Baby, Come Home. Stephanie Bond
for her, her life would’ve been so different.
Amy gave herself a mental shake. Luckily she had Tony in her life now…a different set of blue eyes to lose herself in. She’d learned long ago that nothing productive came from rehashing the past.
She reached for her computer mouse and returned to the CAD drawing she’d been working on before her chocolate attack, the addition of a wheelchair ramp to an existing structure. A worthwhile project, to be sure…but not very challenging. Even as she double-checked the fine details on the screen in front of her, her mind kept straying to her memories of the Evermore covered bridge over Timber Creek.
Always happy for a reason to get out of the cramped, tension-wrought house where she lived with an elderly aunt, Amy had thought the bridge was the most romantic place in Sweetness—the way it enveloped her and Kendall when they entered one arched portal to slowly walk or ride across the length of it, counting timbers as they went, their footsteps and voices echoing off the plank walls. She would pretend it was their home. They’d certainly shared a lot of intimate moments there, tucked out of sight in the dark corners of the supports, enjoying the vibration of their sandwiched bodies when cars rumbled past.
Unbidden, desire stabbed her midsection. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to think about the way Kendall had made her body come alive. In hindsight, the excitement of sexual discovery had clouded her judgment. It had made her believe that Kendall was in love with her, that they shared an unbreakable bond. She had been such a fool.
Still, Marcus had stirred her curiosity about the town’s progress. Nikki had mentioned a website, but Amy had purposely avoided it. Now, though, she found herself clicking away from her CAD drawing and on to a search engine. A few keystrokes later, she found the official website of Sweetness, Georgia, The Greenest Place on Earth.
Green enough on its own, she remembered, with trees as far as the eye could see. But the slogan was a play on the fact that the Armstrong brothers were rebuilding the town on the industries of recycling and alternative energies. She skimmed the pages of description. The pictures showing the devastation of the tornado still rocked her to the core—those were all places where she’d once walked. The “before” and “after” slide show featured pictures of the overgrown wasteland the town was when the Armstrong brothers had returned to reclaim it, and pictures of the progress that had been made. Nikki was in one of the photos, standing beside the sign for the Sweetness Family Medical Center, next to a short bespectacled man who, from his white lab coat, appeared also to be a doctor. Rachel Hutchins, the busty blonde who used to be the receptionist for the dermatologist Amy used in Broadway, was in several of the photos, flashing her Miss America smile. Nikki said the woman would probably be mayor when the first elections rolled around.
There was a Lost and Found page listing hundreds, maybe thousands of items that had been found after the tornado and warehoused until they could be returned to the rightful owners. Former residents of Sweetness were encouraged to sign up on an email list to be kept apprised of developments. A social network site for the town had also been established.
On the About page, Amy found what she’d been looking for. A picture of the three Armstrong brothers standing outside, dressed in dusty work clothes. Amy instantly recognized each one of them. Porter, always the ham, was grinning at the camera. Marcus, the stoic one, looked highly inconvenienced at having his picture taken. And Kendall…
Her heart stuttered. Kendall had grown from a beautiful boy into a devastatingly handsome man, his shoulders wide and muscled, his skin tanned, his brown hair streaked by the sun. He wasn’t quite smiling and he wasn’t quite scowling. As always, he was square in the middle of his brothers’ temperaments. He had the same deep blue eyes as Marcus and Porter, but where Marcus looked stern and Porter, mischievous, Kendall was the calm one.
The cautious one. The one who couldn’t commit.
With a sigh, she closed down the page and reopened the CAD drawing, hoping to lose herself in the details of the diagram. But her mind kept wandering and she kept making mistakes. Then she inadvertently pressed a key that undid an hour’s worth of work.
“Dammit!” she muttered.
The ring of the phone offered a welcome distraction from her burgeoning frustration. Out of habit from the past few weeks, she crossed her fingers and picked up the receiver.
“Amy Bradshaw.”
“Ms. Bradshaw, this is Michael Thoms from the Greater Michigan Water Commission.”
Her pulse spiked—the phone call she’d been waiting for. She strove for a calm tone. “Yes, Mr. Thoms…I’ve been expecting your call.”
“I have to apologize for the delay. Funding for the Peninsula Reservoir was held up in legislature, so we were holding off on filling positions on the project team.”
“I understand,” she said, her chest tightening with anticipation.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Bradshaw. The project manager position went to another engineer who had slightly more experience.”
Her shoulders fell in disappointment, but she rallied her voice. “I understand.”
“If it’s any consolation, you were in the top three and the decision was close.”
She smiled. “That’s very kind of you to share, thank you.” After a few more minutes of small talk, Amy returned the receiver and tamped down the panic that licked at her. She’d been counting on that contract to stabilize her work hours and finances for the next two years. With the economy in the hard-hit manufacturing state still struggling to its feet, those kinds of public works projects were few and far between. She looked back to her computer screen. It would take a lot of wheelchair ramps to make up the difference.
Or you could go build a bridge, her mind whispered.
She pushed to her feet and walked over to a bin that held tubes of rolled up blueprints. She flipped through them until she located the cardboard tube she had in mind. It was soft and shopworn from so many moves over the years. She opened the tube and withdrew several yellowed pages, then unrolled them on a drawing table and used paperweights to hold down the curled edges.
Building plans for Evermore Bridge, Sweetness, Georgia, 1920. Official copy, do not remove. She had removed them from the courthouse, though…stolen them, to be more precise, as she was inclined to do in those days when something caught her fancy.
And now it seemed that things had come full circle. Amy released a bittersweet laugh. It seemed as if the universe was telling her she should go home to Sweetness.
Before she could change her mind, she picked up the phone and scrolled back to the number Marcus had called from, then pushed a button to connect the call. As the phone rang, she wondered nervously if Kendall would answer and if he did, what she might say.
But to her relief, Marcus’s voice came on the line. “Marcus Armstrong.”
“Marcus, this is Amy,” she began, but her voice petered out. She cleared her throat, then rushed ahead before she lost her nerve. “Is that offer of designing your new bridge still open?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then…I’ll take it.”
“Great. I’m glad you changed your mind. How soon can you get here?”
Tony would not be happy about her leaving. “Um, I need a week to tie up some loose ends. Will that work?”
“Sure. I guess I don’t have to tell you that you’ll be working with Kendall.”
She swallowed. “I assumed so.”
“Would you like to talk to him? He’s not here, but I can give you his cell phone number.”
“No, thanks,” she said. She needed to get her story straight before she faced Kendall Armstrong again. “I’ll see him soon enough.”
3
The more familiar