Chapter Six - Ward

Ward gazed down at the sweet woman in front of him, unable to believe his eyes.

He knew Trudy was convinced she didn’t want a man. But after their caroling the other night, he’d felt like a coward not calling on her anyway. 

Sometimes we needed things, whether we want them or not.

For all her pretty smiles and friendships around town, he sensed a loneliness in her that spoke to his own solitude.

So when she showed up at the hardware shop, for all the world as if  she’d been delivered to his doorstep, he’d thrown caution to the wind and asked her to join him for coffee. 

Watching her take off like he’d threatened to set her on fire hadn’t hurt his pride near as much as he would have thought.

Instead, he’d felt a strange mix of sadness and merriment. 

The woman sometimes acted like she was a hundred years old.

But she was pretty as a picture, and she ran like a deer.

And now she was offering him a latte with an expression like a contrite schoolgirl.

How could he possibly resist those luminous green eyes?

“Want to walk with them?” he offered her, sensing her need to keep moving. 

Let her move with me instead of away from me, he thought to himself.

“That sounds nice,” she agreed quickly. 

He grabbed his latte and waved to Michael, the owner, who had already ensconced himself behind the counter.

“Have fun kids,” Michael yelled back.

Ward found himself placing a hand to the small of Trudy’s back to lead her out before she got thrown by anything else Michael might say. 

The owner was a sweet man, but subtlety wasn’t his forte.

​“I’m glad you swung back,” Ward told her, as they headed toward Park Avenue. “I was wanting to stretch my legs.”

“I guess you didn’t have to sit much as a professor?” Trudy guessed.

“Well, I did have to make plans and grade tests,” he said. “But I was more of what you might call a pacer in the classroom.”

“I can picture that,” she said, a faint smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. 

“I’ll bet your work keeps you on your feet, too,” he guessed.

“Normally it does,” she told him, her brow furrowing slightly. “But not this week.”

“Why not?” he asked. 

“These kids,” she said, sounding perplexed. “They rented the whole inn for a business retreat where they work all day and eat food from containers and don’t even want nice fresh sheets.”

“So you’re basically on vacation,” Ward said, feeling happy for her.

“I guess,” she said dubiously.

“You don’t want to be on vacation?” he guessed.

“Maybe I’m a fool,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “I guess I just like to stay busy. Taking care of people is what I do best.”

He stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. 

There was no resentment in her expression. Only a sweet sort of longing, as if she didn’t feel like herself without guests to care for.

Ward knew that she and Phillip had not been blessed with children. He aslo knew that she had a soft spot in her heart for them, from the very first time he’d ever seen her. 

It was at the Trinity Falls Halloween Hoedown, shortly after Ward first arrived in town.

Trudy was helping a young boy in a Superman costume who’d gotten separated from his mother. The boy was on the edge of tears, and Trudy had been so kind and patient, telling the boy that he was even more brave than the superhero. And that even Superman got scared sometimes. 

Ward stopped to ask if there was anything he coud do to help, and when Trudy smiled up at him with those big green eyes, he’d almost forgotten how to speak. 

He had just decided he might be in love with her when her husband showed up with the boy’s mom. Ward had excused himself and moved on, but he’d never really been able to forget this woman who now walked beside him. 

He’d even seen how kind she was to the Garcias and their boy at Christmas dinner. She had a way of making people feel right at home, no matter where they were. 

He guessed that Trudy had turned all that love to her friends and the guests at the inn, anticipating their needs and fussing over them so they felt the warmth of her protection.

“I’ll bet Alice would put you right to work at the farm,” he said.
“If you were trying stay busy. I hear she took on a lot of baking for the fair.”

“She’s got plenty of hands to help in her kitchen these days,” Trudy smiled fondly. “And poor Chad is still using his crutches. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to do.”

Ward wasn’t at all sure, but he knew it wasn’t his place to advise her. 

“He’s a nice boy, your Chad,” he told her. “He comes to the hardware store all the time. He’s happy-go-lucky, but he seems like a hard worker.”

“That he is,” Trudy agreed. “And it’s nice to have company around the place, especially someone who’s always in high spirits.”

“That does sound nice,” he agreed.

“Do you have people in town?” Trudy asked.

“My son and his fiancée are in Paris for the holidays,” he said ruefully. “We’re pretty close, even though things didn’t work out with his mom. I’m happy for the kids that they had this opportunity, so I didn’t want to make him feel bad about his poor old dad being alone for Christmas.”

“Were you lonely?” Trudy asked worriedly. 

“You know it’s funny,” he told her. “After years of running around trying to make Christmas special for John, and for my parents when they were with us, I thought I’d enjoy a peaceful holiday. You know, take some time for reflection and gratitude before I make the transition into retirement.”

“Yes,” Trudy said. “That sounds quite nice.”

“I thought so, too,” Ward chuckled. “But I’ve never been so happy in my life as I was to hear from the Garcias with that invitation. Turns out, I miss all the running around.”

Trudy laughed, and the sound was like a bell in the crisp winter air. 

He glanced over at her again, unable to resist the sight of her long hair falling over the shoulders of her soft, green coat. Her breath danced from her in feathery plumes.

She noticed him looking, and her glance shifted down to the coffee in her hand.

He might have thought she was offended, except for the touch of color high in her cheeks.

Maybe…

He tried not to let himself overthink things. One step at a time. How long he might have craved her company meant nothing now. Only what she wanted, what made her happy. 

A friendship is better than nothing, he reminded himself. Take it slowly. Don’t scare her away.

“So what brought you to Trinity Falls?” Trudy asked as they passed the bakery. 

“I’ve been here decades now,” he laughed.

“You’ll be a newcomer until you sell your house,” she said, her eyes twinkling with humor. “Then the house will be Ward Sullivan’s old place, and you’ll be one of us.”

“But then where am I supposed to live?” he asked. 

“Welcome to small town America,” she teased. 

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “You win. I was a farm boy through and through. But my dad encouraged us all to join the service after high school. He fought in Korea, himself, and all his old service buddies are like his brothers. I got deployed to Grenada. When I got back, my dad insisted I take advantage of the opportunity to go to college, like he always wished he had.”

“Very wise,” Trudy agreed. “Though a bit of fresh air and exercise might have done you good after active duty.”

He stopped in his tracks.

“Ward, I’m very sorry,” she said worriedly. “I’m always speaking before I think.”

“No,” he told her quickly. “It’s just that I’ve thought that myself many times over the years. I worry sometimes it’s why my marriage didn’t work out, about everything I saw over there, and never had a chance to work through it. A lot of people might not think that way about Grenada, but armed conflict is armed conflict.”

“In those days, we didn’t understand what we were asking of our servicemen, no matter where they fought,” Trudy said. “The kids today would handle it better, not just try to pretend like nothing happened.”

“That’s what I like about you,” he said. “You and I have a little experience on us, but we don’t let it close up our minds.”

He was worried he might have overstepped or insulted, but she gave him a megawatt smile that he felt down to his toes.

“Anyway, I was always pretty good with math,” he told her. “But I fell in love with it in college, the mystery and symmetry of it. Next thing I knew, I was teaching. When it was time to move on and give my wife a little space to reinvent her life, Trinity Falls was the closest town to feel like home to me within an easy drive of her and my son. It’s a solid little college, nice folks in town, and I like to have space around me. Since then, the years just melted past.”

“That does happen,” Trudy agreed thoughtfully.

“Wish I’d been here longer, though,” he told her. “Maybe we would have known each other back in school. Though I’d have been a few years ahead of you.”

 “Hey Ward,” Joe Cassidy called out to him from the porch of Carla’s Place. “And Trudy Williams.”

Ward waved back as they approached, and Trudy gave a little wave, too.

“You two headed in?” Joe called to them. “Natalie just brought in a cheese tray, and I hear Shane’s stopping by with the kids in a few minutes.”

“Not today, Joe,” Ward told him. “We’re just taking a quick coffee walk before I have to head back to the hardware store.”

“What’s the matter with you Sullivan?” Joe cried with a big smile. “You forget what retirement means? You’re not even officially off the roster yet, and you’re already working again.”

“Not everybody has a horse farm for a playground, Joe,” Ward teased right back.

Trudy smiled indulgently at their banter, and he felt a sudden sense of being at home that almost took his breath away.

“Well, go on, take your walk,” Joe said. “I won’t stop you. Good to see you, Trudy.”

“You too, Joe,” Trudy said. “Give my love to Alice and the rest.”

They walked on, under the canopy of the snowy trees in companionable silence. 

Once in a while, he would glance over at Trudy and she would smile at him over the rim of her coffee cup, her green eyes twinkling.
​
In Ward’s heart, a fire of hope began to burn.

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