When Heart Collides

That does not make it any less true

CHAPTER 5

Focusing on her husband for a moment, Rachel allowed an annoyed huff to escape her lips. She marched over to him, yanked the cigar from his mouth, and dropped it into the uncovered trash basket in the corner. It was an ongoing tug-of-war between them. Daniel Anderson seemed to have an endless supply of cigars, and Rachel appeared to have an endless supply of patience as she removed and discarded each one she saw him place in his mouth.

Kelly had long since stopped believing that her father intended to smoke any of these cigars. In her opinion, he simply enjoyed baiting her mother.

But Kelly did not care about the game or whether her father smoked the "wretched things," as her mother called them. All of that had become meaningless, at least for the moment. Her friend had died, and she was never going to see Miracle again. Her heart was hurting.

"Miracle is gone," Kelly replied in a small, quiet voice to her father's question.

"Gone?" he repeated. "Gone where?" When his wife shot him a sharp look, a light bulb went off in his head, and Daniel realized what Kelly had just told him. "Oh. Gone." A chagrined expression washed over his face as he came over to his youngest child. "I am so sorry, Kelly, sweetie," he said. The squat, burly man embraced her, a feat that had been much easier in the days before his gut had grown to its current size.

Rachel approached them, gently removing Kelly from Daniel's grasp, turning the girl toward her, and hugging her daughter tightly.

For a moment, nothing was said. The other people in the kitchen, employees who had contributed to the original restaurant's success, went about their business, giving their employers and their daughter privacy until they were invited to participate in whatever was going on.

Rachel, still holding Kelly to her chest and stroking her hair as she had done as a child, said gently, "Kelly, you knew this day would come."

She did. Deep down, she had, but that did not mean she had not hoped and prayed that it would not happen. That something miraculous would happen.

"I know," Kelly said, struggling to regain control of her emotions, "it just happened too quickly."

"It always comes too soon," Rachel told her daughter, her voice full of experience. "Regardless of how long it takes to get here."

Rachel was certain that if Daniel died before she did, it would not matter if they had been together for a hundred years. It would still be too soon, and she would be pleading with God to grant her "just a little more time" with the man she loved.

"She is in a better place now, kiddo," Kelly's father told her, patting her back in a comforting, if awkward, manner. "She is not in pain any more."

Rachel looked at her husband with a flicker of impatience in her light-brown eyes. She tossed her head, sweeping her dark-brown hair over her shoulder. "Everyone always says that," she remarked dismissively.

"That does not make it any less true," Daniel insisted, pausing to retrieve the cigar from the trash. He brushed it off with his fingers, as if the cursory action would send any germs scattering.

Rachel's eyes narrowed as she looked at her husband from behind her daughter's shoulder. "You put that in your mouth, Daniel Anderson ," she hissed, "and you're a dead man."

Daniel considered his options. He knew his wife was adamant about him not smoking, and she appeared to be on a personal crusade these days against his beloved cigars. With a loud sigh, Daniel allowed the cigar to fall from his fingers, landing back in the trash. There were plenty more cigars in the house, with a few stashed in various obscure locations. Rachel had not yet discovered these locations. He could wait.

The rear door opened and closed for the second time. All three Andersons turned to see Frank enter. He was accompanied by a gust of hot July air. It felt like an oven outside. A hot, sticky, and moist oven.

"I must have caught every red light from the hospital to the restaurant," Frank complained, his words directed at the entire world.

Rachel felt her daughter stiffen as soon as she heard Frank's voice. The reaction was not wasted on her. Her mother's instincts immediately kicked in.

Releasing Kelly, she approached her daughter's self-appointed shadow. "Frank, I was hoping you could do me a favor."

It was no secret that Frank wanted to score as many brownie points with the senior Andersons as possible. "Anything, Mrs. Anderson."

"The linen service forgot to deliver five of our tablecloths. Be a sweetheart and go to Lambeth Linens and get them." She handed Frank the most recent receipt as well as a note she had jotted down less than an hour earlier. "Joanna at the service is already waiting for someone to come get them. "Just show her these," she instructed.

Frank looked at the receipt and the note, conflicted about the assignment he had been given. It was clear that he hoped that whatever Kelly's mother requested could be completed on the premises and near Kelly.

But then he nodded and said, "I will be right back."

He looked at Kelly, possibly hoping she would offer to accompany him, but she did not. With a suppressed sigh and a forced smile, he turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen through the same door he had entered.

Kelly looked at her mother. It completely amazed her that the woman who could drive her insane when the subject of marriage and babies came up could also be so intuitive.

She smiled at her mother, relieved. "Thank you, Mom."

Rachel's eyes crinkled as she smiled joyously. "That is exactly what I am here for, honey. That is what I am here for.

"Here for what?" Daniel, perplexed, looked at his wife and then at his daughter, attempting to comprehend what had just occurred. "And thanks for what?”

Instead of answering him, his wife and daughter had gone in completely opposite directions, leaving him to ponder his own questions while scratching his thick, short white hair. The action unintentionally drew his attention to the fact that his haircut, which he insisted on being cut only by his wife, was sadly lopsided. Again.