The Lilac Bouquet

by Carolyn Brown

  “Did that break your heart all over again?” Emmy Jo wanted to hear about a happy time in Seth’s life. He was a good man, and he deserved something good instead of so much sadness.

  “No, the whole thing had just kind of died in its sleep. It was a disappointment, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she’d never like Hickory, Texas, and I’d never have the money to send her home for visits.”

  “But you did have that kind of money,” Emmy Jo argued.

  “Not at first. That didn’t come until later. We’ll talk about that part of the story another time. We’d best turn in since we’ve got a trip planned tomorrow,” he said.

  Emmy Jo made sure the milk was put away and the lights were all turned off before she went up to her room. Really, it was an excuse to wait until Seth was in his bedroom and hadn’t gotten too brave about getting around without his walker. When she reached her room, she opened her laptop and began to type in what he’d told her as fast as she could so she wouldn’t forget any of the details.

  Suddenly, she stopped typing and sighed. What if Seth is really Rose’s father? Surely if he thought that he would have said or done something, right? Would Logan have to go for genetic testing before they had kids? They both wanted a big family, since they’d been raised as only children. What would it do to his family if he confronted them with this news?

  She began to pace the floor. Her hands grew sweaty, and her head started to throb. She found two Tylenol in her purse and swallowed them with a glass of water from the bathroom.

  Staring at her reflection in the mirror above the vanity, she turned every which way, trying to see some of Jesse in her face or maybe some of Seth. All she recognized was the same face shape and red hair that her father had had in the senior picture she found in the newspaper.

  “I need to know,” she whispered.

  Her phone pinged and she hurried across the floor to the nightstand, grabbed it up, and quickly hit the button to talk. “Logan, I’m so glad you called.”

  “You sound better. Are we going to make that Thursday date?” he asked.

  “I’m hoping that we will. We are going to Graham to get the car serviced at some auto place over there and we’re going to get doughnuts at this little place and . . .” She paused to suck in more air.

  He chuckled and lowered his voice to a seductive whisper. “I know I keep saying it, but I can’t wait until June, when we will be together forever.”

  Her throat tightened and formed a lump the size of an orange. “Me, too.”

  “What’s wrong?” His tone went from sexy to worried.

  “I really, really don’t like being apart from you like this,” she answered. It was the truth, even if there was an underlying possibility that her life would parallel Seth’s, in that she’d found her only true love and nothing else would ever work out.

  “Me neither, but it’s only three more days and then we get to spend a whole afternoon together.”

  She sighed. “I hope so.”

  “Emmy Jo,” he said, “what’s wrong? Something is eating on you and I know it. Talk to me.”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind, but I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.” She couldn’t make herself tell him about her suspicions.

  “You’d tell me if there was something else, right?”

  She smiled and nodded, then remembered to speak. “I’ll be fine when I get a kiss from you. I didn’t even get to see you today. Texting isn’t the same as hearing your heart beat as we lie together.”

  “I love you,” he said simply. “And darlin’, it’s only forty-eight more days until our wedding. Have you decided where it’s going to be held?”

  “Not yet. Good grief, Logan, it’s midnight and you’ve got to work tomorrow. Good night. I love you.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  Three seconds after she ended the call, she got a text that covered her screen with little red hearts. She smiled as she went to sleep and dreamed of her wedding again. This time Logan swept her up into his arms and carried her to Seth’s fancy convertible and they drove off together with her veil flowing in the wind.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The room had air-conditioning, all right, but it smelled like motor oil and cigarettes. Half a dozen well-worn magazines were scattered about, with names like Hot Rod, Motor Trend, and Car and Driver. There wasn’t a single one that had to do with brides or getting married. A coffeepot sat on a table in the corner, and four folding metal chairs had been lined up against a wall. A few disposable coffee cups in the trash can said that Seth and Emmy Jo weren’t the first customers of the day.

  The door opened, letting in more fumes that let Emmy Jo know she was not in a beauty parlor. Seth and Willard, an old bald guy in coveralls, greeted each other warmly with hearty handshakes and smiles. Willard asked about Seth’s hip, and Seth asked him about his family. Then they got down to the business of discussing the car and what Seth wanted done that day. After a lot of chin rubbing and decisions, Willard headed back into the land of oil changes and tire rotations.

  Seth left his walker by the door and poured two cups of coffee, handing one to Emmy Jo before he sat down beside her. “Willard makes good strong coffee. You’ll like it.”

  She smelled the steam coming from the top. “Are you sure this is coffee, or does he just run the used oil from the cars through that pot?”

  Seth chuckled. “You never know about Willard. He’s all for saving a dime. Get the doughnuts out of the bag.”

  “Seems a shame to ruin such fine pastry with this stuff,” she said.

  “Trust me.” He grinned. “You’ll be glad for Willard’s coffee to cut the sweet.”

  She opened the paper bag and carefully handed him a glazed doughnut before she removed the one with chocolate chips for herself. “How long does this take?”

  His smile widened. “The car business or the morning snack?”

  She eyed him carefully. “You are in a very good mood this morning—at least for you.”

  “And you aren’t?” he said.

  “I am, but . . .” She bit into the doughnut to give herself a few minutes to think.

  A cell phone rang, and she reached for hers but then realized that the ringtone was wrong. Her brow furrowed with a question when Seth removed an old flip phone from the pocket of his cardigan and opened it.

  “Hello,” he said in a businesslike tone.

  Thirty seconds later he thanked the person on the other end, folded the phone, and returned it to his pocket. She couldn’t help staring at him.

  “What?” he asked, all innocent.

  “You have a cell phone?” she asked with wide eyes.

  “Yes, I do, and only my doctor, my accountant, Oma Lynn, and one other person have the number. I’m not going to learn that texting crap or use it to take pictures or look up something on the infernal Internet. All that is the ruination of today’s society.”

  “I thought that television was the ruination of the world. And who was that on the phone?” Asking was rude, but she’d said it before she even thought.

  “It is of the world, but all this other is of society. There’s a difference, and don’t be so nosy.” His tone had gone all testy. “Aren’t you goin’ to finally get to see your boyfriend pretty soon?”

  “You’re going to miss me when I have a day off,” she singsonged.

  “Like I’d miss another hip surgery.” He wiped his sticky fingers on a paper napkin from the pastry shop and picked up a magazine.

  Right then a crazy song from the kids’ movie Angry Birds popped into her head. A while back she’d heard the song at a patient’s house. The old girl loved animated movies, and when the song came on, Emmy Jo recognized Blake Shelton’s voice immediately.

  She finished her doughnut, stuck her purple earbuds in, and found the video on YouTube so she could listen to the words again. “Friends,” that was the name of the song, and be damned if it didn’t describe her and Seth to a T—from their fir
st meeting when she’d felt like her boots couldn’t walk another mile after all the fighting with Tandy. Like the lyrics said, the cloud above her had no silver lining, and it sure didn’t today.

  Seth nudged her on the shoulder, and she pulled one of the earbuds from her ear.

  “What?” she asked.

  “What are you listenin’ to?”

  She popped the purple thing into his ear, leaned in closer so he could see the small screen, and started the video all over again. “This is me and you,” she said. “In the past almost four weeks, we’ve become friends.”

  He tapped his foot to the music, and when it was over, he nodded. “We are friends, aren’t we? But I’ve got to know, am I the big black bird or the white one? I like the moves that black one makes.”

  She giggled. “Seth, you might have gray hair now, but when you were young it was jet-black. You can be the one with the dance moves.”

  He handed her back the earbud. “So that’s what Blake Shelton looks like. I like some of his songs that they play on the radio, especially the one about his mama and that one about being in prison and training that dog so he could escape.”

  “I need a friend,” she said bluntly.

  “Haven’t heard that one,” he said.

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not a song. I really need a friend—someone to tell me what to do about Logan.”

  “And what is it that you need to do about Logan? I thought you were engaged and getting married. Are you having second thoughts?” Seth asked.

  “No, but . . . is Jesse my grandfather, too? Was it my granny that you fell in love with and she was pregnant with Jesse’s baby? If he is, then Logan and I . . . well, we are cousins of some kind and I’m . . . ,” she stammered. “I need to know and I can’t face Logan and I love him . . .”

  “What is your blood type, Emmy Jo?”

  “A negative,” she answered.

  “And did you ever take Tandy’s when you were in school just to practice?”

  She nodded. “O positive. Rose had A negative, and so did my mother. Granny said that she had no idea how we got to be blue bloods when she was so common.”

  “Did you ever test Logan’s?”

  Another nod. “O positive.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.” She was so flustered that she slapped her palm against her forehead. “I didn’t even think to do the blood charts. What is the matter with me? I can’t be related to him. Blood tells the tale.”

  “That’s right,” Seth said. “I just got a call from that other person who has my phone number. He does some digging into things for me, and he just found out the same thing you figured out. For all his blustering, Jesse Grady has the most common blood type in the world, too, as did his wife, and so do his son, his daughter-in-law, and Logan. Jesse is not the father of Rose.”

  Emmy Jo felt as if she were floating a foot above the chair as a weight lifted from her heart. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap to ground herself, and then more questions surfaced. “That means . . . Seth, do you know who Rose’s father was? Was my granny the girl you fell in love with?”

  “It’s Tandy’s job to tell you who Rose belonged to, not mine,” he answered.

  She clamped a hand over her mouth. “There is something between you and Jesse and Granny. She really doesn’t like either of you. Are you and I kin? Were you Rose’s father after all?”

  “Like I said, that’s between you and your grandmother. I just know for a fact that you and Logan are not related, so you don’t have to worry about being kin to him.” Seth changed the subject. “Are you excited about getting to see him tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I am, and I get to have breakfast with Granny and I’ll see Diana and then have an hour with Logan at lunch. After that I might go shopping in Wichita Falls,” she said. “You would tell me if you knew for a fact that you were Rose’s father, right?”

  “I don’t know anything for a set-in-stone fact. Are you shopping for a wedding dress?”

  “Oh, no, Diana and I are doing that together. We picked out our cakes this past week. Want to see mine when we get home?” she asked.

  She dang sure was going to corner Tandy now that she’d figured out that much. And this time she was going to have the answer, come hell or high water.

  “You are talking about a picture and not a real cake, right?” he asked.

  Her whole demeanor changed when he told her that she wasn’t related to Logan. Her eyes glittered like they did that first day when she’d marched into his life and told him that she didn’t like orange. Seth hoped that she didn’t hate him when she knew the truth. If he’d known that Rose belonged to him or that Crystal was his granddaughter, he would have taken care of them as well as Tandy. He’d have to bear the burden of not digging into things, but Tandy had said that the baby was Jesse’s.

  “Of course it’s a picture,” she said. “If you aren’t crabby, I’ll even let you look at my wedding book.”

  “Me, crabby? What’s a wedding book?” he asked.

  “A wedding book is a three-ring notebook with pictures and samples of everything in it that I might want for my wedding,” she explained.

  “Real cake samples?”

  She sighed and shot him the old evil eye. “Of course not!”

  “Well, I suppose after my nap we can take a look at it. Where are you going to have this big wedding?”

  “Not sure yet—it needs to be outside with an inside reception. Trouble is, I can’t see that happenin’ in either church. Jesse would probably burn down his church before he let me have a weddin’ there, even if Logan is his grandson. And Granny would do the same with her church. We could have an outside reception, but I shudder to think about flies and gnats on the cakes and drowning in the punch.”

  Willard poked his head in the door before Seth could answer. “It’s all ready when y’all are. Got it parked out front for you.”

  “Thank you.” Seth handed him a credit card. “We’ll see you in three months.”

  “You bringin’ your assistant with you then?”

  “Probably not,” Seth said. “She’s only helping out until the doctor clears me for driving again.”

  “Well, that’s too bad. It’s good to see you with a friend. I’ll get this rung up and bring you the receipt to sign.” He disappeared back into the mechanic cave again.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Seth was staring out the side window and wondering what his life would be like today if he’d chosen a different path. He’d had no control of the events that were set into motion the day that Sam Thomas spooked those horses. Talk about the effects of a butterfly flapping its wings. One little decision could create years and years’ worth of consequences.

  When Emmy Jo drove through town, they passed Jesse Grady coming out of Libby’s. He didn’t even look up, but Seth saw him. Had the man given a second thought to the child that Tandy told him she was carrying when they all graduated? Had he ever looked at Rose and felt guilty for not supporting her? Was his aversion to Emmy Jo because he thought that she had his genes, like Logan?

  He knew that’s what he’d be thinking if he was in Jesse’s shoes. Emmy Jo drove into the garage at eleven thirty, and they rode the elevator up to the first floor in silence.

  The aroma of Italian food met them when they were in the dining room. Emmy Jo inhaled deeply and smiled. “Lasagna?”

  “No, rigatoni,” Seth said. “But it’s Italian.”

  “I love anything with marinara,” she said. “And Seth, thank you for reminding me about the blood types. I should have thought of that first. It was one of the things we learned in nursing training. You’ll never know how much it puts my mind at ease.”

  “You are very welcome.” He wondered if she’d thank him when she finally pinned Tandy down and demanded answers.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Logan awoke on Tuesday morning with an Alan Jackson song on his mind and a smile on his face. He hummed “L
ivin’ on Love” as he shaved and got dressed for work.

  Today he would see Emmy Jo—nothing could go wrong. He kept that feeling right up until he walked into his mama’s kitchen. She’d invited him to breakfast so they could discuss whether or not she and his father were going to take the Wichita Falls church that had been offered to them.

  “Good morning,” Paula said.

  “Mornin’, Mama,” he said as he poured a cup of coffee and carried it to the table.

  Jesse shuffled in from the living room and sat down on the other side from him.

  “Coffee, Gramps?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I done had two mugs while I was waitin’ on you.” Jesse’s mouth set in a firm line, and his eyes drew down into slits.

  “What’s goin’ on here, Mama?” Logan asked.

  “A family meeting,” she said.

  Wyatt joined them and motioned toward a chair. “Dad, I expect you to be civil. Your whole family is here and we’re going to talk about this business going on in the church without anyone throwin’ a fit.”

  “Not the whole family. Your mother isn’t here,” Jesse said bluntly.

  “No, she’s not.” Wyatt said. “And I miss her. But this is a problem for this day, so she can’t help us.”

  Logan stacked four pancakes on his plate and checked the clock on the wall above the stove. In thirty minutes he had to get to work. “Staying in Hickory or going somewhere else is y’all’s decision. I’m not sure why I’m here.”

  “We are not going to argue with you any more over Emmy Jo,” his mother said. “That does not mean we are happy about things, but we don’t want to lose you over this. Your father is going to put an ultimatum to the church committees. Either you get your apartment back or we will hand in our resignation. We’ve prayed about it and the rest is up to God.”

  “Thank you,” Logan said. “But I’m going to stay with Jack. We’re doin’ fine in the trailer.”