel, he said, “So, what happened that you weren’t able to bid?”

Nina stared out the window, still sifting through her emotional conversation with Greg. “One of the volunteers stopped to talk to me, and I didn’t make it back,” she said. That was all he needed to know, and it was enough of the truth to not make her uncomfortable manufacturing a story. Besides, it was his stories she was most interested in hearing. “Tell me about New York. It has to be more exciting than discussing quilts.”

He turned down the volume on the Adele CD and drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Maybe not more exciting.” Brady stopped at the red light and looked at Nina. “I’m not as certain about moving as I was when Elise asked me to go. Especially because of Daisy.”

Daisy? New York? This must be my night for sabotages
. She knew she couldn’t let being stunned betray her or else Brady might stop talking. As she opened her purse to shut her cell phone off, she said, “Yes, of course,” as if she’d yawned the words out.

“When Janie first told me about Daisy, and everything going on with her family, it made sense that she’d want to live close. Then, Daisy started wavering about the decision. She didn’t know what to tell Elise she wanted to do about the New York job after all she’d done to get it for her. . . I turn up there, right?” Brady pointed to the street ahead.

Nina nodded and hoped her composure would last longer than the rest of the drive.

“Anyway, now Janie’s playing armchair therapist and big sister to Daisy, and she’s neglecting everything else she needs to do to prepare herself for this new position.”

“You mean neglecting you?”

Brady slowed the car as he turned into her driveway, then shifted into park. “Janie’s helped me realize something,” he said and looked at Nina.

She wanted to repeat her eye-roll performance, but his serious expression actually surprised her. Once again, she relied on her airy tone. “And what is that?”

“I know what it feels like to not be important in someone’s life anymore, especially when that person is someone you thought wouldn’t disappoint you.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t at all kind to you, Nina, and I hope you can forgive me for being such an idiot.”

So, this is betrayer and forgiveness night?
Whatever hope she felt by his admission was reined in by suspicion.
What was his agenda here?
“Forgive, yes. Forget, I’m still working on.”

He leaned toward her, and Nina forced herself to ignore wanting to move closer and wait for him to kiss her. The space between them no longer felt like a force field, but a magnet. But she couldn’t allow herself to be pulled in. At least not tonight. Brady moved his finger slowly down Nina’s bare arm, from her shoulder to her wrist, then wrapped his hand around hers. “Maybe you won’t have to forget. Forget what it was like for us to be together, I mean.”

“I haven’t forgotten what that was like, Brady.” Nina slid her hand out from under his and opened the car door. “What I meant was I’m working on forgetting the damage you left behind. I’m not Plan B when you and Janie hit a speed bump on your way to wherever it is your relationship is going.”

“You don’t believe in second chances?”

Nina thought for a moment. “Brady, I don’t even believe in first chances. People shouldn’t take chances loving one another. Love should be intentional.”

Greg was grateful for the text message that provided a legitimate excuse for him to leave Nina’s presence. Her bitterness spewed from a wound that had festered so deep and for so long, that it had to be pierced to have any chance of healing. But her scathing attack and hearing that, for years, she wanted nothing more than for him to experience pain, horrified him. Would she be one of those people so full of hatred that, when it left, the shell she’d built to contain it would crack, and she’d find herself empty? Was this what happened to people who never knew or understood forgiveness? Who never asked, “Who were we to choose unforgiveness when God forgives us over and over and over?”

After Lily’s death, he struggled desperately, knowing what he needed to do, but not wanting to do it. He wanted to feel anger, to build a shrine to it, and know that it would be there every day. Like Lily used to be. The accident, which he mostly didn’t call it, as a man doesn’t drink by accident or drive by accident, robbed him of his wife. It wasn’t going to rob him of resentment and hate. Greg clothed himself in righteous indignation. But, with each passing day, the feelings weighed him down more and more until their weight almost
broke him in two. Then he came across a quote from Corrie ten Boom, a Christian woman who’d been a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, “Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free, and to realize the prisoner was you.” And that’s when he had fallen on his knees and asked God to forgive his unforgiveness. Greg knew that only God working through him could make him strong enough to forgive the man who devastated his life.

But Nina didn’t know or didn’t choose to know that there was another way. Greg guessed she’d dragged the heaviness around so long, the thought of being weightless terrified her. Without the history, maybe the confusion about Elise would have been less traumatic for Nina. She probably thought he’d relay their conversation verbatim and, once again, she’d be the humiliated kid in the middle of the floor. Except this time it would be a ballroom floor.

As he told her she could stop praying for him to know pain, he saw glimpses of confusion in her eyes, as she scanned his face searching for evidence of dishonesty. Greg wanted to turn the wall behind them into a scoreboard, draw a line down the center, and ask her what she could write on her side that could possibly win out over his losing a wife and his daughter, a mother. But he wasn’t going to use the memory of Lily as the highest score. Walking off when he did had spared each of them regret in the future.

The text, from one of the emergency clinics he’d recently worked in, updated him on the status of one of the sick animals he’d seen there. He went outside to call the vet tech who’d contacted him and saw Nina leave the hotel with someone driving a late model Mercedes convertible. She was going to miss the auction, which meant she wouldn’t find out that he’d placed the highest bid on the quilt she wanted.

“Look, Manny, the princess is descending from her royal tower to join us.” The dachshund yelped and trotted back and forth between Nina and Aretha, then sat to watch Nina walk down the stairs.

“Twenty years ago, I might have just stuck my tongue out at you for that,” said Nina, taking each step as if it were underwater.

Aretha grinned. “Twenty years ago, I might have followed that with running after your princess fanny.” She pointed to the kitchen. “I made breakfast, but you missed the best part. Pancakes right off the griddle with strawberries and warm syrup. I saved a few slices of bacon, and you can pop the leftover cakes in the toaster or the microwave.”

Nina sat on the bottom step and scratched Manny behind the ears as she listened to Aretha roll out the breakfast menu. “What time did you wake up to get all
Barefoot Contessa
on me? I couldn’t have slept that late . . . did I?” Nina felt her wrist, no watch. She checked the pockets of her sleeping scrubs, no phone. “We need a clock.”

“I’ve been saying that for months. It’s after ten o’clock, so, yes, you did sleep that late. You left your cell phone down here, and your mother’s been lighting it up like a Christmas tree with phone calls.” Aretha yawned, and stretched out her arms and legs. “I woke up at the tender hour of eight o’clock. What time did you get to sleep?”

“You woke up at eight? I didn’t go to sleep until after two, and you still weren’t home. If you hadn’t returned my text at almost one, I was about to put out a Missing Persons alert.” She turned her phone off to avoid having to talk to her mother, zapped a cup of coffee in the microwave, and picked at the sliced strawberries she found in the refrigerator.

“Who knew Mr. Beautiful and I had so much to talk about? After we left the benefit, we drove around trying to find some place for breakfast. Ended up at Katz’s Deli . . . had no idea how late it was until you sent that text.” Aretha hugged her knees to her chest and smiled. “And why were you still awake? Having a long conversation with Brady?”

She decided to hold off telling her about talking to Greg before she left the benefit. Her emotional reserves were waning, and she had yet to deal with her mother. The Greg drama could wait, except for that last statement he made to her. The one about her prayer being answered already. It unsettled her, the way it did when she remarked one day that homeless people caused their own problems, and then found out Daisy had been one of those very people when her father left them.

Nina carried her coffee, a plate of bacon, and strawberries to the den, Manny following her waiting for crumbs to fall. “Sorry, buddy, you’re out of luck today,” she told him as she set everything on the coffee table. He resigned himself to curling around her feet. “For the record, my conversation with Brady ended not long after he turned into our driveway.”

“Can’t wait to hear this one.”

Nina told Aretha the from-hotel-to-home story with Brady, hoping she sounded as lucid retelling it as she thought she was the night before. Since Aretha listened without an interruption, she must have achieved her goal.

“Have to admit, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to stand up for yourself like you did. I suspect somewhere in that heart of yours there’s a pitter-patter left for him.”

Nina shrugged. “I suppose, but I wonder if I want a victory over Janie more than a relationship with Brady. Doesn’t matter now. I don’t have either one.”

“Careful,” warned Aretha. “You’re backsliding into your comfortable victim role.” She checked her cell phone and smiled. “Mr. Beautiful just sent me a text. He wants to take Manny and me for a walk, and lunch.” She patted Manny on the head. “We have a date. Aren’t you excited?”

Manny blinked a few times, then he assumed his sleeping position.

“He’s not understanding this concept of dating, since it doesn’t happen too often around here. And, in case I’m here when he shows up, does Mr. Beautiful have a real name?”

“Luke. Luke Samuelson. And when I return, you’re going to tell me why you were on sleep deprivation. But now I’m going to look for that cinnamon V-neck sweater of yours that I love to wear.”

“It’s either in the laundry room or my closet. Better hope it’s in the closet . . .” Nina said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Aretha she stayed awake researching writing positions available in New York, places to live there, and more background information for her political corruption story. Then again, watching Aretha bounce down the stairs waving the sweater like a victory flag, Nina wasn’t sure Aretha would care.

Nina mentally reviewed the excuses she could give her mother for backing out of lunch, but her mother would know that’s exactly what they were. And she’d label them all flimsy and tell Nina any daughter who invented excuses not to have lunch with her parents probably didn’t deserve them. She’d already called Nina six times in three hours, so Nina’s failure to return calls meant not only was she now up the proverbial river without a paddle, she just drilled a hole in her boat.

She counted to ten then forced herself to hit her parents’ phone number. Less than three minutes later, it was all over. After Nina stumbled through the news she wouldn’t be there, her mother responded with, “Good. I called so often this morning in an effort to inform you not to come here today because your father and I didn’t feel up to company.”