The Heart's Voice (4 page)

Shaking his head, he slapped at the legs of his jeans and said, “Too dusty.” Then he escaped out the back door to bend over the rusty old faucet at the corner of the house. By the time he returned, Becca had unpacked a number of disposable containers from the bag, and the girl had dragged the high chair in from the living room, where he’d moved it.

Becca was talking, but he didn’t try to follow her, his interest taken by the food as she opened the containers. He saw sliced brisket, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw and a thick, rich barbecue sauce. She held up a bundle of butcher’s paper and unwrapped it, displaying three large pickle wedges and small banana peppers. He reached for one of the pickles, mouth watering.

She inclined her head toward the root cellar. “There’s bread in a box on the steps.”

He bit off a hunk of the tart pickle as he moved to open the flimsy cellar door. Inside, about four steps down a steep flight of rickety stairs, sat a cardboard box full of foodstuffs that Becca had removed from the kitchen shelves the night before he’d started work. A plastic bag of sliced white bread lay on top. He stooped and picked it up by
the wrapper. By the time he carried the bread back to her, Becca had set the table with paper plates and plastic forks.

Jemmy hopped up on one of the pair of available chairs, but Becca spoke to her, and she started getting down again.

“Stay there,” Dan said, reaching for a short step-ladder. It made a tall but adequate stool when he sat on top of it. Becca put the baby in his chair and sat down.

Four people seated around a rectangular table in the littered kitchen made for a very crowded room, but Becca’s smile and his own satisfaction in a job progressing well overrode any awkwardness as Becca began filling plates. She piled his high, and he let her, suddenly ravenous. From pure habit he began to bow his head, then he felt a jolt as Becca took one of his hands in hers. Jemmy’s little hand slid into the other. His gaze flew to Becca. She had bent her head but lifted it again, eyes closed, as she spoke a simple grace.

“Thank You, Lord, for all Your many blessings, family, home, this delicious food and especially for Dan and all the good things he’s brought to us. We have need, Lord, and You’ve sent this fine man to help. Bless him for his willingness to share his talent.”

Dan felt a kick inside his chest. A fine man. He inclined his head and silently asked God to make him worthy of that description. When he looked up
again he saw that Becca and Jemmy watched patiently. He looked at Becca and followed the seemingly natural impulse to squeeze her hand. She smiled. It was like warm sunshine bathing the cluttered, half-finished room. She pulled her hand back and began eating. Jemmy did the same, so he dug in to his own food.

“Good,” he said after swallowing.

She nodded and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before saying, “John Odem cooks a couple times a week for the deli case. Monday it was a huge ham and macaroni and cheese.”

Dan nodded. “I bought some. Real sweet.”

“Yeah, he likes that brown-sugar-cured ham.”

They concentrated on the meal for some time, then Dan noticed that Jemmy reached for one of the small yellow peppers on the butcher paper with the pickles. He shot a quick glance at Becca, who smiled and said, “She eats them all the time. John Odem again.”

Dan chuckled and watched with interest as the little girl gingerly nibbled the succulent yellow flesh. “Hot?” he asked when she met his eyes.

She shook her pale head. “Nah, na if yont ea te sees.”

“Not if you don’t eat the seeds,” he repeated carefully, realizing that she was eating around the ball of seeds inside the pepper. She nodded and kept nibbling. He felt an odd glow of pleasure. Children were often difficult to understand because
they didn’t always get words right, but he’d followed Jemmy. She was smart for her age, or maybe her diminutive size made her seem younger than she was. “How old are you?” he asked.

She grinned and held up four fingers, spouting rapid-fire words, few of which he caught this time. Lost, he looked to Becca, who ducked her head to hide a smile before lifting it again to say, “Jem’s telling you that she had a party on her birthday, which is February tenth, and that you’re invited next year. It’s going to be here in our ‘newed’ house, by the way.”

“Newed?” he repeated uncertainly.

Laughter danced in her soft green eyes. “Abby told her the place was going to be ‘like new.’ So in her mind when you’re done it’ll be ‘newed.”’

He glanced at Jemmy and smiled. She beamed at him with something akin to hero worship. Just then something flew right past the end of his nose. He looked down to find a corner crust of bread on the table next to his plate. When he glanced in the direction it had come from, he noticed that both Jemmy and Becca were laughing. Even CJ, who had obviously launched the missile, judging by the white stuff oozing from his fist, was grinning broadly, showing off the few teeth he possessed.

“I’m sorry,” Becca said. “He saw me throw the napkin to get your attention earlier.”

Dan looked at the boy, and something in that little face seemed to be saying that he craved the
same attention that Dan had been showing his big sister. Without even thinking about it, Dan picked up the scrap of bread and tossed it back at the boy. It was just long enough and just curved enough, incredibly, to hang on the boy’s bit of a nose. For an instant Dan couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and neither, apparently, could anyone else, but then the little imp grinned, put back his head and laughed so hard that his round little body jiggled all over. His whole being seemed to light up, even as he collapsed into the corner of the chair, laughing. The kid was so purely tickled, that crust of bread now clasped in his plump hand, that everyone was laughing, Dan included. He laughed so hard that his chest shook and tears gathered in his eyes. It almost hurt. He hadn’t laughed like this, felt this good since…so long.

He wiped his eyes and looked at the smiling faces around him. It was time to be happy again, time to stop licking his wounds and concentrate on the good in life, on the good that he himself could do.

“Y
ou don’t have to keep feeding me,” he said slowly.

Becca had noticed that when he spoke carefully and precisely, his tone often lacked inflection, but when he blurted out or tossed off words, his speech was almost normal. This sounded like something he had rehearsed, at least in his mind, and she wasn’t at all surprised. They’d enjoyed several meals together in her quickly evolving kitchen, and though he often seemed pleased and relaxed, she had identified a growing unease, a certain tension developing between them.

“You have to eat,” she said, making sure he could see her face as she laid out the food. “Besides, it’s the least I can do. You’re working long hours, and you can’t be making much money on this job.”

When she thought about the material he’d used so far, she wondered if he could be making any profit, especially considering those cabinets. Even without the doors, which he said he was still building, they improved the room a thousand percent. And then there was the cookstove, which he’d said was used. She had no reason to doubt him, except that he’d pretended not to see when she’d asked where he’d gotten it. She kept wondering if his garage apartment had an empty space where the cookstove used to be, and the idea made her cringe inside. She wasn’t above a certain amount of charity, frankly, but even she had her pride.

“Don’t need money,” he said matter-of-factly, filching a potato chip from the open bag on the table. They were still eating deli food. She looked forward to the day when she could cook him a real meal.

“Everybody needs money,” she replied.

He held up four fingers, counting off the reasons he didn’t. “Medical disability. Military retirement. Inheritance. Good investments.”

“And the rent on that garage apartment?” she asked.

“Soon,” he said nonchalantly, averting his eyes.

She didn’t let him get away with that. Reaching across the side chair that stood between them, she placed a hand flat against the center of his chest. He looked down at it, then slowly lifted his gaze to
her face. “You can rent an apartment without a cookstove, then?” she asked pointedly.

He blinked and chewed. She lifted an eyebrow insistently. Finally he grinned. “Got a stove same place I got yours. Used. Dealer in Duncan.”

She narrowed her eyes, thinking that he’d worded his reply rather oddly. “It’s not the same one, then?” He shook his head. “You swear?”

His mouth quirked. “Never swear. Much. When I hit my thumb with a hammer, maybe.” She laughed, and he grinned. “Not the same,” he promised. “Honest.”

She couldn’t help noticing that his eyes crinkled in a most attractive way at the outside corners when he smiled, and for the first time she was truly glad that he couldn’t hear the husky tone her voice had acquired. “I just don’t want to take advantage of you, Dan—no more than I can help, anyway.”

“I understand.”

“I know you do. You’re just such a blessing to us, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

He shook his head. “I am blessed. You work hard.” He poked a thumb at his chest. “I get checks in the mail.”

“You deserve those checks,” she told him, looking up into his chiseled face. He was a handsome man, with those blue eyes, and a good one, too. That much had become very obvious.

CJ banged on the metal high-chair tray, but she
ignored his bid for Dan’s attention, keeping it all for herself.

“Maybe I do work a lot,” she said, “but it’s because I have to, and it’s nothing compared to what you do out of the kindness of your heart.” She thought of the clean white kitchen walls, the glass light fixture snugged against the stain-free ceiling, the door and the window where the compact air unit would soon be installed, the butter-yellow cabinets and mottled-gold countertop set with a white enamel double sink. After hanging the cabinet doors and connecting the stove to the propane, he was going to add shelves around the refrigerator and build a new cellar entrance set flat into the floor, since she needed the cellar space for additional storage and the floor space for the dining table. He intended to install new cellar steps, too, as well as strip, seal and paint the kitchen floorboards. After that he’d rip off the porch and build her a new one that she and the kids could actually enjoy. It was almost too much, and she felt tears gather in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He needed a shave, and the delicate rasp of sandy whiskers lightly abraded her lips. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to kiss a man’s rough cheek.

Suddenly he whirled away and moved to the back door, but then he paused and looked over his shoulder. She couldn’t read what crowded into
those blue eyes. “Welcome,” he mumbled, and slipped outside.

A moment later she heard the water running from the spigot in back of the house and looked ruefully at her new kitchen sink with its shiny faucet. Her fingers wandered up to touch her lips, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to kiss Dan Holden on the lips, to be kissed by him.

A vague guilt pricked her. Was she being disloyal to Cody and the Kinders by thinking of Dan as more than an answer to prayer? Maybe she was more selfish and needy than she realized. She marveled at how much God loved people. For no reason she could understand He loved her enough to let her stumble across Cody, to bring her here to Rain Dance and the Kinders, to give her two healthy children and meet every one of her true needs. He’d even shown her joy and peace in the midst of heartbreak and loss. Was it asking too much, wanting too much to wonder if the pleasure that she found in Dan’s quiet company might be more than fleeting?

Could God mean Dan Holden for her?

She was almost afraid to think it. But somehow she was more afraid not to.

Becca said a quick prayer as she twisted in her seat. She’d kept an eagle eye out for Dan Holden all morning, and through the tall, narrow church window she’d just glimpsed his lean form striding
up the path toward the building. Her heart sped up, and she told herself sternly not to be a fool. She’d seen the man almost every day for the better part of two weeks now, ever since he’d started work on her house, and today would be no different. Except somehow it was.

They were great friends now, maybe even more. Or maybe they could be. She wasn’t sure, frankly, though she’d prayed and prayed about it. Lately she’d wanted very much to talk to Abby about her feelings for Dan, but she hadn’t dared. For one thing, Abby was her mother-in-law. For another, she didn’t feel free to discuss a certain issue with Abby or anyone else. Dan’s deafness was his business, after all.

Dan appeared in the doorway from the vestibule, and Becca bounced up to her feet, motioning for him to come forward and join her. He glanced around uncertainly, but then he started down the aisle, right past the place where he usually sat. She plopped down again and briefly closed her eyes with a mixture of relief and excitement before turning up a smile for him as he slipped into place beside her. Abby and John Odem leaned forward to offer their own smiles, which Dan returned with nods. Jemmy, however, fairly shouted, “Hello, Mr. Dan!” just as the organ started playing. Dan didn’t see.

Becca nudged his knee with hers, mouthed Jemmy’s name and gave her hand a little wave. Dan
instantly looked at Jemmy, smiled and waved as the congregation rose to its feet. Becca opened the hymnal to the correct page. Then, mindful of his desire not to broadcast his disability, she moved it sideways so it would look as if they were sharing. His gaze dropped on her before shying away, even as his hand rose to help support the heavy book.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with him—well, shoulder to forearm—Becca quickly found her place, using the tip of her forefinger to locate the word with which she picked up the lyrics. Quite without thinking, she followed the words with her fingertip for several seconds as she sang, before two realizations hit her simultaneously. One, Dan was tapping his toe in time to the music. Perhaps he couldn’t actually hear the sound of it, but he could feel the beat. And two, he was following the words to the song as she sang them by following the progress of her fingertip.

A feeling of deep satisfaction crept over her. It wasn’t much of a service, really, nothing at all on the scale of what he was doing for her. Dan could read the words to any song for himself at any time, while she could never in a dozen years do what he had done to her house. But by helping him to follow along in time to the music, she felt that she was helping him join in somehow—not with the singing, but maybe with the praising. And wasn’t that the most important part? Or was she searching for something that didn’t truly exist, assigning more
significance to a simple courtesy than was warranted?

They went through the remainder of the service much as they had at Easter. Dan took his cues from those around him and paid particular attention to every word the pastor said, but this time Becca realized that he couldn’t really catch each and every word, for often the pastor turned his head or looked down at his text or distorted words for emphasis. Becca began to realize how confined Dan’s world had become, and she tried to think of ways in which she might help him. She could record the sermon and then repeat back every word to Dan in some private place, or she could write it all out for him to read at his leisure. That seemed to limit his participation in the experience, but those were the best ideas she had at the moment. She decided to discuss the possibilities with him.

After the service, Becca kept pace with Dan until they were out of the foyer. Then she grabbed his arm and tugged him down a hallway, explaining, “I have to get CJ.”

He blinked at her, a question in his eyes. It was the long way around to the nursery.

“I want to ask you something.”

He nodded and kept his gaze on her face as they hurried along the narrow corridor. She glanced around to make sure she wouldn’t be overheard and said, “You’re missing words during the sermon.
Pastor doesn’t know to keep his head up when he’s speaking.”

“Like you do,” Dan said with a smile.

“I could help you fill in the blanks,” she said, coming to a stop. Quickly she told him her idea for recording the sermon and speaking it back to him or writing it all out. He bowed his head, and she just hated it because she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but then he looked up again, and his smile and the blue of his eyes felt very soft.

“Becca,” he said slowly, “I get enough of the sermon to fill in the blanks for myself.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to find ways to pay me back.”

“I’m not.” She bit her lip. “Okay, maybe I am, but I just want to help.”

He smiled. “You have. I needed to know
I
could still help someone.”

She gaped at him. “Are you kidding? Why, if I had one tenth of the skills you do, I—”

“Wouldn’t need me,” he said, cradling her cheek with his palm. “I wouldn’t have a friend.” He grinned. “Not one who’d share her songbook.”

Even as a warm glow suffused her, she whispered, “You’d have more friends if you’d just let everyone know—” He dropped his hand and looked away, effectively cutting her off. She realized only after he did that they were no longer alone. Two women were walking toward them, Amanda Cox and Jane Robertson, both Sunday-
school teachers with classrooms on this hall. Becca tossed them a wave and headed for the nursery, Dan at her side.

When the nursery worker handed CJ over the half door, he surprised everyone by making a grab for Dan, who grappled awkwardly with him until CJ got an arm around his neck. Becca felt warmth flush into her cheeks.

“Come here, you,” she said, reaching for her son. “Dan doesn’t want to lug you around.”

But CJ drew back from his mother. Dan hefted him in his arms as if getting a feel for his weight, and said, “I’ll carry him.”

“He’s heavy,” Becca warned needlessly.

“Like lead,” Dan agreed, looking at the boy, who grinned at him around the finger in his mouth.

Embarrassed by her son’s grab for Dan’s attention, Becca took the diaper bag and hurried through the church to the front lawn, where Abby and John Odem waited with Jemmy. The friends with whom they’d been chatting broke off and moved away as Becca and Dan approached with the baby.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Becca said. She slung the straps of the diaper bag over one shoulder and reached for CJ. “I’ll take him now.”

But Dan moved toward John Odem, saying to Becca, “He’s too heavy for you.”

John took the boy and parked him on a hip, quipping, “You’re a little mountain, aren’t you, boy?”

Abby was laughing. “You won’t believe it, but
Cody was the same way. His age caught up with his size at about six.”

Dan nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am,” meaning he hadn’t really caught what she’d been saying. “You folks have a nice day,” he added just a little too loud as he prepared to take his leave of them.

“Wait a minute, Dan,” Abby said just as he turned away, and Becca quickly reached out to snag him by the arm. He glanced at her, then turned back to Abby as she said, “Why don’t you join us for dinner today? I’ve got a pot roast in the oven. It ought to be ready about the time I get the bread made.”

“Yeah, and nanner pudding,” John Odem added, using Jemmy’s word for banana. Dan was staring at Abby and didn’t even know John had spoken.

Jemmy saw an opportunity to draw even with her brother on the attention scale and started hopping up and down pleading, “Please. Please. Please.”

Dan looked at her and then at Becca, who was holding her breath. Suddenly he nodded.

“Thanks.”

Becca’s smile broke free, even as she worried how he was going to pull this off. She wouldn’t have him embarrassed or shamed for the world. Abby busily started directing everybody.

“John, get these kids in their car seats. Becca, you show Dan the way over. Jemmy, don’t you step foot in the parking lot without holding your grandpa’s hand.” As she herded John and the kids
toward their car, she said over her shoulder, “Dan, we could use some ice. That freezer in front of the store isn’t locked.”

“Come on,” Becca said quietly, making certain he could see her face even as she moved to his side. “We have to stop by the store for a bag of ice.”