The Calendar of New Beginnings (41 page)

In many ways it felt like her adult life had started here. Within these walls, she’d been exposed to a world beyond Dare Valley, one that was at once complex and flawed, dangerous and exciting. This place had been her salvation, and Arthur her teacher.

When she stopped in his doorway, he was already looking down his nose at her over his glasses. She couldn’t help but grin.

“About time you came to visit this old man,” he huffed out, standing up. “If I didn’t know you’d been busy with my great-nephew, I would have taken it personally. Now, come and give me a kiss.”

To pull his chain, she said, “You never asked me to kiss you when I interned here.”

He barked out a laugh. “Good God, no. Who do you think I am? Some sleazy politician?”

She made her way over to him and kissed his weathered cheek. “Not in a million years. Mind if I close the door?”

He arched a brow. “I like when people ask me that. Means they have something good to tell me. Is it a story?”

Sadly, she shook her head. He huffed some more.

“Then it’s personal problems,” he said, sitting back in his squeaky old chair. “Go ahead and close the door, but I swear, I should start charging you young people money for all the advice I dish out.”

She settled into the same scuffed-up wooden chair that had graced the front of his desk since she was a teenager. Probably earlier even. “Any of it good?” she asked.

He gave her a look. “Still got that sassy mouth on you, I’m glad to hear. When you came home, I thought you might have lost it. You looked pretty done in. Are you going to finally tell me what brought you back to Dare Valley? Tanner said it was your story to tell despite my inducements.”

Nodding, she put her hands to her thighs. “I thought I might lead with that and then tell you about my problem.”

Waving his hand, he said, “Then get on with it. Who knows how many hours I have left in this world?”

That eased the pressure in her diaphragm, and so she launched into the story about the attack on the village she’d been in, taking him through the events and the subsequent outcome. His face didn’t give a thing away, not even when she shared the details about the condition of her right eye.

“Well,” she finally burst out. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

He rubbed his cheek. “Journalism isn’t without its risks, especially in the places you visit. Do you regret going?”

“To the village?” She shrugged. “Sometimes, but I know it could have happened anywhere.”

“Correct,” he said in his tough-as-nails tone. “Wrong time, wrong place. It sucks, as you young people say, but that’s one of the realities of reporting in high-risk areas. Someone has to do it. You decided it would be you, and for that, me and a whole bunch of other people out there are grateful. Here’s another question for you.”

It touched her to hear him thank her for putting her life on the line to report world events. Not too many people did that. “Shoot.”

“Could you have done anything differently that day in the village besides being there?” he asked, putting his elbows on the desk.

She’d thought it through plenty of times. Who didn’t wonder if an event could have been prevented? “No, there was nothing.”

“All right,” he said, sitting back again. “So, you have vision problems, and you’re a photographer. Double whammy.”

Her throat was growing tight. “Double whammy.”

“The big question is: do you want to keep taking photographs of world events and writing stories about them?”

She released a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Even if you get hurt again?” he asked, his eyes zeroing in on her face.

It took courage to admit how she really felt. “I’m still scared of going back out there. And it’s not just because I fear I won’t be able to take the same kind of photos again. I don’t want to get hurt again or hurt worse.”

He tapped his desk emphatically. “That sounds pretty smart to me. Only a moron wanders into a war zone and says he’s not afraid. I told you when you went off on your first assignment that fear is only fear. It only has the power you give it.”

Right now, she felt like she was battling every shadow inside her while Andy seemed to have finally conquered his. “That’s a good transition to my other problem.”

She looked down at her hands, feeling suddenly awkward. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never imagined asking her mentor advice about relationships.

“I can already tell your problem concerns my great-nephew,” Arthur said in his gravelly voice. “Best spit it out. I’m aging here.”

That made her look up. A short smile tugged at her lips. “It might be a little embarrassing.”

His head darted back. “If this is about sex, you can forget it. I might dispense some common sense advice to you young people since you don’t seem to have a lick of it, but I am not a sex therapist. For the love of Pete!”

Now she was blushing. “It’s not about sex. It’s about…”

“Yes? Yes?” he prodded, leaning over his desk.

“Andy wants me to consider having a future with him,” she said, clutching her hands. “Here in Dare Valley.”

“Mmmm,” he mused, rubbing his chin.
“Interesting.
I have to admit I’m impressed.”

Now she was confused. “Impressed? I’m not following you.”

“I lost my wife after spending fifty-some years with her, and it crushed me.” He tapped a finger to the picture of Harriet he kept on his desk. “I’ve always wondered what I would have done if she’d been taken from me as young as Kim was taken from our dear Andy.”

Everything inside Lucy seemed to still, and she leaned forward to listen.

“I’ve always said a real man realizes the importance of marriage and family,” Arthur said, looking back at her. “Seems Andy has found a way to do so twice in his young life, and that takes more courage than most people possess. And let’s face it…after losing one woman, it takes big balls to want to forge a life with another whose career could kill her. That impresses the hell out of me.”

Shell-shocked, she sat back in her chair. She’d been so focused on her own feelings, she hadn’t stopped to think how much courage it must have taken for Andy to visualize a future with her. He’d told her he wasn’t afraid anymore, but she hadn’t completely gotten it until now.
 

How many times had he told her he’d struggled with the idea of dating again, let alone remarrying, before Lucy’s return to Dare Valley? Her heart felt constricted in her chest, like it was tugging at bonds of her own making.
 

“I’m ashamed I freaked out on him, but I’m also confused about what to do. Andy told me my vision shouldn’t factor into my decision about our future.”

“He’s completely right,” Arthur said, pounding his desk emphatically. “You either love him or you don’t. You either want to be with him forever or you don’t. As I told Meredith when she first met Tanner, life is short. Don’t dick around.”

She blinked at his language, but then extended her hands in exasperation. “But this is Andy we’re talking about. He says we’d find a way to make my career work if we had a family, but—”

“You don’t believe him,” Arthur said. “Ah…I see the problem now.”

“He’s the settle-down, two-car-garage kind of guy. Heck, I’ve never even had a garage.”

“Do you want to have kids, Lucy?” he asked.

Every time she’d held a child against her breast—be it in an orphanage or a stifling-hot village hut, she’d hoped to have one of her own someday. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Arthur cleared his throat and reached for a water glass on his desk. “All this talk is making me thirsty.”

Lucy knew he was only giving himself more time to think, so she gave it to him, all the while fighting the urge to bounce her leg in agitation. Talking about marriage and having kids was raising all sorts of emotions inside her.

“When it comes down to it, Lucy, love is a choice. Sure, there’s that warm feeling you get from being around someone you fancy, but it takes more than that for two people to build a happy life together. You have to be willing to hang in there with the person you choose and do your best to support them and let them support you. Andy has already proven he could support one partner.”

“She didn’t want to travel the globe,” she said, thinking of Kim.

“Last I saw, there were still airplanes that could fly you somewhere in a day and vehicles to take you the rest of the way.” He pushed his water glass aside. “Maybe you won’t be in the field as long as you used to be. Here’s a humdinger for you. Did you stay in those countries for all that time because you needed to do your job, or did you stay because you had nowhere else to go between assignments?”

His humdinger, as he’d called it, smacked her right in the face. “Dammit, that hurts.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Lucy, you’re one of the smartest, most interesting women I’ve ever known—and I’ve known a lot. Ever since you were a kid, asking questions about
glasnost,
I knew you were special. You weren’t like the rest of the kids around here. Not even Meredith has your global breadth as a journalist.”

She remembered discussing the Gulf War and the role of petroleum with Arthur at church picnics. He’d always been willing to listen to her and share his thoughts, making her feel…connected to something bigger, she supposed.
 

“I don’t think you ever knew how grateful that little girl was to you for talking with her.”

“I was entertained.” He waggled his brows. “Your global interests put you somewhat out of the pack around here, but one thing I always found interesting was how Andy Hale stayed your best friend throughout school. For someone you think is so conservative, he sure picked a pretty unconservative friend.”

She’d always found that pretty incredible too. “I still don’t completely understand why.”

“Because you’re a knucklehead.” Arthur’s mouth twisted. “Harriet used to say she didn’t need to accompany me on my trips to communist Russia, for example, because she rather liked hearing about it through my eyes. Perhaps you’re Andy’s eyes to the bigger world out there.”

That might have been the sweetest thing Lucy had ever heard. “I want that to be the case, but I’ve always had to censor my experiences for him.” She ducked her head. “I told him so last night.”

“Of course you’ve censored your stories,” Arthur harrumphed. “If you hadn’t, he would have sweated out his white doctor’s coat worrying about you. Do you think I told Harriet the KGB questioned me for seven hours one time before releasing me in the middle of a snow-covered street in downtown Moscow? Hell, no. But Harriet could have taken it. She was one tough woman.”

“She had to be to put up with you,” Lucy said, “although you’re pretty great.”

He plucked a pencil off his desk and shoved it behind his ear. “Are we finished here? I have a newspaper to run. Or are you still unsure about what to do? Lucy, you have a man who’s brave enough to want to marry you after a horrible tragedy wrecked his life. That’s not the kind of man who’d ever let you down. As I tell all the young people around here, you can dillydally all you want, but you marry people with character. Otherwise you get screwed.”

That sparked a laugh out of her. He glared at her.

“I’m sorry, but that was funny.”

Arthur waved his hand in the air. “Andy is right. Your vision doesn’t matter. You will do what you want to do. If you want to take photos, you’ll figure it out. If you want to marry him, you’ll figure it out.” His eye roll was especially dramatic this time. “Lucy, all of life is about figuring things out. You have a sharp mind and a good heart. Use them. Now, let me get back to work.”

She shoved out of the chair and walked around the side of his desk. Bending over, she kissed him on the cheek and then gave into the urge to hug him.

“Bah!” he protested, putting his arms around her. “You’re going to ruin my reputation as a hardass. Get yourself out of here.”

She gave him one more squeeze and made her way to the door. “How about I write up an op-ed about how no one really understands or cares what’s going on in Congo?”

He pushed the rim of his glasses up his nose. “Make up with the Hale boy, and then send it to me. I’ve always fancied having you as an official part of the family.”

Her mouth dropped. “What?”

“I’m not saying you have to change your name, but you’ll be part of the Hale clan, and my blood will flow through your children. Just imagine what kind of journalist we’ll get when your DNA mixes with Hale DNA. Just like with Meredith and Tanner. She should be having her baby any day now.”

Lucy leaned back against the doorframe. “After everything you said, you end with that?”

He shrugged. “So I buried the lede. Shoot me. Lucy, you’d be the dumbest girl ever to walk away from a life with Andy Hale. And you’re not dumb. Get your head out of your butt and go make up with him. You’ll figure things out together.”

Shaking her head, she tested her balance. “You said all those things, knowing what I’d do the whole time?”

“One thing I’m not is stupid,” he said, swiveling around in his chair. “Neither are you.”

Chapter 32
      

When Andy pulled up to Merry Cottage, he was feeling more than antsy. Lucy had texted him the previous day to say she wanted to talk, but he hadn’t been ready. Correction. His plan hadn’t been ready, so he’d told her he would see her today for lunch.