The Blessing

  Cherry threw up her hands in exasperation. “Are you only interested in women who don’t want to marry you? If that’s your logic, then you should be madly in love with me.”

  “Ah,” Jason said with a smile. “I can guarantee you that that’s not the case.”

  Cherry threw a pillow at him. “Go get me something to drink. And put some ice in it. Lots of ice; then come back here and find the remote control. Oh, Lord, is this child never going to be born?”

  Jason practically ran out of the room to obey her.

  So now he’d been back in Abernathy for nearly a year, and it seemed to him that he’d been out to dinner with every female in the state of Kentucky, several from Tennessee, and a couple from Mississippi. But none of them interested him. He still thought of Amy, still thought of Max, at least twice an hour. Where were they? What did Max look like now?

  “Amy probably has six men fighting over her,” Mildred Thompkins had said just last month. “She has that endearing quality that makes men want to do things for her. I mean, look at you. You gave up everything to help her.”

  “I didn’t give up anything, I . . .” In the eyes of a great many people his efforts to save his hometown were great and noble, but to his relatives and almost-relatives in Abernathy, Kentucky, he was simply “moonin’ over a girl.”

  Whatever the truth was, it wasn’t an attractive picture, and many times he’d vowed to remove Max’s photos from his desk and do his best to get serious about one of the many females he’d dated. As his brother had pointed out, he wasn’t getting any younger and if he did want a family, he should get busy with it.

  But now he had other problems. In a very short time, the president of the United States was coming to Abernathy to see some Arabian Nights murals, and Jason didn’t so much as have a painter. Out of habit, he picked up the phone and started to tell Doreen to get Mildred on the line, but he knew where that would lead. Doreen would want to know which Mildred he wanted, as though he didn’t call Max’s grandmother three times a week.

  Jason dialed the number that he knew by heart, and when she answered, he didn’t bother identifying himself. “You know some local who can paint Arabian Nights murals in the library and do it real fast?”

  “Oh? You’re asking me? You’re asking someone from little old Abernathy? What happened to your fancy big city painter?”

  Jason gave a sigh. The rest of the world acted like he was a saint, but the people of his hometown thought that he was doing what he should have done a long time ago, and they thought he should be doing more of it. “You know that the man was considered the best in this country and one of the top painters in the world. I wanted the best for this town, and—” He paused to calm himself. “Look, I don’t need an argument this morning.”

  “So what’s Doreen done this time?”

  “Invited the president six months early and changed the murals from nursery rhymes to Arabian Nights.”

  Mildred gave a whistle. “Is this her best yet?”

  “No. She’ll never top the one where she had the food delivered on the day after the three hundred guests arrived. Or when she sent the new furniture to South America. Or when she—”

  “Cherry deliver yet?”

  “No,” Jason said, his jaw clenched. “The kid is eleven days late now, but David says maybe the dates are wrong, and—”

  “What’s this about the murals?” she asked, cutting him off.

  Quickly, he told her the problem. In the past year in Abernathy, Mildred had been invaluable to him. She knew everyone and everything. No one in the town could so much as bat an eyelash without Mildred knowing about it. “Don’t put those two men on the same committee,” she’d say. “Their wives are sleeping together and the men hate each other.”

  “Their wives . . . ?” Jason had said. “In Kentucky?”

  She just raised her eyebrows. “Don’t get uppity with me, city slicker.”

  “But wives?” Jason felt that he was losing his innocence.

  “You think that because we speak slowly that we’re some sort of living Pat Boone movie? But then, even ol’ Pat’s changed his image, hasn’t he?”

  So now when Jason had a problem, he knew to call Mildred. “Do you know someone or not?”

  “Maybe,” Mildred said finally. “Maybe I do, but I don’t know if this person will be . . . available.”

  “I’ll pay double,” Jason said quickly.

  “Jason, honey, when will you learn that money can’t solve every problem in the world?”

  “Then what does he want? Prestige? The president will view his work. And considering how often Abernathy changes things, two hundred years from now, the murals will still be there. Whatever he wants, I’ll pay it.”

  “I’ll try,” Mildred said softly. “I’ll give it my best shot and let you know as soon as I know.”

  After Mildred hung up the phone, she stood still for several minutes, thinking. Despite her retort about money, she knew in her heart that the Jason who had come home to Abernathy a year ago was not the same man he was today. He had returned to his hometown with the thought that he was going to play Santa Claus and everyone in town was going to fall down and kiss his feet in gratitude. But instead he had encountered one problem after another, and as a result, he had become involved. He’d started out wanting to remain aloof, distant, apart from the townspeople, but he hadn’t been allowed to, and she believed if the truth were told that now he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Now, still staring at the phone, she smiled in memory of all the women in Abernathy who had done their best to win his hand in marriage. Or just plain, old-fashioned, win him in bed. But as far as Mildred knew Jason hadn’t touched a hometown girl. What he did on his frequent trips back to New York, she had no idea, but he had been nothing but a gentleman to the women of Abernathy.

  Much to their fury, Mildred thought with amusement. There wasn’t a sewing circle, book club, or church meeting in three counties that didn’t discuss what was going to be the outcome of Mr. Jason Wilding’s moving back to Abernathy, Kentucky.

  But, Mildred thought, with a smile that was growing bigger by the minute, Jason still had the photos of Max on his desk and he still talked about Amy as though he’d seen her just last week.

  Mildred put her hand on the phone. Wasn’t it a coincidence that Jason desperately needed a mural painter and she just happened to know someone who could paint murals?

  “Humph!” she said, picking up the phone. About as much a coincidence as it was that she’d easily conned Doreen into giving her the mural painter’s address in Seattle; then Mildred had written him a note saying he was no longer needed. Then Mildred had sent a letter to Jason saying the painter had broken his arm. That Doreen had taken weeks to give the letter to Jason just added to Mildred’s beautifully planned scheme.

  She dialed a number that was burned into her memory, then held her breath before the phone was answered, her mind full of doubt. What if she didn’t need a job right now? What if she refused? What if she was still angry at Jason and David and everyone else in Abernathy for playing a trick on her? What if she had a boyfriend?

  When the phone was answered, Mildred took a deep breath, then said, “Amy?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AMY LEANED BACK AGAINST THE HIGH SEAT OF THE PLANE, pulled her cashmere coat tighter about her, and closed her eyes for a moment. Max had finally dozed off, and it was a rare time of quiet for her.

  But in spite of the quiet, or at least the roar of the plane, she couldn’t sleep. Inside she was excited and nervous and jumpy. She was going to see Jason again.

  Closing her eyes, she thought back to that horrible night when she’d “escaped.” How noble she’d been that night! How full of telling a man that she didn’t need him or his money. How full of romance she’d been, basing her life on the way she thought a movie should have ended—or would have if it had been real life.

  Amy pulled the blanket back over Max, since he’d squirmed about in th
e airline baby cot and uncovered himself. She and Max were flying business class, so she didn’t have to hold a heavy, struggling two-year-old on her lap for the whole flight.

  Settling back, Amy closed her eyes again and tried to sleep, but she still saw Jason’s face. Reaching down, she pulled the thick portfolio from inside her carry-on bag, opened it, and looked at the articles again. Over the past two years she’d collected everything that had been written about Jason Wilding.

  He’d sold most of his businesses and become what Forbes magazine called America’s Youngest Philanthropist. And most of his philanthropy dealt with the town of Abernathy, Kentucky.

  Amy again read an article about how Jason Wilding had transformed the small, poor, run-down, dying town of Abernathy into something healthy and prosperous. The first thing he’d done was to invest heavily in the struggling baby food company, Charles and Co.

  With amusement, the article told how Wilding had handed four million dollars to a tiny advertising company in Abernathy and told them to promote the new baby food on a national level. Until Jason Wilding appeared, the company had done nothing more than draw ads for local businesses for the local newspaper. But to the surprise and no doubt delight of everyone, the article said, the tiny advertising company did a good job. “Who will ever forget the TV ad of the baby with the ‘yucky’ face?” the article said. “Or the one with the society hostess emptying jars of Charles and Co. baby food on crackers to serve as canapés?”

  The advertising campaign was a great success that year, and Charles and Co. was named as one of the fastest growing companies in the country. “And now they’re going international, both in sales and in content. Who would have thought of serving beef Stroganoff to a baby?”

  And all the food was made and bottled in Abernathy, Kentucky, giving thousands of jobs to a town that had once had a fifty-two percent unemployment rate. “And the few who did have jobs had them outside the town,” the article said. “But Jason Wilding changed that.”

  There were other articles that dealt less with facts than with the philosophy of why Wilding had done what he had. “What’s in it for him?” was the question that everyone wanted answered. Why would a man give up so much to gain so little? It was even rumored that Jason Wilding didn’t own so much as a single share in Charles and Co. baby food, but no one believed that.

  Amy put the articles down and closed her eyes. How would she react when she saw him again? Had the last two years changed him? There had been next to nothing written about his personal life, so all she knew was that he dated a lot, but still wasn’t married.

  “Sleep,” she whispered out loud, as though she could command her mind to be still, but when it didn’t work, she took out her sketch pad and began to draw. It was cold on the plane, and she’d read that the airlines kept their cabins that way to keep the passengers quiet and in their seats. Warm the cabins and the travelers would wake up and start talking and walking about. “Rather like we’re lizards,” Amy had thought at the time.

  Mildred had told her that Jason wanted something from the Arabian Nights, so Amy had spent quite a bit of time looking at previous illustrations to get some ideas of what to do. Since all the stories seemed to be either about sex or extreme violence, she wondered how she was going to illustrate them for a public library.

  “You can do it,” Mildred had said. “And you can stand to see Jason again. He’s still in love with you and Max.”

  “Sure he is,” Amy said. “That’s why he’s dated nearly every woman in Abernathy, at least that’s what one article said. And he didn’t spend a lot of time trying to find me, did he?”

  “Amy, he—” Mildred began, but Amy cut her off.

  “Look, there was nothing between us back then except that he thought I was a charity case. He had such a good time playing Santa Claus to me that he decided to do it with an entire town. Have they erected a statue to him yet?”

  “Amy, it’s not like that. He doesn’t have an easy time here. You should meet Doreen.”

  “Ah. Right. Remember, I only plan to be in Abernathy for six weeks. I may not be able to meet all the women he’s involved with in that time.”

  “All right,” Mildred said. “Have it your way. All I ask is that you come back here with my grandson and let me see him. Please, I beg you. You can’t be so cruel as to deny a grandmother—”

  “All right!” Amy acquiesced. “I’ll do it. Does he know that it’s me who’s coming?”

  “No. He has no idea that anyone knows where you are. Not that I’ve known for very long. So, tell me, did my grandson ever learn to crawl?”

  “No. He went from sitting to running. Mildred, could you please let up on the guilt?”

  “No. I think I’m rather good at it, don’t you?”

  In spite of herself, Amy smiled. “The best,” she said softly. “You’re the best.”

  So now Amy was on the plane, Max sleeping beside her. She was going back to Abernathy and she was going to see the man who had haunted her every thought for two years. But for all her thoughts, all that she’d read and been told by Mildred, she knew that she had done the right thing in leaving Jason two years before. Maybe he hadn’t changed, maybe he was still trying to buy his way into whatever he wanted, but she had certainly changed. She was no longer the innocent little Amy who was waiting for a man to come along and take care of her. Now, when she looked back on it, she thought maybe that was what she was doing when she met Jason.

  But, somehow, on that early Christmas morning, she had found the courage to walk away. Now, two years later, she still marveled at the courage she’d had that night, a courage born out of fear, because she foresaw a future without freedom. She had seen a future in which she and Max and any other children she’d have would be swallowed up in the machine that was Jason Wilding.

  So she’d left Abernathy on a bus and gone to New York, where she called a girl she’d gone to high school with. They’d kept in touch over the years, and she was delighted when Amy showed up. And it was this friend who’d helped Amy get into a publishing house to show her drawings to an editor, and when Amy got a job illustrating children’s books, her friend helped her get an apartment and a baby-sitter for Max. Of course the pearls that David had given Amy had helped. She’d been astonished when she realized that they were real, and the money she received from the sale of them had furnished the apartment and paid four months’ rent.

  She’d done well, she thought as she looked down at her sketch pad. She wasn’t wealthy, wasn’t famous, but she was self-supporting. And Max was happy. He went to a play group three days a week, and every minute that Amy wasn’t working, she spent with him.

  As for men, Amy hadn’t found much time for them. Between work and Max, there weren’t enough hours in the day. Quite often on the weekends she and Max went out with her editor and the editor’s husband, Alec, and their daughter, and Alec tossed Max around in that particularly male way and that seemed to be enough for the boy. Someday soon, Amy thought, she was going to start thinking about men again, but not yet.

  Hurriedly, she began to sketch some of her ideas for the murals, and she wasn’t surprised to see that every man in the pictures looked like Jason.

  When the plane landed, Amy’s heart was in her throat. Gently, she woke Max, who started to complain because he hadn’t finished his nap, but when he saw that they were in a new place, curiosity overrode the grumpies. Once in the terminal it was difficult to hold Max, as he was determined to ride on the luggage carousel.

  As promised, Mildred had a car and driver waiting for her, and his instructions were to take Amy and Max directly to her house.

  But Amy had her own ideas. “We’ll get out here,” she said to the driver as he turned onto the main street of Abernathy. “Please tell my mother-in-law that we’ll be there in an hour or so.” She wanted to see the changes that she’d read about. Holding Max’s hand, she walked slowly down the street and looked at each shop.

  She thought she had an idea of what J
ason would have done to the town, but she was wrong. She thought he’d make it into a tiny New York, with Versace boutiques and a zillion art galleries. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d merely repaired and painted what was there. And he’d removed the modernization from many of the stores. In a way, walking through town was like a step back in time—except that it wasn’t quaint. It wasn’t like a stage set or one of those re-creation towns they had in amusement parks.

  No, Abernathy looked like what it had become: a healthy, prosperous farm town, with people bustling about and businesses doing well. Amy walked slowly, Max twisting and turning to look at everything, as he liked to see new people and new things.

  Suddenly Max halted in front of a shop window, and Amy nearly tripped as he pulled her up short. In the window was a display of pinwheels, and a fan was blowing them about, round and round. Amy’s first thought was that they were only pinwheels, nothing special, but she realized that to a child used to complicated, noisy toys, they were wonderful.

  “Come on then,” she said, and Max’s face lit up with a grin.

  Minutes later they emerged from the store with Max holding a shiny blue pinwheel in one hand and a candy wrapper in the other. His mouth was distorted around a huge chocolate-coated piece of dried fruit, and Amy was smiling. Home, she thought, was where the store owner gave away a free piece of candy to a bright-eyed child.

  At the end of the street was the Abernathy Library. The front door was open, and there were several pickup trucks outside and workmen moving in and out of the door.

  Amy took a deep breath. She was going to see Jason soon; she could feel it. Even though she’d spent little time with him, it was as though all of the town was now filled with him. Everywhere she looked reminded her of him. This is where we bought Max a pair of shoes, she thought. And this is where Jason made me laugh. And this is where—

  “Shall we go in?” she asked Max, looking down at him as he sucked on his candy. “This is where Mommie is going to work.”