“No, but I’d like to.”
Savvy looked as though she wanted to ask more about the degree but then thankfully moved down the page. “Okay, I see your volunteer work teaching swimming at the Y, but this says you’ve also been volunteering at the charity hospital in Atlanta, up until last week?”
Isabella sipped her coffee, enjoyed the delicious warm liquid on her tongue. “I put the name of the administrator under my references. I really enjoyed working there, volunteering there, I guess I should say.”
Savvy wrote something on the paper. “What made you start volunteering at those places, and why did you leave?”
She’d started volunteering at the Y because Nan told her she’d enjoy working there. Nan had held a paid position as an office assistant at the Y until she was too sick and went to the hospital, where she met Isabella.
Isabella wouldn’t tell Savvy about her relationship with Titus’s ex-wife, so she focused on the other reason she’d started volunteering. “My husband—ex-husband—and I divorced last year. I wasn’t feeling very good about myself at the time, and I wanted to do something to help others while I waited for the divorce to be final. Then I planned to move away, find a small town and start my life new, away from the big-city lifestyle.”
“You don’t get much farther away from big-city than Claremont,” Savvy said, grinning.
“I realized that last night, when I went to the town square.” Isabella recalled the quaint Mayberry-type atmosphere that radiated from the place.
“And so your divorce just finalized, and you were looking for a small town where you could settle down?”
“No. It was final six months ago, but I...” She struggled to say enough, without saying too much. “I became friends with one of the patients at the hospital, and I didn’t want to leave until—” she carefully picked her words “—until she no longer needed me.”
Savvy’s hand moved to her heart. “You’re going to be great here, you know. You may even be perfect to oversee a cabin eventually, but having you in the office will work, as well.”
Isabella wanted her to understand how much she already felt drawn to Willow’s Haven. “I was raised in orphanages,” she said. “And they were terrible. I won’t go into detail, because I honestly don’t want to think about it—or talk about it—ever again. But when you described what your plans were for Willow’s Haven, I felt like God brought me here for a reason. Because I know how children feel when they’re abandoned, and I know how important it would’ve been to me to have someone who cared, someone who told me about God and someone who truly loved me.”
Two thick tears trickled down Savvy’s cheeks, and she brushed them away. “I knew God answered my prayers with you,” she said softly. “I’d like to go ahead and show you everything today, what computer software we’ve bought for the office, the files that we’re going through in our search for children needing a home. There are plenty of kids—too many, truth be told—but we want to be ready to take as many as we can as soon as possible. As the cabins go up, we want to fill them.” She motioned toward one of the small desks with a laptop. “Everything’s over there. We’ll go ahead and get started. Sound good?”
“That sounds great.” Eagerness flooded Isabella’s soul. God had brought her here. She could feel it. And she couldn’t wait to get started.
“I thought it would,” Savvy said. “And while you’re figuring things out, I’ll call your references. But I already know that everything will be fine.”
Happy with this turn of events, Isabella took her coffee and started across the room as the phone on the desk began to ring. “Do you want me to get that?”
“Sure,” Savvy said. “Just answer, ‘Willow’s Haven.’”
Isabella picked up the phone on the third ring. “Willow’s Haven,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Well, ma’am, I hope you can. I’m trying to get in touch with a Mr. Titus Jameson. I called his office, and the voice mail left this number. Would he happen to be there? It’s rather important.”
“Yes, he is. Hold on one moment, and I’ll see if he’s available.” She lowered the receiver and said to Savvy, “It’s a gentleman looking for Titus. He said it’s important.”
She nodded. “His cell doesn’t pick up out here. Let me see if I can get him.”
Isabella waited while Savvy went outside. She heard her calling Titus’s name, and then she returned.
“He wasn’t far away,” she said. “He’s coming.”
A few minutes later, Titus entered, his forehead already starting to dampen with sweat and his work shirt beginning to cling to his muscled frame.
Isabella handed him the phone while trying not to stare.
Not an easy feat.
“Thanks,” he said, his fingertips brushing hers in the exchange.
“You’re welcome.” She didn’t want to blush, but she thought it might be happening anyway, so she turned her attention to the laptop in front of her, even though the only thing on it was a screensaver of Dylan, Rose and Daisy.
“This is Titus,” he said.
Isabella heard the other man’s voice, a distant mumbling through the receiver as he spoke to Titus, but she couldn’t make out the words. And she really didn’t want to eavesdrop on the conversation, so she moved the mouse around on the computer with the hopes that something would show up besides the screensaver.
Savvy had gone to the kitchen area and started washing dishes. But since Titus took the call at the desk, and there wasn’t a whole lot of room for him to walk around and talk with the cordless, he simply sat in the chair opposite Isabella and listened to the man on the other end.
Which made it easy for her to see when the color drained from his face.
“She’s...dead?” His eyes slid closed and he remained silent for a moment, while the other man’s muffled words continued to sound through the phone. Then Titus took a deep breath and answered, “No, I’m not her brother,” he said, his words slow and deliberate, as though he struggled to get them out. “I’m her husband.”
I thought I could handle anything, that we could handle anything, but I learned my limitations.
It’d taken Titus six days to gather the right words to tell Savannah that her mommy would never come back. The phone call from the hospital had sucker punched him, and he hadn’t known how to deal with the blow. Nan had been sick. Dying. And he hadn’t even known.
And his “closure” had been pathetic. Pitiful, even. Nan hadn’t had a funeral. An online memorial page had been set up by the hospital for guests to sign. There weren’t even any pictures. According to the guy from the hospital and the memorial page, Nan had chosen to donate her body to science in the hopes of curing the rare kidney disease that killed her. That, of course, was the type of thing the woman he knew and loved would’ve done.
But what had happened to Nan between the time she left and the time she died? He’d learned from the memorial page that she’d worked at the Atlanta inner-city YMCA before she’d gotten sick, but that was all. She’d had an entire new life that he knew nothing about.
During the past three years, he’d been confused. Hurt. But for the past six days, he’d been angry. And oddly enough, his anger hadn’t been focused on Nan but on God. How could He deal Titus this blow? How could He have turned his back so thoroughly on Titus and, even more, on Savannah?
Savannah. He hadn’t been