Love Starts with Elle(24)

But brokenhearted is brokenhearted. Never embraced. Never treasured. Never easy. Heath figured every human being had a certain amount of God-ordained grace to endure their own unique brand of loss and pain.

He’d had seven months to get used to his. Elle? Maybe seven hours?

“Don’t let your love grow cold, Elle Garvey.”

He’d let his love chill. And now, as he began to emerge from his season of pain, he regretted it. At the end of all truth was Jesus. He’d never let Heath down, no matter what song his circumstances sang. Funny how when he needed God’s love and peace the most, he’d given Him the stiff arm.

With the crickets harmonizing in a Coffin Creek chorus, Heath figured the place and timing was right for his own good-bye dirge to sadness and doubt.

God, Heath had learned, had a profound sense of irony. Imagine moving a man recovering from grief into a charming cottage next to a place called Coffin Creek. Sometimes it was only in dying one found life.

So, yeah, he got the irony, God. Bury the past, discover the future.

Maybe Elle had the same journey, for whatever reason.

Heath pulled Ava’s letter from his pocket. He wasn’t ready to read it, but he was ready to heal and move on. He dipped his head and confessed, “Jesus, I’m sorry for my cold heart. When I said I’d love You and follow You, I understood it didn’t guarantee me a perfect life. You took Ava—or allowed her to be taken, I don’t know which—but I just want to say to You it is well with my soul.”

Tears flushed his eyes. Heat swelled in his torso. It was well with his soul. And where it wasn’t, he longed for it to be.

Heath lingered until he felt his business with God had concluded. Rising to go inside, he turned off the porch lamps and retrieved Ava’s letter. Back in the kitchen, he anchored it on the windowsill behind the lock.

By the end of summer, he’d read it. Surely the courage resided in him somewhere. If not, he’d burn it and forget it ever existed.





EIGHT

In the lowcountry, the sun didn’t ask permission to burn through the glass and wake a girl up even at two in the afternoon—and remind her to swap up the scattered pieces of her heart.

Lying belly down on the futon, cheek against her pillow, Elle saw the blue-and-white day march past her window. Mr. Miller’s hounds bayed. A mower hummed over someone’s yard of spring grass.

Six days ago, her future had been set—marry Jeremiah, move to Dallas. But a simple “I can’t marry you now, Elle” had wrecked her plans, her hopes, a little of her identity.

Tossing off the sheet and thin summer quilt, Elle walked the sun-drenched floor to shove open the windows and flipped on the fans. The window air conditioner had frozen up in the night, leaving the loft hot and stuffy.

A scented breeze slipped through the screen. One thing Elle counted on: each new day bringing its own brand of anesthesia— hope. Elle leaned against the windowsill and inhaled, the day sweet and warm.

Mama and Daddy had been great, taking care of all the cancellation details, bringing her food, pretending she might be hungry.

What she hated the most? Feeling trapped by Jeremiah’s actions and her own emotions. She had to stir herself up.

The sound of a chainsaw nabbed her attention. Across the yard, down the slope to the creek, a shirtless Heath stood before an oak stump, protective gear on his head, chainsaw gripped in his hand.

The lawyer was a wood carver? She’d watched wood-carving artists at shows, enthralled.

His taunt, broad back was reddish brown from recent days in the sun, and his winter blond was gradually becoming a summer gold. The ends of his hair stood on end from where he must have jumbled it with his hands.

Finally, he revved the motor again and bit into the wood. Sawdust flew around him like a gazillion blond gnats. The fragrance of warm wood filtered through the studio screen.

Elle’s stomach rumbled. And she needed a shower. Leaving the window, half thinking she should do something with the rest of her day, take a step into the rest of her life, she booted up her laptop.

When she launched the Internet, her home page routed to a default. Just another reminder. She’s taken down GG Gallery’s Web page.

Surfing over to e-mail, she saw her Inbox contained over a hundred messages with subject lines like, “Sorry to hear” and “Praying for you.” She read a few, but found them too depressing, so she skimmed the names until she found one that made her smile.

Caroline Sweeney. Today she needed her friend, even if she lived thousands of miles across the Atlantic.



To: Elle Garvey

From: CSweeney

Subject: I’m with you in spirit



Your dad e-mailed me about you and Jeremiah. Elle, I am so sorry! If I was there, I’d beat him up for you. What is he thinking? He’ll never find anyone as beautiful, talented, and kind as you. He just won’t.

This morning I read a notice in the online Gazette about the wedding being canceled. Canceled? Isn’t that a strange thing to say of two people’s lives and relationship? Baseball games are canceled. Cable television is canceled. Not a marriage.

Elle, I’m grieving with you, wishing I had ten-thousand-mile-long arms to reach you for a hug.





Daddy ran a notice in the Gazette? What was he–Oh, forget it, Elle.