Page 49 of Spring Showers

His eyes darted to the rafters, and he took a long moment before answering. “Nine out of ten.”

“Really? Nine?” His rating was suspicious in that she didn’t believe it. “How do you figure?”

Grant came around and stood in front of her. He put his mug down on the counter, and exchanged the coffee cup in her grasp for his hands. He looked at her with such purity of intentions that she shifted away, uncomfortable at the intimacy between them.

“What?” she said and tried looking away, but he caught her gaze no matter where she looked.

He nudged her chin up to face him. “Coming here and meeting you has been a gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yes. I need to say something here.” Grant hushed her. “I was hurting. For years. I know you didn’t ask the other night, even though you wanted to know. I appreciate you giving me some time to wrap my mind around telling you or not.” He paused and closed his eyes as though he was looking at prepared remarks behind his lids. “I’m a widower.”

Silence hung between them as she considered what to say to his admission. “Oh, Grant, I’m so sorry.” Thandie was not expecting that word to come out of his mouth.Widower.She had a dozen questions. “How did she—” Thandie stopped herself. Grant had asked her to let him finish.

“It’s okay. I want to tell you. I need to tell you. I married an incredible woman right after high school. We were young and in love, and she was gone too soon.” He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed down and back up before he continued. “My wife passed away nearly ten years ago. It was sudden. She had an allergic reaction to a medication. I called for help, but it was too late by the time the ambulance arrived.”

Thandie remained silent, but her mind targeted one thing alone. The way he overreacted to the skin rash caused by the flowers must have triggered the gut-wrenching memory. He had experienced a panic attack almost immediately. It was no wonder that he had. Now that she had the information—the tragic information at that—she understood.

“Thandie,” he gripped her hands tightly, “The agony of her loss was more than I could suffer. I’ve been running from it, from everything, so that I wouldn’t feel anything. And then—and then I ran right into you. And you, along with this place, have given me the freedom to feel again in ways I didn’t think I was capable of any longer.” He bit back a whimper and blinked the tears away. “I don’t know what, if anything, I can promise you, but if nothing else comes from this experience, I am forever grateful to have spent this week here at The Foundry—here with you.”

“I don’t know what to say.” And she didn’t. Tears rolled down her cheeks as fear gripped her throat at what he would proclaim to her next.

With the back of his hand, Grant stroked the tears away with a tenderness she hadn’t seen from him before. “If this is our last day together...” Grant paused and lifted her up. He sat her bottom on the edge of the cold countertop and nestled his hips between her thighs. “I would like to kiss you again before we leave this cabin, and before the world catches up to us. Right now. In this minute.” Grant brushed a stray curl behind her ear and rested his hand on the back of her neck as he awaited her answer.

There were no words.

She draped her arms around his shoulders. Her eyes answered with a long blink. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him again and feel his soft, warm lips caress hers with tenderness and passion. He leaned in and they were joined together. Two adults who were healing their past hurt, not for each other, but alongside one another.

The kiss was different than the previous one. Longer. Deeper. His lips hugged hers in an embrace and had a healing property of their own. She knew from the way his hand trailed down her spine to her lower back, and the tilt of his head that gave them the perfect closeness, and the small flutter in his breathing, that their union, no matter how long, was the sort of remedy they both needed.

Wedding bells played in her mind with her eyes closed and her lips and body pressed against Grant. Her hands explored the curves of his chest and back while he held her snug against him. A flash of a future with him appeared in her mind. A vision where she walked through the cornfields of Iowa hand in hand with this most unexpected stranger.

CHAPTER23

Without warning, the stranger in her daydream pulled away from her and nudged her back into reality. As she opened her eyes, she realized the wedding bells weren’t ringing in her mind at all but were coming from the direction of the barn. “Do you hear that?” she asked, to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, while her heart danced in her chest from the best kiss she had ever enjoyed.

“It’s probably Leo, like yesterday. We should head that way and see what’s up.” Grant took his mug and downed the rest of his coffee, winking at her over the rim.

They threw on their shoes and jackets and headed the short distance to the barn. The damage was worse the closer they got. The stream, usually dry, was a torrent as it ripped around the back side of the barn, though the structure looked to be intact. Leo emerged from the side of the barn with three shovels and work gloves.

“You ready to get to work?” Leo asked and handed the gloves to Thandie. He turned his attention to Grant and shook his hand. “You know, I appreciate you staying with her last night. And please feel free to head out of town whenever you need to.”

Grant took gloves and a shovel. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay.” He grinned at Thandie. “So, Activities Director Thandie, what is on the schedule for today?”

She giggled at how professional he sounded. “I think we’re going to do some earth moving, followed by water remediation. Sound good?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

The three of them made their way around the barn and assessed the damage. The ground had held through the night where the stream turned a corner and all the sandbags had stayed securely in place. They got to work cutting a shallow ditch around the other side of the barn and down toward the dock. Other than the dirt being heavy and swollen from all the rain, it dug out easily. By mid-morning, the ditch was just about complete.

Leo and Grant ran back up and dug out the remaining few inches. Water began traveling down their new trench and relieved the pressure from the stream. They watched as the new trench filled to the brim and poured into the lake.

“Will you look at that?” Leo said. “Just like it used to be.”

“But how? There’s no dam holding the water back,” Thandie said.

“Christmas Cove was always a deeper section of the lake. I suppose it’ll hold some, for now anyway,” Leo said with a hopeful but realistic tone in his voice. The tone of a man that really wanted to be optimistic but had been let down before.

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