Legacy of Love by Kristen Ethridge

Author:Kristen Ethridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laurel Lock Publishing
Published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Whitt showed up an hour early to the small chapel at the back of the First Provident Church complex. He didn’t want to walk in with a bunch of people staring at him. Besides, he thought he’d like a few last minutes alone with his grandmother.

When Whitt first ran into his cousin, Jake had reassured him that he should use the garage apartment. He promised that everyone would leave him alone—if that’s what Whitt wanted.

And since then, even though Whitt had slept under their roof—well, their garage’s roof—the Peoples family had been true to their word.

It felt strange to have family everywhere he was here, but still to have no real connection.

Even though he’d been born in Port Provident, Whitt was a stranger in a strange land, and the only one who completely knew him and shared his memories was in the casket at the front of the room—where she’d become now just a memory herself.

Whitt stood silently, a half-step back from his grandmother, until tears formed in his eyes. He hadn’t cried at his mother’s funeral. He hadn’t truly understood what death meant then. It had been a more abstract concept, interpreted through the eyes of childhood. Before his mother died, he hadn’t even endured the loss of a pet. He didn’t know then what it meant to lose someone forever.

He knew now.

The knowledge pushed against his chest until he thought his ribs would crack from the pressure building inside.

“I’d hoped I would beat you here,” said a voice softly at the back of the chapel. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Whitt wiped his eyes with the back of his hands before he turned around.

Samantha stood just inside the doorway. The light from the vestibule surrounded her and made her plaid dress stand out.

In a flash, Whitt’s mind zipped to the last Christmas season he’d shared with his mother, and a day a few weeks before the holiday when she wore a green-and-red plaid apron as they made gingerbread men to hand out to his teachers and friends at school. He hadn’t thought about that moment in years. It made him feel as warm as the oven that baked those cookies so long ago.

Whitt did a double-take, taken aback by the memory. Samantha looked like Christmas. She looked like love.

His eyebrows raised. He’d just met Samantha. He’d noticed her eyes as they’d stood on the land of the Children’s Home. He’d noticed her kindness the night she’d asked him—practically a stranger—to join him at dinner.

And now he’d noticed something else—but it wasn’t just the plaid. However, he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

“You look very festive.” Whitt wished he could take that back. Now, not only could he not decipher what about Samantha made that pounding fear in his heart subside—he couldn’t talk right, either.

She smiled, bringing more light into the dimly lit chapel. “I thought about Miss Kaye singing in the choir every Sunday, and I thought about all the First Provident Christmas concerts over the years—all those beautiful, traditional hymns that everyone loves so much.

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