“I don’t like this one bit,” Jesse said. “The church voted and I’m not going to accept that girl.”
“We’re about to be a package deal, Gramps. Either you take us both or you get neither,” Logan told him.
“I’ll opt for neither if it comes down to it,” Jesse growled.
“Y’all let me know what the decision is. I’ve got to go. Thanks for breakfast, Mama, and thanks for standing up for me, Dad. I’ll take my pancakes with me if that’s the way Gramps feels about me,” Logan said.
Wyatt reached over and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Come back any time. This is your home and you are welcome.”
Logan nodded, laid his napkin on the table, and pushed his chair back. “Gramps, I hope that whatever your problem is, you get over it.”
“That ain’t happenin’,” Jesse said.
Logan had barely turned on the lights in his office when Jack poked his head in the door. “Hey, how did the breakfast at your mama’s go?”
Logan ran his fingers through his dark hair and told him what had happened. “But I told them I’m staying at the trailer with you,” he finished.
“I vote that next week, we all four get together and go to the courthouse, buy a license, and get married right then,” Jack said.
Logan hiked a hip on his desk. “Try getting Emmy Jo and Diana to agree with that and I’ll be right there with you.”
“Wishful thinking.” Jack waved over his shoulder as he headed to his own desk.
The morning dragged, with the second hand on the big clock in the lobby taking at least an hour to make every round. When noon finally arrived, Logan’s hands were sweating and his pulse had jacked up a few notches. He couldn’t remember the last time ten days had elapsed without him seeing Emmy Jo. Even in college, they saw each other every weekend and sometimes a day during the week. The time, plus the way she’d been acting, had him thoroughly spooked when he walked into a packed Libby’s that Tuesday.
She waved from a back booth and then slid out and waited with outstretched arms and a big smile. He quickly crossed the floor and hugged her tightly before tipping her chin up to brush a kiss across her lips.
“God, I wish our wedding was over.” He sank his face into her hair and inhaled deeply.
“Me, too, but it won’t be much longer,” she said. “Sit beside me, not across from me. I want to feel you next to me this whole hour. I need to touch you more than I want the blue-plate special.”
He moved across the slick booth to sit as close to her as possible, stealing another quick kiss before the waitress appeared with menus. Emmy Jo had sounded so worried when he talked to her the past few days that he really had been afraid she was about to break up with him. To see her in such a good mood and back to his bubbly Emmy Jo made him want to pull her out onto the floor and dance with her.
“How’s it going? Heard you two had mono, Emmy Jo,” Melody, the waitress, said.
“That was one of Hickory’s rumors. I only sneezed. I probably would have had pneumonia if I’d coughed.” Emmy Jo laid a hand on Logan’s thigh under the table.
Yes, ma’am, everything is definitely better, he thought. When I’m with Emmy Jo everything is fine.
“That’s great. So what can I get you to drink and are you ready to order?” Melody asked.
“I want your special and a glass of water with a lemon wedge,” Emmy Jo said.
“Same here, only a glass of sweet tea.” Logan said, but his eyes didn’t leave Emmy Jo’s lips. Thursday was only two days away, and they could spend the whole afternoon in a hotel in Graham.
“Be right back with your drinks,” Melody said and hurried back to put in the order before she waited on the next folks coming into the café.
“So I’ll make the reservations for Thursday. Seems like forever since we had an afternoon together,” he whispered.
Emmy Jo lowered her voice. “Neither Texas wildfire nor a tornado would keep me away from that room on Thursday. What time can we check in?”
“When I call them I’ll arrange it so we can have our room by one o’clock,” he said.
“I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot. I’ll bring—”
He put his fingers over her lips. “Bring nothing but you. Maybe even just you naked under that brown trench coat that you wear when it rains.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
She squeezed his thigh again. “Oh, honey, that can be arranged. Or maybe I’ll get there first and simply be waiting in a bubble bath for you.”
“You are killing me.” He groaned.
She leaned over and breathed into his ear. “Forty-eight hours.”
Melody brought their food and set it on the table. “Oh, I’m so sorry. In this rush I forgot your drinks. Water and sweet tea, right?”
“No problem.” Logan smiled. “We were talking and didn’t even realize that we didn’t have them.”
Melody hurried off and returned in seconds with their drinks. “Thank you. Libby would hang me out to dry for that.”
Emmy Jo handed him the salt before she set about cutting up her chicken-fried steak. “So I’ve accomplished two of my goals. I got Seth to laugh and to be my friend.”
“And now the only thing left is to figure out what makes those three old coots hate one another and you’ll have discovered the biggest secret in Hickory.” He told her about the situation with his folks. “The tension was so thick at the parsonage this morning that you couldn’t cut it with a machete. I’m glad to be living with Jack now, though I can’t wait until we have our place. The trailer park manager let me look at that trailer I told you about. It’s a double-wide, two bedrooms, two full baths, and it’s on the other side of the park from Tandy’s place. It’ll be cleaned up and freshly painted, carpets cleaned and all that by mid-May.”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “Then I can look at it?”
“Yes, you can, and if you like it we’ll rent it until we can save up enough for a down payment on a house. Now, about the honeymoon?”
“Save the money for the house. We can spend whatever time we can take off in our new house,” she said.
“Oh, no, darlin’, if you are going to have your dream wedding, then we’re having a dream honeymoon to go with it. I’m booking a five-day cruise for us. I wasn’t going to tell you, but you’ll want to pack for the tropics.”
“For real?” Seeing her expression told him he’d made the right decision about the cruise.
He leaned over and kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Yes, darlin’, for real. Happy?”
“Oh, Lord, yes! I can’t even imagine . . .” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him passionately. “I love you so much. I keep saying it, but I really do, Logan.”
Logan floated the rest of the hour and into the afternoon. He hummed the Alan Jackson tune that had been in his head all day. He and Emmy Jo were two young people just livin’ on love, and he didn’t want to be anywhere else than right there in Hickory with her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On Wednesday afternoon, Logan had just finished with a client when his phone rang. When he answered it, the voice on the other end said, “Seth Thomas here. Can you come to the house tomorrow while Emmy Jo is off work? I think we should have a conversation.”
“Yes, sir,” Logan said, and then slapped his forehead. Tomorrow afternoon he and Emmy Jo were supposed to spend the afternoon together in the hotel.
“Okay, then. One o’clock. Park in the back and come up the stairs inside the garage. I will see you then,” Seth said.
He hated lying to Emmy Jo, but he vowed that he’d tell her exactly why as he scrolled down the phone and hit her name. “Hi, darlin’,” she answered.
“Bad news,” he said.
“No!”
“Yep, I have to work tomorrow. Have a few out with those sinus infections like we had and I can’t get off,” he said.
“I understand, but I’m so disappointed I could cry.”
He wiped his brow, feeling as if she could see his
nervous sweat. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“Next week, then. Come hell or high water,” she said.
“Or a snowstorm right here in Texas in May,” he said.
“Call me when you get home?”
“I will. Got to go.” He whipped his phone from his shirt pocket and found the number for the florist in Hickory.
“Bloomin’ Love,” the lady answered. “What can I help you with today?”
“I’d like to send half a dozen red roses to—”
“I’m sorry,” she butted in, “we are all out of red roses. We have pink and we have white daisies or we have red carnations.”
“Then a vase full of daisies with purple ribbons. Take them to Emmy Jo Massey at Seth Thomas’s house. I don’t know the address.”
“I know where the house is,” she said. “How do you want the card signed?”
“Missing you, Logan,” he answered. “Just those words and nothing more.”
“Now I need your credit card information,” she said.
He rattled off the details and ended the call with her promise that the bouquet would be there within an hour. It didn’t ease his conscience about lying to Emmy Jo, but it would make her happy.
He was on the way home when his phone rang. “Hello, gorgeous!” he answered.
“The daisies are so pretty, and the vase is, too. I’m going to use it on the guest book table at our wedding,” she said in lieu of greeting him. “But I’m still disappointed about tomorrow.”
“Me, too, darlin’, and if I’d change it if I could, but it’s a very important meeting.” He visualized her with the daisies right there in front of her, thinking that everything was all right in the world when something had to be desperately wrong for Seth to invite him to that house.
Emmy Jo had barely ended the call with Logan when her phone rang again. She smiled when she saw her granny’s picture pop up on the screen. “Hey, what are you doing today?”
Maybe, just maybe, she’d get Tandy to open up about the past if she eased a simple question or two into the conversation.
“I’m cleaning the church because it’s my turn to take care of it. Right now I’m sitting on the back pew, taking a break. I heard that Logan’s folks are stayin’ in town. They had a showdown today with the church, and the committee said that Logan could move back into the apartment, but he’s refused. Is that true?” Tandy never was one to ease into a conversation.
“That’s what I heard, too. Hey, I drove Seth to the garage in Graham yesterday,” Emmy Jo said. It aggravated her that everyone in town knew their business—especially before she did.
“I knew that, too, so I figured you’d gotten over the cold or whatever to hell it was,” Tandy said.
“Want to have breakfast or lunch at Libby’s tomorrow? There are some things I need to talk to you about,” Emmy Jo said.
“Can’t do anything tomorrow. In the morning I’m baking brownies and cooking two big pans of baked spaghetti for a funeral that afternoon. The church ladies are feeding the family, although I’m not sure why. Marnelle Phillips moved away from Hickory forty years ago, and she only came back when her mama died. But her mama came to church here her whole life,” Tandy said.
“Then what about Sunday afternoon? I usually spend an hour in the cemetery with Logan, but he and Jack are going to Wichita Falls right after church so Logan can get fitted for his tux.”
“Maybe that would work,” Tandy said. “Why don’t we just talk about whatever it is on the phone?”
There it was—the opportunity to ask her the all-important question—but Emmy Jo needed to see Tandy’s expression, not just hear the words.
“Because I want us to be face-to-face. It’s important,” Emmy Jo told her.
“What if I die between now and Sunday?” Tandy asked.
“Then you won’t know and it won’t matter, will it?” Emmy Jo said.
“You are just like that worthless daddy of yours,” Tandy fussed.
“I’ll just say good-bye, Granny, and I hope to see you Sunday. Shall I bring a dozen chocolate doughnuts and a thermos of coffee?”
“No, but you might bring cold Dr Peppers and half a dozen maple doughnuts,” she said. “And if what you want to talk about is the past, then save your breath and let sleeping dogs alone. Good-bye.”
Emmy Jo put her phone to the side and opened her laptop. She read through the story she’d started and put her fingers on the keys to start where she’d left off, but she couldn’t force herself to type. The alarm sounded on her phone, telling her that it was two thirty. Time for Seth’s nap to be over and for afternoon snacks to be served. She snapped her computer shut and carried it with her down to the patio.
“I have a confession,” she said when she sat down beside Seth.
He glanced up from a Western and raised an eyebrow.
“When you first told me that story about your grandmother, it stuck in my mind and my heart. I could feel her fear and her pain there when those horses went wild, and I could relate to her being in love with a boy that her family didn’t like. So”—she sucked in a lungful of air—“I wrote it all down, adding to it as you told me more about Hickory and your life here. Only I didn’t use the real names because . . . well, you know.”
“May I read it?” he asked.
She opened the computer, found the file, and set it in his lap. “I brought the mouse to make it easier for you to navigate. Just roll this to scroll down the page.”
“Here, you can read this.” He handed her the paperback novel.
She tried to read, but nothing in the book held her attention. She bit at her thumbnail until she heard Tandy’s voice in her head fussing at her. Stop that chewin’ on your nails. It makes them ugly and it shows that you are nervous. Anyone sees that, they’ll take advantage of you.
She laid the book to the side and watched a bright-red cardinal flit around the patio, finally picking up a twig and flying off with it. Red made her think again about Seth’s terrible reasons for hating that color. She glanced over at him, but his face was like stone. Only his eyes moved as he read what she’d written.
It seemed like she’d aged forty years by the time half an hour passed. He cleared his throat and shut the laptop.
“So?” She held her breath.
“You have a very vivid imagination, young lady, but you are a good writer. You should finish this and let me send it to a good editor. Then I want a copy,” he said.
“You’d do that for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I would,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because . . . when it is all told, you’ll understand why.”
“Seth, tell me now. You are hiding something. I can feel it,” she said.
“Have you talked to Tandy?” he asked.
“Not yet, but we’ve got a date to do some serious talkin’ on Sunday while you are at the cemetery,” she answered.
“Then we’ll talk when we get to the cabin that day, I promise,” he said.
“And if Tandy won’t come clean?” she pushed on.
“Then we’ll talk anyway,” he said. “And speakin’ of books, you never did bring that bride book thing for me to see. Maybe we could do that after supper?”
“Yes, and tomorrow morning you can tell me more about those first years after you came back to Hickory.”
Seth picked up his book and started to read again.
She took her laptop and started to type, stealing a sideways glance toward him every few seconds. How could he get engrossed in a book with the big elephant in the room with them? But then she noticed that he hadn’t turned the page in several minutes and his eyes weren’t moving.
I can’t wait for Tandy to read this book. Or maybe she won’t want to ever see it, with the part that she’s got in the story line.
Emmy Jo frowned and started to type, writing the chapter of Seth and Markita’s love that didn’t survive the long distance between them. Poor Seth
—he just could not catch a break. Maybe he needed a little shove toward a better life and she was just the one to put her hands on his back and do that. He might be an old guy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun. The idea of a seniors’ cruise or a trip to Nashville to actually visit the Grand Ole Opry came to mind.
Seth had not expected something so thick or heavy when Emmy Jo laid the wedding book on the table that evening. “All this for one wedding? Just how big is this event going to be?”
“We are posting an open invitation in both churches for all our friends and families. Basically the whole town of Hickory is invited.”
Seth whistled through his teeth. “Good Lord! Why?”
“Because I want everyone to witness the fact that I am breaking the Massey curse. I’m getting married, and it will be at least nine months—but hopefully two years or more—before I have a baby,” she answered.
“And you think you need to have a big affair for that?”
“You don’t?” She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her brows.
He opened the book to the first page, which had pictures of various cakes she had cut from magazines or taken photos of. “The way this town gossips, you could get married on the creek bank with no one there but you, Logan, and a preacher and it would be all over the county in twenty minutes.” He turned a page. “Which one have you picked out?”
She reached over and flipped through to the middle of the section marked with a tab that said CAKES. “That one.” She pointed. “And then there will be all kinds of fancy cupcakes. Only a few folks will have the actual cake. Do you like those little stick things with a lilac bouquet picture on them?” She pointed to a picture of a dozen cupcakes with different things on the tops.
“Lilacs?” His voice cracked.
“Always been a favorite of mine. My colors will be shades of purple, and I’m going to carry a white daisy and lilac bouquet.”
He had to swallow four times to get the lump in his throat to go away. “Purple, huh?”
“Loved it since I was a little girl. Got into lots of trouble one year when I was a little girl for picking every pansy in Granny’s flower bed and the neighbor’s, too.”
The Lilac Bouquet Page 18