Labor of Love Read online

  Rachel Hawthorne

  Labor of Love

  For my dear friend Nancy Haddock

  who dances on the beach…

  and who told me about the red hat.

  It changed everything.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  “I see a spectacular sunrise.”

  Chapter 2

  “Ohmigod, that’s your guy!” Jenna whispered excitedly.

  Chapter 3

  What were the odds? That with all the different restaurants…

  Chapter 4

  Several blocks of Bourbon Street were closed to traffic. The…

  Chapter 5

  Brady tasted like strawberry daiquiri, and I thought his mouth…

  Chapter 6

  “Okay, I’ve blogged day one of what I’m calling our…

  Chapter 7

  Our caravan pulled to a stop in a neighborhood that…

  Chapter 8

  “Okay, so her real name is Sara, and Saraphina is,…

  Chapter 9

  Honey Island Swamp. I liked the name—the Honey Island part…

  Chapter 10

  “I know you must think I’m insane, but I just…

  Chapter 11

  I’d expected to sleep like a rock, or a log,…

  Chapter 12

  “I’m sorry your friend left,” Saraphina—oops, she was Sara when…

  Chapter 13

  “So…you and Brady,” Jenna said quietly later that night as…

  Chapter 14

  “We should have done this days ago,” Jenna said.

  Chapter 15

  Saturday we only worked until noon.

  Chapter 16

  We caught up with Tank and Jenna a little before…

  Chapter 17

  It wasn’t until Jenna and I were back in our…

  Chapter 18

  Things were coming along nicely on the house. We were…

  Chapter 19

  Brady walked over to Tank, talked to him, then they…

  Chapter 20

  Much to my surprise, Drew was at the site the…

  Chapter 21

  I couldn’t believe that we’d completed our first house.

  Chapter 22

  It was our last night in New Orleans. We’d finished…

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Books by Rachel Hawthorne

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  “I see a spectacular sunrise.”

  An icy shiver skittered up my spine, and the fine hairs on the nape of my neck prickled. I know my reaction seemed a little extreme, but…

  When Jenna, Amber, and I walked into the psychic’s shop, we didn’t tell her our names. So Saraphina had no way of knowing my name is Dawn Delaney.

  Sunrise…dawn? See what I mean? It was just a little too spooky. It didn’t help that I thought I saw ghostly apparitions in the smoky spirals coming from the sharply scented incense that was smoldering around us.

  Although I certainly didn’t mind that the psychic considered me spectacular. If the sunrise she mentioned was really referring to me—and not the sun coming up over the Mississippi River. Her words were vague enough that they could apply to anything or nothing.

  I’d never had a psychic reading before, so I wasn’t quite sure how it all worked. I was excited about discovering what was going to happen, but also a little nervous. Did I really want to know what was in my future?

  My hands rested on top of hers, our palms touching. Her eyes were closed. I figured that she was trying to channel whatever it was that psychics channeled. I’d expected the psychic to be hunched over and old—wrinkled, gray, maybe with warts. But Saraphina didn’t look much older than we were. Her bright red hair was barely visible at the edges of her green turban. She wore a flowing green caftan and an assortment of bright, beaded necklaces. Her colorful bracelets jangled as she took a firmer grip on my hands and squeezed gently, almost massaging my fingers.

  “I see a very messy place. Broken. Boards and shingles and…things hidden,” Saraphina said in a soft, dreamy voice that seemed to float around us.

  Okay, her words calmed my racing heart a little. We were in New Orleans, after all. I didn’t need a psychic to tell me that areas of it were still messy, even a few years after some major hurricanes had left their marks.

  “I hear hammering,” she continued. “You’re trying to rebuild something. But be careful with the tools. You might get distracted and hurt yourself—more than hitting your thumb with a hammer. You could get very badly hurt. And worse, you could hurt others.”

  Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I wasn’t even sure if I truly believed in the ability to see into the future, but I was intrigued by the possibility.

  If you knew the future, should you accept it or try to change it?

  “Lots of people are around,” she said. “It’s hot and dirty. There’s a guy…a red and white baseball cap. The cap has a logo on it. Chiefs. Kansas City Chiefs. I don’t get a name, but he has a nice smile.”

  I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  For Jenna, Saraphina had seen “fire that doesn’t burn.” The fire part sounded scary, but the not burning was just confusing. And that she saw her at a fair, or something equally mystifying. Jenna’s brow was still furrowed, and I knew she was trying to figure it out. She didn’t like unsolved mysteries. She couldn’t pass a sudoku puzzle without stopping to fill in the empty boxes.

  But a nice smile I could live with, as long as that was all he offered, because I was taking a summer sabbatical from guys.

  Amber, skeptic that she is about all things supernatural, had tried to mess with Saraphina. She’d been the first one daring enough to ask for a reading. When Saraphina had touched Amber’s palm, she’d said she saw color. We’d all been weirded out, amber being a color and all.

  Then Amber had asked if she’d find love this summer. Since Saraphina’s eyes were closed, Amber had winked at Jenna and me, because she has a boyfriend back home. She’s been crazy in love with Chad ever since winter break when they first started going out. He’s the first boyfriend she’s ever had, and she’s been a little obsessive about being with him as much as possible. Quite honestly, I was surprised that she’d come to New Orleans with us, leaving Chad back home in Texas. Glad, but surprised.

  Saraphina had said, “Not this summer.”

  Amber had rolled her eyes and mouthed, “See, I told you. Bullsh—”

  “But college…one better than you already have,” Saraphina finished.

  That had been just a little too woooo-woooo and had pretty much shut Amber up. Once Saraphina released her hands, Amber started gnawing on her thumbnail. And she was still at it. She had a habit of worrying about things and expecting the worst.

  Now, it got really quiet, and Saraphina was so still that it was eerie. How could a person be that still? Was she in a trance?

  Sitting on either side of me, Amber and Jenna didn’t seem to be breathing. Neither was I. Was Saraphina seeing something horrible? Was she debating whether or not to tell me?

  With a huge sigh, as though she’d just finished pushing a heavy boulder up a huge hill, Saraphina released my hands and opened her eyes. They’d creeped me out at first, because one was blue and one was brown. But once I got used to them, I realized they somehow belonged together—with her face. With her. It just seemed like a psychic kind of thing.

  “I see nothing else,” she said.

  Although she didn’t look old, she seemed ancient. I think she had what my grandmother refers to as “old soul eyes.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, wiping my damp palms on my shorts. “
Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Maybe she was older than I thought, because she also sort of sounded like my grandmother.

  “If you know something really awful is going to happen, you’d tell us, right?” Jenna asked.

  Saraphina smiled. “I tell only what I see. I don’t interpret it.”

  “Yeah, but a fire that doesn’t burn. What does that mean exactly?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But it’s the nature of fire to burn, so do you mean it’s not actually burning or it’s not burning me? See what I mean? It’s kinda vague.”

  Saraphina shrugged, almost as if to say maybe we didn’t really want to know anything else. And maybe we didn’t.

  I touched Jenna’s shoulder. “Come on. We should go.”

  “But I need more—”

  Amber and I had to practically drag her out of the shop, before Saraphina told her for the umpteenth time that there wasn’t any more.

  Once we were outside, the heat pressed down on us. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how cold I was. My fingers were like ice. I shivered again and rubbed my hands up and down my bare arms.

  “Well, that was certainly…interesting,” I said.

  “Do you think she means Chad isn’t my forever guy?” Amber asked. “Because I was thinking he was it for me. You know—my first, my one, my only?”

  “Don’t get all freaked out,” I said. “None of it means anything. Not really.”

  As we started walking down the street, I slipped on my sunglasses and adjusted my “Life Is Good” cap over my shoulder-length dark hair. The humidity and my hair weren’t going to get along, but that was nothing new. After all, I lived near Houston, so humidity was a way of life.

  I’d come totally prepared for New Orleans—also known as the Big Easy. I was wearing red shorts, sneakers, a white lacy tank, and lots of suntan lotion. My mom’s parents are from Italy—the old country, as my grandma calls it—so I tend to tan easily, but I still take precautions. I’d known we’d be doing a lot of outdoor walking today because we had so much to see and do in the French Quarter.

  “Then why’d we do it?” Jenna asked, looking back over her shoulder, as if she thought maybe something was going to jump out at us.

  “We thought it would be fun, and we’re in New Orleans,” I reminded her. “Visiting a psychic is something you should do when you’re here.”

  We’d arrived a few hours earlier, so we had some time to play today. But tomorrow we’d start working. Because, okay, the psychic was right. We were here to help with the rebuilding efforts. So again, she hit the nail on the head—pun intended—with the whole hammering thing. But it was also an easy guess. Lots of students were spending a portion of their summer here, helping with the many rebuilding projects in the city.

  “She got our names right,” Amber said.

  “Color, sunrise, that could mean anything,” I pointed out. “For Jenna she was totally off. Come on, a carnival?”

  “She didn’t say ‘carnival,’” Jenna said. “She said ‘fair.’ Maybe she meant fair as in pale, not dark. My name in Cornish means ‘pale, light.’”

  “In Cornish?” Amber asked. “You mean, like in serving dishes? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  I laughed, while Jenna rolled her eyes. Amber’s comment was just what I needed to shake off the lingering willies. Sometimes she was a little out there.

  “Look, y’all, it was something to do for fun. But there’s not going to be a fire, Amber isn’t going to break up with Chad, and there’s definitely not going to be a guy with a red Chiefs cap in my life.”

  “You never know,” Amber said.

  “Trust me, I know. I’m taking time away from all things male.”

  “Why? Because of Drew?” Jenna asked.

  “Why else?”

  “You really have to get over what happened prom night,” Jenna said.

  She was right. I knew she was right. But still, it was hard.

  Prom night was unforgettable. And that made it a huge problem. Because I totally wanted to forget it.

  It was the night I caught my then-boyfriend making out with another girl in the backseat of his car. It had been almost midnight, the dance winding down. I’d gone to the restroom. When I came back to the dance area, I couldn’t find him. I was going to text message him, but I realized that I’d left my phone on the front seat of his car.

  A few minutes later, it was where I left my broken heart.

  Wouldn’t those make great lyrics for a country song?

  “I’m over it,” I said with determination, trying to convince myself as much as my friends. “Totally and completely. But I don’t see the point in getting involved with anyone right now.”

  I’d put my heart on the line with Drew. He was fun to be around. He made me laugh.

  He also had what I guessed you called star quality. He was in drama class, and he’d been given the lead in our school’s production of Beauty and the Beast. He’d made a great beast because he has black hair but startling blue eyes. His performance had made me cry. He’d been so good! I’d been over the moon. My boyfriend had brought the audience to their feet for a standing ovation.

  Now I wondered, probably unfairly, how much of our relationship had been a performance.

  The aromas of chocolate and warm sugar brought me back to the present. They wafted out of the bakery we were passing.

  “Let’s stop,” Amber said. “Maybe a sugar rush will wipe out the worries about our future.”

  “I’m not worried,” I stated.

  “Yeah, well, I am.”

  It smelled even better inside—vanilla and cinnamon added to the aroma.

  At one end, the long glass-encased counter had all sorts of pastries. At the other end were pralines, fudge, divinity, and an assortment of chocolates. Several people were in line ahead of us, so we had plenty of time to make a decision. And I needed it. I’m totally into sweet stuff.

  “I think I’m going for the carrot cake,” Jenna said. “It’s healthy.”

  “How do you figure that?” Amber asked.

  “Carrots.”

  Amber and I grinned. Jenna is a pseudo-health nut. Her dad owns a fitness center, her mother is a nutritionist, and her older brother is a personal trainer. But Jenna claims she’s allergic to exercise. And when she’s away from home, she eats every unhealthy thing she can find. Not that you can tell, because she’s also on the swim team. She doesn’t consider swimming exercise, just fun. Plus she’s tall, so she has long arms that give her an advantage in the pool.

  But her height gives her a disadvantage when it comes to guys. Jenna is slightly shorter than six feet tall, like an eighth of an inch shorter, which most people would probably just ignore, but she cares about the tiniest fractions because she really doesn’t like her height. If someone asks her how tall she is, she’ll say, “I’m five feet eleven and seven-eighths inches.”

  Me, I’d just say six feet.

  Or at least I think I would. Having never been that tall, I can’t say for sure, and like my dad is always saying, don’t judge until you’ve walked in the other person’s shoes. And I could never walk in Jenna’s shoes because her feet are a lot bigger than mine.

  She’s taller than most of the guys at our school. Her mom keeps telling her not to worry about it so much—that boys grow into their height after high school. But get real. She wants a boyfriend now.

  Because she spends so much time in the pool—with practice and competition—she keeps her blond hair cropped really short—a wash-and-fluff-dry style.

  Amber, on the other hand, wears her dark brown hair in a layered chin-length bob. It never frizzes. She’s also the shortest of our group. My dad calls her stocky—which I’ve never told her because it doesn’t sound very flattering. Not that my dad meant to insult her or anything.

  Amber’s family has a ranch just outside of Houston, and she’s used to hard work, which I guess helped her to develop muscles. She’s really
strong, which will come in handy over the next six weeks as we build a house.

  “What can I get you?” the guy behind the counter asked. He was wearing a big smile, and I figured he was a summer employee, still new enough at the job to think it was fun.

  My parents own a hamburger franchise, and I’ve spent way too much time learning that the customer isn’t always right and is usually a royal pain in the butt, but you have to act like you’re glad they’re buying your burger and not someone else’s.

  Since I know the truth about waiting on people, I always try to be a good customer.

  “Chocolate éclair,” I said, smiling.

  “To go or to eat here?”

  They had a small section nearby with a few tables. Sitting in air-conditioning for a while sounded like a great idea, so I said, “Here.”

  Jenna ordered her carrot cake, and Amber ordered a pound of pralines. Okay, so maybe working the ranch wasn’t the only reason she was stocky.

  “A pound?” Jenna asked.

  Amber shrugged. “I’ll have one here and take the rest back to the dorm, so we can snack later.”

  Our volunteer group was living in a college dorm, along with other volunteers. Our group is officially H4—Helping Hands Helping Humans. Or as its organizer, Ms. Wynder, calls it: H to the Fourth. Ms. Wynder thinks of everything in numbers. She is, after all, our math teacher. And it was her idea to bring several of us to New Orleans.

  According to her, voluntourism—“people doing volunteer work while on their vacations”—is becoming increasingly popular. She’d even shown us an article about soap opera actors who’d spent time here, staying in a dorm like normal people and working during the day. Not that the possibility of running into celebrities had influenced my decision to come here—although, yes, I did plan to keep an eye out.