God's Gift. Dee Henderson

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      “The bridge games are just not the same without you,” Lace added when Rae hesitated, dragging a smile from her. “Tell me you will at least think about it?”

      Rae hugged her friend back and started walking down the trail again. “If I say no, is Dave going to be showing up at my door?”

      “Now, would I do that?”

      They had been best friends since Rae was nine years old, the year Rae’s parents had died and she had come to live with her grandmother. Lace had lived down the street. They had a lot of history between them. Rae didn’t buy the look of innocence. “Yes, you would.”

      They walked together down to the park benches where mothers could watch their children play on the swings and slides and rocking horses. Rae sat down, annoyed to admit to herself she was tired; Lace joined her on the bench. Her friend was fit and active and had the stamina to go for hours. Rae just felt old. She kicked a bottle cap on the rocks in front of the bench and watched it flip over, tilting her head to read the words inside.

      “Dave says he’s going to make senior partner next month.”

      Rae looked up in surprise. “How? The senior ranks are age sixty plus, he’s thirty-six.”

      “He snagged some major client, and the firm is worried about the message it conveys to have a simple ‘partner’ working such a major account.”

      Rae laughed and the sound was rusty but felt good. “He got the Hamilton estate.”

      “Hamilton Electronics?”

      “That’s the one.”

      Even Lace looked impressed, and she didn’t impress easily.

      “When is he getting back from Dallas?” Rae asked.

      “Tonight. I told him I would meet his flight.”

      Dave McAllister stepped off the plane from Dallas, and with a thank-you and generous tip accepted the sheaf of faxes and the ticket a courier was waiting to hand him. Then turned his wrist to glance at his watch. He had thirty-eight minutes before his flight to Los Angeles, barely time to find his luggage, get it on the right plane and check his messages, certainly not time for dinner.

      There were days he hated being this good a lawyer.

      “You eat, I’ll read.”

      “Lace.” He felt the relief at seeing a friend’s face. She fell in step beside him, took the briefcase and papers, and handed him a chili dog. He didn’t even protest the onions and eating a chili dog in a suit. She was a lifesaver. You didn’t protest a lifesaver. Not at ten o’clock on a Saturday night.

      “Jan told me about your abrupt arrive and depart schedule.”

      There was amusement in her voice. Any time now she would be telling him to get a real life. He liked her too much to care. It was business. Sometimes it demanded a little sacrifice.

      “Read me the important stuff,” he asked her, finishing the chili dog and wishing she had bought him two.

      She was flipping pages as they walked. “Oh, here’s a good one.” She skimmed the legal document with the ease of someone who wrote a lot of them. “Your client Mr. York is going to lose his shirt.” She summarized the brief for him as they took the tunnel from terminal C to baggage claim.

      “It’s smoke. They are going to ask to settle out of court.”

      Lace grinned. “No, they won’t.”

      “If they do settle, you owe me for that parking ticket you managed to pick up on my car.”

      He found his luggage and wished he had thought to pack for a longer trip. He hadn’t been planning this trip to Los Angeles.

      “Is Rae going to come?” It was the reason Lace had met him, the reason they had been playing phone tag across the country for the last several weeks.

      “I got nowhere. You would think after twenty years, I would know how to convince her to budge, but the only thing I managed to do was make her cry.”

      Dave frowned. “Lace, you were supposed to be helping, not making matters worse.” He saw the look on Lace’s face and lightened up, fast. He was going to have Lace crying, and one lady in his life in tears was enough. “She’s having a down week, Lace, the markets turned, I bet it was nothing you said. She cried on me one time because I wore a tie like the one she had given Leo.”

      Lace blinked and put her lawyer face back on. “Good save, not great, but good. You’re her silent partner, you’ve got to do something.”

      “Give me a clue what to do, and I’ll do it. Anything,” Dave replied, frustrated at the situation, frustrated at not being able to help one of the two most important friends he had left. “But I’m just as much at a loss as you are.”

      Lace nodded. “She’s got to come on this vacation. That I do know.”

      Dave sighed. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do when I get back to town Tuesday.” He checked the monitors to find the gate for his next flight. “What are your plans for the rest of the week?”

      “Sports stadium zoning and salary cap contract language.”

      “Sounds like a whale of a good time.”

      She elbowed him in the ribs. “Beats playing divorce attorney. I thought you were going to get on the happy side of marriage for a change.”

      “I’m working on it, Lace,” Dave replied, tweaking a lock of her hair. “Want to have dinner Thursday before Rae’s game?” They were Rae’s acting cheerleader section on nights she bowled with the league. It gave them an excuse to try to make her laugh again.

      “Not Thai again, or Indian. I don’t mind spicy, but I draw the line at curry.”

      “Need some help?”

      The church nursery was busy with activity as one service finished and another prepared to begin. There were name tags to match with diaper bags and parents for children being picked up; new infants and diaper bags and instructions to write down for children being dropped off. Short-handed because two of the helpers were out with the flu, Rae was finally sitting down again. She looked up at the question and smiled.

      James.

      He looked good.

      The unexpected thought made her blush, which really confused her and changed her smile to a momentary frown.

      She looked down at the active infants she held. She had to grin. They were twins and she had her hands full. “Which one do you want?”

      She watched him step into the nursery, careful to avoid letting any of the toddlers get past him and out the door. His movements were stiff and she wished their prayers on his behalf would be answered. She hated to see someone in pain. His week back in the States had faded his tan slightly. He sat down in the rocker beside her. “Give me—” he paused to read the name tags on their sleepers “—Kyle.”

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