Tomorrow's Promises (Bellingwood Book 7)

by Diane Greenwood Muir

  "What do you mean?" Polly stood up, laughing.

  "She's going to start begging them all to find her a husband. It will be embarrassing. She already cornered a couple of them and asked if they were bringing their sons to the party tonight."

  Polly grabbed Drea's arm as she went past her. "Oh, for pity's sake, let's hurry, then. Bunny on the loose is dangerous for Bellingwood."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "Friends are the best," Polly said, a little sloppily. She took a drink of the wine Sal put on the table in front of her. They were in her apartment again, laughing as Sal regaled them with tales of her mother's latest attempts to find her an appropriate husband. Bunny had tried to interrupt a couple of times, asking why Sal wouldn't pass off the rejects to her, but Polly scowled at her and she finally got into the spirit of things.

  They'd finished brunch and once the guests had left, quickly set up for the evening's festivities. Polly and Henry insisted that it be simple. The most important part of the weekend was time with friends. Off-white muslin tablecloths with squares of dark blue layered across the top, set the color and tone for the evening. Candles placed in the mason jars she had purchased for last year's hoedown were set on mirrored glass in the center of each table. It had nearly killed Jeff to leave it so sparse, but Henry backed her up. They hired a band for dancing and Sylvie was cooking dinner. She was thankful her husband didn't have extravagant taste. It was one thing to create lavish parties for Sycamore House, but for the two of them, simple was much more appropriate.

  Once the setup was complete, Lydia, Beryl, Andy and Joss joined them in the conference room and office. All eight of them spent two hours calling retail stores in the Waterloo / Cedar Falls area looking for Jessie Locke. They had no luck, but left the Sycamore House phone number with as many people as would take it. Polly had hoped that they might stumble across the girl. Watching Curtis Locke's pleading eyes as he left with the EMTs had been tough.

  She was so thankful that she and her father had always said the words, "I love you," before ending any phone call. Polly was crushed when he died, but at least she didn't feel guilt over unspoken love. In the darkest nights when she was all alone, tears still fell when Polly thought about how much she missed her dad and how she wished he was here to be part of this crazy life she'd created. He would have enjoyed every single thing at Sycamore House, from the gardens to the animals, the rebuilding to the people. Oh, how she wished he could have known Henry.

  Henry came home after she and the girls had gotten comfortable. He was still wearing his Hawaiian shirt and shorts and plopped two blown up palm trees just inside the front door. "Just in case you want to have a luau," he said and headed for his office. Polly was just drunk enough to be silly.

  "He's pretty hot, isn't he?" she asked. "I'd do him in a second."

  Drea started chuckling and took the wine glass from Polly's hand. "You might have had a little too much today. You need to pace yourself, there's a long night ahead of you."

  Polly bared her teeth, growled, and snatched the glass back. "I am pacing myself." She stood up and her legs felt wobbly, so she handed the glass back to Drea. "Okay, you're right. You're always right. But, I'm going to go pat his butt. I've missed it today."

  The three laughed as she went through to his office. He was sitting on the edge of his desk with the phone to his ear and tilted his cheek for a kiss. Polly wrapped herself around him and slid her hand under the tail of his shirt, drawing her fingers up his back. Henry looked at her in shock, then mouthed, "What are you doing?"

  "This," she whispered and licked his earlobe, drawing her tongue down his jawline.

  "I'll see you tonight, Leroy," he said. "Thanks for taking care of this."

  He ended the call and put the phone down on his desk, then grabbed Polly's arms. "What in the world are you doing, woman?"

  "I might have had too much to drink," she giggled. "I don't think you should let it go to waste."

  "Can't we save this for later when everyone is gone?"

  "This is the moment, buddy boy. If you wait any longer, I'll just fall asleep." She leaned in and kissed him. "You don't want me to go to sleep, do you?"

  "I'm going to have to chance it." He picked her up and turning around, set her bottom on the desk where he'd been seated. "What are your girlfriends going to think?"

  "They've seen me drunk before. They know what I'm like."

  "Well this is a new one for me. I'm not prepared to do this in the middle of the day with them in our living room."

  Polly stuck out her lower lip in a pout. "You're no fun. I think I'll call you a fuddy duddy."

  "You can call me anything you want, but you only have a couple of hours until you need to be dressed and downstairs. You should spend this time with the girls who have flown all the way out here from Boston to see you."

  Her lower lip pushed back out and she said, "You're trying to get rid of me, aren't you? You don't love me anymore, is that it?"

  "Absolutely. You found me out." Henry reached around her and hugged her close. "I love you more every day, Polly Giller. Now go be with your friends and slow down on the wine."

  She hopped down and kissed him. "Okay, if you're going to be a fuddy duddy, I'll go away."

  "Believe me, I'm getting you drunk on our honeymoon. I want to experience this Polly when no one is around to compete with me."

  When she got back to the living room, Sal placed a large glass of ice water in her hands and said, "Drink. All of it. If you're going to keep up tonight without falling asleep on everyone, you need to start flushing this stuff out right now. I didn't realize you were such a lightweight."

  "I'm not a lightweight," Polly protested.

  "Uh huh. And I'm a Baptist."

  Polly had enough presence of mind to put the glass down on the table before she started laughing. Sal Kahane was a very liberal Jewish American Princess from Boston and the farthest thing from religious she could imagine. Drea and Bunny chuckled a little until her infectious, unreserved laughter had them howling with her. The phone ringing on the table beside Polly finally stopped their hilarity.

  "Hello?" she said, trying to control the final giggles that threatened to consume her.

  "Miss Giller? This is Kelly Locke. My son and I are on the road. We'll be in town late tonight. Should we just go to Boone and get a hotel?"

  Polly shook her head, trying to regain some sensibility. "No, come on up to Bellingwood. It's only another twenty minutes. There's a large party going on here at Sycamore House until one o'clock. Will you be here before then?"

  "GPS says we should be there about eleven thirty. I shouldn't ask this of you. Don't worry. We'll stay in Boone."

  "Don't be silly. Your husband's room is still available and I'll be downstairs when you come in. Just ask anyone you see for Polly Giller and they'll find me."

  "Are you certain?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Thank you. Have you heard anything else about Jessie?"

  "I'm sorry. We haven't. We spent time this afternoon calling all of the retail shops in the malls and plazas in the area. No one had heard of her. I'm not sure where to go next, but I'm not giving up."

  "Thank you. I'm not used to others knowing our troubles."

  Polly smiled. This was what Sycamore House was all about and sometimes she got so caught up in things she forgot why she'd named it for that gorgeous tree in the first place.

  "Don't think anything about it. Whatever I can do to help, I will. Drive safely and we'll see you tonight."

  "Thank you again."

  Polly ended the call and put the phone back down, then picked up the glass of water and took a long drink. When she looked up, her three friends were staring at her.

  "It's your wedding party tonight," Sal said.

  "So?"

  "So, you're getting too involved in someone else's problems. You should be celebrating."

  "Her problems don't go away just because I'm having a party. Her husband has had a heart attack and
her daughter is missing. Really missing. Do I need to further elaborate?"

  Bunny put her wine glass down. "I don't know how you do it, Polly."

  "Do what?"

  "Make me feel so guilty."

  "How did I do that?" Polly looked at the other two and they seemed to be in agreement with Bunny. "What?"

  "You're always so nice. None of us would have even taken the time to talk to that guy yesterday, much less invite him to stay in our place and then call hundreds of people. You make me feel like a heel just for living."

  "Oh stop it. You all have your things that you do. And if someone needs you, you're right there." She turned on Drea. "When my friends called and told you that Joey had taken me, you dropped everything and brought in your brothers to rescue me. Then you took me home and made sure I felt safe that night."

  "But you're my friend. I wouldn't do that for strangers."

  "If I called you on Monday and told you that someone I knew was in desperate need of your help, you'd take care of them, wouldn't you? If one of your brothers told you that they had a friend who needed help, you'd take care of them. Right?"

  "I suppose."

  "I'm not anything special. I just do what I have to do. This woman isn't going to interrupt my party tonight. She's going to show up and I'll ask Jeff or Eliseo to help her find her room. Then tomorrow after I've slept off whatever amount of alcohol I've consumed, I'll see if there's anything else I can do to help her before we get on the road on Monday. I'll show her what I've done and maybe she and her husband can search for their daughter now that she's in Iowa. It's no big deal."

  Sal sat down beside Polly, nudging her closer to Drea so that she could have more room. "It is a big deal, Polly. You're a big deal. And we love you." She wrapped an arm around Polly and hugged her. "You're pretty special."

  Bunny sat down on the table in front of the three of them and leaned in for a hug. "You are special, Polly. You're the only person in the world who loves me even when you tell me to get over myself. And I still love you even after you do that. Because you're always right."

  "Is this some weird pre-wedding party huddle, too much wine, or have I walked into something scary?" Henry asked.

  The girls popped apart and Polly gave a startled giggle. "Something scary. What's up?"

  "Oh, nothing. I'm going to take a shower so the bathroom is ready for you later."

  "Ohhhhh," Polly's three friends moaned as a group.

  "He's so sweet," Bunny said. "I wish ..." before she could finish her sentence, she stopped and smiled at Polly. "I wish every man on earth were as wonderful as he is."

  "He wouldn't mess around with me a little while ago," Polly said in a stage whisper to her friends. "He's a fuddy-duddy."

  "Well, thank goodness!" Drea said. "I know what you're like when you get tipsy." She turned around and looked at Henry, who had turned bright red. "We feel for you. Do you want us to corral her while you shower? She might lose control again."

  He shook his head and walked away from them to the bedroom, then turned back to them, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his Hawaiian shirt and spread the lapels apart. "Fuddy-duddy this," he said and turned on his heel before opening the door to go into the bedroom.

  "Oooooh," they moaned in unison.

  Polly smiled. "You might think that because he's such a good guy, he's boring."

  "Apparently not," Bunny said, fanning herself with her hand. "That was a nice looking chest, too."

  "All mine," Polly said.

  Sal stood and said, "I'd better go back to Mark's so I can get ready. He's not as polite and wonderful as Polly's boy."

  "Yeah, but he's gorgeous. He can get away with some of that," Bunny said.

  "He is that," Sal acknowledged. She bent over and hugged Polly. "We'll be back before it starts. If you need anything, I'll be around."

  "Thanks." Polly stood and followed her to the front door. "Thank you for everything."

  "See you tonight."

  Sal left and Polly put her hand on one of the plastic palm trees. They were ridiculous. What in the world would she do with them?

  "If I time this right, I could take a twenty minute nap before I have to get ready," Drea said. "Bunny, what about you?"

  Bunny looked back and forth between the two of them and said, "Oh, I have plenty to do to prepare for tonight. You go on, Polly."

  Polly grinned. "I love you two. See you later." She swooped up her glass of water and went into the bedroom. The shower was running, so she sat down at her desk and composed a text to Jeff Lyndsay, telling him about the arrival of Kelly Locke and her son tonight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Oof," Polly moaned, trying to shift her legs while not disturbing the dog or cats. She pried her eyes open and saw that dawn was barely breaking. There was still plenty of time to sleep. Taking a few days off from being at the barn was going to spoil her.

  The party last night had been loads of fun. She and Henry ate wedding cake and toasted each other with champagne. They'd danced and spent time with friends and family. A few of Henry's college buddies had shown up out of the blue and she was finally introduced to nearly all of his extended family. They'd come in from all over Iowa. She had no idea there were so many.

  Her aunt and uncle hadn't come over for the party and neither had any of their children. Polly wasn't surprised and as a matter of fact, was just as relieved. Spending time trying to make small talk with people who had told her how little they liked her wasn't how she wanted to spend the evening.

  Kelly Locke and her sixteen year old son, Ethan, arrived about eleven thirty, completely exhausted. Jeff showed them to their room and they were going to the hospital early this morning to spend time with Curt. From all accounts, he would be fine.

  "You're over there thinking again, aren't you?" Henry whispered.

  "I'm just enjoying the fact that I don't have to get up."

  "I can't believe you don't have a hangover."

  Polly chuckled. He didn't know that she'd quit drinking following her afternoon silliness. A glass of champagne for the toast and she'd spent the rest of the evening drinking water. The last thing she ever wanted to do was be drunk at a party she hosted. She'd experienced that once after college and it was awful. Several of her guests had gotten out of control and she'd been too drunk to deal with it. A fight ensued and Polly had done her best, but one friend had gone home furious, another two friends quit speaking to each other after that night and she felt guilty for all of it. From that time forward, she stayed in control unless someone she really trusted was there.

  "You had more to drink than I did last night," she said, turning over to face him.

  "That's what you think." He kissed her on the nose. "I had one glass of champagne. I wanted to make sure everyone else was having a good time, so I didn't think it was smart to get drunk."

  "We're a pair," she said, laughing. "That's exactly what I did."

  "One night this week we are going to just have to get totally smashed together. I want to see you all tipsy and frisky again."

  "Can you believe that after all this time, we've never gotten drunk together? I guess we're too old for that now."

  "We have at least ten more years before we're too old, right?"

  "Yep, we're still baby bunnies, innocent and sweet. But it really stinks having to be honorable and reliable all the time."

  Henry leaned up and looked down at her. "Were you ever a party animal?"

  "I had my days. Sal and I had a lot of fun in college and then there were a few rousing parties after that, but these last few years I've had other things to do." She swatted his hand out from under his head. "I haven't had time since I moved to Bellingwood. And who goes out and gets drunk with the Sheriff's wife? What about you?"

  "Well, of course." He wrinkled his forehead at her. "What do you think? That I've always been Saint Henry?"

  "It seems like it. The Terrible Trio at the winery look up to you, so that tells me you didn't do a lot of drinking in h
igh school. All of those guys who work for you respect you a lot, so that makes me believe you don't get out of control much these days."

  "No. College was my time, and let's just say I'm very lucky to be relatively intelligent. I don't know how I made it out of my freshman year with any grades at all. Fortunately, I didn't damage my grade point so much that I couldn't rescue it the next three years. I learned how to do both after that experience. But that first year, there were some weeks I went to class every day with a hangover." He huffed a chuckle out. "Dad was so mad. I spent the entire summer between freshman and sophomore year working my ass off for him. And it wasn't any of the fun stuff. He had me out in the heat doing the worst jobs he could find. I think every rotten job that he heard about, he took on a low bid so that I had something to do. He never said anything, but I got the message."

  "I love him. What did your mom say?"

  "Not much. But one night when I came in complaining about all of the work, she told me that I could make the next summer much easier if I made better choices throughout the school year. It was all up to me. Then she handed me a glass of ice water and told me to go upstairs and take a shower. That's when it finally hit me."

  "They're pretty terrific parents. And I love your mom's parents. How come I haven't met them before tonight?"

  "They travel all over the world. You should see their house. It's filled with things from everywhere. Grammy is kind of a hoarder. She likes to think of it as her collections, but you can't believe what they have in that house. Granddad worked as a broker in Asia for years, so they have some of the coolest things."

  "Did I hear her say they were leaving for the UK tomorrow?"

  "Yeah. I think so. They have friends in Wales and spend a couple of months there in the summer and then they'll come home in late August before heading to Greece this fall. More friends. These are a bunch of Granddad's buddies from when they all worked together."