“Dune Girl” chapters 11-20

Ah, it’s summer! If you haven’t made it to the beach — yet — here’s a free read/beach reach/clean read from a point in my writing career at which I was experimenting with romance novels.

Here are chapters 11-20, with more to follow in the next two days. If you missed the first 10 chapters, click here to link to that blog post.

Dune Girl

copyright 2018

by Nora Edinger

Chapter 11

 “Oh good, you can park right in front of the restaurant,” Miss Naomi said. She motioned Maggie toward a ridiculously small space between two pick-up trucks.

Maggie eyed the spot. There was nothing good about it. A bicycle couldn’t fit in it. A Radio Flyer wagon couldn’t fit in it. There was no way she would be able to parallel park even something as small as the Cooper there.

“Don’t worry. You can do it,” Miss Naomi encouraged her, waving a hand optimistically toward the spot when she noticed her young friend’s reluctance. “There’s not even any traffic to worry about. Pull up alongside the front car and start backing up and turning at the same time — just like I showed you.”

The first try, Maggie took too sharp a turn and popped one of the back wheels over the curb. The second try left the Cooper at least three feet too far out into the road. The third time was within the realm of respectability, but Maggie couldn’t help but notice several older gentlemen in John Deere hats were watching them with unconcealed amusement through the restaurant windows.

“Don’t let those old geezers bother you,” Miss Naomi said with a huff, dropping a single quarter into the parking meter before swinging the café door open with surprising strength. “It’s not your fault you haven’t been driving a tractor since you were 10.”

Miss Naomi kept her head held high as she headed straight to a booth with red vinyl seats and a laminate-topped table. No hostess was needed at the Koffee Kup, apparently. Maggie followed her example and gave only one more glance toward the tractor guys. She concentrated, instead, on the tiny olive-green “boomerang” patterns on the table’s surface.

“I had the same pattern on my kitchen countertops in the city,” she said as she traced them with a finger. “I had to look all over the place to find a reproduction.”

Miss Naomi smiled. “This is the real thing, sweetheart. And, so is the pie. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the Koffee Kup. People from Chicago come here all the time. Pick whatever you want. This is my treat.”

The variety of pies to choose from was staggering, but Maggie settled on the simplest thing she could think of, a slice of apple and a large coffee. When the waitress asked if she wanted cheddar cheese on top of the pie, Maggie was in near awe. Of course, she would like cheddar cheese on top of her apple pie. What a truly excellent idea. How could she not have known about this possibility?

“Do you miss your life in the city, Maggie?” Miss Naomi asked suddenly, before the waitress had even turned away. Maggie looked nervously at the young woman to see if she had put the two-and-two of her name and “the city” together to make four. She didn’t think she had.

“Not as much as I thought I might.”

“It can be lonely at the beach,” Miss Naomi observed shrewdly.

Maggie couldn’t help a soft blush. She knew what the older woman was getting at. For the last three weeks, Miss Naomi had been her faithful companion, driving down the various highways, city streets and farm roads that Duneland County had to offer nearly each day. Given Maggie’s continued lack of a full-fledged driver’s license, it didn’t take much guess work for Miss Naomi to know those had been her only outings other than long walks on the beach.

Not that she would admit it, but Maggie was excruciatingly lonely. Her family was all but ignoring her. That, most painfully, included her brother Ronan, who was also Stephen’s best friend. He had outright told her – through the coldness of a text — that she was being cut off by the family until she “came to her senses.” Tough love and all that. Ouch.

Her so-called friends from the office had not called. They hadn’t returned her calls, either. Maggie guessed she’d become too professionally hot to handle. And, Michael had all but disappeared after that first driving lesson. He’d made two or three brotherly check-ins by phone to see how she was doing. That was it.

“I read a lot,” Maggie said in instant self defense. “I bicycle down to the branch library at the beach every few days. I’ve been trying some bread baking, too.” She’d thrown a brick-like effort into the garbage just that morning, in fact. “I kind of wish I had a dog, or even a cat, though. Do you think Michael would mind?”

She immediately regretted speaking his name.

“I don’t know, baby,” Miss Naomi pounced. “You could ask him.”

A slight raise of her eyebrows and the smallest hint of a smile were all Maggie gave in return. They both knew she’d die first. Men.

How was Maggie to know that Miss Naomi was mentally running through Michael’s most recent inquisition about their driving lessons? “She didn’t hit anything, did she?” he’d asked just the day before, worried about Maggie’s earlier, less-successful effort at parallel parking.

“Of course, she didn’t hit anything,” Naomi had told him, rather pointedly. “I think she’ll get her license very soon.”

Michael had nodded and smiled with a kind of pride that instantly ticked off his aunt. Men. Honestly. He probably thought she was mad about the wood chips he was shedding all over the dark showroom carpet. Well, she was mad about that. But, really. Men. Clueless!

No. Maggie didn’t know anything about that. And, Miss Naomi wasn’t telling – at least not yet.

“Give him some time, baby,” was all Miss Naomi said. Then, their pie arrived and it was so wonderful Maggie almost forget about loneliness, dogs, cats and Michael Alton. Almost.

Chapter 12

            “I can’t believe I did it!” Miss Naomi was clearly surprised when Maggie caught her up in her arms and gave her a quick spin out of pure joy. “Oops. Sorry about that!”

Miss Naomi just laughed. And, patted her hair back into place.

“Let me see it,” she said, reaching for the small card that announced to the world that Mary Magdela “Maggie” Brady – eyes-green, hair-red, height-5 foot 4, weight-wishful thinking — was a licensed driver in the State of Indiana. “The photo is even good. God must be looking out after you.”

“Someone must be,” Maggie agreed, remembering the sudden calm that overtook her during the most nerve-wracking part of the road test. “I couldn’t believe it when I had to park on a skinny, skinny street. The two cars I had to park between were so close together, even closer than the ones in front of the Koffee Kup last week. But, I did it better than I ever have since we started practicing.”

“I knew you would, baby. You’ve been working so hard and I’ve been praying for you every day.”

“You pray for me?”

“Of course.”

“What do you pray?” Maggie asked, trying to remember what Michael prayed for her on the day of the wedding. She couldn’t.

“Well, about your driving for one thing. And, I pray that God will protect you and that you will know that He loves you and wants to be your friend.”

That’s kind of weird, Maggie couldn’t help but think. She remembered hearing her grandmother pray plenty of times. But, Grammy Kate had died when she was in high school and no one else had ever prayed for her until Michael did that day at his workshop. At least not that she knew of. It was hard to imagine anyone praying about God wanting to be her friend. 

“Let’s celebrate,” Maggie said, preferring to dismiss such thoughts. “Come on, Miss Naomi. Wharf Drive-In ice cream all around.”

“Sounds good to me,” Miss Naomi said with conspiratorial grin. Maggie smiled back. After yet another week of stopping at nearly every pie shop and candy counter in the Duneland, she was well acquainted with the older woman’s insatiable sweet tooth.

*****

Happily dipping into home-churned blueberry milkshakes a few minutes later, Maggie tried to innocently move the conversation to Michael, whom she now hadn’t seen for a month. Miss Naomi clearly wasn’t buying the innocent part.

“He really is busy right now, Maggie,” Miss Naomi said, licking away a drip of milkshake the July heat had melted down the side of her cup with a grimace. She’d already told Maggie she’d never quite taken to this eating-in-the-car business. So crass, she had said. Maggie wondered if Grammy Kate had ever eaten in a car.

“He has a big order from a ski lodge at Vail. The last pieces need to ship out by this weekend. They’re using several of his tables in lounge areas. Each leg is carved like a standing bear. Lodges love the rustic look he creates.”

“I still haven’t seen much of his work,” Maggie admitted with regret. “There is a dresser that has his name inside it at the cottage, and I saw a little that day in his workshop. But, that’s pretty much it.”

“I didn’t know you’d been to the store.”

“I haven’t, just to his workshop on the day … well, the day of the wedding.” She realized Miss Naomi didn’t know what she talking about. “Did Michael not tell you how we met?”

“Not really, baby. I read what was in the papers and kind of filled in the blanks myself. Michael’s never been one to talk much.”

Maggie sighed, both in weariness with her story and in deep satisfaction that Michael had kept it to himself. “Love hides a multitude of sins,” that voice said again. Where did that come from? Am I going crazy? Maggie was trying hard to stop wondering. Now, she just tried to put such words out of her mind as quickly as possible. It was too weird.

*****

            “Baby, I’m so sorry to hear about this,” Miss Naomi said after Maggie gave her the bare-bones details of her wedding disaster. “Have you talked to this Stephen at all? Are you really sure he’s the father of this child?”

“We did speak once.” Maggie declined to mention she had since blocked his number and was not answering calls from any number she didn’t recognize. Ronan, her middle brother and Stephen’s best friend from early childhood, even had a difficult time getting through from an office phone when he made the first of his token weekly calls as the family’s designated emissary. “He pretty much admitted it’s the truth.”

“Maggie, do you still love this man?”

“No!” Maggie said this without hesitation, embarrassed that such a thing could be so true so fast. “Well, I thought I loved him before all this, but I’m not sure now if even that was ever true. Stephen might have just been what was easy.”

Miss Naomi was clearly interested in hearing more. Maggie decided to give it.

“There hadn’t been anyone else that really mattered before him. And, he was just my big brother’s handsome friend suddenly paying attention to me instead. It was flattering. He sent me armloads of roses and took me places where someone was always snapping our picture for some newspaper or magazine. It was all so romantic and exciting at the time. I’m not sure I was really thinking that much.

“Even his ring was over the top,” Maggie continued, still thankful the piece of jewelry was still intact when she had retrieved it from the hallway. “It was this crazy-huge diamond that has been in the McCutcheon family for who knows how many generations. I’m still not sure how to get it back to him.”

 “Well, you wouldn’t be the first young woman to get carried away with hearts and flowers – or fine jewelry for that matter,” Miss Naomi said with a sigh that sounded like empathy. Maggie figured that was from her own near miss with unhappily-ever-after.

Miss Naomi patted her hand and gently asked the question that had been on Maggie’s mind for the last four weeks. “Does Michael know about all of this, dear?”

“Most of it,” Maggie said with a full realization the older woman was definitely well aware of her ill-timed attraction to her nephew. “Enough to not want to be with me for the last few weeks, I think. I’m kind of damaged goods right now. I’m not sure any man would want to sign on.”

“Hush that kind of talk,” Miss Naomi said soothingly, reaching over to smooth a curl away from Maggie’s face. “You are no such thing. Michael’s a good man – he’s been like a son to me. If anything’s meant to happen between the two of you, it will. Just give him some time, Maggie. Give God some time, too.”

Chapter 13

Back in her cottage, Maggie realized something. Time was something she could give. There was no mayoral campaign to assist. There was no college degree to complete. There were no news deadlines to meet or even a wedding to waste time planning.

The remainder of this unexpected summer in the dunes stretched out in front of her as deep and wide as the lake. Right now, the open time didn’t seem scary or lonely, as it had even a day or two ago. It was just full of possibility. There really wasn’t any reason why it couldn’t be the best summer of her life – even if she was alone.  

But, busy bee that she’d always been, she wanted to have a plan. Within minutes, she had one of the black-and-white composition notebooks she always kept around open on the kitchen table and was doodling with a ridiculous feather-topped pen she’d bought on a whim at the drug store. She twirled it in her fingers as she thought about the summer, smiling when the feathers bent down from the force of the spin to tickle her skin. Stephen would have hated this pen. I should have bought two or three.

Deadline journalism had given her such focus, it took Maggie only a few minutes to advance from doodling to making a short list. She knew exactly what she wanted to do: 1. decorate the cottage 2. enjoy the beach as much as possible 3. make some better friends.

Maggie was looking at the notebook and twirling her pen once again when the voice added, Love me. The demand was so clear, so precise, she almost added the words to her list as an item four. She didn’t. That would be just a little too crazy. And, just whom was she supposed to love anyway?

She looked out the window at the warm drizzle that had developed since she had returned Miss Naomi to Michael’s showroom door after her extended “lunch break.” She sure wouldn’t be enjoying the beach today. But, it looked like a great afternoon for item No. 1, she decided. She gathered up her keys – her own CAR keys and HOUSE keys, too! – and headed out on her first solo drive to The Station Shoppe.

*****

Hannah seemed delighted to see her. I guess nearly buying out the store the last time I was here didn’t hurt. But, Maggie had to admit she was also quite pleased to see Hannah – and it had nothing to do with shopping. She simply liked the woman.

“I was hoping you could help me do some decorating,” Maggie said. “My cottage is beautiful, but it needs something more to really feel like a home.”

“Ooooh, I can’t think of a better way to spend a rainy afternoon,” Hannah replied, her entire face glowing with anticipation. “What do you have in mind?”

“Color,” Maggie laughed. “I need lots and lots of color.” She described her current cloud-like interiors to Hannah, who took notes and drew up a rough floor plan on a piece of stationery so thick it felt like linen.

Over the next couple of hours, the pair formed the kind of fast friendship only women can as they assembled a pile of loot. There were squishy pillows in every shade of blue, pink and coral; loosely knitted blankets; gilt-framed botanical prints; a weaving and a kaleidoscope of glass vases and small dishes.

“You know, maybe you should get a fauxlar bear rug for the bathroom to play up all that white instead of going for color everywhere!” Hannah said. She abandoned the pot of herbal tea she was about to pour into chintzware mugs for each of them and disappeared into a back room of the store.

“Fauxlar bear?” Maggie yelled back to her with a laugh. No one else was in the store at the moment. It felt like they were hanging out in a giant house instead of shopping.

“Yeah, isn’t that a great name for it? I think I made it up, but maybe I just read it somewhere. Who knows?” Hannah said, returning to display a small area rug, stretching the long, white synthetic fibers out to their full ursine-like length. Maggie laughed and gave her a nod. She would have bought the rug for the name alone.

Full of tea and a good dose of friendship, Maggie was actually looking forward to another long evening alone. The cottage already had such a solid core, it shouldn’t take but an hour or two to add this girly icing to the cake and really cozy things up. Maybe she would even break down and drive to a big box to get a TV. And some fuzzy house slippers. I have a license. I can do it.

Hannah had something else in mind, however.

“I know it’s really late notice, but Eli and I are having a few people from church over for dinner tonight. He’s grilling up a feast,” she said, adding a note of thanks that the late afternoon sun was quickly drying up the rain. “We’d love it if you’d come.”

Well, it was Friday. Maybe today was the time to start item No. 3, as well, Maggie thought, reminded of the “make some new friends” item on her list. Spending the day with Hannah had certainly been a joy. Decorating could wait.

“I’d be delighted, Hannah,” she said, truly meaning it.

Chapter 14

Maggie washed every stitch of make-up off of her face and started again. The high polish that was her everyday look in Chicago just didn’t look right here at the beach – even for a weekend-night dinner party. This time, she dusted the apples of her cheeks and her eye lids with a sheer coat of bronzer, did a quick coat of mascara on just her upper lashes and topped it all off with a light touch of salmon pink to her lips.

There, she thought. Dressed up, but not even enough to severely maim.

She stepped back from the giant mirror that loomed over her bathroom sink and surveyed her entire self. Her hair, wild with the July humidity, was gathered into a tousled twist with one of the beaded clips she’d gotten from Hannah. Her cottony clothes, all woodsy green tonight, clung softly to her shape without restricting her movements. Her pale leather sandals revealed toe nails Maggie had impetuously painted stoplight green.

“No one in Chicago would even recognize me,” she said out loud, wishing for a brief moment that someone was there to see her – or, at least hear her voice. Maybe she really did need a cat or a dog, another heartbeat in the house.

*****

Hannah’s and Eli’s farmhouse was easy to find. It was just down the street from The Station Shoppe. Maggie admired the home’s broad brick expanse and deep wrap-around porch as she walked up the steps. Hannah greeted her at the door, happily accepting the small box of candied orange peels coated with dark chocolate that Maggie had snagged during one of her forays with Miss Naomi.      

“Mmmm,” Hannah sighed, tucking the box into the back of a kitchen drawer as soon as they entered the house. “Eli doesn’t really need to know about this.”

The pair giggled at the passion between women and their chocolate until Maggie spotted Michael – incredibly handsome in khakis and a light blue shirt whose sleeves were rolled up onto his tanned forearms. He was leaning against a massive stone fireplace in the room beyond them, talking to someone else, but now looking straight at her.

Hannah turned to see what had caused her new friend’s sudden silence and was surprised to see Maggie and Michael locked in a gaze that hissed and sparked with enough energy to power a small city. She smiled, gave Maggie’s arm a quick squeeze and silently slipped away to her other guests.

“So, you’re a licensed driver, I hear,” Michael said as soon as he made his way to her side.

She had thought it might be awkward to talk with him again. It wasn’t. His simple but obviously informed statement seemed to be enough to at least thaw the ice, if not break it. Maggie immediately opened her purse to show Michael the prized card.

He looked it over and seemed to suddenly pale for some reason. How was she to know that seeing her entire birth date printed out on a legal document was even more shocking to him than the simple “24” that followed her name in all the news coverage? Or, that he suddenly realized he’d been touring prospective colleges while she was still in diapers?

“Congratulations,” he said, contradicting the warmth of the word by taking a step back from her.

Maggie sighed. Whatever, Michael. “Thanks. I owe it all to you and Miss Naomi.”

“Maybe Miss Naomi. Not me really,” he said, rustling his hair into wildness again. “Sorry I didn’t have more time to help you since that first drive. It’s been really crazy.”

“That’s what Miss Naomi said. But, I guess that kind of crazy is a good thing.”

“I guess it is,” Michael agreed.

They chatted on about the lodge order until Eli Maxwell appeared in full barbecue gear down to his bright red “Kiss the Cook” apron. Eli asked Michael to lead the group of a dozen or so partygoers in a brief prayer of thanks. Maggie was puzzled at that. Why Michael?

He prayed, briefly, and, after a brief hesitation, led Maggie to the backyard. “Wow,” she said in delight at their first sight of the splendid feast waiting there. “Where to start?”

Michael chuckled at that. He also allowed himself a quick-yet-approving appraisal of her curves. “I guess it’s not just Mexican, then?”

“No, I pretty much just like food,” Maggie said with a broad smile that made it clear she’d seen the look.

“Try the corn,” he said quickly, re-directing her attention to a platter of buttery, roasted ears sprinkled with fresh herbs. “It’s the first of this year’s local crop. It should be fantastic.”

And, it was. It all was. The group quieted as their hunger was satisfied and a handful of the other guests joined them at the small tiled table Michael had chosen. There were a few surprised looks when Michael introduced her, but no one said a word if they knew her story.

It went like that the rest of the evening until she had met everyone in the group. Hannah and Eli’s friends were such a friendly bunch that Maggie enjoyed herself whether Michael was with her or off with another group from time to time.

During one of his absences, an extremely good-looking young man named Tony tried to engage Maggie in a conversation than was friendlier than she wanted. She looked around the yard, searching for a way of escape. Tony was full of funny quips, but he was asking too many questions about Maggie’s life in Chicago. Plus, his outrageous flirting became annoying after only a few minutes.

“Maggie, I … we were thinking about walking down to the beach,” Michael said, appearing at her elbow so suddenly she startled. “Do you want to go?”

Tony eyed the two of them in surprise, watching Michael take Maggie by the arm and turn her toward himself even before she agreed. He gave Michael a small nod and quickly joined another handful of guests that was staged around a fire pit and laughing loudly over something or another.

Michael didn’t speak. She didn’t either. He steered Maggie away from the yard and onto a small sandy trail that began at the back of the property. Within minutes, they were alone on the beach. Only then did Maggie remember Michael’s “we” and realize it meant only the two of them.

 “Don’t mind Tony,” Michael finally said as they reached the point where the sand met the outermost edge of the waves. He took her sandals and his in his hand, knocked the dry sand off of them, rolled up his pant legs and started to walk toward her cottage, whose lights twinkled far down the shore. “He’s a nice guy. Single. Works in banking. He’s about your age, maybe a couple years older. You might enjoy getting to know him better this summer.”

She instantly bristled. I do not need you to set me up on dates, Michael Alton, thank you very much. “Hmmm,” was all Maggie said.

They lapsed into silence again as they walked. “Max will be jealous,” he finally said.

“Of what?” Maggie asked, her voice suddenly so soft it could barely be heard over the crash of the waves.

“He’ll smell the beach on me.”

Forget the beach. Maggie could smell him. The brisk wind that was whipping up the surf tonight carried a whisper of something spicy and interesting.

“The beach is Max’s favorite place,” he mumbled, looking away from Maggie and out at the blackness of the lake. He seemed to make a sudden decision. “Speaking of Max, he’s probably desperate to go out about now. I’d better get home.”

In what seemed like only seconds, Michael had taken her arm again and all but marched her back to Hannah and Eli’s yard. There, he handed back her sandals and headed off in his SUV after a warm thank you to their hosts and a round of good-byes to the group at large.

Maggie stood alone at the edge of the yard, shivering slightly with the evening chill. Michael must have known he was being a jerk. But, he didn’t seem to care.

Chapter 15

Maggie ran until she simply couldn’t anymore. She just stood, watching the sunlight glimmer on the now-gentle waves and waiting for her breath and heartbeat to slow. Ring-billed gulls laughed raucously just a few yards away. She had lived alongside Lake Michigan all her life. But she’d had no idea it could be this beautiful in the early morning – so peaceful.

“Maaaaagggggie!” Miss Naomi’s voice somehow reached her over the surf, startling her back to earth. “Come have some breakfast if you haven’t already.”

Maggie looked up to the sleek, modern deck where the older woman stood waving. She hadn’t realized she’d run far enough to be in front of her friend’s Lakeshore Drive home. It must be at least two miles from her own cottage. Her legs would be feeling it tomorrow. She still wasn’t used to running on shifting sand. But, they held her well enough as she bolted up the wooden steps to the house.

Miss Naomi had a simple but tasty breakfast prepared that easily stretched to feed two – or more. There was a pot of oatmeal bubbling on the stove and an array of toppings – brown sugar, honey, walnuts and slivers of almonds, and a large bowl full of jewel-like berries. Yogurt and a pitcher of what Maggie suspected was real cream stood nearby.

“Wow,” Maggie said, raising a mug of coffee in appreciation of the unexpected meal. If the beach folks continued to be so friendly, she might never cook again.

“I like a good breakfast,” Miss Naomi explained.

“Me, too.”

“Michael’s sister, Jo-Jo, is coming into town this weekend,” Miss Naomi said in a sudden change of subject. “She’s been in Chicago for the last couple of days, but she’s at Michael’s for the rest of the weekend and she’s coming here for lunch after church in the morning. I thought you might like to meet her.”

Maggie wasn’t sure what to say. Michael was welcoming, sometimes extraordinarily so. But, she was still puzzled – and a bit hurt – at his relative silence in the last few weeks. Not to mention the way he had left her so suddenly last night. He’d dropped her arm like a hot coal when he was leaving the party. He might say he wanted to be her friend, but his recent actions certainly weren’t suggesting that he would want her included in his family outings.

“Why don’t you come to church with me in the morning, too,” Miss Naomi went on, assuming Maggie was already in agreement with her plan. “You’ll love Jo-Jo. Everyone does.”

Miss Naomi’s softly wrinkled face looked pleased behind her own coffee mug, this one glazed with golden yellows that reminded Maggie of Van Gogh sunflower petals. The vibrant mug, combined with the startlingly bright orange of her kitchen walls and the morning sun left the woman practically glowing.

Maggie just couldn’t say no to her. Church and lunch it would be. Michael Alton could just get over himself.

*****

The shower’s warmth did little to soothe the muscles in Maggie’s legs – or the rest of her tired body. Every fiber was already protesting her decision to run again on the way home from Miss Naomi’s. Why had she done that? Stupid, really stupid.

To get her mind off the growing discomfort, she dug into her Station Shoppe bags and was soon numbed by the glow of home-decorating bliss. Better than chocolate, she thought. Well, not really, but close enough.

She toured the house when she was done. It was good.

The kitchen, she had basically left alone. She liked the simplicity of all white, broken only by the blue pottery peeking out of the windowed cabinets. She had added only some crisp cotton towels and dishcloths and a drying rack just like the one at Michael’s. She’d been delighted to find one at Hannah’s.

The bathroom had received a similarly light touch, unchanged except for the addition of a scattering of baskets that now kept her cosmetics out of sight on the open shelving and the white furry rug that now stretched out in front of the sink. She curled her toes into its “fauxlar” softness for a moment before giving the rest of the house yet another look over.

Maggie smiled. The living room and her bedroom were transformed.

In the former, generous piles of pillows ranging from a lavishly embroidered turquoise one to a raw silk specimen the color of a robin’s egg made the white couch and chairs pop. A soft blanket with only a whisper of blue lay in deep ripples across the back of the couch.

The color was just right great for summer – cool and breezy. She imagined swapping the blanket with one in warm rust or deep gold for the fall or a bright red one for Christmas — not that she’d be here to need either.

The old-fashioned plant prints looked great hanging from the picture rail by braids Maggie had made from thick twine she had found in a kitchen cupboard and silky ribbon from Hannah’s shop. The off-white paper that backed them looked just right against the gray walls and provided a creamy echo to the furniture.

On the mantle, a number of cobalt blue bottles now stood, many of them filled with white daisies she’d found growing on the side of the cottage. Other colorful glass dishes rested on two small tables she’d found in the shed and had cleaned off. They were rustically handmade – out of driftwood and glass in this case – but didn’t look anything like the limited selection of Michael’s work that she had seen.

The dishes were now full of smooth gray stones and small pieces of driftwood she had run out onto the beach to collect in the folds of her skirt when she realized she’d forgotten a bag. She’d felt like a woman in some old painting doing that. It made Chicago and her deadline-crazy job seem farther away than ever.

Surprisingly, that made her rather happy.

If the living room brought the surf to mind, her bedroom felt more like the inside of a shell. The white bedding was now softened with a scattering of coral and pink pillows. A fluffy, knitted afghan – all in rose — draped across the end of the bed. A weaving that incorporated all of the warm hues in wool yarns and chunky glass beads was beautiful over the head of her bed.

Maggie was pleased but eyed the bed critically. It still needed something and she had an idea – a slightly wicked idea at that. She dug through her closet and pulled out the garbage bag she’d thrown to the back on the night she’d moved in. Out came her insanely pricey wedding dress. Its front was still covered with a mix of make-up and wood chips. Maggie wrinkled her nose in embarrassment at the memory of how they’d gotten there.

But, she was undaunted. If life gives you lemons… Maggie laughed at the very idea of it, dropping the dress on the floor and heading off in her car without a second thought.

The big-box discount store in Michigan City had everything she needed plus salad makings for an easy dinner. Sewing machine, check. Scissors, pins, thread, stuffing, yards of delicate cream-colored lace. Quintuple check.

She threw a great deal of chocolate into the cart, as well. It could never hurt.

*****

            Grammy Kate would have been thrilled to see Maggie back in her cottage kitchen, now temporarily transformed into a replica of the sewing room where she and her granddaughter had shared so many happy times.

Maggie spread the wedding dress out on the table and fearlessly cut away all the soiled material, shoving it into the nearby trash can with rather more pleasure than would seem quite respectable. She smiled as the lid snapped shut with a gratifyingly loud clang.

After carefully removing all the hand-made lace from what remained, she cut the train into two large squares, each more than three feet across. She quickly cut the rest of the silk into long, thin strips and set to work.

First, the squares were quickly sewn into a basic pillow case, stuffed and the open edges were tucked inside and neatly closed. Maggie was surprised she still had the skills to work with such slippery fabric. Grammy Kate had taught her well.

Then she began to embellish the front of the pillow, this time by hand, with a woven pattern. It incorporated the white lace from her gown, the cream lace from the store and the raw-edged strips of white silk – the latter now twisted into loose spirals.

Sometime after 1 a.m., Maggie placed the pillow on her bed, surrounding it with the smaller, rosy specimens she had purchased from Hannah.

It was feminine. It was beautiful. It was everything she wanted and didn’t have — all sewn up into a tidy square package. She cried herself to sleep.

Chapter 16

Her phone’s alarm clock tone was a rude awakening. She longed for another couple of hours’ rest, but Miss Naomi was picking her up at 9:30.

Maggie had to scurry to straighten the cottage, eat and get dressed, but she made it. Miss Naomi seemed pleased with her choice of head-to-toe cream clothing, telling Maggie she was “looking lovely” as they headed off in her aged sedan. Maggie couldn’t imagine why Miss Naomi could prefer that ride to the sporty little Cooper. To each her own.      

They drove to the outskirts of town. The church was smaller and much more modern than the downtown Chicago one she attended on and off in childhood – her dad said a politician had to be religious, but not too religious. Inside, rows of interlocking chairs stood in place of pews. A platform at the front of the sanctuary held a small, clear plastic lectern and musical instruments. Maggie was surprised to see they included an electric keyboard, drums and several electric guitars. There wasn’t an organ pipe in sight.

She was even more surprised when a group of musicians gathered on the platform to open the service with several energetic songs whose words moved across giant screens that framed the platform. Concentrating hard on keeping up with the songs’ fast pace, Maggie didn’t notice Michael and the attractive, brown-haired woman who was with him approaching her side until she heard their voices join hers.

“Morning,” Michael whispered in between songs. She briefly smiled up at him, afraid to look away from the screens for very long lest she get hopelessly lost.

The sermon, shorter and simpler than she was used to, was still interesting. A pastor – at least she guessed he was the pastor, he was wearing khakis and a button down and no tie – told the story of an Old Testament prophet named Elijah who was chased into the wilderness by a wicked queen who worshipped idols. The queen apparently wanted to kill the guy because he did mighty miracles through the power of the true God.

“Now, when you hear of Elijah’s miracles, you might think he wasn’t an ordinary man, but the New Testament says he was a man just like us,” the pastor said. “Elijah was worn out and weak with hunger. He was afraid and just wanted to die. This man was a mighty man of God, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed to hear from God!

“And, he did. It wasn’t in the big way he might have expected from a God who had just burned up rocks with a blast of fire from heaven. No, God wasn’t in the great wind that passed by Elijah. He wasn’t even there when the earth shook at Elijah’s feet or when fire came down. He came when Elijah most needed him in the most surprising way – as nothing but a still, small voice.”

The pastor went on with his sermon, but Maggie’s spine had stiffened at that last statement and she heard nothing more. A still, small voice from God. That sounded familiar. Is that what she’d been hearing?

            Her surprise must have been noticeable. Michael kept looking straight ahead, but he pulled Maggie’s hand into his own and gave it a comforting squeeze before he entwined their fingers. Neither noticed the quick rise of his sister’s well-groomed brows on his right side and Aunt Naomi’s sparser gray ones on their left.

Chapter 17

Maggie seemed to love Jo-Jo at once. That was good. Even as well as he knew his sister, Michael had to admit that Jo-Jo was so full of good humor and energy today that Aunt Millie’s orange kitchen walls seemed to flicker and then dim in contrast.

“I still hate puppets,” Jo-Jo teased him, finishing up a hilarious tale in which she described her very naughty big brother chasing her early-childhood self all over the house, snapping the jaws of the slightly creepy marionette she’d gotten for Christmas in her face.

“It’s not my fault you scream like a girl,” Michael rejoined. “You just made stuff like that way too much fun.”

Maggie also seemed pleased at the obvious love between the siblings. He wondered if she had been in any better contact with her own family in the last few weeks. She had told him a little during that first driving lesson about a few phone calls and their united “tough love” stance in terms of wanting her to reconcile with Stephen. Ridiculous.

“I think you got off easy, Jo-Jo,” Maggie said, interrupting his thoughts. Now, he could almost feel her pushing away a sudden swell of homesickness and loneliness. “There was only one of Michael. I have five older brothers. Five. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen!”

They all laughed at that and Michael tried to similarly push away his concerns for her. The fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, greens and the rest of a flat-out North Carolina feast disappeared as they continued to exchange wacky family stories of spiders in the hair, water balloons dropped from upstairs bedroom windows and so on. Miss Naomi seemed quite pleased they were so enjoying the meal she had prepared and shooed them all out onto the deck while she got dessert.

*****

“Whoa, are you OK?” Michael exclaimed when Maggie nearly doubled over in pain upon rising from her chair. “You can’t quit now. Aunt Naomi made chess pie.”

“I’m not sure what chess pie is,” Maggie managed to croak out. “But, I can’t wait.” She twirled her toes in a wide circle, trying in vain to stretch away the fierce cramp that still gripped her right calf.

Michael took her hand to help her stay balanced.

“I just overdid it yesterday on a run,” she explained with a grimace. “I did about four miles on the beach and running on sand is really different than the track at my gym. I’m still not used to it.”

“Four miles your first time on sand!” Michael said incredulously. “Maggie! I’m surprised you can even move. Let’s wait on the dessert and try to walk it out now. You can’t enjoy pie while you’re hurting anyway.”

Jo-Jo watched in open-mouthed amazement as Michael assisted Maggie down the deck steps as if she were made from porcelain. When he went so far as to bend down on one knee to remove the young lady’s sandals — so they wouldn’t be damaged by the sand, Michael said — Jo-Jo barely contained a snort of laughter. Michael must have heard something. He shot his sister a quick warning glare.

“Where did they go?” Miss Naomi asked, arriving with a tray of iced tea and the pie a minute later.

Jo-Jo gestured toward the pair, now moving hand in hand along the firm strip of wet sand that lay just out of the waves’ reach. It was the only stable walking surface the beach had to offer and Michael had headed for it immediately.

“Maggie had a leg cramp from running and Michael wanted to make sure she stretched it out. Right now, he said. And, it looks like he’s making sure she doesn’t fall down — or anything like that.”

The two women shared amused glances and sliced up the pie.

“Mama’s gonna love this,” Jo-Jo said before digging in.

Aunt Naomi laughed. “Indeed, she will.”

*****

“Feeling better?” Michael asked, pleased with the smooth pace at which Maggie was now moving.

“I am. Thanks for getting me back out here. A walk is exactly what I needed. Hair of the dog.”

“You shouldn’t go too far today, though,” he warned. “Certainly not all the way home. Jo-Jo and I can drive you back to the cottage after the pie.”

They walked in silence for a good half mile.

“Michael?”

“Hmmm?” Michael answered, lulled by the waves and her pleasant company. Why he had been so freaked out by her at Hannah and Eli’s, he couldn’t imagine at the moment.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For everything,” Maggie said, her voice quavering with emotion. “I don’t know what I would have done these last few weeks if…if…”

OK. The freak-out reasons were coming back to him. Michael didn’t let her finish. “Maybe we should sit for a while. We’re allowed, you know,” he joked, stopping to ease her down onto the sand to rest her leg.

“How is everything going with all that, you know, Chicago stuff?” Michael asked after another long moment of silence.

Maggie was equally slow to respond. “It’s OK.”

“Have you talked to Stephen?” OK. That’s a little too straight to the point.

“Once.”

“And?” Michael prompted.

“And, he’s pretty angry. He says this is all my fault.”

“What did you say to that?” How can one guy be such an idiot?

“Not much other than that it’s completely over,” Maggie said quietly. “I hung up on him and blocked his number.”

“I see.” His thumb began to trace small circles against the side of her hand, which he still held loosely in his own. He didn’t want to talk about Stephen anymore. Her next words suggested she might not, either.

“I decorated the cottage,” she blurted out.

“You did?” The circles stopped.

“I didn’t change anything permanently, you know,” she said quickly, as if she was afraid he was worried she’d somehow damaged his property. “Just lots of pillows and stuff. Maybe you and Jo-Jo would like to see it when you take me home.”

Michael took her comment as a sign that it was time to go. He helped her back to her feet. “That sounds good.”

But, Maggie wasn’t quite done with the conversation. “Michael?”

“Hmmm?”

“Do you think God really speaks to people, like the pastor was talking about this morning?”

Michael paused to look carefully at Maggie’s face before he answered. “Yes, I think He does, Miss Maggie.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Maggie said softly. He led them back toward Miss Naomi’s, smiling in spite of himself.

Chapter 18

“Maggie, this pillow is amazing!” Jo-Jo was practically dancing around Maggie’s bedroom in excitement, her fingertips running lightly over the lace-loaded specimen she had just discovered during a tour of the cottage’s new decor. “I can’t believe you made this. I could sell something like this for hundreds of dollars at one of our showrooms.”

“Really?” Maggie asked. “That seems like a lot of money for a pillow.”

“You have no idea,” Jo-Jo said wryly. She whirled around in search for her brother. “Michael, where are you? Have you seen this?”

The man in question appeared in the doorway of the room, giving only a quick glance toward the bed where Jo-Jo was excitedly pointing out a giant pillow. “Of course not.”

Jo-Jo laughed. She hauled the pillow up into her arms and pushed past him toward the living room, where she plopped it onto the couch. “OK, you can look now, Michael. Look! Maggie made this.”

Michael did look this time, quite carefully. He was surprised at the artistic merit of what he saw, but maybe more surprised at the fabric. That was certainly familiar enough. He turned to Maggie, who was blushing pink. OK. She knew that he knew. She had all but ripped her wedding dress to shreds. She was apparently not kidding in any way about it being over with this guy.

“Jo-Jo’s right, Maggie,” he said, moving his head to the side until she reluctantly met his eyes. “Your work is beautiful. I could sell this at my shop, too.”

Maggie smiled like a young girl showing off a pretty pair of shoes under their praise. Her smiled widened as both Altons made a more formal offer to sell any future work she did if she wanted a change of pace from the news business.

“I’ll have to think about it,” Maggie said calmly. Michael watched her eyes. They revealed way more enthusiasm for the idea was just under the surface. “I’ve never considered sewing anything to sell before.”

“Maybe you should,” Jo-Jo said, interrupting what Michael suspected was a flurry of ideas. He knew that look. That look made him smile.

“But, Michael and I really better get going,” Jo-Jo continued. “We still have a bunch of contracts to go over tonight. I go home in the morning.”

Jo-Jo and Maggie hugged warmly. Michael successfully fought back the impulse to make it a group event. He was willing to linger a bit, however. “I’ll be out in a second,” Michael said to Jo-Jo, all but ignoring his sister’s exit. He retrieved his Bible from where he had stashed it on the kitchen table. “Maggie, I wanted you to have this.”

            Maggie looked at the well-worn leather book in his hands. “I can’t take your Bible, Michael,” she said as he placed it in her own. “It looks like you’ve had it for ages.”

“I have, but I have others, too. Sunday School teacher from way back, you know,” he said with a grin. “I bookmarked the scriptures about Elijah from the sermon this morning. I thought you might like to read them for yourself.”

“I would. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Maggie,” Michael said. His resolve toward brotherliness weakened just enough so that he leaned in and touched his lips to her hair as he left. The contact was so soft, so slight that he wondered if he had only imagined the kiss when the cottage door closed behind him.

*****

“Michael Alton, you are in so much trouble!” Jo-Jo said with a yawn. The stack of contracts was finally put away.  “I’m way too tired to hold it in any more.”

She sat cross-legged on his couch in a cotton bathrobe and fuzzy flip-flop style slippers. She looked like the kid he tended to always think of her as, although her sharp-eyed gaze gave a clear glimpse of the sleek, “leaning-in” CEO she could be whenever she felt like it. And, that seemed to be exactly what she wanted right now.

“What?” Michael asked with a trace of irritability. He rubbed his eyebrow with the heel of one hand. He was tired, too.

“My big brother, Mr. ‘I don’t want to run the company, I don’t want the limelight, I just want to be a simple carpenter.’ You wait all this time and now you pick the one woman sure to land you in People magazine.” Jo-Jo hooted with laughter Michael would have thought unbecoming on anyone but his wild-child sister. As it was, he punched her in the arm – in the most brotherly of ways, of course.

“Who says I’ve picked anyone?” he said warily. His sister could run with an idea like a dog with a ham bone.

“You do!”

“Do not!”

“You do, too,” Jo-Jo hooted again. “Mr. ‘Would you like to have my Bible so you can learn more about Elijah, Miss Maggie?’ Don’t think I didn’t hear that. Or what about, Mr. ‘Can I help you with those flimsy little sandals?’ ”

Michael rolled his eyes at Jo-Jo’s gross exaggeration of the day. “Maggie’s my friend, Jo-Jo. Nothing else.”

“Michael! Since when do you hold hands with your friends – and in church, no less? You’ve been positively Victorian for – well, forever. For you, this is hot stuff!”

“Let it go,” Michael said, his glare doing little to silence his sister. “She’s 24 years old.”

“OK, have it your way, big brother,” Jo-Jo said, heading for his own bedroom, the only one in the apartment. Giving it to her always seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do, even if she was annoying. Perhaps he’d put a camping cot out for her in his workshop the next time she came. A little sawdust never hurt anybody.

Jo-Jo wasn’t done. “Twenty-four or not, I’m telling mama to FedEx Grandmother Alton’s ring as soon as I get home. You’re going to need it, maybe even sooner than I think.”

Michael whipped a pillow her way as he made the couch into a bed for himself. But, he didn’t actually reject her offer, or threat as it could be construed. That alone was enough to make him stare into the darkness into the deep of the night.

Chapter 19

Maggie made her bed the next morning as if she were preparing for a photo shoot in a home-design magazine. She arranged the infamous pillow this way and that and had a sudden urge to make more of the same. She had no idea what she would do with more pillows, but that wasn’t the problem at the forefront of her mind. The bigger issue: Her pillow was made out of some pretty amazing fabric. It wasn’t exactly the kind of stuff you could get at a big-box store.

“Hannah!” Maggie said in a flash of inspiration. “She would know where I could get almost anything.” The Station Shoppe wasn’t open on Mondays, so Maggie called her new friend at home and filled her in on her plan.

“We could try Shipsewana,” Hannah cried.

“Ship see what?”

Hannah laughed. “Shipsewana. It’s a giant flea market a little more than an hour from here. This time of year, at least some of the vendors are open every day. We could go today as a matter of fact. Eli’s in court and he won’t be home until late. And, the only thing I have on my schedule is cleaning house. That can certainly wait.”

“I’ll drive!” Maggie said, already imagining the two of them speeding down the highway in her sweet little ride. Maybe she would wear dark glasses and let one of her scarves flutter out the car window like an old-fashioned movie star. Or not. Didn’t some silent-move starlet manage to choke to death doing that?

*****

Hannah wound up meeting her at the cottage first. She wanted to see the pillow in question so she would know what Maggie had in mind. “This really is beautiful work, Maggie. Where did you learn to sew like this?”

“My Grammy Kate always lived with us. She had this amazing sewing room up in the attic that was the most girlie-girl place I could imagine. It was my favorite place to go to get away from all my brothers. She taught me embroidery and sewing. We even dabbled in some lace making now and then.”

“Wow. Not many people our age know how to do stuff like this, especially the hand work.”

“I kind of forgot I knew how to do it until this weekend. With college and then my TV job, there just wasn’t any time. I don’t think I’ve fired up a sewing machine since she died, and that was when I was in high school.”

Maggie’s heart swelled with a sudden longing for her sweet grandmother. Grammy Kate would never have banned her from home. Her idea of tough love was taking a taxi into a sketchy neighborhood if that’s what it took to get her granddaughter some really good ice cream.

Hannah ran her fingers across the pillow’s front and then flipped it over so that she could see the back. “This is very expensive silk, Maggie,” she said in surprise. “Jo-Jo is right. You could definitely sell pieces made like this, but fabric like this would price them right out of most markets.”

She fixed Maggie with a stare and Maggie knew that she, too, had guessed the raw materials for this particular pillow. What? Is it suddenly a crime to cut up one’s own clothing?

“What do you think about a high-quality cotton as a base and using the more expensive fabrics for just your embellishments?” Hannah went on. “If you can get the cost down, I think I could get you a very good price if you want to sell some pillows at my shop.”

“That’s what Michael said.”

“Really?” Hannah looked stunned. “I’ve never known Michael to sell anything but his own furniture at his store — not that he needs to. His stuff pretty much sells as soon as it hits the floor.”

“I still haven’t seen much of his work,” Maggie said.

Hannah looked at the wistful expression on her friend’s face. “I expect you will,” she said with a smile.

*****

The Shipsewana flea market was alarmingly big, even on a Monday. If Hannah hadn’t forged ahead, Maggie wouldn’t even have known where to start. As it was, they searched more than an hour before making their first find – a battered cardboard box that was filled with a tangle of slightly yellowed vintage lace.

Score! Maggie was already reaching for her wallet when Hannah put a restraining hand on her arm.

“What’s your best price on this lace?” Hannah asked the vendor, a scruffy-bearded man who looked to be in his 60s. He didn’t seem like a lace-selling type of guy, Maggie noticed. Most of his stuff seemed to be more along the line of wildly modern furniture from the 1960s and ’70s. There was a whole lot of orange. Screamingly bright orange. Miss Naomi would love it here.

Hannah began to display the steely bargaining skills she’d developed by stocking her own store. “It’s discolored and this would be a real mess to sort out,” she said to the man, pointing out a particularly yellow loop of lace near the top of the tangle.

Maggie held her breath. She knew the yellowing could likely be reversed, or the lace could be used as is for a more vintage vibe. And, the tangle was only a matter of time and patience. She didn’t want to lose out on this box. She didn’t need to worry, however. Hannah expertly bargained the lace well down from the price scribbled in ball-point pen on one corner of the box’s lid. Maggie was soon carrying her loot back to the trunk of the car with a sigh of relief.

“That, my friend,” Hannah said with a grin and a poke to Maggie’s arm, “is how you keep your costs down and your profits up. Never pay full price.”

Maggie laughed, but she followed Hannah’s example as best she could the rest of the afternoon. She wasn’t quite as skillful a negotiator, but, at the end of the day, her trunk was filled with not only the lace but large bolts of both creamy linen and white eyelet; several yards each of cotton in peach, blue and pink; a pile of tattered blue jeans she intended to cut up; and a beat-up old suitcase full of scraps of silk in every color she could imagine. There was even a decrepit coffee can loaded to its rusty brim with shell buttons.

Her mind buzzed with the sheer possibilities, but the shopping didn’t stop there. On their umpteenth trip to the car – full of supplies now packed together like a jigsaw puzzle – Maggie was lured in by a giant rectangular basket that turned out to be a vintage carrier for homing pigeons.

“What on earth could I do with it?” Maggie asked Hannah.

Hannah looked dubiously at the carrier, which measured at least four feet across and two feet wide. “With a tray on top, it would make a great coffee table. But, I’m more concerned about where you’d put it. There’s no way this thing is going in the Mini Cooper. It’s already packed.”

The dealer came to their rescue, expertly strapping the carrier to the car’s small roof, shoving scraps of old carpet underneath it to cushion the body paint from harm. “That’ll do,” the cheerful man said, giving the whole operation a hard shake to make sure it would stay put out on the road.

When he left, after much thanks from both women, Maggie looked at the comically overloaded car and laughed out loud. “Thank you so much, Hannah!” she said, impulsively hugging her friend. “How about an early dinner? My treat?”

*****

“You’re way more fun to shop with than Eli,” Hannah said, sipping a hand-squeezed lemonade from a textured plastic tumbler that was worn white in places from way too many runs through the dishwasher. The diner where she had suggested they stop on the way home turned out to be Mennonite owned.

The Mennonites must be pretty close to Amish, Maggie surmised as she took a closer look at their young waitress. Maggie had never seen someone so simply dressed except in photographs. The girl wore a plain, powder-blue dress covered with a white apron that was attached to the dress with straight pins of all things. Her clothes and her legs, covered with thick, white stockings, seemed at odds with the black sneakers she wore on her feet.

It was the plainest of clothing, but there was no ignoring the rosy-cheeked beauty of the girl’s face, framed with thick golden hair done up in a tight bun and a translucent white bonnet.

“She looks so innocent,” Maggie said when the girl headed back to the kitchen. She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until Hannah answered.

“Rachel? I imagine she is. The Mennonites are not big on sin, you know.”

“Be holy; for I am holy,” the soft voice said, causing Maggie’s breath to completely disappear for a moment. She knew those words! And, she remembered exactly where she had heard them.

They had come from her grandmother. Maggie could almost see her, sitting in a rocking chair in the sewing room and reading aloud from her old-fashioned Bible. It was a King Charles Bible or something like that, Maggie thought. Maggie shut her eyes and imagined her grandmother’s voice. The words were the same, but it wasn’t her grandmother’s voice that she had just heard.

“Earth to Maggie,” Hannah said, noticing her friend’s far-away look. “Thinking of Michael, perhaps?”

“Michael? Oh, no, not at all,” Maggie said, quite truthfully. Yet, she felt warmth steal into her cheeks at the very mention of his name. This blushing business absolutely had to stop. She was 24, not 6.

“Hmmph,” was all Hannah said in reply. Their pulled pork and coleslaw had arrived, after all. Maggie correctly interpreted her friend’s relative silence. They would talk more about this on the way home.

Chapter 20

Maggie struck first, however, successfully diverting Hannah’s attention away from Michael all the way home. “How did you and Eli meet?” was enough to start the most pleasant of conversations.

“Miss Naomi introduced us, actually,” Hannah said, explaining the older woman and her late husband had been family friends for years before Hannah had left what sounded like a lucrative PR job in the city to open The Station Shoppe a couple of years ago.

“This is Eli’s hometown. Most of the Maxwell men and quite a few of the women have been lawyers. I needed someone to do the paperwork when I bought the store and Miss Naomi introduced me to the one Maxwell lawyer who just happened to be a single guy – and a very cute one at that.”

“Hmmm,” Maggie said, watching carefully so she didn’t miss the interstate exit to Waverly Shores. This had been her longest drive to date. She didn’t want to end it going all the way to Chicago by mistake. “Love at first sight, huh?”

Hannah laughed and went on to describe their first date, which managed to end with a fender bender.

“Maybe not first sight, but pretty close. Miss Naomi seems to have quite a knack for moving such things along. Next month is our one-year anniversary.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize you two were such newlyweds.”

“We are. And, it will be we three soon enough.”

Maggie gave a quick glance at her friend’s mid-section as she pulled up to the front of her cottage. Hannah’s clothing was so loosely fitted, she wouldn’t have noticed the hint of roundness there even now if the seatbelt hadn’t held the fabric flat against her.

“Wow, again. Congratulations!” And, congratulations on achieving such a state with an actual husband — of your own, Maggie thought in a fresh-but-short burst of ire at Stephen and Rosa. “When is your baby due?”

“Oh, not for almost six months yet,” Hannah said, absentmindedly smoothing her dress over her tiny tummy as she rose from the car. “You’re actually the first non-family member that I’ve told.” She headed for the trunk to help Maggie unload, but immediately showed she hadn’t been entirely distracted from her earlier train of thought.

“Maggie, I can’t tell you how happy I am to be married to Eli and having a child with him,” Hannah said, a dreamy look crossing her face. “It was God who did all of this for me. I thought I was happy enough in the city. But, I was really terribly alone and empty until I came here and learned enough about Jesus to ask Him into my heart. I had no idea He’d fill it with everything else I’d dreamed of, too.”

Maggie looked away lest she start another round of tears. She had no idea why Hannah’s openness so touched her heart, but it did. Hannah pressed on.

“I think God wants to do all of this for you, too, Maggie,” she said. “I don’t know what happened with your fiancé and your wedding. And, I know it probably feels like it’s really soon. But, don’t let a past hurt stand in the way of the good man who’s right here, right now.”

“I gather you’re talking about Michael,” Maggie said with a wry smile.

“Of course, I’m talking about Michael.”

“He doesn’t think of me that way,” Maggie said a bit breathlessly. She was struggling to keep hold of an armload of fabric bolts while unlocking her door. “He’s been incredibly kind to me, but he thinks of me like a little sister.”

Hannah laughed but said little more as they lugged bolt after bolt of fabric inside and stacked them in a neat pile behind the couch. They even managed to attach the casters they had stopped in Michigan City to buy to the bottom of the pigeon carrier and settle it in front of the couch without incident.

As she left, however, Hannah offered a parting shot and a warm smile.

“You know, Maggie, I’ve seen Michael and his actual little sister together plenty of times and I can tell you I’ve never seen him look at her the way he looks at you. Trust me on this.”

Maggie laughed, but gave her friend a doubtful look. “We’ll see.”

“We certainly will,” Hannah bubbled before driving away. Maggie couldn’t help but smile.

*****

She’d need a better place to store all her sewing stuff, Maggie decided immediately after Hannah left. Right now, it was all over the cottage — under her bed, in her closet, behind the couch. It was a good thing she didn’t have a dog. There’d be hair on everything. Perhaps a large cabinet or bookcases on the wall between her living room and her bedroom would work. That would do it, but she’d have to do her shopping on the sly. She certainly had no intention of asking Michael any furniture-related questions, friend or not.

For now, she decided to be happy with her big stack of raw materials just waiting to be made into something useful. She leaned over the back of the couch and fished up the box of lace to begin the painstaking process of detangling. The loops and scrolls were stunning as they slowly unrolled against her fingers — even in their discolored state.

What a shame it would be if something so wonderfully made had been thrown away. How much better it is to rescue the lace and turn it into something new. No sooner had she had that thought than the voice called to her again. “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Maggie stilled. But, she didn’t even try to ignore the voice this time. Again, she knew those words.

She dropped the lace and went to get Michael’s Bible from her kitchen table, where it had sat untouched since he gave it to her. She turned to the back of the book, where she remembered Grammy Kate showing her a kind of index Bibles have that can be used to find scriptures. The words in Michael’s Bible were exactly the same old-fashioned ones she knew, oddly enough. She soon found the verse the voice had echoed.

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

It was in Psalm 139 and, according to a note at the top of the chapter, was written by a king named David. Maggie thought that was the same David who had killed Goliath. She remembered that story quite well.

Maggie read the chapter from its beginning and it stirred even more memories of hearing her Grammy Kate read while her only granddaughter sat in the floor and happily sewed. She was quite sure she’d heard these very words before, but she was still surprised at the familiarity with which this David, whoever he was, spoke of God.

“O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me,” one verse said. “For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before…”

Michael had written notes beside these verses in neat block letters. “GOD HEMS ME IN. HE KNOWS ME AND LOVES ME ANYWAY.” Maggie traced her fingertip over Michael’s words. He had pressed his pen so firmly into the tissue-thin paper, she could feel them, like some sort of reverse Braille.

She liked that idea of God knowing, yet loving anyway. She also liked the thought of God “hemming” someone in like a pillow, everything inside kept safe from any kind of harm that could come from the outside. She read on and was surprised that by the time she reached the last few lines of the chapter, tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Driven by something deep inside her, she repeated those words out loud. Was she really speaking to God? She wasn’t sure. But, she felt compelled to add a few more words of her own in case He was actually listening. These words were wrung from her very heart and captured all the hurt that had weighed on her since that awful, awful day at St. Matthew’s.

“Please don’t throw me away, God. Please clean me up and make me into something new.”

A wave of peace – and deep love — washed over her and Maggie wondered what exactly she had done. Somehow, it no longer mattered quite so much that Stephen didn’t really love her and probably never had. Or, that she wasn’t even sure of the love of her own family. The confusion she felt about Michael even waned. He might love her someday. She might love him. He might not. She might not. But, at that moment, Maggie understood that God knew her – really knew her — and He loved her anyway.

And, somehow, she knew that would be enough.