Southern Sympathies Read online

  Copyright

  ISBN 1-57748-955-1

  © 2000 by Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Truly Yours, PO Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Niv ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

  Woodruff, North Carolina is a fictitious town and a product of the author’s imagination.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  One

  Sixty-five degrees and sunny! With a smile, Alec Corbett gazed up at the clear blue North Carolina sky. Sure wouldn’t see this kind of weather in Wisconsin on the last weekend of January, he mused. Then, again, you never know. Wisconsin weather is about as fickle as a woman!

  Walking toward the house he’d just purchased, Alec tried not to let his thoughts stray. No use dwelling on the past—a past that included an engagement gone bad and one whimsical woman named Denise Lisinski.

  Don’t think about her, he admonished himself, pulling the keys from his blue jeans pocket. Too nice a day to think about Denise.

  Standing on the small front porch, Alec could hear the wind rustling through the treetops of the quiet neighborhood. There weren’t any sidewalks such as he was accustomed to after years of big-city living. Only a simple asphalt road that meandered down the block.

  Alec glanced across the narrow strip of lawn that served as a dividing line between his property and his neighbor’s. And, although he was quite content with his own place—a low-maintenance ranch-styled home encased in a combination of brown brick and tan aluminum—he had to admit an aesthetic appreciation of the older, two-story red brick house next door. White shutters framed the home’s windows facing the street while the front entrance was graced with a huge cement porch, complete with massive white pillars.

  Well, look at that, he thought, spying the wooden swing hanging at the end of the portico. He could suddenly envision two lovers sitting there together, talking, sharing their most intimate thoughts.

  Whoa, I gotta quit thinking like some heartsick schoolboy, he berated himself. I’m not engaged to Denise anymore. I’m not getting married. I’m moving into this house today, in a different town, a different state—

  “Hey, Alec! Should we start unloading the truck now? I backed it into the driveway.”

  He turned at the sound of his friend’s voice. Tim Parker and four other men from church had volunteered to help him move today. “Yeah, sure,” he called back. “I’ll open up and we can start hauling furniture.”

  Alec unlocked the door and walked in. The air in the living room felt cool and still—the calm before the moving-in storm. Quickly roaming from room to room, he mentally placed all his belongings in various sites. His bedroom set in here, the extra double bed in a guest room there, and an office where he could set up his computer in the smallest of the three bedrooms. He chuckled, thinking that in a matter of minutes this one-story ranch home would be a whirlwind of activity.

  “Okay, where do you want ’em?” Tim asked, carrying in two matching lamps while his glasses slid slightly down his nose.

  Alec strode purposely to the front door. “Those can stay here in the living room.”

  “Hey, Alec,” dark-headed Larry Matthews asked, holding one end of a dresser while Rick Stevens held the other, “where do you want this?”

  “Master bedroom. Go down the hallway. . .to the right. That’s it.”

  Alec sighed. It was going to be a long, but very exciting day. Moving into this house meant the start of a new life for him!

  ❧

  “Boy, he’s sure gottalotta junk!” eight-year-old Tyler Boswick declared as he watched his new neighbor move in. He peered down at his younger sister, Brooke, who stood on the fence beside him. “I hope he’s got some kids.”

  “Me, too. And I hope he’s got a girl my age.” Her brown eyes grew wide. “Here he comes again, Ty, ask him.”

  “Okay. . . Hey, mister,” he called. The man headed for the moving truck stopped and looked over at them expectantly. “Are y’all the one moving in?”

  “Yep, that’s me.”

  Tyler considered him, noticing his straw-colored short hair and tough-looking features. He had the rugged face of an army man he’d once seen on TV. His interest shifted to the man’s clothing—faded blue T-shirt and dirty jeans. They were hard-working clothes, by the looks of them. Yeah, Ty decided, he just might be a dad.

  “Well, I was just wondering,” he proceeded, undaunted, “do y’all have any kids our age?”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  Dashing all of Tyler’s hopes in a mere fraction of a second, the man continued on his way.

  “Do you have any kids at all?” Brooke asked hopefully. “A little girl like me, maybe?”

  Pausing and turning toward them again, the man shook his head and grinned. Tyler thought he appeared a lot friendlier when he smiled. “No, I don’t have any kids. I’m not married.”

  Brooke frowned. “That’s too bad.”

  He chuckled. “Depends on how you look at it.”

  Tyler exchanged puzzled glances with his sister. Then they both shrugged simultaneously and watched the man walk up the ramp into the moving truck and come back out.

  “He sure is strong,” Brooke remarked.

  “Aw, that’s nothing,” Tyler said, unwilling to admit that carrying four kitchen chairs, two looped through each arm, was fairly impressive. “Men can carry lots of heavy things at once.”

  “Not Grampa,” Brook countered. “He only carries his Bible.”

  “That’s cuz he’s a preacher of a whole big church, dodo bird. He gets other people to carry all his heavy stuff.”

  Brooke narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t call me ‘dodo’ or I’m telling Mama.”

  “Go ahead,” Tyler replied, lifting his chin stubbornly. “But if you tell, we’ll have to go in.”

  Brooke clamped her mouth shut. Neither of them wanted to go inside for the night and he knew it. And if little tattletale Brooke told their mother, they’d have to go in early for their Saturday-night baths.

  Both children looked on curiously as two other men emerged, walked into the truck, then reappeared, wheeling a refrigerator toward the house. Next, their new neighbor carried in a stove, aided by another of his friends. But minutes later, he showed up again with nothing more than a can of cola in one hand. Much to Tyler’s surprise, he sauntered over to them.

  “Are y’all gonna holler at us for standing on the fence?” Brooke inquired, her voice quivering slightly. “Mr. Smith used to holler at us.”

  “Naw, I’m not going to do that,” the man said, sitting on the corner of the picnic table that a couple of men had put in the wide backyard hours before. “I don’t care if you stand on it. I think that fence has seen better days, anyway.” He eyed them speculatively. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Tyler Michael Boswick. And this is my sister, Brooke Elizabeth Boswick.”

  The man grinned. “Glad to meet you, Tyler. . .Brooke. I’m Alec.”

  “Mr. Alec?” Brooke asked uncertainly.

  “No. Alec Corbett. But you can call me by my first name.”

  “Oh no, sir, we can’t!” Brooke informed him, shaking her blond head vigorously. “Mama says it’s dispectful to call a grown-up by his first name.”

  “She means ‘disrespectful,’ ” Tyler said i
nformatively. “She’s only five.”

  “Almost six,” Brooke corrected him.

  Tyler shrugged, unimpressed. “I’m almost nine.”

  Mr. Alec smiled. “Have you two lived here a long time?”

  “All our lives,” Tyler replied. “What about you?”

  “I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but now Woodruff, North Carolina, is my home.”

  “Hmm. Well, my best friend, Matt Smith, used to live in your house, but he moved.”

  “Guess he had to, huh?”

  “Uh-huh. His dad got another job. . .all the way in Charlotte.”

  “That’s not so far away.”

  “Yes, it is,” Tyler replied as memories of his friend’s moving day resurfaced. That had been the saddest day in all his life.

  “I’m going to work in Charlotte starting this week,” Mr. Alec said. “I’ll be making the drive every day. Takes about a half-hour, more or less, depending on the weather and traffic. No big deal, buddy.”

  Tyler’s jaw dropped. “You work all the way in Charlotte, Tennessee? And you live here?”

  Mr. Alec threw his head back and laughed loudly. It was such a happy sound that it made Tyler smile. “No, no,” he said between chortles. “I work over in Charlotte—North Carolina.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Tyler chuckled, too. He’d forgotten about that Charlotte.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mr. Alec mimicked, smiling all the while. “And where, may I ask, is Charlotte, Tennessee?”

  “Um. . .” Tyler thought for a few moments, trying to remember what he’d heard the grown-ups say. At last he sighed. “I dunno where it is, but I know it’s not around here!”

  “Tennessee is just the next state over.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tyler nodded, but inside he knew he’d never see Matt again. Tennessee might as well have been on the other side of the world. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but something had—something bad. And that was why Mr. Smith got another job and moved away. Far away.

  “So where does your dad work?” Mr. Alec wanted to know.

  “We don’t have a daddy,” Brooke informed him with a sad expression. “He died when I was three.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “But he’s in heaven, so it’s okay,” Tyler quickly added. “And Mama doesn’t cry so much anymore. Hardly at all, even.”

  “That’s good. . .I guess.”

  Tyler watched as Mr. Alec took a gulp of his cola. He wondered what his grandfather would think of this man. Grampa Boswick always said that it was rude to drink straight out of a can. Gentlemen used a drinking glass.

  “So, do you guys go to church?”

  “Uh-huh,” Brooke said, nodding. “Mama says we all but live at church.”

  “Is that right?” Mr. Alec chuckled again, and Tyler got the feeling his new neighbor liked kids a whole lot more than he let on.

  “Mama works at church,” Brooke said. “She’s a secatary.”

  “Secretary?” Mr. Alec grinned.

  “Yep. And our grampa is the pastor.”

  “Which church?”

  “Southern Pride Community Church,” Tyler replied. “We call it SPCC for short.”

  “Hmm. . .” Their new neighbor got a thoughtful look on his face. “Is that the big church off the highway between here and King’s Mountain?”

  “I think so,” Tyler said, wonderingly. He’d have to ask Mama later to be sure.

  “It is,” Brooke piped in.

  “Aw, you don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh. I see the sign that says King’s Mountain every day on the way to school.” She turned to Mr. Alec with a sweet expression—the very one that always made their mama go easier on her when they both got in trouble. “Our school is in the same place as our church.”

  “I think I know the school you mean.”

  Tyler didn’t reply, but it irritated him that his little sister seemed to know something he didn’t. Maybe he’d have to pay more attention on the way to church tomorrow.

  “Tyler! Brooke!” Their mother’s soft voice floated over to them from where she stood on the back porch. “Time to come in now.”

  “Rats!” Tyler grumbled.

  “Comin’, Mama,” Brooke replied, jumping down off the fence. She was acting like a goody-two-shoes and it annoyed Tyler to no end!

  Mr. Alec stood up and stretched. “Well, I guess my break is over, too. Nice meeting you, Tyler.”

  “Thanks, but you can call me Ty. All my friends do.”

  The man laughed. “Okay, Ty. I guess we’ll be seeing each other around.”

  “I reckon so.” Tyler hopped off the fence and walked as slowly as he could toward the door, where his mother still stood waiting for him. He even stopped to pick up an old, worn-out penny from the driveway, but, much to Tyler’s dismay, she didn’t go on inside ahead of him.

  “Come on, Ty, hurry up. Your bath is getting cold.”

  He grimaced. “Can’t Brooke go first?”

  His mother raised her eyebrow in reply and he knew he’d better not fuss—when Mama raised her brow, she meant business!

  He trudged up the back steps. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, walking past her into the house.

  “Who were you and Brooke talking to?”

  “Mr. Alec Corbett,” he answered, perking up a bit. Maybe if he talked about the new neighbor, his mother would forget about the bath. “He’s real nice, Mama, and he told Brooke and me to call him Mr. Alec for short.”

  “So he’s the one who bought the Smiths’ house. I’d been wondering who was moving in all day.”

  “Yep, it’s him.” Tyler watched as his mother threw one last glance out the back door before closing it tightly. “He’s certainly a big man, isn’t he?”

  “Sure is. He’s really strong, too,” Brooke stated informatively.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, but he talks kinda funny.” She wrinkled her nose just like she did whenever Mama made something different for supper.

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” Tyler replied with a puzzled frown. “Where is that, anyhow?”

  Mama smiled, making her blue-gray eyes shine. “I’ll show you on the map hanging on your bedroom wall right before bedtime—after your bath.”

  Tyler groaned, ignoring the amused expression on his mother’s face. Why did she have to remember everything?

  “Does Mr. Alec have a family?” she asked, steering him toward the bathroom.

  “Nope. Just him.” Tyler paused, wishing the knot in his throat would go away. “No kids. . .”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, honey. I know how disappointed you must be.”

  Mama captured him in an embrace, drawing him to her slim body, which always smelled as good as the summer flower garden she planted every year behind the house. Then she kissed his cheek. “At least you’ll always have Jesus,” she whispered near his ear. “Jesus will never leave you.”

  Suddenly Tyler felt like crying. He wiggled out of his mother’s arms since he didn’t want her to see. “I better go take my bath,” he muttered.

  Grabbing hold of the bottom of his T-shirt, he pulled it up over his head as he entered the bathroom. He shut the door and, while he finished undressing, he tried not to think of how Matt Smith had moved away forever and how a grown-up had taken over his best friend’s house next door.

  Two

  Lydia Boswick peered out her kitchen window as she finished cleaning up the supper dishes. Lights glowed from the house next door and seeing them caused her heart to ache for her dear friend Sherry Smith. They’d been close for years, chatting over cups of coffee and helping each other out with their kids. When Michael died, Sherry had been such a comfort to Lydia. But then the Smiths abandoned their faith, according to Lydia’s father-in-law, and they’d all but turned their backs on their brothers and sisters in Christ at Southern Pride Community Church. Sherry stopped talking to Lydia right after Christmas; and, though it had been the death of a friendship as opposed to a husban
d, it hurt almost as much as losing Michael. And losing her mother, even though Mama wasn’t dead—physically, anyway.

  Don’t think about her now, she chastened herself. Mama made her decisions. Now she has to live with them. . .and so do I.

  Pushing aside her tumultuous thoughts, Lydia chanced one last look through the blue-and-white-checked curtains adorning the little window above her kitchen sink. She could see the backyard next door and the five men who sat around a picnic table. Weren’t they freezing? Since sundown, the temperatures had fallen into the fifties. Lydia wondered if they were drinking alcoholic beverages and, therefore, had become numb to the cold. Adding soap, closing the dishwasher, and turning on the machine, she silently dreaded being a neighbor to a single man who had nothing better to do than party with his friends all night long.

  “Mama, it’s eight o’clock,” Tyler hollered from upstairs. “Are you coming to hear our prayers?”

  “I’m on my way,” she called in reply.

  Lydia glanced around her kitchen to be sure she hadn’t left some task undone. Now to get those kids to bed.

  “Mama, come hear my prayers first,” Brooke insisted.

  The girl grabbed Lydia’s hand just as she reached the upper hallway, pulling her mother toward her bedroom. Brooke’s bright blond hair shone from its scrubbing earlier that evening. She was dressed for bed in her pink nightie, and Lydia thought her daughter resembled a life-sized, huggable, kissable doll. She could hardly refuse the request. Besides, Tyler wouldn’t mind if Brooke said her prayers first. Glancing across the hall and into his bedroom, Lydia spied him playing on the computer his grampa Boswick purchased for him a couple of months ago as a Christmas gift.

  Lydia followed Brooke into her room. Tucking her in, she sat on the edge of the twin bed that was draped in a pink, lacy comforter and heaped with stuffed animals. “There’s hardly room for you in this bed,” Lydia remarked with a smile.

  “That’s cuz Grampa keeps buying me all these aminals.” Brooke grabbed a sweet-faced lion and hugged it tightly. “I love ’em.”

  “I know you do, sweetheart.”

  “And I named every one. . .just like Adam got to name all the aminals that God gave him. This one’s name is Mr. Lion.”