Their Small-Town Love

The door opened to reveal Ivy in a pale pink knit sheath with fitted, three-quarter-length sleeves and a straight neckline. Her dark, lustrous hair hung straight down her back.

“Hello,” she said, smiling broadly. The warmth of her welcome went a long way toward wiping out Ryan’s nebulous regret at having offered to escort her this morning. He was too busy to get involved with anyone, no matter how much he liked Ivy.

“You’re looking very pretty,” he told her truthfully, “especially for such an early hour.”

“Why, thank you. You’re turned out quite nicely yourself.”

He tugged on the cuffs and lapels of his jacket, preening comically and enjoying her laughter. She interrupted his performance by asking, “Do I need a coat?”

“Something light, I’d think. It’s not cold but still a little cool out.”

Ivy went to the suitcase atop the nondescript dresser, picked up a silky, oversized shawl in a pastel paisley print and tossed it about her shoulders. “Will this do?”

“Perfect,” Ryan decreed. “You look like a spring morning.”

Laughing again, Ivy retrieved the key and stepped down out of the comfortable room, pulling the door closed behind her. She locked the door and handed the key to Ryan, saying, “I don’t have any pockets and would prefer to leave my purse here. Would you mind holding this for me?”

“No problem.” Palming the key and the hard plastic tag attached to it, he slid his hand into his coat pocket, then ushered her along the row of rooms, each one separated from the next by a parking bay open on one end. Her perfume wafted on the still, cool air, a combination of spicy cinnamon and sweet camellia well matched to the woman who wore it.

The barest glimmer of light showed in the east as they strolled along, side by side. Ahead, Ryan could make out cars jockeying for parking space and people moving about; yet, despite that, a certain expectant stillness lay over the place.

“Hard to believe we were socked in with a nasty ice storm just a month and a half ago,” he ventured after several moments.

“Yeah, we got hit up in Tulsa, too,” she said, “but then that area almost always gets it. You guys down here not so much.”

“Usually once a year,” he noted, “and this year it got us really good.”

“Holt and Cara must have been in a panic, with the wedding coming up and all,” Ivy commented idly.

Ryan chuckled. “Nope. Nobody was thinking wedding then. Well, Holt and Cara weren’t. The rest of us could read the writing on the wall. I have to hand it to them, though, once the idea hit, they didn’t waste any time. Almost before we knew it, we were standing up there in front of the altar watching them do the deed.”

Ivy shook her head. “Maybe that’s how it has to be sometimes,” she mused, “fast and furious. What’s that old saying? ‘Don’t let the grass grow under your feet’?”

“No danger of that,” Ryan quipped. “We’re already expecting to hear any day that they are expecting.”

A tiny gasp escaped Ivy. “So soon?”

“Why not?” Ryan asked. “Ace, Cara’s little boy, is just a year old, but chances are he’d be at least two before Cara could give him a brother or sister, and as Holt points out, they would like them to be close in age—similar to the two years between Holt and me.”

“What about Ace’s father?” Ivy asked carefully.

“He died not long after Ace was born.”

She hunched her shoulders, drawing her wrap tighter. “How sad.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” Ryan didn’t say that from the sound of things, the marriage hadn’t been a very good one or that Ace’s natural father had looked on him as more of a means to extract cash from his own parents than as a treasured son.

They walked on in silence for a few moments. Dawn hovered over the horizon now, ready to illuminate the city with the softest tendrils of day and outline the still-leafless skeletons of the stately pecan and hickory trees. It felt as if the world waited for the dawning of the Easter sun.

“I’d forgotten that sound,” Ivy said suddenly.

“What’s that?”

“The oil pumps.”

“Yeah,” Ryan lifted his head to catch the rhythmic ka-shunk, ka-shunk. “I never notice it. Unless it’s not there. And one day it won’t be. They’re gradually replacing these old pumps with a quiet electric system.”

“That’s too bad,” she said wistfully. “I find it a comforting sound.”

“Yeah, I guess I do, too. It nearly drove Ty crazy at first,” Ryan divulged with a chuckle. “Turns out that a penthouse is a very quiet atmosphere.”

“How did Charlotte and Tyler Aldrich ever get together?” Ivy asked, looking up at Ryan.

Suddenly struck by the elegant perfection of her features—delicate chin and brows, high smooth forehead, large, deeply set eyes of warm reddish brown, glossy pink lips bracketed by the most beguiling dimples, and a straight, slender nose—he couldn’t respond for a moment. Then a memory intruded, one he hadn’t even known he’d locked away, and before he could think better of it, he heard himself blurting it out.

“Wait a minute. Didn’t you used to have a little bump on the bridge of your nose?”

Ivy lifted a hand to that spot on her face, patches of dusky red blossoming on the apples of her cheeks. “You aren’t supposed to know that!”

“You did,” Ryan teased. “You had a cute little bump right at the top of the bridge of your nose.”

Dropping her hand, she grimaced. “Cute stops being cute at about twenty-four, thank you very much.”

“So you had it removed.”

“Yes, if you must know, I had it removed.”

Grinning, Ryan couldn’t resist the urge to tease her a little more. “You were the envy of every girl in town back in high school, and all along I’d bet you were obsessing about that tiny bump.”

“I didn’t,” she insisted. “Well, maybe a little bit, but it was my boyfriend who insisted I do it.” Abruptly, she snapped her mouth closed, as if regretting that last part. Ryan felt a pang on her behalf.

“What a jerk,” he declared.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she muttered darkly.

Again, a question fell out of his mouth without routing itself through his brain first. “How’d you wind up with a jerk like that?”

She sent an elbow to his ribs, just hard enough to make him laugh. “Basically, the same way I wound up here with you,” she retorted. “Now, enough about me. We were talking about Charlotte and Tyler Aldrich.”

“Right. Charlotte and Ty and how they got together.” Ryan cleared his throat of his laughter. “Simple really. Ty got stranded here overnight back in the fall. One night became a week. Later, his visits pretty much became dates. The next thing we knew, they couldn’t live without each other. You know how it goes. Now they’re building a big new house here and hoping that our grandfather, Hap, will move in with them once it’s finished.”

“Is that likely?”

Ryan sucked in a deep breath, mentally shifting gears. “I’m not sure he’ll have any other choice in the end. He’s almost eighty-one, and his arthritis isn’t going to get any better. If not for Cara, he couldn’t manage the motel now.”

“And if she has a new baby, she won’t be able to help out,” Ivy concluded.

“Exactly. I can’t see Holt letting her continue much longer in any event,” Ryan mused aloud. “Quite the protector, our Holt. Can’t say I blame him, though. It’s physically demanding work, and as you know, Cara’s a little thing.”

“What will happen to the motel if your grandfather gives it up?” Ivy asked.

“Ty and Charlotte have a young Hispanic couple they’d like to bring in to take over, with an eye maybe to buying the place. Makes sense when you think about it. None of us is going to take on the place. But, as I said, it’s Hap’s decision.”

“Will he be unreasonable?”

“No, I don’t think so. That’s not Granddad. In the end, I think he’ll give it up for the great-grandbabies.”

“Babies? Plural?”

Ryan shrugged. “Holt and Cara make no secret of their intentions, and Charlotte and Ty will start a family eventually, I’m sure. Probably sooner rather than later. And there’s Ace, already.”

“Hap accepts him as part of the family?”

“Of course. We all do.”

Ivy turned a look up at him that seemed part hope and part doubt. “Just like that?”

Ryan chuckled. “You obviously haven’t met my nephew yet. He’s quite the little charmer.”

“Actually,” Ivy said, ducking her head, “I think I have. He seems to have that confidence peculiar to children who are greatly loved.”

“You bet. That’s what babies are for, isn’t it? Loving?”

She didn’t answer that. After a moment, Ryan felt compelled to ask, “What about you? You interested in having children some day?”

Ivy tucked her chin to her chest. “I don’t think I’m meant for that.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” he said, needing, for some reason, to validate her choice.

Her head popped up. “Really? You don’t want a family of your own?” She sounded affronted, yet she’d just basically said the same thing, hadn’t she?

“The way I look at it,” Ryan explained carefully, “I already have a family, a suddenly growing family, and of course I have my students.”

“They must mean a lot to you.”

He smiled. “Can’t seem to help it. You might even say the thing’s gotten a bit out of hand. Some of them really need an adult to just listen.”

Ivy tilted her head, the sleek curtain of her long dark hair sweeping across her shoulder blades. “Is that enough for you? Listening to other people’s kids?”

Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “Well…my job and my family keep me very busy, and…” He rubbed a hand over his face before abruptly deciding to give in to the impulse to say what he had never said to anyone else. “You probably remember what happened when my dad died.”

“Your mom’s suicide,” Ivy whispered, nodding.

“Marriage seems like a really big risk to me,” he admitted.

“I used to think so, too.”

“Not anymore?”

She pondered that before shrugging. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Love is risky, no doubt about it, but family…” She looked up at him with wide, pain-filled eyes. “Family is worth very nearly everything.”

She had a point there, Ryan admitted silently. He would risk much for his family, not just Hap and Holt and Charlotte, but for his brother-in-law and sister-in-law and nephew, too. What would he risk for a wife and child of his own? He was almost afraid to find out.

“Quite a crowd this year,” Ryan remarked softly, looking around at the people already spread over the gently rolling landscape.

Ivy nodded in agreement. There were more people present than she remembered from years past, but it had been so long that she had no idea if this had become the norm.

The simple service of yesteryear had obviously given way to a more sophisticated approach. She noticed an outdoor sound system tucked into inconspicuous places, and flickering patio torches had been placed at intervals to mark the space from which the service would be conducted. Atop the hill behind that space, in increasingly stark silhouette, stood three crosses temporarily erected for the service. Around the topmost section of the center cross hung a crown fashioned of thorny vines.

In the center of the marked-off space stood a large rock, across which a length of purple fabric and several long-stemmed lilies had been arranged in artful abandon. This apparently served as a makeshift altar as two men knelt next to it in fervent prayer. One of them she recognized as Grover Waller, the middle-aged pastor of First Church, a little older and rounder and with thinner hair, but the same pastor nonetheless. The other was a younger man Ivy did not know. At her whispered query, Ryan informed her that his name was Davis Latimer, the new minister of the church on Magnolia. He, along with his congregation, had been invited to participate in this earliest Easter morning service.

Ivy felt a chill. Glancing around, she wondered if her father might be in attendance. She looked down, telling herself that if he saw her he would surely avoid her. Perhaps it would be best if he did see her. It would spare Rose the awkwardness of having to inform him of her visit.

A reverent hush enveloped the ever-growing crowd, some of whom stood or crouched. Others had possessed the foresight to bring along lawn chairs, while still others simply sat or knelt on the ground.

“I should have thought to bring something to sit on,” Ryan told her apologetically, leaning close.

Ivy gripped the sides of her wrap and held them out. “This will do.”

“Won’t you be chilled without it?”

“We’ll find a sheltered spot that blocks the breeze.”

“Let’s try over here,” he suggested, taking her hand to lead her down the gentle slope a little way to a cluster of boxy shrubs. Ivy spread the paisley shawl on the ground in front of the shrubs and sat, folding her legs back to one side. Ryan followed suit, scooting close to offer her the warmth of his large, muscular body, one palm braced flat on the ground behind her. “Comfortable?”

“Yes, thank you.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the gradual lightening of the sky, before the pastors stood, Bibles in hand, and took up positions in front of the makeshift altar. Utter stillness descended, then Grover opened his Bible and in a clear but gentle voice began to read the prayer of Jesus from the seventeenth chapter of John. The other man picked up with the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters, telling about the betrayal and arrest of Christ, which included the Apostle John’s moving account of the crucifixion, before Grover began the twentieth.

“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb….”

The pastor went on as the sun rose over the hilltop behind him, its golden rays seeming to reach out to all the world. He read how the risen Savior showed Himself to His astonished, jubilant followers and became the Light that pierces the darkness. Finally, Grover closed his Bible and stepped forward to speak.

“Mocked, stripped, scourged until His flesh hung in strips and, finally, in the company of murderers and thieves, nailed by the hands and feet to a cross,” the preacher began. “That is the picture that His enemies would have had you remember, but they did not recognize what was really happening, what they themselves were a part of. They did not see a willing sacrifice, a life laid down in recompense for the sins of humanity or a love so great that it could allow such a thing. And they were not there when Christ took up His earthly form once more and stood among His beloved, proving Himself to be the Son of God, worthy and perfect in every way. So today, as we, His children, bask in the radiance of His resurrection, grow in the glow of His love and rejoice in the light of the forgiveness and grace with which He gifted us, let us praise Him.”

Lifting their hands, the pastors began to pray, one after the other praising and thanking God with simple eloquence and humble gratitude. At the end, they spoke a gentle “Amen” together, which the congregation echoed. Then a woman whom Ivy recognized as former classmate Becca Inman stood in the midst of the crowd and began to sing a well-known Easter hymn in a clear, beautiful voice. Others began to join in, coming to their feet as they did so. With the song gaining in volume, Ivy, with Ryan at her side, also rose.

She did not realize that tears streamed down her face until Ryan pressed a clean linen handkerchief into her hand. With her thoughts elsewhere, she barely managed a smile for him. Instead, she envisioned that glorious day of resurrection. That miraculous event proved the sacrificial intent of the crucifixion, but for so long Ivy had ignored it, seeing it as just one more improbable, two-thousand-year-old story that had nothing to do with her own life today.

Ivy knew now what a fool she had been. She’d looked at her father, a man who had always gone to church, and seen the bitterness that had marked his life. She’d wanted no part of that, and somehow that bitterness had equated with church in her mind, and church had equated with Christ. Only when she’d been introduced to her Savior and surrendered her life to Him had the stories of Easter become dear to her, more dear than all she had given up to follow her Lord.

She had found forgiveness and a new beginning by surrendering her heart and soul to Jesus Christ. In many ways, she felt resurrected herself. But sin, as she had learned, still has consequences. She understood that, like everyone else, she lived with the consequences of her choices in the here and now. Thankfully, she could trust God to give her everything she needed to cope with those consequences. He would help her stop making the mistakes that had so devastated her life.

Ivy closed her eyes and claimed that promise again now. Dear Lord, show me how to live to please You, and help me make up for all I’ve done. Help me mend what I’ve broken and ease the pain I’ve caused. Help me endure the anguish I’ve caused myself and find some measure of peace. Most of all, show me Your will for my life, and help me to live it. Thank You for Your Son and His sacrifice. Thank You for Your forgiveness and for choosing to see me through Him. Amen.

She felt a moment, an instant, of that longed-for peace. Then, suddenly, there came a shift in the atmosphere, a literal tightening of the air around her, like the moment before a lightning strike. Ivy opened her eyes to encounter the angry visage of her father. Stunned, she could do no more than stare back at first.

He looked worn and tired, far older than his fifty-four years. The skin of his long, narrow face drooped in loose wrinkles, while gray streaks roughened the thatch of his light brown hair and liberally salted his bushy eyebrows, giving him the hangdog expression of a man who had seen and lost too much. As her heart lurched into her throat, Ivy’s conscience cried out, I did that to him! Thankfully, the words did not make it to her mouth. Ryan spoke first.

“Hello, Olie. I was just telling Ivy last night how long it’s been since I saw you.”

Her father ignored Ryan, his icy, gray glare burning into her like the flames of the still-flickering torches. Ivy glanced around, realized that the service had ended and took a tentative step closer, saying urgently, “Dad, I—I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Me?” he mocked. “You didn’t expect to see me here?” He stabbed a finger at the ground, declaring, “This is my home, girl, not yours, not anymore. I thought I made that plain when you showed up the last time!”

“Dad, please,” she begged softly, all too aware of Ryan standing there. “That was a long time ago. I know I disappointed you. I disappointed myself, and I’ve paid a heavy price for it. Can’t we at least talk about it?”

“Talk?” he scoffed. “Not likely.”

“I just want to tell you how sorry I am, Daddy.”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not your daddy. No tramp like you will ever be a daughter of mine.”

“Olie!” Ryan exclaimed, his tone that of the scolding assistant principal.

“You don’t know the truth about her,” Olie told him roughly. “No one does, because I’ve kept her secrets.” He shook a finger at her. “But only so long as she stayed away. Now she’s here, the truth will finally come out, and the truth is she sleeps with a man she never married and makes her living spreading filth. She even got herself—”

“Please don’t!” Ivy cried, interrupting him before he could spew the worst of it. “Please! I’ve changed.”

“Change?” Olie ridiculed. “It’s too late for change! Just go slither back under your rock and leave us be!”

Ivy couldn’t bear anymore. Clutching Ryan’s arm, she stammered an incoherent apology.

“S-So sorry. I—I never thought he’d be here. Excuse me! I—I need…” She took off at a run, fresh tears streaming down her face.

Behind her, she heard Ryan speaking in his stern, assistant principal’s voice, but she didn’t even try to register the words. What did it matter anyway? What did any of it matter? Her father would never forgive her, never let her forget, even for a moment, what she’d done. As if she could!

Ignoring the curious stares of others, she hurried away, wanting only to reach the privacy of her room, where she could pour out her heart to God and see if she could recapture even a glimmer of the peace she so desperately wanted.

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