God's Gift - By Dee Henderson Page 0,18

don’t imagine the vanilla ice cream in Africa is the same as a Dairy Queen here.”

“Didn’t even come close. Want to ride to town with me to find some good ice cream?”

His offer caught her off guard.

Interesting…she looked like a doe caught in a car’s headlights. “I promised Tom a banana split for having thrown a perfect spiral,” he said gently. He’d just walked into something that caused her pain and he had no idea what it was.

“I think I’ll pass.”

There was the clatter of feet and the sound of laughter from the front porch. James squeezed her shoulder gently before walking inside to meet the fishing champs.

Several hours later, James carefully set the sack he held down on the kitchen counter. He flexed his wrist which had threatened to drop the package. The rest was helping, but he had such a long way to go before his body recovered. The only thing predictable was the pain. He would be so grateful to be able to do normal tasks like carry in the groceries without having to think about them first. Tom had disappeared down to the pavilion.

“Thank you, James,” his sister said, walking in behind him. “I didn’t mean to leave you with the groceries to carry in.”

“It was three bags, Patricia,” he said ruefully; the pain made it feel like thirty. “How’s Emily’s hand?”

“It’s barely a scratch. A Band-Aid fixed it.” She started putting away the groceries. “Since we’ve got cornmeal, should I deep-fry the fish as well as make hush puppies?”

“Most of the fish are bluegills—they are going to dress as popcorn pieces, so I would plan to deep-fry them. Do we have some newspaper we can use?”

“Under the sink, there’s a stash just for cleaning fish.”

James found them. “Thanks.”

He glanced around as he left the cabin, then walked down to join Dave and Lace and the kids where they were preparing to clean the fish they had caught that afternoon. Rae was nowhere in sight.

It bothered him that he’d upset her with his earlier invitation to get ice cream. He had unintentionally touched a raw memory, and he needed to know that she was okay.

She’d been disappearing occasionally, taking some long walks. Hopefully, that was where she had headed this time.

She was getting her endurance back; she had made it to the top of the trail without being so out of breath she felt ready to collapse. Rae settled on the big rock that made a comfortable perch from which she could see most of the sandy stretch of beach. She had forty minutes before dinner, and had decided to take advantage of the time. She thought best when she hiked.

James’s invitation had touched a raw nerve. There was no way he could have known Leo had taken her to that Dairy Queen the last summer they’d spent here. It bothered her that a simple question could throw her so badly.

She knew one reason the pain was lingering.

They would have had a child by now.

She wanted children. Deep inside, being a mother was part of who she wanted to be. She and Leo had talked at some length about having children, how they would restructure the business to let her work from home. She had been looking forward to having children almost as much as she had been looking forward to being married. She liked being single, but for a season in her life, not forever. She had been looking forward to his proposal. Learning he had been carrying the ring with him the night he had died had nearly broken her heart. It had simply been another indication of how unfairly life had treated her. She had been so close to the life she wanted, longed to have. It wasn’t fair that it had been wrenched away from her.

The dream of having children was growing more distant.

She had lost so much of her life when Leo died.

It was so hard to keep letting go of pieces of her life. She propped her chin on her hand, rubbed her eyes. She liked to think, to plan, to look at the future. At times like this, she wanted to curse that part of her nature.

She had her work left, her book. Dave and Lace. An indefinite time of still being single.

The passion to earn money for her clients had disappeared during the last year. Two years ago the business had been something she had been willing to pour her life into, she had valued its success. Since