This Very Moment Read online

  Bill steered the BMW into his garage, thoughts of Kylee pushing everything else aside. Why had kissing Kylee reminded him of Nicole? Was it because he cared about Kylee as he hadn’t any other woman since Nicole? Why should that make a difference?

  He knew why, but wasn’t sure he wanted to examine his feelings further. He had loved Nicole. Could he grow to love Kylee too? If so, would loving Kylee demean the love he treasured for his wife?

  “Get over it, Bill,” he told himself aloud. “Nicole is gone forever, remember? Nothing you do will change that.”

  Yet Kylee believed Nicole existed somewhere. With God, perhaps? Bill didn’t accept that for a minute. Jourdain does, he thought.

  That was part of what bothered him. Both Kylee and Jourdain were intelligent people—how could they let themselves believe something they couldn’t see? Something they could never prove?

  At home, he watched TV again on the couch until his mind numbed enough to forget the pain. Then he pulled the blanket over him and slept.

  * * * * *

  The yellow roses were delivered at seven, a half hour before the guests were due to arrive at the banquet. The card read: Yellow means I’m sorry. Kylee smiled and put her face next to the roses and breathed in their aroma.

  “Wow, he must have done something really bad,” Elaina said with a laugh.

  “No,” Kylee answered. “Not really. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Good guys are hard to come by at our age.” Elaina looked over at Troy where he talked with a group of waiters. There was an unmistakable softness in her gaze.

  “Looks like you and Troy are getting along,” Kylee commented.

  Elaina turned to her, patting the side of her dark hair self-consciously. “Is it that obvious?”

  Kylee grinned. “Kind of.”

  “I’ve loved Troy for a long time. I saw him marry his wife and knew they weren’t right for each other. But what could I say? That I was the one he should marry?” Elaina’s blue eyes rolled expressively. “Not hardly. So I waited, I watched, I even encouraged him to stay with her when they started having problems. Sometimes it’d hurt so much seeing him with her when I knew she didn’t love him like I did.” Elaina looked up in the air and shook her head. “About a year ago when things got really tight at the charity, and I had to go back to work to keep it afloat, I thought about leaving. So did Troy. He and his wife had separated again, and one night we talked about quitting and letting someone else take over Children’s Hope. But in the end we both stayed. I know now that it was because he loved me too, or was beginning to, and we couldn’t let the charity go, or we’d be letting each other go.”

  Elaina sighed happily. “Now that his divorce is final, we’re together, and our dreams are coming true.”

  “Are there any wedding bells in the future?”

  Elaina’s mouth widened in a large smile. “Yes, actually. When a little more time goes by. I’ve been waiting for him this long. A bit more won’t hurt.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Kylee said. “And it looks as though everything else is also going well. Did you see the news spot last night? Anna was sure excited about getting her first surgery on Monday. I think she did a great job talking to the reporter. I made a few copies of the tape. I’d like to give her one.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Elaina paused. “But the surgery isn’t going to happen on Monday.”

  Kylee was surprised. “But I thought—”

  “The plastic surgeon called this morning to reschedule. Apparently, he’s had some very high paying jobs that came up and he has to take them to make up for the time he’s donating to Anna. So Anna will get her surgery the first week in December. It’s actually perfect timing. I mean, what a great Christmas present.”

  “Yeah,” Kylee agreed, but she felt slightly discouraged. “What about the other four children you had scheduled? They’re not all being done by the same doctor.”

  “No, but they’ve been rescheduled too. Someone from 60 Minutes called me and wants to follow their stories. That’s big. We can’t pass up the opportunity for the exposure. In fact, I told them you’d call and set up everything. Don’t look so sad, Kylee. Two or three weeks aren’t going to make a difference in the rest of their lives. They’ll get the help the need. You’ll see to that.”

  Kylee grinned sheepishly. “We both will. I guess I’m not very patient.”

  “Well, remember it’s a virtue. Oh, look, Troy’s calling me.” Elaina gave her a wink and left.

  Bill showed up with the first guests. “Thank you for the flowers,” Kylee told him.

  “You’re welcome. I was kind of an idiot last night. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. But I meant what I said. I need a friend more than I do a broken heart right now.” That much, at least, was true. But what if she could have a friend who was also the love of her life?

  He chuckled. “I’m sure you have friends.”

  “Yeah, my best one is a stewardess who called me this morning from Atlanta to tell me she’s dating this really hot pilot, and my other best one just had her first baby. They’re rather wrapped up in other things right now.”

  “Well, I’m here at least. Do you have a table I should wait at? Or do you have something else you need?”

  “Want to greet people?”

  “Not a chance.”

  She grinned. “I didn’t think so. Our table is right over there, by the door to the kitchen. You see it, don’t you? It’s the one with the gorgeous yellow roses.” She glanced at the growing crowd of people. “Do you think you can find your way over there yourself?”

  He threw her an amused look. “If I really tried.”

  “Hey, Bill,” Kylee called as he started toward the table. “You’re walking funny. What happened?”

  “I went to the gym this morning and had a good workout.”

  “Did something fall on your legs?”

  “No, I’m just a little stiff. It’s been a while since I’ve visited the gym.”

  Kylee struggled to keep a straight face. “I see.” She put her hand over her mouth, but the laughter bubbled through. Bill grinned with her.

  He waved her back to the guests. “Go on and take care of them. I’ll talk to you later.”

  For Kylee, the greeting stage of the evening had never taken so long. She glanced often at Bill, sitting alone at his table. Once he put one of the yellow roses between his teeth and stretched out his arms first to one side and then the other as if he were dancing. Kylee laughed and wondered if he liked to dance. Her church was sponsoring a dance for singles in two weeks to celebrate Thanksgiving. That would be so much better than going to the smoke and booze filled dance halls. Maybe Bill would go with her.

  * * * * *

  When Kylee arrived at the table, Bill was telling the two couples who had joined him the details involved in a facelift. The lady next to Bill turned a pale shade of green. “I would never submit to that,” she said daintily. Her apparently much older husband patted her hand.

  “Oh, no?” Bill said. “Hmm. I guess it’s lucky for me that many people don’t feel that way.” He recognized the tiny, almost imperceptible marks on her face that most people would never see. Coupled with her aging hands, Bill judged that the woman had not only had plastic surgery once but possibly twice.

  The evening played out much as the benefit dinner two weeks before, and Bill noticed the donations were more generous than Kylee had said was customary for her second list. The commercials, it seemed, were doing their job.

  After the guests left, Kylee sat at the table with Bill, watching the waiters clean up around them. “I’m glad it’s over,” she confessed. “You know, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I first get up. It’s okay after I start talking, but before that I’m a wreck.”

  “It doesn’t show.”

  “That’s good.” As she spoke, she watched Elaina and Troy talking by the outside door, heads close together.

  “Is something wrong?” Bill asked.
“You seem kind of far away.”

  Kylee turned her gaze back to him. “I’m just disappointed. Remember when I told you the surgeries were to begin on Monday? Well, apparently one of the surgeons had to reschedule, and then 60 Minutes wanted some time to follow the stories of all the children, so that delayed the rest of the surgeries as well.”

  “60 Minutes will get you some great publicity.”

  “I know, but I want to see the children get help now. Little Anna is going to look so great once her mouth is fixed.”

  “A bilateral cleft lip and complete cleft palate will require more than one surgery, you know. With a case as severe as hers, she’ll need to have further surgery as she matures. That’s not even including the hearing, breathing, and dental problems she has. Overall, there will be a lot more scarring than if she’d had the lip surgery as a baby.”

  “I know all that, but she’ll look good. I just know she will. Certainly a lot better than she does now. We already have a great dentist, Gerald Torgeson, who has volunteered to help with the dental work. And I’m sure other doctors will step forward to help in the other areas. I hate this delay.”

  Bill grabbed her arm. “Come on, what you need is to get away from this for a while.” He stood, pulling her up with him.

  “Do you like to dance?” Kylee asked suddenly.

  He gave her a pained expression. “Tonight?”

  “Ha! Even I can see that you can barely walk tonight, much less dance. But we’ll be having a dance at our church in a few weeks. It’s being held on the Friday after Thanksgiving.”

  “With preaching and baptism in the intermission?” he said with a smirk.

  Kylee punched the sore muscles in his arm, laughing as Bill winced. “Something like that. Of course we always have to smuggle in rock music, and there’ll be chaperones. We’ll have to dance an arm’s length apart.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “While the chaperones are measuring the distance between us with hard little rulers and Bibles, and frisking us for rock music, we can talk about a bridge in San Francisco that I’ve been meaning to sell you.” She rolled her eyes. “It’ll make an excellent investment—right after a tract of swamp land in Florida.”

  Bill laughed. “I bought into that one, didn’t I? Okay, I’ll go. But no bridge or frisking, all right?”

  “Deal.”

  “So what should we do now?” He’d wanted to help get her mind off the charity and surgery delays, but he didn’t know where to go this late. If it were summer, he would take her to the beach and they could stroll along the shore and . . .

  Maybe it was just as well it was winter.

  “I play a pretty mean Yahtzee,” Kylee said. “And Rummikub is fun.”

  Bill smiled. “Why not? It’s about all the activity my muscles can stand.”

  “I’ll even roll the dice for you,” Kylee said in amusement. “Boy, you really have to start exercising more.”

  “I suppose you exercise.”

  “Nope. I’m allergic.”

  They drove to Kylee’s in separate cars as they had done the previous evening. For two hours they talked and played games, sipping soda Kylee had in the refrigerator and munching cashews from a can Bill kept in his car. Bill noticed that she maintained a comfortable distance between them and part of him was glad. The other part of him was frustrated by the situation, and he fought the strong urge to take her in his arms.

  It wasn’t until he had bid Kylee a friendly farewell and was driving home that memories of Nicole returned to haunt him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A week crept slowly past, bringing in another six million dollars from around the country. Public officials and celebrities joined in the frenzy, and even more money poured into the coffers at Children’s Hope. Kylee kept busy with media reports, public appearances, and tracking the growing funds. She went to dinner twice with Bill, but each time their conversation was deliberately light and the distance between them marked with invisible lines.

  “Sometimes I want to hit him,” Kylee confessed to her friend Suzy in frustration.

  “How romantic!” Suzy looked thinner than usual in her form-fitting flight uniform. She had come straight from the airport, stopping at Kylee’s on the way to her own apartment. “A man tragically affected by his beloved wife’s death fights to hold on to her memories in the face of his growing love for her best friend. Wow, that’s good. I should be a novelist.”

  “Would you give it a break? I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m really falling for him.”

  Suzy’s smile faded. She put her arms around Kylee, her long blond hair swinging behind her. “You be careful. I don’t want to ever see you as down as you were when I met you. No man is worth that.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Kylee promised. She’d met Suzy on the flight home to visit her parents after Emily’s death. It was Suzy who had shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with Kylee for the first time, and that precious glimpse of eternity had given Kylee the will to survive. “But Bill isn’t like Raymond.” He was honest and good and kind—all important qualities for a good Christian man. Of course, he didn’t believe in God, but Kylee thought he might if he could feel the Lord’s love as she had.

  “I know he’s not like Raymond,” Suzy said, her ever-ready smile back in place. “But he’s still a man. That means he starts out with one strike against him.” She rolled her eyes and sighed.

  Kylee hugged her. “I’m glad you stopped by.”

  “I wish I could stay longer, but I’m on another flight tomorrow to Seattle. And I can’t miss it. Guess who’s the pilot? Yep, Mauro. We’re going to have dinner after the flight with my parents. Since I can’t be in Seattle for Christmas, I’m staying with them for my week of down time. They’re letting Mauro stay the night in my brother’s room. Imagine that! But I’ll see you when I get home.”

  “You’re taking him to meet your parents? Then it’s getting serious.”

  Suzy grabbed her hands excitedly. “I hope so. I hope and pray. He’s great! I can’t wait for you to meet him. But I really have to go now. Don’t worry about Bill. Things have a way of working out. Remember, only the Lord sees the big picture. Bye now.” She kissed Kylee’s cheek and was gone.

  By Wednesday of the following week, the day before Thanksgiving, another nine million dollars had filtered in, less expenses. Kylee was more than pleased. She made a trip to the bank, and then stopped in at the Children’s Hope offices in downtown Los Angeles.

  Elaina accepted the deposit slip and shook her head. “It’s so much money,” she said, tucking a strand of her short dark hair behind her ears. “Much more than I ever imagined raising in so few months.”

  “This is only the beginning, Elaina. I can feel it. As the ball gets rolling we’ll bring in much, much more.”

  Elaina let the bank slip drop to her desk. “There is another side to this, Kylee.”

  The seriousness in her voice brought a cold feeling to the pit of Kylee’s stomach. “What?”

  “Do you know we’ve had another hundred children referred to Children’s Hope in just the past few days? I can’t keep up with the submissions. Many are from poor countries; they’re simply grasping at any chance for a better life. I never dreamed there could be so many children out there with so many needs.” Tears glistened in Elaina’s blue eyes. Her hands curled into fists and then uncurled again. “I thought I could make a difference, really change something. But there is always one more child to help, one more person in pain. Sometimes I don’t know if I have the strength to face it. That’s when I think about quitting and going back to a normal life. It’s so much work, and I’m tired.”

  “I know it seems pretty hopeless when you look at all the children left to help,” Kylee answered. “That used to bother me, too. And some days are just plain overwhelming. But I find if I take one or two steps—in your case one or two children—and see their joy and how you’ve made a difference in their lives, you’ll find the strength to go on
. You know that. You’ve done it before. Elaina, this is big. I can feel it. You’re making the difference. And like I said, this is only the beginning.”

  Elaina looked at her wearily. “You’re the one who makes the difference. You’re the one who has changed my life. And Troy’s. We’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

  “You don’t need to,” Kylee impulsively touched Elaina’s arm. “Well, I’ve got a meeting with 60 Minutes in a few minutes, so I have to be going.”

  “Break a leg.” Elaina glanced again at the bank deposit slip in front of her. “Oh Kylee, wait. Tell me, are these funds up to date?”

  “Yes. There’ll be more in a few days. When it starts to peter out, we’ll cut back on the commercials. As long as they’re generating profit, I think we need to keep them on.”

  “I’ll leave that in your hands.”

  Kylee smiled. “I won’t let you down.” She took a few steps toward the door. “That reminds me. Do you have a final time on Anna’s surgery? The people at 60 Minutes want to know what time to have the camera crew there on Wednesday.”

  “Then you haven’t heard,” Elaina said.

  Kylee didn’t like the sound of that. She walked back to Elaina’s desk. “Heard what?”

  “Dr. Nelson had to reschedule again. But this time, for sure, the surgery will be two weeks from today, December eighth. He had only one other appointment that day to work around, so I’m assuming it’ll be sometime before noon. I’ll let you know the minute he confirms the exact time.”

  “How do we know he’s not going to delay things again?”

  “He won’t. Not with 60 Minutes involved. He’ll get too much publicity out of this. His business will probably double. I told him that if he delayed one more time we’d get someone else, even if we have to pay them.”