poor hurt ankle. What a hero!”
“Don’t worry about my ankle. Tell me more about your chest pain. Even if you are exaggerating, at your age it could be serious.”
Great-Gramma made a wry face. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to get mad?”
Lacy studied her great-grandmother’s face, and a sinking feeling hit the pit of her stomach. She narrowed her eyes. “What did you do?”
Great-Gramma looked to the door. “I’m not really having chest pains,” she whispered. “I just need to burp.”
“What? That’s not exaggerating, that’s lying!”
“Shh. A little white lie. Nobody knows but your grandmother Nony.”
“But why would you fib?” Lacy laid a hand over her own heart. “You scared me to death.”
“I’m sorry about that. It was a necessary lie. You told me the thunderbolt was going to walk out of your life forever and I couldn’t very well let that happen, could I?”
“So you pretended to have chest pain?” Lacy sank her hands on her hips. “I’m not pleased with you right now.
“He won’t leave you after this. You are in his blood, drahy. I can see it in his eyes.”
“This isn’t right, Great-Gramma, and you know it. If Bennett doesn’t fall in love with me on his own, you can’t force him.”
“Pah. No one is forcing him to do anything. We’re just getting him in position for the thunderbolt to smack him too.”
Lacy stared at her great-grandmother in disbelief. “For years you’ve been telling me that the thunderbolt cannot be denied. That it is infallible.”
“It is.”
“This doesn’t sound infallible to me. In fact, this is beginning to feel more and more like unrequited love on my part and manipulation on your end.”
“Oh, he loves you, too. I can see it in the way he looks at you.”
“Then why do we have to play games?”
“Games? No games. You’re dealing with a man, drahy. God bless their souls, they’re often hard to convince, even when something is good for them. They are afraid to let go of their bachelorhood.”
“I don’t understand.” Lacy was so upset she was on the verge of seeking out Bennett and telling him everything.
“All men need a little push now and then.”
“But before you told me not to do anything, that our love would happen of its own accord. What about that?”
“And it will.” Her great-grandmother patted her hand. “I just gave the thunderbolt a boost. Your great-grandpa Kahonachek, he didn’t go down easy, either and your young man reminds me of him.”
Lacy pulled back and stared at the wise old eyes peering at her. “So in other words, Great-Grandpa didn’t fall in love with you at first sight.”
Great-Gramma waved her hand. “Of course he did; he just had other plans, and he didn’t want to change them. He was going to become a baseball player. Thought he was the next Babe Ruth.” She chuckled at the memory. “But the thunderbolt can’t be denied. He came around, and we got married when I turned eighteen. We’ve been happily married for seventy-five years on my next birthday.”
“He gave up his dream for you?”
Great-Gramma sighed dreamily. “Now that’s love, drahy. When a man decides you’re more important to him than anything else in the world.”
“What did you do to convince him?”
Great-Gramma smiled slyly. “We got lost in the Longhorn caverns together. Luckily, I happened to bring along a bottle of wine, a picnic basket full of his favorite sandwiches, and a soft blanket. By the time we found our way out of the caverns, he’d proposed to me and said I meant more to him than baseball.”
“But what if he hadn’t given up his dream? What if he had chosen baseball over you?”
“Then you wouldn’t be here, would you?” Her great-grandmother reached up to brush a lock of hair from Lacy’s forehead with dry wrinkled fingers. “Because after I’d been struck by the thunderbolt, I knew there was only one man for me. If not Kermit Kahonachek, then I would have remained a spinster.”
“Really?”
She shrugged. “He is my soul mate.”
“How can you be so sure?” Lacy asked.
“How can you not?”
“Because Bennett has a life of his own, a place of his own in Boston, he’s his own person and I don’t want to use tricks to make him fall for me.”
“His place is with you. In Boston, in Texas, it makes no difference.”
“You don’t understand. Things are more complicated than that.”
“You think things were easy for your grandmother Nony and Grandpa Jim? They lost a baby in 1948 and almost divorced over the sorrow.