Time for Grace (3 page)

Kip had his answer. He should leave right then but he couldn’t with her wandering around after dark on the campus, distracted and anxious. She needed to understand that this wasn’t Piedmont Point. His friend had recently bought a small bistro not far from there where they could sit and talk. “Have you had dinner?”

“Dinner?” She tilted her head and frowned. “No. Not lunch either now that I think about it.”

“Then let’s eat together. Come on. You can sit down, relax and tell me what has you so worried.”

She gazed longingly across the street. “I was going to eat at the hospital.”

Leslie Washington had confided that it was apparent Sarah was worn out from spending all her time in West Virginia at the hospital with Grace. “No disrespect toward CHOP but over there it’s either the cafeteria, which is probably closed now, or the fast-food joint in the lobby. Too much noise and too many kids running around for adults to talk and we need to talk.” He took her arm, trying to ignore the urge to put a protective arm around her. He’d just see she got a meal, relaxed for a little while and developed a little sense of self-preservation. Then he’d be outta there.

“Come on. It’s just around the corner.”

On the way to his friend’s bistro, Kip noticed Sarah kept glancing down at the newspaper. His gaze followed hers. The paper was folded to the classified adds. When she dropped it on the table between them as she settled in the quiet booth, he noticed several items were circled. He looked up and saw that she’d let her head drop back against the high back of the banquette and closed her eyes.

Kip picked up the paper. She had rental properties circled. Really cheap rentals that made him suspicious of their locations. “What’s with the apartment ads?”

She opened her eyes. They reminded him of rich dark chocolate. “Doctor Prentice confirmed what I’d been thinking about the hospital where Grace was born. She can’t go back there.”

“So you’re staying in Philly?”

She nodded. “Since I can’t take her back there and the nearest children’s hospital is hours away from Piedmont Point anyway—” She shrugged and took a deep breath as if steeling herself to voice her decision once again. “Yes. I’ve decided to stay here.”

Kip was more worried about her than ever. Which worried him on a whole other score. Why did this woman and her problems tempt him to break all his long-standing rules? “That’s a big step. Is there any way I can help?” he found himself asking.

What was he doing? Making sure she had a good meal and understood about moving safely through the city was one thing. Any more would be too much. Too close. He had a score of married female friends whom he either worked with or who were married to his friends, but he steered clear of single women in solitary activities unless it was crystal-clear they were buddies like he and Joy Peterson, his partner, had been. It was a personal rule he never broke. Especially when the woman produced in him a distinctly un-buddylike attraction.

Okay. There. He’d said it. He was attracted to her. He’d been feeling it from the moment he’d seen her standing frozen in place outside the plane in West Virginia. And the pull he’d felt had only increased with everything he learned about her.

This wasn’t a good idea.

Not for him.

And especially not for her.

He shouldn’t continue to be part of Sarah’s life. He’d once inadvertently hurt a woman he’d been dating. He’d met her at his church singles group. She’d fallen in love with him when all he’d ever wanted was simple friendship. He’d never even kissed her but she’d thought he was gallant by holding off on emotions he’d never have let himself feel. And she hadn’t only had her feelings hurt. She’d been devastated. Kip had felt so badly that he’d changed churches so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable seeing him all the time.

He’d seen his sisters and cousins hurt over the years by guys who didn’t share their feelings. When he’d found himself responsible for breaking someone’s heart, it had really disturbed him. Kip’s conviction about marriage, leaving a woman burdened financially and grieving and his feelings about passing his genes on to his sons ran too deeply in him to be ignored. Consequently, he never dated. He would never chance hurting someone like that again. And he certainly wouldn’t do what his dad and uncle had.

But when he thought of Sarah exiting the hotel in her distracted frame of mind, he shuddered inwardly. His mother would call her a babe in the woods. And she’d be right. If he didn’t offer her help, it would be like abandoning a child in the middle of a mine field. So he jumped in. “These are pretty low-end apartments you circled.”

She shrugged. “It’s what I can afford. Maybe after I get a full-time teaching job and a little savings stored up again, I’ll be able to get a bigger place.”

Kip put the paper on the table between them again, pulled out a pen and his cell phone. Five minutes later, after several calls, he’d crossed out half of those she’d circled. “Look, I can’t afford to be picky,” she finally protested.

“These aren’t cheap because they’re small apartments. They’re cheap because they’re in really bad neighborhoods. Neighborhoods where no one lives safely. Where kids have been shot playing in front of their houses. Killed watching television in the living room.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “But this is a beautiful city.”

“I’m not saying a lot of it isn’t wonderful. But this isn’t small-town USA. This is a big eastern city.” He took the paper and circled the places that by the high-end pricing he assumed were in acceptable areas. “These are probably small apartments in center city or in other high-end sections of the city.” He pointed to the first one she’d circled. “This one’s probably a whole floor of a huge home but it’s in heavy drug territory and there’ve been several home invasions around there.” He ran his finger down the column. “And here there were several drive-by shootings last month…all of which were drug related.” He moved to the top of the next column then looked back up at her. “Should I go on?”

Her dark eyes looked troubled. “But those were the only ones I could afford until I get a job. Other people live in those neighborhoods. I’ll just have to be careful and make sure I can move before Grace comes home.”

It was on the tip of Kip’s tongue to promise to help her solve her problems. But he hesitated again. Did he have the right to become involved in her life? Thinking of the places she’d circled, the question he had to ask himself was, did he have a right to let her try navigating the mean streets of Philly alone?

He’d prayed that someone would enter Sarah’s life to give her the support she needed but that someone wasn’t supposed to have been him. On a mental sigh, he admitted he had no choice. He had to offer help.

His friend and pastor always said the Lord had a weird sense of humor. It seemed once again Jim had been proven right!

And this time the joke was on Kip!

“I
think I have a solution to your problem,” Kip said and prayed he wasn’t creating a bigger one for himself.

But rather than calming her down, Kip could feel Sarah’s anxiety heighten. “I hate to be a bother,” she said. “You’ve done so much for us already by flying Grace here on your holiday weekend and helping pay for my hotel room, too.”

Had his reluctance to get involved shown? He felt small and mean. “It isn’t a bother,” he told her, meaning it. “It’d help my sister out, too. She’d be part of the solution. Miriam lives out in the suburbs and she has this cute apartment over her garage. She’s rented it in the past but she had trouble with her last tenant. My brother-in-law travels a lot, and he’s leery of renting it again with his wife and kids subjected to a tenant he doesn’t know. But
you’d
be the perfect neighbor.”

“Wouldn’t it cost more than those?” she asked, pointing to the paper on the table between them.

“I don’t think so. It’s a little small and only one bedroom but it’d give you a start. It’s close to public transportation, too, so you could get here pretty quickly and easily.”

“But one of the nurses told me that to teach in Philadelphia you have to live in Philadelphia. I have a much better chance of getting a job in a big city.”

“There are plenty of schools along the same transportation line that runs near Miriam’s place.”

Then it came to him. The art teacher at Tabernacle Christian School was leaving on maternity leave soon. The Lord did indeed work in mysterious ways. “I just remembered that our pastor’s looking for a long-term substitute teacher to take over our art program for the rest of the year. The regular teacher is going out on maternity leave.

“And there’s another plus. My sister with the rental is the first-grade teacher at Tabernacle Christian. She could give you a lift to and from school everyday and save you transportation costs. I’d bet Miriam’s place might wind up to be cheaper in the long run. There’s no city wage tax and car insurance rates are much lower out in the ‘burbs. Should I give her a call and see what she says?”

“I-I don’t know.” Sarah frowned. “I couldn’t accept charity. You’d have to ask her up front what she charges.”

He nodded and hit Miriam’s speed dial on his cell. His sister answered on the first ring. “Mir, you still holding off on that apartment rental?”

Sarah watched as a wide smile curved Kip Webster’s full lips. He honestly was movie star handsome but in a boy-next-door kind of way. There was goodness in Kip’s heart that shone like a beacon the same way his Christian principles did. Even though she was angry at God for Grace’s problems and a whole list of other things, Sarah knew that following His ordinances was the best way to live. She wished her anger would just go away. It hurt worse than any kind of loneliness she’d ever experienced to be so separated from the Spirit of the Lord. Almost every time she was worried or had a decision to make, she started to pray but then she’d remember…

She remembered the fear and pain of the night she’d awakened alone, frightened and in labor. At twenty-three weeks into her pregnancy Sarah had known Grace was in severe trouble. She’d called out for God’s help. She’d begged Him to stop her labor, but He’d turned His back on her, and now Grace’s life hung in the balance every minute of every day. That was awfully hard to forgive on top of losing Scott and her parents failing her over and over again.

“Did you hear me?” she heard Kip ask.

Sarah blinked and focused on his concerned expression. She must have looked like a lunatic staring right at him but not following his conversation at all. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about Grace,” she explained but left out her crisis of faith and her reasons for it. She was honestly ashamed of her anger and doubts, but she couldn’t seem to get past them, either.

“Try to believe that everything will turn out okay,” he said. He reached over and covered her hand with his and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go.

Sarah was shocked by the strange tingle that chased up her arm at his touch. Every thought in her head fled, her stomach seemed to bottom out and her heart leapt in her chest. Her response took her by surprise. Even with Scott she hadn’t felt this kind of unmistakable attraction. She fought to get her thoughts back in order. “I do believe it’s all going to work out. But until I met Doctor Prentice no one else agreed.”

“I have a good feeling about Grace and your move here,” he told her. “Everything in life happens for a reason. I know it must be hard for you to see that right now, but give it time.”

She nodded but just didn’t believe in God’s goodness the way she used to.

“Miriam’s more than willing to rent to you.” He named a low figure she found hard to believe and then continued, “Suppose we go see Grace then run out to take a look at the place.”

She felt a moment’s panic. She should take time to think about this. She’d gone along with Scott and look what had happened. But then again had she not married him, she wouldn’t have Grace and she wouldn’t wish her baby away no matter what. “This is all happening awfully fast,” she told Kip.

Kip grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I’d guess that’s because the Lord’s hand is in it.” He picked up a menu and waggled his eyebrows. “So, have you had a real Philly cheese steak yet?”

Two hours later Kip pulled to a stop in a driveway next to a big rambling white clapboard farmhouse. It had a wrap-around porch, colonial mullioned windows and a towering tree on the front lawn. The porch was lined with small white lights and a blow-up snow globe depicting the nativity sat on the lawn below it.

Everywhere Sarah looked she was reminded that Christmas was on the way. She sighed. This certainly wasn’t the way she’d pictured Christmas this year. She was supposed to have been able to sit in front of her Christmas tree and tell her healthy newborn the Christmas story for the first time. She’d even decided to leave her tree up longer if Grace came late.

Shaking her head, Sarah got out to look around the quiet, festive looking neighborhood. Then she glanced back up at Kip’s sister’s farmhouse. “This is almost like a peek back in time. It’s wonderful.”

“Miriam’s is the only really old, really big house on the street. All the others are smaller bungalows or Cape Cods built in the early fifties. The people who used to own this house owned all the land around here. That’s why the garage has an apartment. It used to be a carriage house back in the day. Apparently an employee lived up there. I rented it for a few years in my early twenties. Like I said, it isn’t much but…”

“Are you bad-mouthing your first bachelor pad?” a disembodied female voice said from the direction of the front porch.

“Mir, what are you doing out here?” Kip asked.

“I have Justine and Bill’s kids overnight, remember? I just got them settled. I don’t want them to find out their Pied-Piper uncle is here or they’ll never get to sleep.”

“Oh. I forgot how late it is. They’re in bed already.”

As Miriam came toward them, Sarah took a few moments to contemplate Kip. She had been able to hear disappointment in his voice because he’d missed seeing his sister’s children. She wondered if he loved kids as much as he seemed to, why he wasn’t married with a bunch of his own. He was certainly good-looking enough to attract all manner of female attention. He’d certainly grabbed hers and she wasn’t looking for complications after losing Scott and being left to care for Grace alone.

Kip gestured toward the small woman who now stood in front of them. “Sarah, this is my oldest sister, Miriam Castor. Mir, this is Sarah Bates.”

When Miriam stepped out of the shadows into the patch of driveway lit by a decorative lamppost, Sarah was a bit surprised. She looked nothing like Kip. Her red hair blazed like fire in the bright lamplight and her redhead’s complexion glowed. Plus his big sister was tiny. Shorter even than Sarah who was only five foot four inches tall herself. Miriam was also quite a bit older than Kip. Not only did brother and sister not look like siblings, they didn’t look as if they were even from the same family.

“Sarah, welcome,” Miriam said, reaching out to take Sarah’s hands in hers. “It’s wonderful to meet you. Let’s go take a look and you can tell me what you think of the place.”

They followed Kip’s sister up a sturdy set of wooden stairs on the outside of the clapboard garage and stepped inside the apartment. Sarah walked behind Miriam across a darkened room she assumed was a living area and into a small galley kitchen. Miriam switched on the overhead light and Sarah smiled, liking the homey room. While not the latest thing in decorating, it was certainly more updated than her apartment in Piedmont Point had been. “This is lovely,” she told Miriam.

“After the last tenant left, we were doing our kitchen over so we swapped out the range and refrigerator and the best of our old cabinets. I painted them, Gary installed new laminate counters and voila. I hope yo—” Miriam stopped midword as she turned around. She stared at Sarah. Her frank assessment left Sarah wondering if she had ketchup on her face or shirt from her adventure into what Kip called a cheese steak. “Is something wrong?”

Miriam grinned then; her green eyes looked to be sparkling with mischief. “Not a thing,” she said. “In fact, I’d say everything’s finally going just perfectly. I really hope you decide to take it.” There seemed to be an odd lilt in her voice besides the glee in her gaze, but it was hard for Sarah to be sure since they’d only just met.

Miriam looked over Sarah’s shoulder and said, “Kip, go put the light on in the bedroom? And there’s a lamp and a table in the closet in there. Could you set it up in the main room?”

There was a long silence from Kip. Sarah could tell he hadn’t moved so she turned toward him, curious. Kip stood staring at his sister, his lips pressed in a thin line, his gaze sharp and annoyed. “Don’t, Miriam. I mean it.”

“For goodness’ sake,
what
is your problem? Light the place up so this nice young lady can see all my hard work. How is she supposed to make a decision on an apartment she can’t see?”

He huffed out a breath and pivoted away, all but stalking into what she assumed was the bedroom. She heard him mutter, “You know exactly what my problem is.”

Sarah wished she knew what had changed her kind, smiling knight into a grumpy, grumbling ogre. But Sarah was out of her element. She didn’t really know either of them and had never had a brother or sister so sibling dynamics were beyond her.

“Am I causing a problem between you two? Please don’t feel obligated to rent to me if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t be silly. Kip vouched for your character and I’d love to help out the widow and child of a vet. It’s our duty to help the wives and children of our fallen servicemen.”

The light flickered on in the bedroom then and Kip returned after a moment to set up the table and lamp. He lit the room, and Sarah fell in love with it. She stood speechless in the kitchen doorway. The white trim shone against creamy caramel-colored stucco walls that picked up on the deeper tones in the hardwood flooring. There was a fieldstone fireplace in the same creamy caramel colors. And the kitchen walls and cabinets were a shade or two lighter, creating a nice continuity between the rooms.

A clatter in the kitchen drew Sarah’s attention back to Miriam. “We took out part of this wall and put these shutters here,” the older woman explained. “That way if you don’t want the kitchen open to the big room you can close it off. But if you like, you can also leave them open when you’re entertaining. Gary added this countertop on the pass-through so with a couple high stools on that side, it can be used as a breakfast bar.” She walked around the partition and pointed to a door. “That door over there leads to an interior set of stairs. You can use them when it’s raining or snow is all over the outside ones. My kids tend to just dump their bikes where they don’t belong so I’d avoid them whenever you can till the kids get used to being careful again.”

She went on to rattle off a few facts on the kind of heat and cooking the place had, pointing out a microwave and exhaust hood combination over the stove. She explained how to operate the dishwasher. Sarah realized that the way Miriam talked the rental was a done deal.

Sarah didn’t say anything. Her head was still in a bit of a whirl over how quickly this move to Pennsylvania had fallen into place. Could it be that God’s hand really
was
on her and Grace in spite of all that had gone wrong and in spite of Sarah’s anger at Him? She wished she could believe it. But she could no longer make so easy a leap of faith no matter how much she wanted to.

She followed Miriam across the large room. Sarah knew she was sold on the place before she even reached its single bedroom but then Miriam pointed out a deep alcove at the far end of the bedroom. Inside the alcove was a small octagonally shaped window.

“I could put Grace’s crib in there,” she said and even she heard the dreamy tone in her own voice.

“It’ll happen,” Kip said immediately.

Sarah blinked. How could he know what she’d been thinking? And there was once again his confidence in Grace’s outcome. It never failed to boost her spirits. He talked about Grace’s future with such assurance it was as if he had already seen it. His belief bolstered her own hopes for her child.

“What a perfect idea,” Kip’s sister said and stepped into the alcove Sarah now realized was formed by two deep closets on either side. “In fact, I have an old screen in the attic you could paint up and set up right here at the front of the nook. That way you could come and go from the bathroom and from bed without her seeing you. To her it’ll seem as if she has her own little room.” She pointed up to a plant hook. “There’s even a place to hang a mobile.”