by Nora Roberts
“She’s a sensible girl, she knows Griff, and she knows you’ve got your plate full today.”
“You’re right. My head’s already spinning.” She dug her keys out of her purse pocket. “Thank you, Griff. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Take your time. If you’re not back by three, I’ll just give Callie a nail gun, give Chelsea a skill saw. It’ll keep them busy.”
“You’re a comfort to me.”
“Keys are in my right front pocket.”
She arched her eyebrows. “You just want my hand in your pocket.”
“Didn’t know it was an option when I put the keys there, but it’s a nice one.”
She slid her hand in, hooked the keys. “Thank you,” she said again, kissed him, said mmmm again. “Y’all pray for me,” she called out as she hurried for the door.
• • •
GRIFF SETTLED DOWN at Rendezvous Books, where apparently Story Time for the preschool set happened once a month. And who didn’t like Story Time? he asked himself, leaning against one of the stacks with a glass of iced coffee while about a dozen pint-sizers sat in a circle, listening to a story about a young boy and a young dragon with an injured wing.
He knew Miz Darlene—a retired schoolteacher who worked part-time at the bookstore. He and Matt had put a small addition on her house the previous fall, giving her a cozy reading room.
She deserved one, he thought. She read really, really well, doing voices, adding just the right elements of sorrow, joy, surprise and wonder.
She had the kids in the palm of her hand. And he was pretty interested in what was happening with Thaddeus and his dragon Grommel himself.
From somewhere deeper in the store, a baby began to cry. He could hear a woman’s voice softly soothing, then the sound of her steps as she walked, back and forth, back and forth, and the crying stopped.
Sunlight streamed in the front window, through the glass panes of the front door, falling in square patterns of light on the old wood floor.
The pattern changed when the door opened; the bell jingled, then the pattern fell back into place. Changed again when a shadow crossed over it. He barely noted the man as more than that—a shadow that changed the pattern briefly.
Then the story ended, and Callie ran straight to him.
“Did you hear? Did you? Grommel’s wing got better, and Thaddeus got to keep him! I wish I had a dragon.”
“Me, too.” He reached down for Chelsea’s hand.
“Can we get a book?” Callie wanted to know. “About Thaddeus and Grommel?”
“Sure. Then I say we get ice cream cones and head to the park.”
They got the book, and since it turned out there was already a second adventure written, he bought each girl the new one, then ice cream that dripped in strawberry streams faster than the kids could eat them.
He used the water fountain in the park to deal with sticky hands before he worked off the ice cream high by chasing the girls around, up and down the big play station.
When he dropped down, feigning defeat, the girls ran circles around him.
Callie tugged Chelsea’s hand so they moved a few steps away, and began to whisper.
“What’s the secret?”
“Chelsea says boys are supposed to ask.”
He sat up cross-legged. “Ask what?”
More whispering, then Callie gave an innately female head toss and marched to him. “I can ask if I want.”
“Okay.”
“Can we get married? We can live in your house, and Mama can come, too. ’Cause I love you.”
“Wow. I love you, too.”
“So we can get married like Emma Kate and Matt, and we can all live in your house with Snickers. For happy ever after.”
Undone, he drew her in. “Let me work on that.”
“No tickles,” she said, rubbing his cheek.
“Not today.”
“I like tickles.”
He drew her in again. Fathoms deep, he thought. “They’ll be back.”
He took out his phone at the signal.
Sorry it took so long—fires all out. On my way back.
He kept an arm around Callie as he answered.
In the park, smoking cigarettes and having a couple beers. We can switch off from here.
Her answer came moments later. Don’t litter. I’ll be there in ten minutes.
He slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Your mom’s on the way, Callie.”
“But we want to play with you!”
“I have to go to work. But before I do . . .” He shoved up, grabbed up both girls like footballs and had them squealing as he raced around the play set with Snickers running after them.
He caught sight of the man who’d come into the bookstore—or he thought it was him—at the far end of the park. Found himself holding the girls just a little closer.
Then the man glanced to the left, grinned, waved and strolled off toward someone Griff couldn’t see.
Kids, he thought, setting the girls down so they could chase him. They made you suspicious of everything and everyone.
• • •
SHELBY ZIPPED THROUGH the rest of the day, doing the switch—kids and cars—with Griff, dropping the girls off at Miz Suzannah’s. She gave Callie an extra hug, thinking it was her first genuine sleepover—one outside family.
Back to the salon for hair, and at Crystal’s insistence, makeup. While she’d have preferred seeing to her own face, she couldn’t find a way to say no without insulting Crystal. But her nerves showed enough for Crystal to vow not to “tart her up.”
It certainly saved time, having herself fussed over like a celebrity, while she sent and answered texts from hotel catering, from the florist, from Emma Kate.
And too many to count from Miz Bitsy.
They kept her faced away from the mirror while they worked in tandem, then swung the chair around with a flourish for the big reveal.
All doubts vanished.
“Why, I look amazing!”
“Played up your eyes more than you usually do,” Crystal began, “but kept it subtle. So it’s elegant, like your hair.”
“I’ll say I’m elegant. And I look like me with a boost—not like the two of you fussed over me for near to an hour. I love it, Crystal, and I’ll never doubt you again. And Granny, my hair is just wonderful. That thin band for just a little sparkle sets off the curls you’ve got tumbling out the bun in the back.”
“A few loose tendrils around your face,” Viola added, fussing with them a little more, “so it doesn’t look like you spent five minutes on it—just spent the right five.”
“I don’t know if the rest of me can live up to what y’all have done, but I’ll try my best. Thank you, thank you so much!” She hugged them both. “I’ve got to go. I’m determined to be at the hotel before Miz Bitsy. I’ll see you both there.”
She calculated she’d have the house to herself for an hour before her mother got home—two if Ada Mae opted to get her hair and face done up at the salon first.
She wouldn’t need two.
She grabbed a Coke out of the kitchen, took a breath. She’d planned on wearing her simple black dress, but with the Grecian style Granny had come up with, she reassessed as she went upstairs.
The black dress would work for anything, no question—and had already done service at three Friday Nights. She’d yet to wear the silver gray one she’d brought with her from her closet up North. It just didn’t suit Friday Nights. But for this . . .
Taking it out, she held it up in front of her, turned to the mirror. The lines were a little more fluid, more flowy, and would play up the hair. Not the black shoes now, she decided. They’d be too stark. But she had those blue sandals with the low heels—low heels would be more practical anyway when she’d likely be running around half the night.
And the dress had slit pockets, so she could slip her phone right in, have it handy.
Decision made, she dressed, added long dangling earrings an
d a trio of thin, sparkly bracelets from Callie’s dress-up box.
She packed toiletries, a change of clothes since she was having her own overnight at Griff’s after the party.
In an hour flat, and feeling pretty damn good about herself, she got back in her car and drove to the hotel.
Shelby figured she’d spent more time there in the past three weeks than she had in the whole of her life, but it still made her smile to make that turn up the rising road and see the spread of the big stone building through the trees.
She parked, took the slate path toward the wide front veranda, where two big white pots held red and white begonias with some trailing blue lobelia.
If Emma Kate and Matt decided to have their wedding here, she imagined those pots spilling with yellow and lavender flowers.
Some of the staff greeted her as she crossed over the wide-planked floor of the lobby, headed straight for the ballroom.
Decorating was well under way, and she saw, happily, that she’d been right. The deep purple cloths over the white added casual elegance, the perfect canvas for the bowls of white hydrangeas and clear, square holders holding white tea lights.
A mix of high- and low-tops, of chairs and stools.
She planned to echo that on the terrace, add some freestanding urns with white calla lilies and roses, some peonies and airy, trailing greenery.
It was all so Emma Kate.
Spotting the florist, Shelby moved to her. “Point me where you want me.”
By the time the future bride and groom arrived, everything was in place—and she saw from the look on her friend’s face, every hour of work, every drive up and back, every banging Bitsy headache had been worth it.
“Oh, Shelby.”
“Don’t start watering up! You’ll have me doing it, and we’ll ruin our makeup. We both look amazing.”
“It’s so beautiful. Everything I wanted, and more I didn’t know I wanted. It’s like a dream.”
“It was our dream.” She took Emma Kate’s hand, and Matt’s, joined them. “Now it’s your dream. I now pronounce you engaged.”
“We have one more favor.”
Shelby reached in her pocket, pulled out her fist. “I happen to have one favor left over, right here. What can I do?”
“Matt and I decided on our song—at least for now. ‘Stand by Me.’ You know it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“We want you to sing it tonight.”
“But you’ve got a band.”
“We really want you to sing it.” Emma Kate took Shelby’s hand between both of hers. “Would you please, Shelby? Just that one song. For us.”
“I’d be happy to. I’ll speak to the band about it. Right now we’re going to get you a drink, and I’m going to show you around before people start getting here and you don’t have a minute.”
“Griff’s right behind us,” Matt said. “In fact, here he is now.”
“Oh, well, my! Look at you.” She brushed a hand down the lapel of his dark gray suit, and thought how lucky it was she’d worn the pale gray dress. “You’re so dashing.”
“Goddess of the mountain,” he murmured. “You take my breath.”
He lifted her hand, kissed it. She flushed—something she’d taught herself not to do—as a redhead—while still in her teens. “Thank you, sir. The four of us do look nearly as wonderful as the room. I think we should have the first glasses of champagne. And Emma Kate, I want to show you the terrace. We’ve strung little white lights in the potted trees. It’s a fairyland.”
“Flowers and candles and fairy lights,” Griff commented as they toured the space. “All the sparkle, none of the fuss.”
“I cut miles of frills out of Miz Bitsy’s vision, but I really do think she’s going to be pleased with how it all turned out. We might have a storm coming in, but not until after midnight.”
She tapped her pocket and her phone. “I keep checking my weather app, and so far, so good. There’s Miz Bitsy now. And doesn’t she look pretty in her long red dress? I’d better go talk to her.”
“Want backup?”
She grabbed his hand. “Do I ever.”
• • •
SHE DANCED WITH HIM. It didn’t occur to her until later that not once did a memory of other formal parties and elegant dress intrude. She never thought of Richard, who’d worn a tux as if he were born in one.
Everything centered on the moment.
Dancing with her father, who pulled out some of the ballroom moves he’d retained from when Ada Mae had nagged him into lessons. And her grandfather, who swung her into some clogging—and there her muscle memory wasn’t as keen as his—when the band kicked it up a few licks. With Clay, who hadn’t inherited any rhythm at all, and with Forrest, who’d taken Clay’s share of it.
“How’d you get in here?” she asked Forrest. “You’re not wearing a tux or even a suit and tie.”
“It’s the badge.” He circled her in a smooth two-step. “I told Miz Bitsy I was on duty.”
“Are you?”
He only grinned. “I consider myself always on duty, and I haven’t worn a monkey suit since senior prom. I hope to continue that winning streak.”
“Nobby’s wearing one.”
“He is, but he swore to back me up on the on-duty excuse.”
“What’d you bribe him with?”
“A fancy coffee and a couple bear claws fresh from the bakery.”
She laughed, circled with him.
“You look as good as it gets tonight, little sister.”
“I feel as good as it gets tonight, big brother. Look how happy everybody is. Emma Kate could light the place up all on her own.”
“Stealing her back,” Griff said as he cut in.
“I could arrest you for that, but I’ll let it go. There’s a blonde over there who looks like she could use some company.”
Shelby glanced over. “Her name’s Heather. She worked with Emma Kate at the hospital in Baltimore. She’s single.”
“That works.”
Griff drew Shelby in as Forrest wandered toward the blonde. “You’ve got a hit on your hands, Red.”
“I know it.” She slid her hands up his back, pressed her cheek to his. “It feels so good—just like you. I was just saying how happy everybody is. It’s so nice knowing people are happy for Emma Kate and Matt. And Miz Bitsy— Oh, there she goes, tearing up again, and bolting toward the ladies’. I’ll just go take care of that.”
Shelby turned her head, brushed a kiss over his cheek. “It shouldn’t take long—or it could take twenty minutes if it’s a genuine crying jag. I’ll probably appreciate another glass of champagne once I handle this.”
“I’ll make sure it’s waiting.”
She started for the doors, and the restrooms beyond them. And pulled out her phone when it rang.
“Miz Suzannah? Is everything all right?”
“It’s nothing much, honey. It’s just Callie forgot Fifi, and she’s heartbroken. We didn’t realize it until we were getting them into bed. I’ve tried substitutes, but she’s just set on her Fifi.”
“I don’t know how I could’ve sent her off to you without Fifi. We don’t want her first overnight spoiled. I’ll just run to the