Rekindled Hearts

Chapter Two

Colt drove out of town, in the general direction of the area where the dog had been spotted. As he drove, he could see the faded—and sometimes ripped—signs that Tommy had put up right after the tornado, when they first realized Charlie was missing.

Gregory Garrison had searched the area, looking for that dog. He’d even tried a new puppy. Nothing worked. Tommy only wanted the original Charlie. Colt didn’t blame the kid. That dog had been the boy’s family.

As he drove, he passed where Marie Logan’s body had been found. Colt had insisted on being the one to give Jesse the news about his wife. He remembered the look on Jesse’s face. The disbelief. Maybe a little betrayal. What a thing for a man to go through, finding a Dear John letter and then something like that happening.

Colt pulled up to the farmhouse that had once been beautiful and well maintained. Time and age had started the deterioration of the place. The storm had done the rest. The chicken houses that had helped provide when times were lean had been ripped off their foundations in the tornado and strips of sheet metal were blown across the county. Some of those pieces of metal were still wrapped around trees.

The old farmer came out of the house, bib overalls and work boots. Colt stepped out of his car and met the other man in the middle of the yard.

“Hey, Walter, how are you?”

Walter, worn and haggard, shrugged slim shoulders. “Seen better days, Colt. Seen better days. Drought last year and now this. It makes it hard to be a farmer.”

“Yeah, it does.” Colt looked around, at barns and outbuildings that looked as run-down as the farmer standing in front of him.

“I thought they’d send a county officer, not the town chief of police.”

“The city voted to extend the city limits out a mile, Walter. I can usually get here sooner than county, anyway. So, about that dog.”

“I seen a dog, back in the field. It was a shaggy brown thing. I heard in church that they’re still looking for that boy’s dog. I couldn’t remember what it looked like.”

“I’ll drive out through your field and take a look. But it doesn’t sound like Charlie. Walter, are you doing okay out here?”

His wife had passed away a year ago. His kids had moved off, finding jobs in town and giving up life on the farm. Colt remembered when he had wanted to trade farming for anything but farming.

“I’m doing all right.” But his gaunt appearance worried Colt.

“Are you going to keep the farm? Some of the people who took hits as hard as yours are talking about selling out.”

“Nah, I ain’t going anywhere. This is all I know. At least I have a roof over my head. It’s a little leaky now, but it’s a roof.”

“Leaky?”

“Well, seems it was damaged by the tornado.”

“Have you contacted your insurance?”

The old farmer sighed. “I did, but I guess there’s a problem with my policy.”

“Walter, did you tell anyone?” Colt’s face got a little hot.

“I tried to call some government office, but got put on hold. And you know I can’t hear on the phone.”

“Let’s take a look around this place.” Colt started walking and Walter followed, slower than he used to be, stepping a little more cautiously. How many older farmers like Walter were being ripped off or ignored?

As they walked, Colt realized that a window in the back bedroom of the old farmhouse was still busted and the little leak in the roof was big enough for a basketball to fit through. Shingles were gone from another section.

Someone had to get out here and do something. Colt should have done something. He just hadn’t realized. There were so many people needing assistance it was hard to keep up with who had been taken care of, and who hadn’t.

“Walter, I’m going to make some calls for you, but in the meantime, I’ve still got some tarps in my Jeep that I keep on hand for situations like this. Let’s get a tarp over your roof and a piece of plywood over that window.”

“I sure appreciate that, Colt, but you don’t have to. I called my boy, and he’s coming down in a week or two. He told me to call you, but I told him it could wait.”

“Walter, you should have called.”

The older farmer looked down at boots that were scuffed and worn. Those boots of his probably took on water just like the roof.

Colt pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I have to make a call, but how about a sandwich? I have a couple in my lunch box.”

“I can’t take your lunch.”

“Nonsense. I stick it in there in case I get stuck on a call, but I didn’t need it today.” Colt opened the car door and pulled out the lunch box and grabbed a bottle of water out of the cooler in the back of his rig. “Go have a seat on the front porch and I’ll be right with you.”

He watched Walter hobble away and then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Michael Garrison.

“Michael, this is Colt. I’m out at Walter’s farm….”

“Is it Charlie?”

“I haven’t seen the dog yet. But Walter really needs some assistance out here. I’m going to put a tarp on his roof and board up a window that got blown out, but he’s having problems with insurance. I’m not sure if he even has food.”

“I’ll get right on it, Colt. You’re a good man. And thanks for volunteering to cook on Sunday.”

“Volunteering my…”

“Foot,” Michael provided.

“Yes, my foot.” Colt ended the conversation. Sunday, church and Lexi. He’d rather walk on glass than face her and God on the same day, in the same place.

Sunday morning Lexi stood on the steps of the church, waiting, and still praying Colt would show up. People passed her on the steps, some smiling or saying hello, others involved in their own thoughts, or conversations with the person next to them. They didn’t notice her alone on the steps.

Standing there on the steps, she realized that more than the landscape had changed since the tornado. People had changed. Lives had really changed. She watched as Nicki Appleton, a preschool teacher in town, got out of her car with Kasey, the toddler that Gregory Garrison had found at the Waters cottages near the river.

The child held tight to Nicki’s hand, and looked for all the world as if they belonged together. What would happen to Nicki’s heart when the little girl’s family was found? Lexi didn’t want to think about that, or the pain the child’s leaving would cause.

Instead she focused on Heather Waters, standing next to Pastor Michael—as Lexi liked to think of the reverend. He just seemed more down-to-earth and reachable than the title Reverend implied. The two, Heather and Michael, had found love, lost love, after the tornado. They gave her hope for her own life, her own broken relationship.

And Maya Logan and Gregory Garrison. The two had fallen in love and were getting married. Two very different people, and the tornado had brought them together and made the differences melt away. They were going to adopt little Tommy and give him a forever family.

Footsteps behind her. Lexi turned in time to see Michael’s niece, Avery, slinking past her. The teenager looked as if she was up to something. The girl had been doing so much better since she came to High Plains to stay with Michael; the return of this sneaky side surprised Lexi.

“How is school going, Avery?” Lexi stopped the girl.

Avery’s mouth opened and she blinked, but then she smiled. She was a pretty girl, fresh-faced and not at all the dark teen she had tried to be at one time.

“Oh, good. You know, just hanging out.”

“I could still use help feeding dogs, if you’d like.”

“Umm, yeah, maybe sometime. Heather’s keeping me pretty busy.”

“Good. Well, maybe when you have more time.”

Avery nodded and darted off.

Lexi’s friend Jill walked out the door and stood next to her. They had prayed together the previous evening, not just for Colt, but for the community and the hearts and lives that were still healing.

“He’ll be here.” Jill squeezed Lexi’s hand. “He can run from God, but he can’t hide.”

“He didn’t say he would come to church.”

“But he might.” Jill, always optimistic.

Lexi smiled, but it wasn’t easy. Her life was hanging in the balance, waiting for the pieces to come together again. For a long time she had waited, thinking Colt would come back to her. As much as it hurt, she was starting to accept that maybe his coming home wasn’t the best thing for her. Last night, for the first time, she had prayed about moving on without him.

She still wanted him to have faith. Even if he wasn’t in her life.

Jill hugged her. “I have to get inside. Will you be okay?”

“I’m okay. I’ll be inside in just a second.”

“Okay. Gotta run, though. The choir is getting settled and I can see Linda looking for me. She’s not smiling.”

“She never smiles.” Lexi turned to look inside the church at Linda, who really was a happy and loving person. The choir was her place in church. She’d been there for nearly fifty years. “Go, I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will.” One last squeeze of her hand and then Jill walked away.

Lexi stood in the doorway for a few minutes, waiting until the last second before she turned and walked inside. Colt hadn’t shown up. She shrugged off disappointment. Like so many other times in her life, she told herself that it didn’t matter.

People weren’t always there when you expected or needed them. She had learned that early on from parents who had been busy with careers; their child had been an afterthought. It had almost become that way with Colt and his job. He had been obsessed with catching the guy that shot Gavin.

Lexi sat down in her customary pew and opened the hymnal. Her vision blurred a little and she blinked to clear the mist. It was lonely, walking in by herself, watching families take their seats, settling children on their laps or next to them with crayons and pieces of paper or coloring books.

She had always wanted to be one of those families. As a kid she had gone to church with neighbors, the Clines, because her parents had been busy with their real estate business and hadn’t had time. Sundays her parents did brunch and talked to prospective clients.

The Cline family had been her ideal family. They had played basketball in the evenings, and they walked their dogs together. They had gone to church together every Sunday and every Wednesday. And when she had eaten dinner with them, they had joined hands and prayed.

She had wanted that family. For a lot of years that family, more than faith, had been what she longed for.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Footsteps caught her attention and then a movement and someone scooting in next to her. She looked up, swallowing delight and fear as Colt sat next to her.

“Stop looking at me like that, Lexi.” He reached for a hymnal and glanced at the one she held before flipping to the correct page.

For the first time in a long time, she had someone next to her. But she still felt alone. She was alone. Colt had a house on the other side of town and she had a divorce decree in her safe.

Colt sat through the sermon, his ex-wife next to him, and a couple of hundred pairs of eyes glancing occasionally in their direction. Due to the renewed attendance of the faithful, extra chairs had been hauled into the sanctuary to create more seating. Even Dan Garrison, Greg’s dad, was in attendance. Colt figured Dan had been out of church longer than he had.

The disaster of the tornado had brought out church members that hadn’t darkened the doors in years.

He knew because when he patrolled on Sundays he saw the overflowing parking lot. He had seen it before; a disaster brought new congregants, and the return of old. Some stayed in church. After a few months, most of them would go back to Sunday sports and forget promises to God.

Promises—to God, to Lexi and to himself. Those were the promises that Colt remembered. The day of the tornado, when Lexi lost consciousness for a short period of time, he had made some bargains with God.

He had made promises that he didn’t know how to keep.

He pulled at the back of his collar and moved in the seat as his attention wavered and then was pulled back to Michael Garrison’s sermon. The words were the same as so many other sermons, about trusting God in good times and bad. But there was some honesty that took Colt by surprise. Everyone has doubts from time to time. God can handle it. God can’t always undo the reality of life on this planet, but He can give us faith to get through. What we have to do is rely on Him, even when doubts arise.

Colt had plenty of doubts. He closed his eyes, remembering how it felt to drive up on Gavin’s patrol car that night, and to find his friend, a county officer, on the highway, bleeding—gasping for his last breath.

Powerless to help, Colt had cried out to God. He remembered that moment, kneeling on the highway, promising his friend things—promising to pray, promising to take care of a man’s wife.

He had made bargains that night, too. As if he could make deals with God.

A hand rested on his arm. He lifted his head and opened his eyes. Lexi sat next to him, real, breathing and no longer a part of his life. Not really.

“You okay?”

“What?” He looked around. The sermon was over, people were standing up.

“I asked if you’re okay. I know this isn’t easy.”

“But I’m here.”

“You’re here.” She looked far too hopeful.

“I’m here because I promised. And because I have to cook.”

“Poor Colt, always being held hostage by that sense of commitment you prize.”

“Sarcasm isn’t you, Lexi.” He stood and she followed him toward the back door. He had parked his car back there and he had seen the grills already set up and ready to go.

“Maybe it’s the new me.” Relentless, Lexi kept up with him.

“I don’t think so.” He turned, smiling because she looked pretty in the deep blue dress and high heels. She was thin and tanned, and her hair hung like silk past her shoulders.

“Any leads on the identity of the little girl, Kasey?” She asked the question out of the blue. But not. Of course she’d want to know about a child.

He opened the door for her, and she slid through. He followed, out into bright afternoon sunshine and dry, late-summer heat. The charcoal in the grills had been lit and a few men were already cooking burgers.

Colt opened a cooler and pulled out a box of premade hamburger patties. Lexi stood at his side, waiting for an answer.

“No, I haven’t learned anything. I put articles in papers from surrounding areas, and the national news covered it a few weeks ago.”

“I saw that. You would think someone would be claiming the precious little thing.”

“Her parents are out there somewhere. I just hope they’re…” He couldn’t say it. Lexi nodded; she understood. They all hoped and prayed that the child’s parents were alive.

But if they were alive, what did that say about them? A living, breathing, caring parent would have claimed her. Right?

Or grandparents.

“You’ll find her family.” Lexi broke apart a few frozen burgers. He placed them on the grill as she handed them over.

“I don’t know, Lexi. I feel like I haven’t done enough.”

“You always feel that way, Colt. You’ve done everything, and you’re still beating yourself up, thinking the whole world needs you to take care of it.” She shot him a dark blue look of accusation in eyes that shimmered and then didn’t.

She was a lot stronger than he’d ever given her credit for.

When they first met, back in college, he’d treated her like a china doll that needed to be taken care of. Now she took care of thousand-pound horses and wrestled with sick cows. Today she looked like a princess. Tomorrow he’d probably see her in that truck of hers, wearing a stained T-shirt, faded jeans and work boots.

He smiled and he hadn’t meant to.

Lexi smiled back. She backed a step away, a retreat, still smiling. She looked like someone who had just won a battle. He didn’t know what he’d lost or what ground she’d gained. But somehow it mattered.

“I’m going to help with the children. They’re blowing bubbles.” Lexi touched his arm, her hand sliding down to his, pausing there for a minute and then breaking contact.

“Okay.” He could have said more, but he would have stammered. Not the way for a man to prove he was in control of a situation.

He watched her walk away, pulling her hair back with a clip as she went. He remembered those clips and how he used to like to pull them loose as she leaned over her desk.

At one time he would have leaned over her and kissed her neck, and she would have smiled, but pretended to ignore him.

“Colt, your grill’s on fire.”

Startled back to the moment he reached for the spray bottle of water and squirted the flaming coals. A quick glance over his shoulder and he saw Lexi turn to smile at him.

Lexi smiled as she watched Colt with the spray bottle, putting out the fire that had erupted in the grill. She liked seeing him not in control of a situation. He got a little scattered when it happened, because it happened so rarely. When he looked back at her, she nodded and turned away. Happy, because she had been the one to scramble his self-control.

She skipped away to the area where children of all ages were playing with all different types of bubble-blowing contraptions. In the open lawn area of the church others were flying kites and throwing Frisbees.

“Why the frown when you were smiling a few minutes ago?”

Jill. Lexi glanced at her friend who had left the small group she’d been talking to and was now at Lexi’s side.

“I didn’t mean to frown.” Lexi looked around the lawn at the people, and past to the buildings that were still damaged. “If you could focus on just this one spot, on the people having fun here, you could fool yourself into believing the tornado never happened.”

“I know. Sometimes I look out my window and it’s like I live somewhere else, somewhere other than the town I grew up in.” Jill smiled at a little girl who ran up to them with an unopened bottle of bubbles. “Do you need for me to open it?”

The child nodded, and Jill opened the bubbles and handed them back. The little girl scooted off, and Lexi didn’t know where else to go with the conversation, not when her mind kept turning back to the six hours in her basement with Colt holding her close.

Six hours that had given her hope that maybe, just maybe, she and Colt could work out their problems and rebuild their marriage.

As the workers dug them out that night, Colt had stayed by her side. He had held her close, whispering reassurances. He had stayed with her until they loaded her into the back of the ambulance. Alone, it had been hard to remain optimistic, believing his whispered promise.

She could still close her eyes and see his face in the window of the ambulance and hear the hand that had hit the door, giving them the okay to pull away. And when she woke up in the Manhattan hospital, it had been her mother’s face, not Colt’s.

Nothing had changed in that basement.

Let it go, she told herself. Today was a day of rebuilding, not reliving the past. Moving forward, that was the sermon’s title. Moving forward, knowing God is still in control and still able to answer prayers.

She had to let it go, because she still wanted more than Colt could give her. She wanted to be somewhere on the top of his list of priorities, not the person that came after everyone else.

She didn’t want to be the person waiting, wondering if he would come home.

It was hard to put that into words. In their marriage, she had failed to explain it to him. It had come out as accusations. She knew that, now. Too late.

“Come on, let’s play horseshoes.” Lexi’s friend Jill nudged her from the memories.

Jill, in her prairie skirt and boots, was a cowgirl. The real deal, not the city kind, like Lexi. Jill could rope, shoot a gun and make cheese. Of course she would beat Lexi at a game like horseshoes.

“I’m not sure about horseshoes,” Lexi admitted. “I’m better at blowing bubbles.”

Jill reached for a bottle of bubbles on a table. “Go for it, then. But I see a certain cowboy that I’ve been after for about ten years. You blow bubbles and I’ll see you later.”

“Watch out for that cowboy,” Lexi warned. “He’ll break your heart.”

Jill shrugged and danced away, her skirt swishing around her legs.

Lexi dipped the plastic wand into the bubbles and drew it out. Rather than blowing, she waved it in a circle. Huge bubbles flew through the air, floating and then landing on the grass, some popping midair.

Children ran around, hands out, trying to catch the illusive bubbles. Little girls with pigtails and boys with crew cuts.

“Lexi, I need to ask a favor.” Michael Garrison walked toward her, weaving his way through the crowd of bubble-blowing children, who now saw him as a target. He laughed, swatting at bubbles and ruffling the hair of the children surrounding him.

“Okay, a favor.” She felt a little sick to her stomach, because he had that smile on his face. He was up to something.

“We’re trying to match pets with people. I know you’re about full over at the clinic, and a few other folks in town are taking in strays, so I thought this might be a way to match up lost pets to owners, or adopt them out. We might even do a rabies clinic while we’re at it, just to make sure the pets are immunized.”

It sounded good, but that mysterious twinkle in his eyes was another matter altogether. Lexi looked from Reverend Garrison to Colt, and wondered if there was a connection between them and this pet-matching project.

“If you’re too busy…” Michael Garrison caught a bubble and it popped.

“What day and I’ll make sure that I’m not.”

“Next Saturday.”

“Here at the church?” She looked around, and it didn’t take long to realize that this was about the only place in town for a project like this one.

“Yes, at the church. We’re trying hard to make this a comfortable place for people, so they feel good about coming and bringing their families. We all need to heal.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Oh, and don’t forget the lost-and-found room. It’s been filled up and emptied two or three times since it started. I know you lost so much….”

Lexi nodded, and she didn’t cry this time when she thought about the house she and Colt had picked and furnished together. Most of her belongings had been destroyed, everything but a few pictures and a box of jewelry that had been her grandmother’s. Even her wedding pictures had disappeared.

And her wedding ring set. She tried not to think about the engagement ring that Colt had put on her finger so many years ago, or the wedding ring they had picked out together. They’d been in a box in the hall closet.

Michael was still standing next to her.

“No sign of the Logan ring?” Lexi placed her bottle of bubbles into the hands of a little blonde with large blue eyes and dimples.

“Nothing. Some jewelry has shown up, but not the ring. Or Tommy’s dog.”

Tommy. Her gaze lingered on the boy, whose hand was held by the strong and powerful hand of Gregory Garrison. Now that was a wonderful tribute to God’s care for the little ones.

“I know. I’ve had my eyes out for that dog.” Lexi turned her attention back to the reverend. “Is it wrong to pray that a dog comes home?”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so. Remember ‘All Creatures Great and Small.’”

“‘The Lord God made them all.’”

“And not only does He care about that dog, He cares about broken hearts.”

Lexi looked up, shocked by the words. Her surprise must have registered. Michael smiled. “Tommy’s heart, Lexi. That dog was his family when he didn’t have one. I know he has one now, but the dog is still important to him.”

“Yes, of course.”

Michael shifted, looking away for a moment before looking back at her, a reverend again, not a young man, uncomfortable with the conversation.