Save the Date (27 page)

“That woman with the sun visor just offered me prescription meds, and I’m pretty sure the punch is spiked.”

“It’s just Metamucil.” He checked his phone and shot off a quick text as he spoke. “Help me with this craft business, and I’ll take you anywhere you want when we’re done.”

“
Aliens Take Over Thailand
just opened at the mall cinema.”

“You have the worst taste.”

“I know. You should hear who I’m engaged to.” She watched him break out his phone again. “Alex, focus. These are not people who understand an obsession with a cell phone.”

He frowned as he put it down on a table beside him. “I need three of me.”

“To usher in Armageddon? The world couldn’t handle that.” She held out her hand. “Give me the phone.”

“No way.”

Mr. MVP wouldn’t be able to turn down a challenge. “I don’t think you can go through the next thirty minutes without it.”

“Thirty? That’s all?”

“You won’t survive five.”

He smiled for a pair of photographers there to capture the event. “Let’s make it interesting, shall we?”

Heat was an unfurling bloom in her stomach. “What did you have in mind?”

“If I win, you spend Fourth of July with me and my family—you know, the event you volunteered me for.”

“And when you lose?” Drawing from Clare’s last lesson, Lucy composed her face into an expression a beauty queen would be proud of as the cameras clicked. Chin angled, eyes engaged.

“I’ll take you to that stupid movie.”

She held out her hand. “Done.”

He took her hand, planted a warm kiss to her wrist. “Want to make out to seal the deal?”

She took his phone and forced a sigh she didn’t feel. “I’d probably fall asleep.” Lucy scanned the craft supplies on the table before them. She had taught enough Sunday school to know when she was looking at the makings of a bird feeder.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’re about to begin.” Lucy couldn’t believe this was her voice coming out. Loud, clear, confident. Her social skills might’ve needed work, but she was a rock star with a glue gun. “Alex and I are so glad you invited us for craft time. As he talks about his ideas for expanding senior citizen benefits, I’m going to walk you through the process of building a lovely birdhouse. So take your seats, load up on punch, and let’s get to work.”

Thirty minutes later Lucy glanced at her watch and saw her extended lunch break dwindling. She had dropped Marinell off at the children’s hospital with a promise to pick her up when her date with Alex was done. Grabbing her purse, she gave Alex a quick kiss and slipped out through the crowd.

Driving down the highway, Lucy clenched the leather of the steering wheel. She had survived the retirement home, but her grip on her heart was another matter.
Lord, help me to stay focused. Who am I to have wishful thoughts about Alex?

She pulled into the parking lot of the children’s hospital and rode the elevator to the third floor. She was met in the hall by two nurses rushing out of the boy’s room, and Marinell standing in the doorway, sobbing.

“What’s happening?”

Marinell shook her head, the tears free-falling down her dark cheeks. “My brother . . . something’s wrong. He got sick. And couldn’t stay awake. All these nurses came and—”

“Slow down, Marinell.” Lucy led her back into the empty room and into a chair. “What did the nurses say?”

“Something about an infection. One of the doctors mentioned surgery. I couldn’t even understand all of it. My mom was moving today. She didn’t know where she was staying tonight. I have to tell her.” She sniffed and swiped at her nose. “His face . . . his color was bad.” Marinell’s shoulders shook as Lucy pulled her into a hug. “I’m so scared.”

Lucy knew all about unfairness. About being responsible for more than you were ready for at eighteen.

“We’ll find your mom.”

And then Marinell said the words that ripped the lid off of Lucy’s composure. “Would . . . would you say a prayer? Can you just . . . ask God to help my brother?”

Tears thickened Lucy’s throat, and she took a few deep breaths until she could find her voice. “Of course.” Keeping a firm hold on Marinell, Lucy prayed to the God of healing, of help, and miracles. She asked him to restore Carlos’s kidney. To comfort his fears. To give strength to Marinell, and to help them find her mother.

“Amen,” Lucy said, lifting her head. “Now let’s go talk to a nurse so we’ll know exactly what to tell your mom.”

A flash from the TV overhead caught Lucy’s eye. A familiar image of Will Sinclair dominated the screen, sending Lucy racing toward the bedside table to grab the remote.

An anchor’s voice filled the room.

“
—
received word that Ben Hayes, one of the two reporters presumed dead in a school explosion in Afghanistan over a year ago, is now resting in a German hospital
.”

Lucy clicked the volume button again and moved closer to the television.

“According to Hayes, he and CNN correspondent Will Sinclair were in the school, but Hayes was pulled out immediately after the blast and captured by insurgents. He is the only known survivor. We will pass on details as they emerge. More on the hour . .
.”

Alex. She had to call him.

“Marinell, go to the nurse’s station. I’ll be right there.”

Lucy wasted no time, frantically digging through her purse for her phone. She punched the number that would connect her to Alex.

And then her purse rang.

She sucked in a breath as she reached for the other phone.

Alex’s.

She had taken it at the retirement home and forgotten to give it back.

Checking his display, he had thirty-six missed calls. Half of them were from someone named Kat. A memory replayed of Alex on the phone the night he had taken her to the ER. Was he seeing this Kat? Had he been seeing her all along?

She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind as the pressing reality intruded. Will Sinclair was dead.

Chapter Twenty-nine

T
wo hours, four abandoned houses, and three homeless shelters later, Lucy found Esther Hernandez.

The faded sign on the door said CONDEMNED, but Marinell led Lucy around the back of the decaying duplex, jiggled off a screen, and lifted the window of what once was a living room.

“Are you coming?” Marinell asked from inside the house.

Lucy hoisted her leg over, feeling a give in her black slacks as the wooden splinters caught the material. That was what she got for listening to Clare and paying a hundred dollars for a pair of pants. Whoever said money was the only way to buy quality could just kiss her multicolored underwear.

“Mami?” Marinell called.

The stench of rotten garbage hit Lucy’s nostrils, and she tried not to gag. No windows were open, and the heat was enough to buckle the walls. The only air came from a hole in the roof over a collapsed fireplace.

“Mami?”

Rustling came from the front of the house. “
Mija
?”

Mrs. Hernandez peeked her head out from a plastic-covered doorway off the tiny hall. Marinell ran to her mother, collapsed against her, and told her about Carlos in between broken sobs. Lucy didn’t remember much high school Spanish, but no translation was needed to see that Mrs. Hernandez was a mother barely surviving the weight of her breaking heart.

“
Mi hijo
.” Mrs. Hernandez held onto her daughter and shared in her tears. “
Mi hijo
.”

Lucy was an outsider, standing on the fringe of this family’s pain, and for the millionth time she thought of Alex. She couldn’t leave Marinell, but she had to get to him. If only she hadn’t been so punch-drunk on his charm at lunch, she would’ve remembered to return his phone.

On the floor beside a dirty backpack sat an empty sandwich bag and a juice box. This would explain Marinell’s lack of appetite. She was handing food off to her mother. That would have to stop—just as soon as they got Mrs. Hernandez out of this hovel.

“You can’t stay here,” Lucy said to Esther.

The woman wiped her face and shook her head. Marinell translated. “She has nowhere to go. She has no car and wants to stay close to the hospital so she can walk.”

To let a family member stay at Saving Grace was against the rules. But the pressure on Lucy’s conscience was so strong, God was practically writing Mrs. Hernandez an invitation himself. “Get your things,” Lucy said. “We’re all going back to Saving Grace.” Esther could stay in Marinell’s room. Somehow they would make it work, at least for now.

Mrs. Hernandez’s hands flew as she spoke to her daughter.

“My mom just wants to see Carlos. She won’t leave this house.”

“Mrs. Hernandez, you’re no good to your son sick. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen to you if you don’t get out of this place.” Lucy heard scratching overhead, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t the Prize Patrol trying to make a surprise entrance. “You’ll spend the night at Saving Grace, and I’ll make sure you have transportation to the hospital whenever you want.” Marinell repeated in Spanish as Lucy mentally sorted through her housing options for Esther.

“My mom says thank you.” Beside Marinell, her mother nodded, tears flowing unchecked down her sallow cheeks.

Despite Mrs. Hernandez’s matted hair and ripe smell, Lucy drew her into a hug. “It’s going to be okay.”

Though Lucy had no idea how.

The covered dishes were already arriving. Any good Southerner knew a life couldn’t officially be over until the first green-bean casserole arrived.

Alex sat in Marcus Sinclair’s home office. He could hear the front doorbell and signaled for his dad to shut the door.

Ben Hayes stared back from the computer screen on the desk, visibly weak but very much alive.

“You’re sure it was him?” It was the third time Alex had asked. He couldn’t let it go.

“I’m sorry,” Hayes said into the laptop camera from his bed in Germany. “I know it’s not the outcome you and your family hoped for.”

It had taken Alex and his team a mere ten minutes to make the many calls to connect to Ben on Skype.

“
You
were pulled from the fire,” Alex said. “Why do you assume no one else was?”

Ben’s voice was faint and raspy. “The place burned to ashes.” He paused for a moment to collect himself. “I was conscious when I was dragged away. I heard . . . I heard the screams.” Alex closed his eyes as Ben continued. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sinclair. No one could’ve survived. It’s just not possible.”

The pain wasn’t an ache. It was violent waves crashing until he thought he’d sink straight down. His brother. Gone.

Alex drove his fingers through his hair. He could hear his father sniffing behind him. “Where was my brother when the bomb hit?”

“If I remember correctly . . . he was telling a story and the children were acting it out.”

That was so Will. Alex could see him surrounded by children, eager faces beaming as they waited for their cues.

His father scooted his chair closer to Alex. “What was my son’s last day like?” He swiped at the tears falling down his cheeks. “Was Will happy?”

“There was a lot of laughter, Mr. Sinclair.” Hayes was gaunt, but he smiled. “The children loved him. He told them stories, played games, gave each one gifts from the States. Your son died doing what he loved. He was making a difference—making the world a better place.”

There were voices in the background on the other end. Ben nodded to someone off camera. “It’s my therapy time. Gotta get up and walk the halls. We’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you.” Alex’s words sounded impotent and hollow. Just like his ravaged heart.

He shut down the connection on his dad’s Mac. The room was silent and heavy. Until his father bent over and threw his head into his hands. His choking sobs sliced through Alex until he thought he would bleed from them. This was his father. Broken.

Alex clutched his own fist in his hand. He had no idea what to do. He had been able to fix everything in his life. Through hard work, some cash, there had been nothing he couldn’t have. Until now. No amount of money could bring his brother back. No endorsement deal would fill this bottomless ache.

His father slowly lifted his head. “Son”—red-rimmed eyes looked straight into Alex’s—“I want you to pray for us.”

Him? Now? He was the guy who had pushed God aside until a year ago. Hadn’t needed a savior. But after the news first hit of Will, he’d realized it had been a mirage, an illusion. His hands were useless. His bank account—worthless.
You have my attention now, God. Is that what you wanted?
Alex may have pushed God into the background, but he still knew who was in charge of miracles. And he had started begging for one the day of that fateful call.

Coughing past the lump in his throat, Alex reached out his hand and rested it on his father’s shoulder. Marcus Sinclair latched on to Alex, drawing his son near as he bowed his head.

Alex opened his mouth and waited as a new wave of pain rolled through his system. His body ached like he had just climbed out of a three-man tackle. “God . . . we pray for peace for our family.”
Are you listening? Do you hear me? Is this what I get for shutting you out until I had nowhere else to turn?
“Give us healing and comfort. Help us to—” He stopped. His mind searched for the right words, something to appeal to the God of his childhood, the God he had once believed in with all his heart before fame had become his answer. But Alex’s well was dry. Not a single profound or inspiring word in him. “Just . . . pull us through.”