Love Inspired June 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Single Dad Cowboy\The Bachelor Meets His Match\Unexpected Reunion (40 page)

Her easy pronunciation of the Japanese word for clutter drew a spontaneous grin from him. Relieved she still had the doll in her possession, he hoped this would be the last time he would need to come back for a while. Although they had called a truce and would no longer need to avoid each other at family gatherings, he thought it best to ease back into contact with her. And preferably with his grandparents around to act as a buffer.

“Well, clutter is the last thing she'd call this doll. It's the only thing she has left from her childhood.”

“No problem. They're right over here.”

They?
He followed her to the counter where most of the boxes had been emptied and set aside for later use. Pop had mentioned only one doll.

“Did the table fit?” She set a small cardboard box on the counter and reached inside.

“Like it was designed for the house.” It looked great in the corner of his kitchen, but he still wondered at the impulse that had driven him to buy it. Now he'd think of Ruthie every morning at breakfast...and remember the look of mischief on her face and the touch of her bare toes against his foot.

She handed him a pair of porcelain dolls, their lips puckered for a kiss.

He turned them over in his hands and stared at them, remembering the time early in their relationship when their own actions mimicked the dolls'. Drawing his and Ruthie's features on them had provided the perfect opener for their first kiss. And many more after that.

“What happened to the freckles?”

She flashed him another of her sassy grins. “Foundation makeup. It covers a lot of flaws.”

He knew she was joking, but the comment drew his attention to her face. The cute little specks were still there, but much lighter now, and he couldn't help wondering if there were still twenty-nine. Somehow he doubted she'd let him count them. Perhaps spending less time in the sun had allowed them to fade. He hoped she wasn't trying to cover them with makeup.

She ducked her head and looked away under his scrutiny. He hadn't meant to bring out her shyness, but he couldn't let her put herself down, even if only in jest.

“I don't consider freckles flaws,” he said, and idly ran a thumb over the girl doll's puckered face.

Mirroring his gesture, Ruthie lifted a hand to her face, then immediately slid her hand into her slacks pocket.

“Right. They're kiss prints,” she said, automatically parroting back the words he used to tell her.

She looked uncomfortable, as if realizing she'd opened a door that led someplace they weren't supposed to go. “I'm sure Sobo will be glad to get this set back,” she said, abruptly changing the subject.

Gray shook his head. “This isn't the doll I'm looking for. The one I'm talking about is the size of a Barbie and has real hair and a red kimono.”

Ruthie sagged against the counter. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, no?” He clutched the porcelain dolls tighter. “What does ‘oh, no' mean?”

“That must have been the doll that was sold. I thought Paisley meant
these.
”

She looked sick, and that was the way Gray felt right now.

“You
sold
it?”

She gave a slow nod and pinched her lip between small white teeth. “Yesterday, while we were at the hospital. Paisley said an Asian woman bought it. I hadn't inventoried all of the boxes at that point, so I assumed she was talking about the kissing dolls.”

With a knot in the pit of his stomach, Gray considered the possibilities. Pop had said Naoko treasured that doll, and he didn't want her to come home from the hospital to find that her most valued possession had been sold. He pushed the kissing dolls into Ruthie's hands. “Sobo has to have it,” he insisted. “Call the customer and get it back.”

“I don't know who bought it.” Her voice sounded precariously close to cracking. “It was a cash sale.”

He closed his eyes and wiped a hand over his face, wishing he could wipe away the problem. “Sobo doesn't care much about...things,” he said. He almost said
worldly
things, which was the way she always phrased it, but something made him leave that part out. “This is the one item she treasures, and if there's any way to get it back for her, I'm going to do it.”

“I know.” Ruthie wrung her hands, then retightened her ponytail. “I feel just terrible about it. Sobo has been so good to me. If there was any way I could find her doll...”

“There is,” he said, taking the kissing dolls from her and placing them on the counter. He dropped his hands on her shoulders and pulled her toward him. “We'll put our heads together. Between the two of us, we should be able to cover all possible bases. From this point on, you and I will be joined at the hip until Sobo's doll is found.”

Chapter Three

A
t the Bristows' house that evening, Pop took Ruthie and Gray to the downstairs guest room to show them the progress he'd made clearing out excess odds and ends accumulated over the years. Ruthie used the short delay to try to decide the best way to break the news to him.

Since sleeping upstairs was out of the question for a while, an adjustable twin bed had been pushed against the far wall for Sobo during her recovery from hip surgery. A recliner had been moved in here from the den, presumably where Pop would sleep, and Ruthie was touched by the devotion he held for his wife.

Her dream was that someday she would have someone who would love her that much, even after fifty years together. She glanced over at Gray, who ran his hand over a glass-front display case.

“You did a great job clearing out this room, Pop,” he said. “Sobo will be very happy.”

Indeed he had. The clean design of the room reflected Naoko's Japanese heritage and minimalism. Simple shades for the windows, a small wool rug beside the bed, a nightstand and a dresser adorned with painted branches of cherry blossoms.

Pop smiled and puffed out his chest. The action made him seem more like a young boy than a white-haired man in his early eighties. “No
ranzatsu
in here,” he said. “That case will eventually go in the den, where we'll display my army things and her doll. Memories of when we met. But for now they'll stay in here.” He grew oddly quiet for a moment. Finally, he said, “She needs to see them.”

Although Ruthie had been close to the Bristows for eleven years and had asked Sobo on various occasions about their romantic beginnings, she still didn't know how the pair had met. The elderly woman had deflected her questions with a bow of her head and started talking about one of the household projects she always had going. Ruthie made a mental note to ask Pop about it at a more appropriate time.

He laid a hand on Gray's shoulder and squeezed. “Give me a hand to move it over here, where she'll be able to see everything from the bed.”

After the men maneuvered the furniture into position came the moment she and Gray had been dreading. Breaking the news to Pop.

“About the doll,” Gray began. “It's, uh, temporarily misplaced. It may be a while before we can get it back to you.”

Ruthie had never known him to tap-dance around a subject the way he had just now.

“A while? Your grandmother will need it here when she comes home from the hospital. In a few days, God willing.” A worried frown lined his brow. “And what do you mean by temporarily misplaced?”

Ruthie looped her hand through the crook of Pop's arm and they all walked to the kitchen. “I appreciate Gray for not laying blame at my feet,” she said, “but the truth is that the doll was mistakenly sold from my shop. It's my fault for not setting your boxes aside until I finished taking inventory of them.” She hated to disappoint him and avoided looking at the wounded expression in Pop's pale blue eyes while she filled him in on how the doll came to be sold.

He patted her arm. “If anyone is to blame, it's my own silly self for taking the wrong box to your store. How could you have known any different?”

“I promise you, I will do everything in my power to get it back.”

Gray reached into a drawer near the sink and withdrew a pad of paper and a pen, then set them in front of Ruthie. “We should create a strategy list. Make sure we cover all the bases.”

Ruthie started by listing what they'd already done to try to find the doll's purchaser. “One. Go through my customer list and start making calls to see if one of them might be our mystery lady. Two. Ask the neighboring business owners if they recognize the description Paisley gave of her.”

Pop sat beside her at the table and touched a finger to the paper. “Did you pray?”

She smiled at the gentle reminder. “Of course. It should have gone at the top of the list—that's the first thing I did.”

“Me, too.”

He hugged her and cut a glance at Gray, who paced the floor like a military strategist planning a covert operation.

“Let's pull the security tapes from your store,” he said, pausing in midstride. “That should give us a picture of the customer who bought the doll.”

Ruthie slumped in her chair. “That's a great idea, but unfortunately, Abundance doesn't have a security camera.” At the pained look on Gray's face, she quickly added, “Yet,” but it was Pop who decided to belabor the point.

“You should have a camera in the store. And an alarm system connected to a dispatcher.” He leaned toward her, concern underscoring his words. “I meant to tell you this earlier—there was a report on
News at Noon
today about a prowler on Strawberry Street. I want you and your friends to be protected in case someone should take a notion to break in.”

“Strawberry Street is a good distance away, so I'm sure we won't have to worry about that person bothering the shop.” The reports of someone lurking around homes and small stores had actually been closer to the house on Floyd Avenue that she still rented from the Bristows, but she wasn't about to bring that up. “Even so, I'll mention to Savannah and Paisley that we should beef up our security.”

An idea occurred to her.

“Maybe Restore My Sole or one of the other shops near Abundance has a surveillance video of the parking lot. We might be able to get an image of the customer or, better yet, the number from her license plate.”

“If she drove,” Gray pointed out.

He was right. Many of their customers came from nearby residential areas such as Ellwood Avenue, which ran parallel to Cary Street behind their shop and was within easy walking distance. Or they were local employees who strolled over during their breaks or after work.

“I'll come by tomorrow after work to check out any videos your neighbors may have.” He paused as if considering what he was about to say next. “And I'll do a walk-through of Abundance to determine what kind of security system will work best for your setup.”

A lot had changed between them, but the one thing that remained the same about Gray was his fierce protectiveness. They might not be a couple anymore, but she knew that wouldn't stop him from doing everything in his power to keep her safe.

“You really don't need to go to the trouble,” she assured him. “I'm sure we'll be fine until I make an appointment for someone to install an alarm.”

Gray's engineering degree had been put to use securing facilities and equipment during his time in the army. Since his return home, he'd parlayed that experience into a thriving business designing and installing security systems for businesses and government offices. Asking him to outfit her little shop with a security camera and alarm would be like using a howitzer to kill a fly.

He ripped the list off the pad of paper and stuffed it in her hand. She moved to pull away, but he held her in his grip.

“Don't delay,” he warned. “Wishing and hoping are not enough to keep you safe.”

Once again, his protective side was showing. The odds of the prowler making an unwanted appearance at the Abundance shops were slim, but when Gray was in defender mode, arguing with him was pointless.

And though he didn't say it, his meaning came through loud and clear.

Prayers aren't enough, either.

* * *

That night in bed, Ruthie's prayers weren't enough to take her thoughts off Gray and his steadfast resistance to all things related to faith and the Bible. Like a cold-case investigator who keeps searching for clues in years-old evidence, she reached into her nightstand drawer and withdrew the letter that he'd sent her from Afghanistan. The paper, now tattered, held a place in her Bible in the book of Ruth.

That Wednesday night at church, she'd been excited when Sobo had handed her the old-fashioned letter from her sweetheart and her family and friends had watched expectantly as she'd read it. Something had felt wrong in the first sentence when he'd told her, “I'm sending this letter by way of my grandparents so you won't be alone when you read what I have to say.”

Even now, four years later, a rock still formed in the pit of her stomach whenever she read those troubling words. But just as she had done back then, she forced herself to continue.

Something happened that has caused me to question my beliefs. I won't burden you by sharing the things I've seen, but suffice it to say that God—if there is such a being—let me down when I needed Him most. While I've been wrestling with this bad blow over the past few months, you've been steadfastly sending encouraging letters and emails. You must have sensed I was going through a tough time, so you tried to cheer me up and urged me to lean on God. I love you, and I loved receiving each and every one of your notes, but they only served to illustrate how far apart we've grown.

She teared up at the knowledge that whatever had caused Gray to lose his faith was something he would not—perhaps could not—discuss with her or anyone else. Pop, a veteran of the Korean War, had urged her to give Gray time. Give him time to sort through the unspeakable experiences he'd endured.

But how much time would it take? For his sake, she prayed he would find answers to the questions that troubled him.

She forced herself to read that paragraph again, knowing the answer to Gray's trouble lay in his belief that God had abandoned him at a time when he needed Him most.

Just as it had done that fateful night, the sound of blood pounded in her ears, nearly deafening her, and she became aware that her breathing was fast and shallow. Steeling herself to the pain that still stabbed every time she read his words, she sucked in a deep breath and blinked back the moisture that clouded her vision.

Although I'm not sure how I feel about God right now, I do believe there's something to the warning in the Bible about being yoked together with unbelievers. I love you and know how much you love the Lord, but I can't pretend to believe so I can be with you. It's not fair to either of us.

Like a passerby at a horrible traffic accident, all she could do was continue to stare at the page in front of her and read what came next.

It may hurt now, and believe me when I say it hurts me more than I can express, but it's best for both of us if I release you from our engagement so you can find someone else. Someone whose faith is as strong as your own.

You're a good person, Ruthie, and you deserve someone who won't hold you back. I'll understand if you hate me for this, but I will always care for you, even though we can't be together. I wish you much love and happiness.

Gray

A fist clenched around Ruthie's throat, and once again the room threatened to close in on her. She refolded the letter and returned it to the drawer, as if that simple action might take away the fresh pain that hit her every time she read it.

Hate was something she could never feel for Gray. Anguish, confusion, yes. Although she didn't fully comprehend the reason behind his change of heart, she'd never doubted his motives to do what he considered best for both of them.

Too numb to cry again, she leaned back against the pillow and pressed her hands to her forehead. Because of her faith, she had lost favor with Gray—the man she'd believed, and still did believe, that God intended for her.

With the Bible resting on her lap, she returned the letter to mark the pages of the book of Ruth.

“Please bring him back, Lord,” she said. “To You and to me.”

* * *

The following evening after the shops closed, Gray pocketed the parking lot surveillance tape he'd collected from the neighboring classic-auto supply store and walked through the Abundance building to search for possible security problems. His civilian career involved planning high-end security systems for large businesses and government agencies, which might have been the reason Ruthie had tried to decline his offer to set up a system here. But he suspected her reluctance was less about the size of the job, a departure from his usual contracts, and more about him.

After he was done with this, he'd cut out of here and go watch the tape. With a little luck, maybe it would offer up not only an image of the woman who'd bought his grandmother's doll but also a clear view of her car's license tag.

Ruthie and her friends buzzed around Milk & Honey in preparation for an evening neighborhood event.

Nikki walked by with an armload of food and plopped a plate of finger sandwiches in his hands. “Mind giving me a hand with this? We'll just set them on the table out back.”

He followed her outside, where a few Ellwood Avenue neighbors from across the alley had begun gathering. A cheerful yellow cloth covered the imperfections of a beat-up picnic table. A couple of pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade sat at one end, so he set the plate of sandwiches at the opposite end with the meat pies, cookies and banana pudding.

“Oh, good. You're staying for our Sunset Blessings gathering.” Paisley stuck an empty paper plate in his hands. “Help yourself. There's plenty of food.”

Blessings? He'd already managed to bow out of attending the church prayer group last night after visiting Naoko with Pop and Ruthie. And he had no desire to attend a neighborhood kumbaya meeting, even if it did involve delicious-looking food.

“I don't— I mean...”

Ruthie seemed to sense his discomfort and attempted to reassure him. “Sunset Blessings is just an opportunity for us to be grateful at the end of the day for all we have and to share our abundance with others. Paisley started it by saving leftover goodies from Milk & Honey for people in need. It eventually grew to include our residential and business neighbors. Now everybody brings a little something, and folks enjoy not having to cook a couple of nights a week.”

That was when he noticed the “people in need.” A scruffy-looking pair of men and a girl who appeared to be in her teens joined the group with hellos and nods. The girl set a plastic cup with white flowers on the table, and the men waited for the ladies to help themselves to the food before filling their own plates.