Divine Phoenix(Divine Creek Ranch 10)(2)

She breathed in deep, her reverie cut short by the deep, stabbing pain in her abdomen.

I need to lie down. I just need to rest. Lord, help me remember the way to the house.

The pains had come more and more insistently throughout her four-hour journey from Durst. She’d gotten a later start than she’d wanted, and her main concern had been arriving in Divine before it got dark. Finding the house during the day would be hard enough. After sunset she knew it would be impossible, and she had no desire to spend the night in her little car. A motel was out of the question because she needed to reserve her limited funds. I really need to lie down.

Another wave of nausea followed on the heels of the pain. She’d prayed her way through this trip, hoping she wouldn’t have to stop to be sick. She’d sat as still as she could while driving, and each time the nausea had subsided. Realizing her fingers were like ice, she released one hand from the steering wheel and rubbed it against her denim-covered thigh. Her fingertips tingled oddly.

Don’t hold the steering wheel like it’s a lifeline. Breathe, ninny.

As she rolled closer to downtown, she slowed, recognizing Batson’s grocery store. Her mom had allowed her to ride the little train that had once stood outside the main entrance. She recalled laughing as it had shook and made little chugga-chugga sounds after her mom inserted the quarters in the slot. The train was gone now, replaced by a stand of newspaper vending machines. At least now she had a landmark to go by.

Go straight from here… I think.

She could just as easily stop in at the grocer’s and ask directions to Bluestem Street, but she enjoyed the challenge of following her instincts home. She’d wanted to at least try. If structures had changed too much, she could always turn around and ask somewhere.

Absently fingering the key ring resting in her cup holder, Lily recalled her father’s words. He’d placed the keys and a manila envelope in her hand and had told her to open it in private and to keep it somewhere safe. When she’d opened the envelope, she’d discovered the title deed to the house in Divine, Texas, in which she’d spent the early years of her childhood, and a note from him.

“Baby, the house may be in serious need of repair, but it’s got to be better than what you’re living with right now. If you’re of a mind to leave Durst, and that abusive bastard you’re married to, do it. If you can just make do for a while, everything will be okay. You’ll see. Don’t worry about me.”

Don’t worry about him? How could she not? Cancer was claiming his body, one part at a time. He’d been the only reason she’d had for staying in Durst. She’d had no close friends and worked as cashier and bookkeeper for her husband and his brother’s repair shop. Her social life revolved around trips to the grocery store, the tiny library in Durst, and visits from whoever darkened the door of King Auto Repair. King. Lily snorted as she pondered the irony of her last name. Once upon a time, that was how she’d thought of her soon-to-be ex-husband, JT King. He wasn’t her King anymore.



* * * *



Clay Cook sighed in frustration as he sat at his workbench. He replaced the pencil in the cup on the desk and pinned the sketch of the new design he’d been working on for weeks to the bulletin board above his work space. He’d hoped to have the ring design down and to have already moved on to an entire new line of matching pieces by this point, but he was stymied. He rubbed his neck wearily as the sound of Tabitha Lester chattering out in the jewelry showroom filtered through the workroom doors. It was not exactly a sound to inspire creativity. He glanced at the monitor above his bench and got a glimpse of her talking on her phone.

He shook his head and smoothed the crumpled paper on the bulletin board, wondering if his best work was already behind him. He’d attended art school in San Antonio years before with a dual purpose, to become an artist and a jeweler. Lately, his jewelry designs had looked like everything else he saw in the marketplace and less like original works of art, which is what he’d intended when he’d opened Clay Cook Jewelers. Customers came to him for one-of-a-kind handcrafted jewelry for their loved ones, but he often felt like a fraud. It had been a while since the last time designing a new ring for someone had “fired up” his muse.

A has-been at thirty-eight.

It was a depressing thought.

He looked at the photographs Chance and Clayton Carlisle had given him. He couldn’t wait to get started on the sculpting project they had commissioned. That feeling. That restless desire to create welled up inside of him as he anticipated the start of this new work, and his hands longed for wet clay. He recalled the look in Chance’s eyes, mirrored in Clayton’s, as they’d sat talking after lunch at Rudy’s earlier that afternoon.