by Lisa Jordan
“Are you planning to tell my stepson that you’re in love with him?”
Jumping at the sound of Claudia’s quiet voice behind her, Isabella flicked off the water and reached for a dish towel. “What? I... I mean—” She dropped her chin to her chest and sighed. Shaking her head, she looked at Tucker’s stepmother. “Please don’t tell him.”
“Oh, sweetheart, of course not.” Claudia crossed the room and enveloped Isabella in her warm vanilla-scented embrace. “I’m not the one he needs to hear it from. But can I say I know what you’re going through?”
“You do? How so?”
“I don’t know how much you know about Chuck and me, but Lilly, his late wife, was my best friend. My husband, who had cancer, had been gone for only a year when Chuck and I got married. Neither of us planned to fall in love—it was just one of those things that happened. For a while, I worried I would never claim Chuck’s heart the way Lilly had, but then he reminded me, our romance was different than what he’d had with Lilly and I needed to focus on that. Just like Chuck will always love Lilly, I’ll always love my Dennis, but I can still love Chuck with my whole heart.”
Isabella folded a towel and placed it on the bottom of the sink before she started washing the delicate china. “I don’t want to be a stand-in for Rayne.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“I keep telling myself Tucker’s not like that, but I’m not very lovable. My own mother walked out when I was five.”
Claudia grazed her fingers across Isabella’s cheek. “Are you kidding me? God loves you completely and unconditionally. He created you and sent His son to die for you—that’s the most beautiful definition of love. You are His daughter. I know it’s so hard to trust when we don’t know what the future holds, but that’s what He wants—our unconditional love and trust, no matter what. Keep trusting Him, and everything will work out.”
She longed to grab onto those words about trusting God and hold them against her chest. But what if she ended up getting hurt?
“How do you know?”
With her back pressed against the counter, Claudia grabbed a clean dish towel and picked up one of the plates. A shadow passed over her eyes. “Because I’ve had to trust Him over and over, especially after I lost my best friend when Tucker’s mother was killed in that devastating tornado. And again when my sweet Dennis was diagnosed with cancer and passed away. Despite what we’re going through, God’s still in control, with a specific plan for each of us. When we go through those dark valleys, we can’t always see the light, but all we have to do is look up.”
She waved a hand toward the noisy dining room. “That family has suffered numerous losses, but they’re getting their second chances at life and love. I’ve known Tucker since the day he was born. He’s good and kind, but that boy has a stubborn streak. No one forces him to do anything. He invited you to a family event because you’re special to him. If that doesn’t tell you something, I’m not sure what else to say. Trust God, rely on Him even when it doesn’t make sense and everything will work out in His perfect timing. That’s how our faith grows and we become stronger. I promise.”
“Bella.”
She turned to find Tucker standing in the kitchen doorway. He cleared his throat and tossed his phone from hand to hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to get Livie and Landon home and into bed. Would you like to join us, or...?”
His voice trailed off, giving her an out if she chose to take it.
She glanced at Claudia, who winked at her and pressed a hand over her heart before walking out of the room, leaving them alone. “I want to say yes, but with Jake and Tori’s news, I need to get a jump start on the catering plans for their wedding.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I think Jake’s kind of tired of baching it. Not that I can blame him. Maybe we Hollands weren’t cut out for the single life.”
She wasn’t loving the single life so much anymore, either, but she didn’t want to rush into a relationship because she was feeling lonely. Or vice versa. But if Claudia’s words were to be believed and what she knew about Tucker was true, he was the real deal. He didn’t believe in playing games. So maybe he was looking to be more than friends. And now it was up to her to decide if she was willing to trust him with her heart.
Chapter Eleven
It was a beautiful day for a wedding.
Despite the brush of snow across the fields and a brisk wind that turned a man’s spine to ice, the weather forecast promised midmorning sunshine to help warm up the chill.
His breath visible in the air, Tucker shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced from foot to foot as he waited outside the barn for Bella to arrive.
The side door opened, and Jake stepped out dressed in faded jeans, a gray T-shirt and an unbuttoned blue-and-gray flannel untucked with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He pulled sunglasses out of his front pocket and set them on his face. “Hey, brother. What are you doing out here?”
“I’m waiting for Bella to help her get things set up. Shouldn’t you be at the farmhouse making yourself pretty for your bride?”
Jake laughed and glanced down at his jeans. “Tori’s stressing about the barn and decorations, so I promised to check and make sure everything was still standing.”
“Well, after that windstorm collapsed the other barn before the Fatigues to Farming fund-raiser, you can’t really blame her.”
“True. But she has nothing to fear today. Everything’s going to be perfect.”
“No doubt. With Tori’s mad coordinating skills and Bella’s amazing food, it’s going to be a great day. I’m happy for you, man.” Tucker thumped him on the back.
“Thanks, little brother.” Jake’s phone chimed. He pulled it out of his back pocket, read the words and a slow smile spread across his face as he typed back a reply.
For a moment, a pang of jealously snaked through Tucker, but he was quick to shut that down.
Jake and Tori deserved their second chance.
His brother waved his phone. “Evan just landed. He’ll be here in less than an hour.”
“Great. No word from Micah?”
Jake shook his head. “No, nothing. Not since he bailed during Dad and Claudia’s reception.”
“Don’t be so hard on him, Jake. Micah’s been dealing with stuff.”
“And he chooses to go it alone. He’s one of the reasons we started this Fatigues to Farming program—to give injured veterans like Micah a sense of hope.” Jake scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t think about that right now. I won’t let anything ruin this day for Tori, including my own attitude. I need to head back to the farmhouse. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Jake strode across the parking lot and headed down the road toward the farmhouse, hands in his pockets and whistling.
When was the last time Tucker heard his brother whistle?
Yep, Tori was the best thing to happen to his brother in a long time.
Several hours later, Tucker stood between Jake and their younger brother Evan at the front of the Shelby Lake Community Church, but this time, they wore black tuxes. Tucker wore a navy vest and bow tie, while Jake’s was pink.
Their youngest brother, Micah, hadn’t shown, and Tucker tried not to let that disappointment get him down.
With hands clasped in front of him, Tucker scanned the gathered family and friends seated in oak pews with crimson padding to match the carpeting. As his eyes searched the rows, he spied Bella seated in the back pew. His heart smacked against his ribs. Dressed in a white button-down blouse and black pants with her hair twisted in a bun, she smiled at him and gave him a subtle wink that made him feel sixteen all over again.
As Alec Seaver played his guitar, Tori’s two bridesmaids—her sister, Kendra, and her boss, Sophia—glided down the aisle in navy dresses that brushed their knees. Behind them, Lan
don, dressed identically to Tucker, walked between Olivia and Annabeth, Tori’s niece, down the aisle.
Olivia and Annabeth wore matching short-sleeved blush-pink dresses with fluffy skirts that flared when they twirled, which they’d done at every opportunity. A band of navy roses wrapped around their tiny waists. Their hair had been curled and held back with a band of flowers that matched the ones in the baskets they carried.
Landon took his role as ring bearer seriously. With his hair slicked back and chin held high, he stared straight ahead as he walked between the girls.
The girls headed for Tori’s sister and her boss. The moment Landon reached Tucker, he looked up at him. “Look, Dad. I told you I could do it.”
His loud voice caused a few snickers among the small group of family and friends. Tucker held his hand out for a subtle high five.
Tucker heard Jake’s quick intake of breath and looked away from his son to the bride who had stolen his brother’s heart.
With Claudia’s hand linked through her elbow, Tori captured Jake’s eyes and held them as she walked toward him. Her blush-pink gown and long veil trailing down the back of her pinned-up hair made her look like a model from a bridal magazine.
For the next twenty minutes, Tucker tried to focus on Pastor Nate’s message about second chances, but his gaze kept wandering to the back row, where Bella had been sitting.
Jake and Tori exchanged their vows, and Jake kissed his bride. Tucker and Evan whistled. Later, at the back of the church, family and friends gathered around the newlyweds, clapping and hugging the couple.
Over the tops of their heads, Tucker searched the crowd for Bella, but she must have slipped back to the barn to get ready for the reception.
Once the bride and groom accepted their congratulations from the well-wishers and assembled the wedding party and family for what seemed like half a million photos, everyone made their way through town and up the hill to the barn.
Long strands of lights zigzagged between the barn beams, casting a softened glow across the polished wooden floor and over the buffet tables covered in white tablecloths that ran down the middle of the barn. Round tables covered with navy tablecloths and pale pink runners and mismatched vases of flowers sat on both sides of the buffet tables.
Tucker herded Olivia and Landon toward the bridal table, but the moment they saw Bella in her chef whites standing near the buffet table, they veered toward her and flung their arms around her legs.
Maneuvering them away from the hot chafing dishes, Bella knelt and wrapped them in her arms. “You guys did such a great job. I’m so proud of you. And you look so awesome, too.”
“Izzie, watch me.” Olivia stepped out of her arms and twirled so her skirt would flare.
“How fun. I’m so jealous of your twirly skirt. Maybe I could borrow your dress sometime?”
“Oh, Izzie. You’re so silly. My dress won’t fit you.”
Bella stuck out her bottom lip. “It won’t? Well, that’s a bummer.”
“She’s good with them.” Holding a steaming foam cup of coffee, Dad stood next to Tucker with one hand shoved in the pocket of his trousers.
“Yes, she is. And they adore her, too.”
“The two of you are spending a lot of time together.”
“She’s worth spending time with. Besides, we’re good friends.”
“Seems to me there’s more to it than that.”
He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that.
Tucker eyed his father’s coffee, wishing he had his own cup. He shifted his gaze from the beautiful chef laughing with his children to the polished gleam on the toe of his shoe. “I’m thinking it’s time.”
“For what?”
“To move forward.”
Dad drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Then he nodded and smiled. “For me, it was more than knowing it was okay to move on. It was wanting to do it. After your mother was killed, the last thing I imagined was getting remarried. I just couldn’t see having a new life with someone else. Your mother and I were married nearly thirty years. We had four great boys and managed a family business together. How could I let someone else into my life after that? But she was gone. I couldn’t live in the past. Thing was, though, falling in love with Claudia wasn’t something I set out to do. It just happened. Give it up to God, son. He’ll steer you in the right direction.”
“Problem is, I’m a package deal. Not a lot of women want a ready-made family.”
Dad ran a hand over his jaw and jerked his head toward the topic of their discussion. “Isabella isn’t like a lot of women. I doubt she’s going to have a problem with the whole package.”
Dad’s words rang in Tucker’s head all through dinner. Even though he tried to focus on the conversation at his table, he kept watching Bella as she refilled the trays of food. Then when dinner concluded, Kathy, Dana and Noel—Joe’s servers from the diner—helped her clear the buffet tables and break them down to make more room.
When the band switched from dinner music to dance music, Tucker did the obligatory dances with the bridal party, then Tori and finally Claudia. But his eyes stayed focused on Bella’s movements.
When she slipped out the barn door, Tucker excused himself and hurried after her.
He stepped outside to find her sitting on one of the benches with her back to him. She had removed her chef jacket, and it lay folded next to her along with her hat. She tugged the pins from her hair and fluffed her fingers through it as soft waves floated around her shoulders. She shivered. After putting the hairpins in her front pocket, she rubbed her hands together to generate some heat.
He shrugged out of his dinner jacket and moved silently behind her to wrap it around her shoulders.
She started and whirled around, shooting him a wide-eyed look. Then she smiled.
And his heart puddled in the pit of his stomach.
He sat next to her and slid an arm around her shoulders. “You were amazing tonight. Dinner went so smoothly.”
“You didn’t notice my freak-out when I spilled half a pan of roasted potatoes?”
“No, and I don’t think anyone else did, either. You’re a natural, Bella. Have you considering becoming a full-time caterer?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe someday. Right now, there’s no time for anything else. Not with helping Dad with the diner now that George walked off. Dad doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to replace him until business picks up.”
“I thought business was going well?”
“The first couple of weeks were crazy busy, but now that the newness has worn off, we’re dying again. I don’t get it. We’re serving quality food. Sure, we had to raise prices a little, but come on. Dad hadn’t raised prices in years. I love the idea of catering, but right now, that feels overwhelming. I’m almost too afraid to get my hopes up only to have them dashed again. Honestly, that dream just feels almost impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible with God.”
“Right.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I admire your faith, Tucker. I do. But I just haven’t had the same experiences with God blessing me or answering prayers the way you have.”
“Have you tried?”
She lifted a shoulder. “What’s the point? Just when I start to trust someone, I get hurt. I’ve dealt with enough disappointments not to put my hopes in someone I can’t even see.”
“The beauty of faith is believing without seeing and knowing in your heart God will be there with you, no matter what. He loves you, Bella. More than you could ever imagine. All you have to do is take that first step.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
Tucker laughed. “In theory, yes, it’s a piece of cake, but actually doing it is tough. It’s stripping away all your protective armor and being vulnerable and exposed with your heart. And no one likes that for f
ear of rejection. But God doesn’t hurt you. He’ll never reject you.”
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, then she looked at Tucker with eyes glazed with tears. “How can God love me when my own mother walked away?”
“Because He wants only one thing from you.”
“What’s that?”
“Your heart.”
“What if...what if I can’t give it to Him?”
“Then you’ll miss out on incredible blessings He has in store for you. One of my favorite passages of Scripture comes from Jeremiah 29. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’”
“That’s lovely.”
“Yes, but within those words are such truth and promise—God has a plan for each one of us, a plan to prosper us, to give us a hope and a future. However, that doesn’t mean our lives are going be without struggles. We grow through our struggles. Sure, we hate going through them, but when we put our trust in God, He helps us through them and we grow closer to Him. Walking with God and growing with Him brings us the ultimate joy. Learning to trust, even when it’s hard, begins with a simple prayer of asking for His help.”
“How can you hold on to your faith after everything you’ve gone through—the tornado, losing your mom, losing Rayne—all of it?”
“I’m not gonna lie, it’s been tough. But even during the hard stuff, God’s there with the promise that the season will pass. We become resilient and our faith grows. He wants us to depend on Him at all times—in the good and in the bad.”
“You’re a good man, Tucker.” Bella cupped his cheek.
“You’re not so bad yourself.” He looked into her eyes, seeing his own reflection, and brushed her hair off her forehead. He traced the curve of her cheekbone as his eyes dropped to her mouth. He lowered his head and captured her lips, kissing her gently.