There was the story all tied up with a bow—except there was nothing about Tandy in the story. Not one single word. Why did she hate both Jesse and Seth so much?
One day at a time, sweet Jesus. The old church hymn floated through her mind. One day at a time until Seth was ready to tell her more of his story.
Or maybe Granny will tell me before she dies. She shivered at the visual of a funeral with Tandy Massey laid out in a casket in the front of the church. One thing for dead sure—no pun intended—heaven had better get ready for some drastic changes when Tandy showed up.
“And you’ve been enemies ever since, right? Did he ever apologize?” Emmy Jo searched the sky for a falling star so she could wish one more time for legitimate kids no one would ever make fun of. But the stars weren’t streaking through the sky that night.
She started to get up.
“You too tired to stick around for a little longer?” he asked.
She sat back down and pulled a blanket up over her legs. “Not a bit.”
“You love Logan, don’t you? What if you found out something really bad about him?”
“Do you know something really bad?” Emmy Jo asked.
“No, but if you did?”
“I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. Were you ever in love?”
Seth toyed with his mustache. “One time.”
“The woman who left you just before the wedding?”
He raked his fingers through his thick gray hair. “I thought I loved her at the time. But there’s really only one deep love—the first one. Others don’t have the fire that the first one does. Is Logan your first love?”
“First and only, unless you count Hunter Price when I was in the third grade. Broke my heart when he moved away.” She laughed.
“I fell in love with a girl when I was a senior in high school. She was quite a beauty in her day. We met down at the creek up under an old weeping willow tree on Sunday afternoons. She was as wild as a Texas tornado, and I was as green as spring grass.”
Tandy! Emmy Jo’s eyes widened. That sounds just like her.
“I loved that girl with every ounce of my heart, but we had to keep our love secret. Mama would have pitched a fit if she’d known what I was doing, and her mama would have thrown an even bigger one if she found out that the girl was seeing Mary Thomas’s kid.”
“What happened?” Emmy Jo pushed the cover back and turned to face him.
“She got pregnant and told me about it the night we graduated from high school. When I asked her to marry me, she laughed in my face. She said that she would never marry the son of a whore and then told me that the baby belonged to Jesse Grady. She’d been sleeping with him on Saturday nights under the same willow tree.”
She thought of things she’d heard about Tandy’s reputation again. Was he talking about her grandmother? That could be the connection between the three of them.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I doubled up my fists, but I could never hit a woman, especially one I loved so much. I told her that the only difference between her and my mother was that she gave it away for free. She slapped me so hard that it rocked my jaw.” He ran a hand down his cheek as he remembered that night.
“Then I said that I hoped Jesse left her high and dry. And he did. He joined the navy not long after that,” Seth said.
“What happened to her and the baby?”
“That’s a story for another day,” he said. “You’d best get on up to your room and get some sleep. The doctor will be here right after breakfast, and you are going to let him check you.”
“Yes, sir!” She saluted sharply. Next week she was going to ask Edith who’d had a baby about the same time that Tandy had Rose. Good Lord, what if Seth really was talking about Tandy and Jesse was her great-grandfather? Was that why he’d asked that question about Logan?
She wished that she’d taken the elevator by the time her weak knees carried her to the top of the stairs. If Tandy had been sleeping with Jesse Grady, then that made Logan her cousin—far enough removed that it wasn’t illegal for them to marry, but still shirttail kin. And if Jesse knew, then why hadn’t he told Logan in the beginning?
Throwing herself on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling and listening to her heart pound rapidly in her chest, she thought for a few minutes that she might really be sick. Only it wasn’t a cold or a flu but pure old nausea. How on earth did she find out for sure if Tandy was the woman Seth was talking about and if Jesse was her great-grandfather?
She sat up and slung her legs over the bed. The nausea subsided, and she began to pace from one side of the room to the other. She couldn’t tell Logan—not yet—but she had to hear his voice. She dragged out her phone and scrolled until she saw his name. She took a deep breath and threw the phone on the bed. She made three more laps around the room and picked it up again and hit his name before she lost courage. It went to voice mail after four rings, and she was about to leave a message when he answered with a sneeze.
“Sorry about that. It’s that time of year for allergies,” he said. “I was about to call you. I have to work Thursday after all. We’ve got a couple of folks who are taking an early vacation, and I can’t say no since I’ve asked off for the week of our wedding.”
“Being away from you so much is tough.” The words were true, but she heaved a sigh of relief. She needed a few days to sort this thing out and find out the facts before she told Logan what she suspected.
“Hopefully by the next Thursday we’ll be back in our routine. God, I miss you.”
“I feel another sneezing fit coming on. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she answered.
Diana called before she could lay the phone down. “Let’s talk weddings. I’m all fired up after watching all those romance movies.”
Of all the things in the world that Emmy Jo wanted to talk about, weddings were the last on the list. She wasn’t sure just what she could say or what kind of trouble she could get into with the privacy issues and what Seth had told her. And again, she didn’t want to say anything until she confirmed things.
Since there was no way out of the conversation, she inhaled deeply and said, “Putting you on speakerphone.”
“I’ve decided on the cake. Have you?” Diana asked.
“I’m thinking about a small cake for Logan and me to cut, and then fancy cupcakes on one of those tiered stands. Or maybe cupcakes on each end of the bridal table. One with different kinds of chocolate for the groom’s end and one with lemon, wedding cake, and Hawaiian wedding cake on the bride’s end.” She’d never had to fight against tears so hard in her life. Her dreams were about to be shattered if Jesse had fathered Rose.
“You always come up with the best ideas,” Diana said. “So are you still thinking about a morning wedding?”
“I think so,” she said. “That way I won’t be pacing the floor all day. Get up, get dressed, and get married. Have a reception and be off on our honeymoon by early afternoon. I’ve penciled in a ten o’clock ceremony with a waffle brunch immediately afterward. It’s just me and you to get ready, and we’re used to getting up early. Besides, it won’t be as hot in the morning,” she said.
“Outside then for sure?” Diana asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Granny’s church won’t be big enough to hold everyone.”
“You’ll have to have a backup if it rains,” Diana said. “Turn to page four of the wedding cake pictures. Remember when we put this one in as a possibility? If you aren’t going with the satellite cakes, I might. Each one could be a different flavor, like you are doing with cupcakes, and the main three tiers could be wedding cake.”
“That’s a great idea,” Emmy Jo said.
“I’ve got a text from Jack. We’ll talk more later,” Diana said, and then she was gone.
Her phone rang an instant after she’d ended the call. Expecting it to be Diana, she didn’t even check the caller ID. “That was quick, but let’s talk about something other than w
eddings.”
“I told you that was an evil place and you’d be sorry you went up there.” Her grandmother’s voice was high and squeaky. “And now you’ve come down with the plague.”
“Good Lord, Granny! What are you talkin’ about?”
“Mono. I heard you’ve got that horrible stuff. Don’t you come to the trailer until you are well,” Tandy said.
“Granny, I sneezed a couple of times. I’m not even sick,” Emmy Jo argued. “Who told you I had mono?”
“If you aren’t sick, then you need to come home where you belong. Whatever you are allergic to is up there around that house of Seth’s and you got a double dose of it.”
Emmy Jo rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Seth’s doctor is flying in and he’ll check me. Does this mean that you’ll come up here and take care of me if I get the plague?”
“Hell, no!” Tandy sighed. “If you got something other than allergies, you keep your butt up there and give it to Seth. Maybe that old bastard will die. I should come up there and drag you home. That’s what I should do for sure.”
“Granny, you couldn’t drag me two feet, much less all the way out to the street. I’ve got to go. We’ll talk tomorrow night. Unless you want to tell me who Rose’s father was?”
“Tomorrow night. Before nine so you don’t interrupt my television show,” Tandy said, and the phone went dark.
Emmy Jo tossed the phone off to the side. She changed into a pair of pajama pants and a tank top and crawled into bed. She slept poorly and dreamed of her wedding. Hundreds of people were there and Seth walked her down the aisle. But when she got to the front of the church, Jesse was standing there with a sneer on his face. There was no groom or groomsmen.
“Hello, Trampson,” he said.
She awoke with a start, her heart racing. “I have to find out the truth and soon,” she muttered as she headed to the bathroom for a shower.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In those few minutes after opening his eyes to see the first rays of sunlight coming through his bedroom window, Seth decided what he was going to do when the doctor arrived. He slung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled the old phone book from the drawer in the nightstand. Running his finger halfway down the page, and hoping that Tandy had not changed her phone number, he finally found it. He picked up the receiver and poked in the buttons.
A starting point.
“Hello.” Her voice had changed with age, but then the last time they’d spoken had been sixty-four years ago.
“Tandy Massey?” he asked, to be sure he was talking to the right woman.
“Who in the devil calls a woman at six o’clock in the morning? Are you crazy?”
“This is Seth Thomas,” he said.
The silence was so long that he thought she’d hung up, but then he heard her breathing. Fire, probably, and if it could come through this receiver, it would scorch the hair right out of my ears.
“Is my granddaughter alive?” Icicles dripped from Tandy’s tone.
“Why would you ask a fool question like that?”
“Because it’s the only reason I can think of that you’d call me or that I would talk to you,” she said bluntly.
“She was when she went up to bed last night. She usually doesn’t come down until about seven thirty,” Seth said.
“Then what the hell are you doing calling me?”
“You told me that you were pregnant with Jesse’s child. Did you tell him?”
“That ain’t one bit of your business,” Tandy said, as if to cut him off.
“I think it is, because I was sleeping with you, too,” Seth said.
“Rose belonged to Jesse. I kept track of the days when I could get pregnant and the only one I slept with on those days was Jesse. I was determined to marry him so I could get out of Hickory. Anything else you want to know?”
“Then why in the hell are you letting her marry Logan? They are cousins.” He raised his voice a few notches.
“Don’t you yell at me, Seth Thomas. And if they are kin, it’s only third or fourth cousins, and that ain’t illegal. You got no right to judge me or come around askin’ questions now,” Tandy said.
“They are still cousins,” he said tersely.
“She’s not yours, if that’s what you are thinking. God almighty, man. Look at that red hair. If that’s not a throwback to Jesse, then—”
“Thank you, Tandy,” Seth said and laid the receiver back in the cradle.
He got dressed, went to the kitchen, and put on a pot of coffee, muttering the whole time. “My uncle had the same color hair and eyes as Emmy Jo, so it might not be a throwback to Jesse. But I do know how to figure this out once and for all. Hell, Tandy! If she’s Jesse’s great-granddaughter, then they are cousins. That just ain’t right, and I’m getting to the bottom of this.”
Seth had seen Rose a few times through the years, and he hadn’t felt a thing toward the child. Surely if she’d been his daughter, there would have been something. And he’d watched Crystal grow up in the small town of Hickory. She’d had light hair and blue eyes, but then so did Wyatt Grady, Jesse’s son. But there was something about Emmy Jo that was so much like Nora that it made chill bumps on his neck. It was past time for him to find out the truth.
Oma Lynn arrived at seven and went right to work in the kitchen. Emmy Jo appeared in the dining room thirty minutes later. Her hair was pulled up in a curly ponytail and she was dressed in jeans, sandals, and a T-shirt, ready to face the day.
“You ready for breakfast?” Oma Lynn asked. “Rumor has it that you’ve got mono.”
Emmy Jo sighed. “Mono presents with chills and aches, loss of appetite, and fatigue. I only sneezed a couple of times.”
“The doctor will be here at eight thirty, and he’s going to check you out. I’m not going back to the hospital because of a summer cold or the flu.”
Oma Lynn brought out the breakfast and put it on the table. “You will drink two glasses of this orange juice. Vitamin C is good for whatever you’ve got.”
Emmy Jo shrugged, poured a glass of juice, and downed it. “Why two?”
“Because if one is good for you, then two is twice as good,” Oma Lynn said.
“Okay, you win,” Emmy Jo said. “And I’ll let the doctor check me, but it’s a waste of his time and your dollars.”
“Thank you,” Seth said. “It would be a shame if you couldn’t take me to the cemetery.”
“I’m taking you to the cemetery,” she said. As if an infection of any kind would stop her from that basic duty!
The noise of the helicopter coming in for a landing on top of the roof made Seth put down his coffee cup and straighten up out of his chair. He reached for his walker and made his way to the office, with Emmy Jo right behind him.
“You can stay out here until I call you,” he said when they reached the door.
“I’m a home health nurse. I’ve seen the stitches and the staples from hip surgery. This is literally my job,” she argued.
“Okay, then, but only because I’m afraid you’ll back out of letting him check you.”
“You old coot!” she mumbled under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“I said you are an old coot,” she repeated.
“Well, thank you. I’m living up to my reputation,” Seth said. “Come on in here, if you are coming. I swear, you young’uns sure are bossy these days.”
“Well, thank you,” she threw back. “I’m living up to my reputation.”
Not long after the whirring noise stopped, the elevator doors opened and a man with jet-black hair and green eyes stepped out. He seemed young to be an orthopedic surgeon, but then anyone under sixty was young to Seth.
“Good morning.”
“Mornin’ to you. Meet my assistant, Emmy Jo.” Seth made introductions. “And this is Dr. Everson. She is a nurse’s aide, so if you need any help, just tell her what to do.”
The doctor nodded. “Why don’t you lie on the sofa here and let
me take a look at the staples.”
Emmy Jo stood back until the doctor had carefully pulled down Seth’s loose-fitting pajama pants. The wound looked clean to her, no redness around the staples or swelling.
“What do you think, Emmy Jo?” the doctor asked.
“Looks fantastic. Give me a gauze and I’ll hold the staples while you remove them,” she said.
“I agree. Has he been getting exercise?”
“He’s been walkin’ around the house, and he’s doin’ a lot better about getting up and down without depending on his walker as much,” Emmy Jo answered.
“All good news. Got clean hands?”
“Yes, sir, but I’ll go wash them again if you’ll let me take those staples out,” she said.
The doctor smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll do it.”
“Thank God!” Seth said.
“You can assist me,” Dr. Everson said, quashing Seth’s enthusiasm.
Emmy Jo was as nervous as the first time she got to remove stitches on her own. Diana would never believe that she’d even been able to assist the great Dr. Everson.
Seth didn’t even wince when the first few staples came out.
“You could at least cuss or moan with one of those staples so I’ll know you are human,” she muttered.
“It don’t hurt, so why should I carry on like a girl? Doc, what does it say on my records about my blood type?”
“AB negative. Rarest type there is. Why are you asking?”
“That proves I’m human, Emmy Jo. Even if it’s rare, it’s human blood.” He shot a look over at her.
“Oh, he’s human, all right.” The doctor removed the last two. “No one who isn’t throws fits like he does when he doesn’t get his way.”
“I didn’t want to go to that damned rehab place with all those people,” Seth said. “Now Doc, I need you to check Emmy Jo. She’s not feelin’ up to par, and if she’s really sick with some dread disease, I don’t want to catch it.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing but allergies. I only sneezed twice. He’s paranoid.”
“I am only protectin’ myself from havin’ to go back to the hospital,” Seth said.
The Lilac Bouquet Page 15