My Foolish Heart (23 page)

She didn't know how to interpret the crazy, sweet swirl in her chest.

She'd had a date.

And not one panic attack.

Issy introduced her show and went immediately to calls. Saturday night often saw a flurry of activity on the message boards and a full queue of callers, too many lonely hearts sitting at home.

Within a week's time, she'd seen a double bump in her ratings. One week.

She owed it all to BoyNextDoor.

And she really was pretty pitiful because, despite her amazing date with Caleb, she still hoped BoyNextDoor called.

You like him.
Lucy's accusation swelled in her head even as she fielded calls. No. She merely had an academic interest in seeing if her advice had worked.

“Go ahead, HoneyBunny.”

“Hello, Miss Foolish Heart. I want to tell you that I'm a huge fan, and I'm holding out for my perfect romance.”

“That's great, Honey—”

“And I think you're absolutely right about making that list and sticking to it. I just dumped my boyfriend of three years. I only wish it hadn't taken me that long to see that he was only an eight.”

An eight. Issy did a mental calculation. With
no football players
taken off the list, and
no Neanderthal
,
well-groomed
, and
responsible
checked off, not to mention
kind to animals
and
courteous
, that landed Caleb soundly at five out of nine. And if she counted
good listener
, Caleb was up to a six. The biggie—his faith—still remained. But an eight didn't sound so bad, perhaps.

“Maybe you should wait, HoneyBunny. See if he doesn't eventually—”

“Nope. It's ten or nothing. Thank you, Miss Foolish Heart, for helping me set my standards.”

She hung up.

Issy listened to dead air.

“Okay. Uh, next caller . . . Romeo?”

“Hello.” A man's voice, low, deep. “I want to know if all the stuff you're telling that other guy—about doing her list and cleaning up—is working.”

“BoyNextDoor?”

“Yeah. I want to know if it works.”

“It works, Romeo.”

“Would it work on you?”

She paused. “Yes. It would.”

It would. Because she'd advised BoyNextDoor to do exactly what she'd wanted Caleb to do for her. Take care of his house, clean up, do something kind for her. Make her spaghetti.

And it
had
worked.

Weird.

“I think BoyNextDoor should call in and tell us himself,” Romeo said.

“Me too. BoyNextDoor, if you're out there, give us a call. We want to know if you landed a date with the girl of your dreams.”

Even as she said it, though, a screw turned in her heart. What if he had? And enjoyed it? What if he was falling for the Girl?

Wasn't that what she'd hoped for?

“Thank you for calling, Romeo.”

She let an advertisement play, then opened the message boards, checked the online users.

No BoyNextDoor.

He was probably out on his date.

She glanced next door. Caleb's light fanned out into the night.

What on earth was she doing up here, hoping a faceless, even nameless man might call in when she'd driven out of her yard a perfectly good . . . six.

The advertisement stopped, and she scrolled through her callers.

BoyNextDoor waited in the queue. Her heart gave the slightest unruly jump.

She shouldn't, but . . . she ignored the other calls and clicked on his name.

“Hello, BoyNextDoor. Great to see you tonight.”

“I know a challenge when I hear one,” he said, a smile in his voice.

Was it possible to fall for someone, just because of his voice?

She cleared her throat and hopefully her head. “Inquiring minds want to know—did you get your date?”

He paused, and in that moment, she hoped . . . No. It wasn't fair, she knew, but she wanted BoyNextDoor for herself. Okay, maybe not herself, but . . .

She closed her eyes. How could she have a crush on a name in a discussion forum? A voice over the air?

“Yes, actually, I did. Just like you told me to do, Miss Foolish Heart. I did something she liked. And we had dinner.”

“That's great, BoyNextDoor.” But even she heard the wavering in her voice. “Now, just keep it up.”

He laughed again. “Miss Foolish Heart, how can I thank you?”

“Live happily ever after.” She laughed too, and it sounded wretchedly fake. She prayed her listeners wouldn't see—er,
hear
through it.

“The fact is, I didn't think she'd like a guy like me,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don't know. Baggage, I guess.” He drew in a breath. “She's not the only one disabled. I lost part of my leg in Iraq.”

Oh.
Oh . . .
“I'm so sorry.”

“I'm okay now, but I remember, after the attack, realizing that my leg had been blown off, I just wanted to die. I only saw myself for what I wasn't. How I was less of a man. It took me about six months to realize that maybe I could be more of a man than I had been. My injury made me work harder and think about my life and how I wanted to live. It made me see that God had spared me. And it made me reach beyond myself. I did that today. Reached beyond myself and into her life. And I think . . . I think she likes me too.”

She saw him then, a guy with a crew cut, maybe on some military base in Texas or Georgia, his leg propped up on a sofa, his upper body thick with muscle. Blue, solemn eyes, filled with determination.

“I am sure she does, BoyNextDoor. Now don't be afraid to give her your heart.”

He took another breath. “Let's not rush things.”

She laughed, and across the line, he did too.

“I'm not done with you yet, Miss Foolish Heart.”

Something about the way he said it slicked the moisture from her throat. Oh, this was bad.

“Call anytime, BoyNextDoor.” She disconnected and went immediately to commercial.

His avatar appeared on the forum, requesting a chat.

No, no, she had a show to run and . . . She hit Accept.

MissFoolishHeart: I'm fine. Just thinking about your story. I'm so sorry about your leg.

BoyNextDoor: Thanks. Although, if you knew me before the attack, you'd know that this probably saved my life.

MissFoolishHeart: Oh?

BoyNextDoor: I grew up in a small town, followed by a small college that seemed a bit too tame at the time. So I sort of decided to make my own rules. Then when I went full-time in the military, I ended up living a life I wasn't real proud of. Really embarrassed myself and God, frankly. He got my attention in that ditch. Now I live each day grateful for grace.

MissFoolishHeart: Still, it sounds terrifying. How did you live through it?

BoyNextDoor: 2 Timothy 1:7. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” I kept repeating that until a medical unit found me. I determined that if I lived, I wouldn't let fear take over my life but would instead let His power and self-discipline pour through me.

MissFoolishHeart: And love?

She gritted her teeth. Sometimes her fingers got away from her.

BoyNextDoor: That too. In fact, God's love is perfect, and He puts that into us, so we can love the way He loves. Most of all, because of His perfect love, I can trust Him, whatever happens.

MissFoolishHeart: Trust. I don't know. How do you trust a God who seems so unpredictable?

BoyNextDoor: He's only unpredictable to us. Even as night came and the pain invaded every cell in my body, I kept thinking, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Which meant that even in this dark place, He knew what He was doing, and no matter what happened, it was good.

MissFoolishHeart: How can it be good for you to lose your leg?

BoyNextDoor: I don't think God is as interested in my leg as He is my heart. And I wasn't exactly the man I could be at that time. He woke me up in that ditch, made me realize that He'd saved me from destruction so many other ways. Sure, it took everything inside me to learn to walk again, but I'm not the man I was before I lost my leg. And that's a good thing.

MissFoolishHeart: So you can walk?

BoyNextDoor: Yes. And run. And even, when no one is looking, dance. But it's not pretty.

MissFoolishHeart: I'd like to see that.

Shoot, she should delete that.

But she waited, her cursor blinking.

BoyNextDoor: I wish you could.

The commercial ended, the intro to her show spooling back up.

MissFoolishHeart: Don't be a stranger.

BoyNextDoor: Not to you.

As she went off-line, Issy hated herself just a little for wishing he could truly be the boy next door.

13

“You put this all together? I'm impressed, Seb.” Bam paged through the business plan, enclosed in a file folder and printed out with Lucy's ancient ink-jet printer last night. “But why didn't Lucy bring this in herself?”

“She's up to her neck all day at the donut shop. She said she already met with you and I told her I'd run it by. She'll make an appointment with you after you've reviewed it.”

And he'd wanted to plead her case without her around. She had enough stress in her life already, not to mention fatigue. Seb had dropped her off from their date way past her bedtime at the late hour of 9 p.m. after they returned from dinner at the Trout House. His second first date with Lucy—the perfect way to spend a Sunday evening.

At the restaurant, they'd watched an otter gambol around the dock as they sat outside on the deck, cordoned off with thick white ropes. He missed Lucy's long hair, but the wind would have made a shambles of it, and the short hair only accentuated her face, made her eyes appear twice as beautifully large.

They'd pulled him in all during dinner and he barely twined together reasonable conversation.

He forced his focus back to Bam. “As you can see, World's Best Donuts could easily turn a substantial profit with the addition of another window. It would double the foot traffic and pull customers off the street. And she can probably do it for less than five grand.”

Bam set the folder on his desk. “The problem is, she's three months behind in her loan payments, and she has a contract for deed on her place. I'm not sure the holder of the contract will go for more debt.”

“If she can get the window in by Labor Day, she'll make enough to cover her back payments and meet this new loan payment. You know, with the autumn colors up here, she can make enough to pay the entire thing off before November, when the tourist season ends.” Seb scooted forward in his leather chair, flipped the pages. “I made a payment schedule here. It's nearly risk-free.”

“Nothing is risk-free, Seb.” Bam sat back. “But you're right. It's a solid plan. I'll take it to my board and see what they say.”

“The sooner the better, Bam. She needs that window, and now. Gary Starr and his crew could get on it this weekend.”

“Gary does good work.” Bam tossed the proposal onto his desk. “What's the plan for practice tonight?”

“I'm planning on drilling the team on the play we taught them at the last practice.” It had scored at least twenty-one points during his last season as quarterback, and he'd even felt the old magic as he and P-Train ran the play for the boys. “I think they'll be ready for Friday.”

“Listen, I didn't want to say anything, but I've been working with these guys, and I'm worried they can't make the tackles. They're hitting with their weak side—if Knight's team knows how to slough off the defenders, they're going to walk all over us. We need more practice on fundamentals.”

“Of course we do. But we'll get it after Friday, after they name me coach. Right now, I just want to have fun and win.” Seb sounded confident, smiled broadly, but . . .

He had noticed their sloppy tackling. Noticed the fumbles, the missed passes. And his team tired fast. He might have spent more time on conditioning—but he'd do that later too. After Friday's scrimmage, they still had two weeks before the first conference game.

Plenty of time to whip the boys into shape. And think of all the amazing plays they'd have in their playbook.

“Your call, Coach. I can't make it to practice today—school board meeting. But I'll be there tomorrow. And of course, I expect the entire town will turn out for the game.” Bam raised a dark eyebrow, added a smirk. “By the way, I saw you at the Trout House last night. With Lucy.”

“Yeah. We had a date.”

A date that ended with him kissing her on her porch, Lucy wrapped in his arms.

Bam shook his head. “Maybe it's none of my business, but Lucy Maguire is not the girl you left behind. She's not in your league, pal.”

Seb blinked at him. “I'm trying hard not to hurt you right now.”

“I'm just saying that Lucy hasn't exactly done anything with her life since high school.”

“Running her own business doesn't count?”

“You can do better. I don't want to see you taken out at the knees again. Especially for a girl like Lucy.”

Seb stared at him, a terrible roaring in his mind. “What do you mean, a girl like Lucy?”

Bam gave a harsh laugh. “Do you seriously think you're the only one who's slept with Lucy Maguire?”

Seb could barely form words. “Listen, Bam, we all did things years ago we want to hide.”

“Lucy and I had a one-night stand a few summers ago.”

The words punched Seb, then sank low, into his chest. He fought to find his voice. “You've been married to Joann for five years.”

“We were separated at the time. I'm not proud of it.”

Seb stared at him, a violent whooshing in his head. “I don't believe you. You always had a thing for her—you never could believe that she chose me. What is this, some sort of payback? I thought you were on her side—”