The Butterfly Dream (Match Made in Devon Bridal Shop Book 2)

by Danielle Blair

  “All that, huh?”

  “Nine miles.”

  Charlotte nodded. Sure enough, nine miles left a lot of room for thinking.

  “Thought I’d have to go into town, ask around, but I saw a trailer pulled to the side of the road, damned butterfly on the side, bigger than shit.”

  Gooseflesh raised on her exposed shoulders and neck. Her stomach clenched. She no longer wanted to know what came next.

  “I pulled off behind an overgrowth of trees, shut off the engine, watched him.”

  Nash had come home empty-handed, feeling foolish, no confrontation—that was the only outcome she wanted to hear.

  “He was alone, moving around at the edge of a soybean field, looking for something. Like a needle in a haystack, I suppose. Just looking. And that’s when it hit me. He’ll spend his entire life searching for what he wants. I’m the lucky one. I already have it.”

  Over his shoulder, his gaze gauged her. Not very well. He tried to kiss her.

  Charlotte popped up, moved away.

  “Just because I didn’t go with him doesn’t mean I won’t go.”

  “You have a family that needs you.”

  “What about my needs? When do I get to be first for a change?”

  Nash shot to his feet. “This entire month has been about nothing but you not being here and you and I are no better off. I understand how hard you work around here, how your chores are never really done, and how the little things add up to one big thing. I get it now.”

  His voice vibrated her ribs.

  “Yet you took off like a hothead when you knew Milkshake was close to labor, when you knew how important Rebekkah’s wedding was to me.”

  “They’re all important to you.” He was all crackling heat, pacing, too much of everything for the cramped bedroom.

  “That’s right. They are. And until the things that are important to me are important to you, too, we’ll be right here, stuck in the same place.” She muscled around him, headed for the bathroom. “I’m done.”

  “With the argument or the marriage?”

  The question brought her up short. Both. Neither. Her head felt like it was caving in. She wanted to charge the open window, scream out that she loved this life that they’d created over and over until the proclamation made it so, but the most fearless thing she had inside were four flawed words of truth.

  “I love you, too.”

  She slammed the bathroom door, blasted hot water, and drizzled down to the shower drain.

  Charlotte heard from no less than four people that when Nash got hold of the rumor of her jumping out of a perfectly good airplane he could have chewed nails and spit out a barbed wire fence. At least that was how Bernice phrased it. Charlotte should have had a mind to back out then. Nash had always been the lightning rod to her strikes of fancy. But this particular three-day tempest was different: women around Devon stopped in to show their solidarity, buy the limited jewelry the shop had, and sprinkle words like brave and adventurous into their chatter—neither of which had ever been associated with Charlotte March; Freesia had adopted a gleam in her eye when she looked at Charlotte; Ibby had squealed and bounced around like a pogo stick when Charlotte told her she could be the event’s official ground photographer; and her children no longer looked at her like someone whose sole purpose was to procure toilet paper and remind them to floss.

  Alex simply rolled her eyes and made a checklist. First item: review life insurance policy.

  All of which led to the belly of a single-engine turbo prop, the ground swooping away, and gravity sloshing Charlotte’s morning coffee in her stomach. Mae sat on the metal bench behind her, fastening gear and checking the straps that secured them together. Her grin was wide enough to crack a hole in the atmosphere.

  “We set a date,” Mae said, more a yell to be heard past the engine noise and earplugs. “May 17th. You’ll come, won’t you? In Yazoo City.”

  Ordinarily, Charlotte would have given her an enthusiastic nod. But the increasing altitude conspired with the unsettled way she and Nash had left things and light-headedness became the most recent side effect to her toxic adrenaline dump. She didn’t want to break her word to another bride. Would she be here come May? Heck, would she be here once she stepped off this plane?

  Impending death was supposed to increase focus and awareness. At least that’s what the orientation video promised. Liars.

  “I’ll check my calendar,” Charlotte hollered over her shoulder.

  “I’m having your sister make the dress.”

  “What?” Last Charlotte heard, Mae was headed to find a vintage dress at Remains to be Seen.

  “I felt a love and connection to your shop, to your mother, to all the people on the second floor. I wanted to be part of that. And the fact that you put me above a sale. I’d already made up my mind the moment I walked out.”

  The engine ground out a lower noise.

  Charlotte’s stomach tumbled like a front-loading Maytag.

  “Don’t ever stop doing what you do,” shouted Mae. “You spread love to women at the exact moment they’re giving love away to another. Fills a void, you know?”

  Charlotte had never thought of what she did in that way. A warm sensation freefell through her body. The feels or the panics, she couldn’t tell.

  Mae’s pilot hubby-to-be gave the passengers a hand signal. A green light flashed near the door.

  Mae clasped Charlotte’s shoulders, a sort of rally move. “Remember what you learned on the ground. Don’t battle the wind—you’ll lose. Eyes open. You don’t want to miss the view.”

  Other skydivers along for the ride stood and adjusted their equipment. They stepped over Charlotte’s legs, pumping like runaway pistons. Some gave her high-fives and thumbs-up gestures. Her mouth went dustbowl-dry. She imagined the descent of shame—what the jumpmasters called a return trip to the airfield in the plane—and decided shame was an ambitious word. Descent of safety had a better ring.

  One jumper rolled the hatch open. Cold wind buffeted her cheeks. The guy—Tony—who’d been sent along to film her dive checked his camera and gear, then climbed out the hatch to film her exit like an action film hero.

  Her nerves rioted.

  This was it. The moment Devonites would say Charlotte Evangeline March officially lost her mind. Spilled her marbles out the door of a perfectly good airplane and pelted them over a five-mile radius. Years from now, strangers would bring the remains of her common sense to her children as an offering and ask to see the video evidence.

  Mae gave her the thumbs-up to shuffle forward. Charlotte’s mind emptied as the open sky drew near, Mae’s instruction to embrace every single emotion vaporized. On the ground, Mae had instructed her, “Scream anything. Helps you keep loose, forces you to breathe.” Charlotte didn’t know until that moment what that something would be.

  Nash.

  “I can’t!” Charlotte screamed.

  “Biggest leap is always the one inward. You’ve already got everything you need in here.” She reached a gloved hand around and tapped Charlotte’s jumpsuit over her heart.

  One scooch to go to the plane’s lip. The ground opened up ahead of her like a patchwork quilt in earthy tones. Tears rimmed her eyes. She prayed. Licked her lips to summon moisture and failed. The view obliterated her resolve to steer clear of cursing. Inside her head, she became a long-haul truck driver.

  Then, at the edge, a moment of clarity. Everything in her life had been leading to this. Her terms. Her decision. For Charlotte. By Charlotte. She gave Mae a nod.

  And she flew.

  27

  Alex

  In the years Alex had known Nash, she had found him to be a man capable of extraordinary things. In lean times, he’d kept the farm afloat by sourcing himself out to anyone who needed odd jobs—once even taking a short stint on an oil rig in the Gulf. In plentiful times, he shared what he had with neighbors who had fallen on hard times. And in all times, he had kept his promise he made at eighteen to ta
ke care of Charlotte. He was salt of the earth, pragmatic in every way, and stubborn as summer days were long. But on the day Charlotte did a tandem skydive, Nash pulled off the most extraordinary thing he had ever done: two hundred residents of Devon, arranged in a heart on the airfield where Charlotte would land.

  Alex supposed crazy had gone contagious.

  Even she had to admit it was the most Charlotte-esque thing he could have done to show his love. Alex also knew Jonah had more than one hand in the idea, planning, and execution of the biggest romantic gesture the town had seen since Milton Beard climbed the water tower, painted it Peggy Larkin’s favorite shades of pink, and went on a hunger strike until she agreed to go out with him. Milton wasn’t a man of great means, so when he ran out of pink paint, he took advantage of the close-enough fleshy-rose bucket of unclaimed paint the hardware store had in back. In polite company, the gesture was known as the day Peggy Larkin joined the convent. Knock a few drinks back into a citizen who lived through it and it was most certainly known to all as The Vagina Vigil.

  Nash had shown up at Jonah’s house days earlier, devastated, crying, more than a little drunk. Alex took Ibby back to her house for a girls’ sleepover. Jonah and Nash spent until sunrise on his back porch talking through a way for Nash to save his marriage. Jonah fell back on his knowledge of all the sappy movies Katherine had loved. Nash told him about Charlotte’s favorite Longfellow poem. A heart on the ground seemed Evangeline-worthy.

  The next morning, Nash and Jonah spread the word. There was nothing that Devonites did better than churn the wheels of gossip—especially the Silver Swarm. By noon, they already had commitments for half the heart, a mobile breakfast—courtesy of Taffy’s Diner—and a promise from the cross-country high school coach that he’d send his Saturday morning runners east to the airfield instead of the normal western route. In the remaining days leading up to the jump, Nash called in every favor, mobilized his vast network of good ol’ boys at the feed store, called Mae to find out exactly where the drop zone would be, and even had his own mini-fliers printed for Alex to hand out covertly at the bridal shop. “Fire with fire,” he’d declared, only his flier didn’t have sappy butterflies on them—just the headline Second Leap at Love. Freesia mobilized past brides. Natalie and Allison spread the word at school and on the social media accounts their mom didn’t know about. It seemed everyone had time when the cause was love.

  As Alex stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, at the uppermost curve of the heart, Freesia on one side, Nash on the other, she was struck by the enormity of the sisterly reversal. Alex had been the one to hold Charlotte’s hand on that balcony under the blanket all those years ago. Alex had been the one who believed that small towns stifled, that life was richer beyond the city limits. Alex had been the one to protect, to coddle, to shelter.

  But Charlotte?

  Charlotte had been the one to soar.

  Alex never imagined Charlotte would take her one-off suggestion to make skydiving her worst trip to heart, but the spectacle of love on the ground reaffirmed Alex’s shifting attitude toward her hometown. Maddie deserved a place with this capacity for love.

  Didn’t everyone?

  Bernice, in her I do all my own stunts t-shirt, complete with an old lady stick figure falling with her walker, brought her binoculars to her eyes. “What color did they say her parachute was?”

  “Mae said the chute was red and black.” Nash looked like he was the one getting ready to make a three-thousand-foot jump.

  Alex shared a glance down the line with Jonah. With nearly as much invested in this plan, he seemed surprisingly calm. His gaze slid down Alex’s body to Maddie in her baby sling. He smiled at them both, half wink, half squint.

  “I see it,” Bernice announced.

  Alex saw it, too. Jonah’s heart was all theirs.

  Bernice’s declaration caused quite a stir in the heart’s right atrium. Bernice pumped the binoculars down the row to Nash. Ibby pointed her camera to the sky. Freesia wagged her brows at Alex and raised her hand to block the sun—the most interaction they’d had since Freesia had returned from New York. Somewhere deep inside, the gesture warmed her. Alex gave a weak smile in return.

  The entire Silver Swarm gave commentary.

  “I don’t understand,” said Frances. “Why doesn’t she get her own parachute?”

  Hazel said, “That generation can’t do nothing alone. Can’t even wind a watch without it being a social event.”

  “They don’t wind watches anymore,” Taffy said.

  “No wonder they’re always late.” Hazel’s grumble shifted to delight faster than terminal velocity. “Oh, look at that spin. Ain’t that something?”

  It was like geriatric Monday Night Football without a sky marker and instant replay.

  “Is that supposed to happen?” Frances put a shaking hand to her slack mouth.

  “Is that Charlotte screaming?”

  They all stopped their chatter to listen.

  As clear as the day, an f-bomb dropped over them that sounded suspiciously like Charlotte’s voice, followed by a napalm of celebratory whoops and more verbal blasts.

  “Those aren’t just screams. Those are curses!” Bernice hooted out a laugh and danced a shimmy of delight.

  Ibby snapped rapid-fire photos.

  Alex stroked the denim pack cradling Maddie’s back and glanced down the line, ensuring Bernice was the only one to break formation. Sure, Charlotte had seen it from the sky, but Alex didn’t want Nash getting lost in a dissipating heart. As was typical of Charlotte, people brought smiles to her occasion.

  Everyone but Nash.

  Sweat beaded his forehead. He wiped his palms against the pressed seam of his jeans. He looked like his heart was clinging to a feather in a hurricane.

  Mae arrowed down in an expert landing inside the heart. Ahead of her, Charlotte’s legs swooped and scrabbled for traction. Together, they were a bizarre four-legged insect dragging a massive web behind them. The human heart didn’t hold. All of Devon rushed them for pictures and congratulations.

  All but one.

  Jonah clapped Nash on the shoulder. A bit of a bro smile and a nod of encouragement happened before Jonah collected Alex’s hand and led her off to find Ibby.

  Charlotte shed her helmet and the extra human on her back and smiled for photos, craning her neck between poses. When she made eye contact with Alex, Charlotte shrugged, the question in her eyes apparent: who did this?

  Alex pointed toward Nash, standing off from the crowd, alone.

  Charlotte begged off the masses and ran.

  28

  Charlotte

  Nash stood like a scarecrow in the field, the same sunbeams Charlotte had just ridden splashing down over his Sunday shirt and causing sweat to bead his hairline. Elation from the jump—more from having jumped—zipped through her veins and made her decision for her. She launched into his arms. He smelled like soil and ocean-scented and sixteen years and everything grounded.

  He held her like she had just fallen to Earth and he’d discovered a halo and two wings.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here,” said Charlotte, breathless. “Did you do all this?”

  Typical understated Nash: he nodded once.

  “It was the most beautiful thing, seeing it from above.” She pulled from his grasp to look him in the eyes. “Thank you.”

  As a farmer’s wife, Charlotte had learned to tell a blush from a sunburn within an inch of her life. Nash Strickland blushed.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Saw how excited everyone was—the kids, the town. Guess I got caught up in it.”

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “That the only reason?”

  Nash shrugged. “I figured it did one better than hunting for butterfly eggs on milkweed in some field. You got to be a butterfly. Get the restless out of your system so we can put all this behind us.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Charlotte drifted away to a patch of shade created by the airplane hang
ar. For a time, she wasn’t sure he’d follow. She craved the privacy, the dull edge to the day to give relief to her head that ached in a different and bizarre way. She felt like she’d come crashing back to the joy of the planet and landed right in another thorny patch of expectations put on her by others. She had traveled too far, searched too hard to find her voice, to lose ground.

  “This day, the heart, all of it is amazing. I did feel like a butterfly, but it isn’t a competition, Nash. It never really was about Steven Morneau or the kids or the customers at the bridal shop or my sisters or Mama or Daddy. I needed to leap inward, for me.”

  “And now you have.”

  “But only just now. I still have the clouds on me. A little time to look around would be nice.”

  Nash hung his head.

  Charlotte felt like crying again—the rush, the gratitude for being alive and for the experience, the shame of feeling selfish in light of all he’d done to show he loved her.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out her Daddy’s old keychain. One well-loved engine key dangled from the ring.

  “What’s this?”

  “Been working on it for a while, just in case. Nights when I couldn’t sleep. Should run well now, keep you safe, get you where you want to go past that city limit sign. Memphis. Georgia. Wherever.”

  “In case of what?”

  “In case I held on too tight. This was it, Charlotte. My last effort. I don’t have anything else in me. I tried so hard to get my arms around you, around what was happening, but the harder I held on, the more you wiggled away. I won’t say I want you to go. You know that’d be a lie. But I can’t be the one who holds you back. Not anymore.”