A Very Special Delivery

darling.”
    And Molly remembered all over again why she’d come. And why she would stay.
    Along with Lindsey and Aunt Patsy she plunged into work, readying the potluck spread for the Seventh Cavalry, as Aunt Patsy called the gathered crowd.
    She was slicing a pecan pie and listening to Clare Thompson chatter about the upcoming bazaar when Aunt Patsy leaned toward her. “Chloe’s here.”
    As she followed her aunt’s gaze, a cold knot formed in her stomach.
    Her sister stepped out of a church van and began unloading toddlers.
    “You said she wasn’t coming.”
    “That’s what James told me yesterday.”
    Molly laid the pie knife aside. “Maybe I should leave.”
    “You will not.” Aunt Patsy grabbed her upper arm. “Chloe knew you would be here, and she chose to come anyway. She saw you last weekend at church and this is no different.”
    Maybe Aunt Patsy was right. She and Chloe had managed to be in the same church building together without causing an explosion. Granted, they’d ignored each other and stayed on opposite sides of the building. Maybe they could do the same today.
    Squaring her shoulders, she picked up the knife again and resumed cutting.
    “Good girl.”
    Molly watched from beneath her lashes as her sister came up the rise. Long involved in the church’s bus outreach to kids, Chloe was followed by members of her Sunday School class whose parents didn’t attend.
    Molly marveled that Chloe, who grieved so violently for her son, preferred to teach the little
ones. Where Molly panicked around kids, her sister seemed to draw comfort.
    Chloe, accompanied by her husband, clucked around the children like a mother hen. When her eyes found Molly, she stared long and hard, then hitched her chin in the air and herded the kids toward the sand pile.
    Foolishly disappointed, Molly watched the thin woman move away from her. When would she stop hoping and longing that Chloe would forgive her? That they could once again share the special bond of sisterhood?
    She turned aside, only to find Ethan watching her over a can of pop. Great. From one heartache to the other in zero point two seconds. Luckily, Deb Castor came up just then looking for volleyball recruits.
    “Come on, Molly. We need another warm body on our team.” Earrings swinging, Deb tugged Molly toward the net set up in back of the pavilion. “Tom’s team is blitzing us, as usual.”
    Though husband and wife, Deb and Tom got a kick out of competing against each other.
    Glad for the tension reliever, Molly trotted to the back court. Good-natured insults volleyed across the net long before the first serve. She relaxed and tossed a few back, feeling good to be in the midst of old acquaintances.
    Hands on her knees, she waited while the other players got into position.
    Suddenly, her arms tingled with awareness. She instinctively knew who stood next to her.
    “Hi,” Ethan said quietly when she glanced over at him.
    “Hi.” His eyes were incredibly blue today, as blue as the spring sky.
    Heart in her throat, she had so much to say. She wanted to know how he was. What he’d been doing. How Laney was. She wanted to apologize for the sadness she detected in those gorgeous blue eyes of his, and to tell him what a difference he’d made in her life.
    But, of course, she couldn’t.
    Tom’s team served and the ball came at her, falling with a thud onto the sand.
    “Sorry,” she called, trotting to collect the ball and send it back to the other side.
    If she was going to play this game, she didn’t dare look at Ethan again.
    She concentrated, and the next time the ball came her way, she leaped into action with a decent forearm pass. Ethan darted beneath her, slammed the ball up and over the net for a side out.
    Without thinking about it they turned and slapped congratulatory high fives. As soon as they touched, Molly regretted the action. Touching him, looking at him, was killer.
    Deb moved up to serve and everyone rotated. Ethan stepped to the net, leaving Molly in the back.
    He looked great from her view. So good she missed the next ball that came in her direction. And the next.
    “Time to eat.” Pastor Cliff’s voice boomed the news. Molly almost fainted with relief. Another five minutes of drooling over Ethan and she would be tempted to do something stupid.
    Back beneath the pavilion, she slid in line behind Lindsey and took a paper plate. Pastor Cliff gave a short prayer and then the crowd surged forward like sharks after blood.