True to You

by Becky Wade

  “I can’t imagine how they could have missed you.”

  “Me neither.”

  He stepped to the side in a silent invitation to exit, exactly as he’d done that first day. “This way.”

  She peered up at him with a pretend expression of shock. Slowly, she blinked.

  “Ma’am.” He spoke with fake firmness, trying hard to keep a straight face. It wouldn’t be easy to explain to his employees, students, and volunteers why he’d been laughing during the final stages of a staged terrorist takeover of a mall.

  She stuck out her chin and remained exactly where she was, so he went to a knee and held out his arms. She scooted toward him much more willingly than a survivor would have. He pressed to his feet and carried her into the hazy interior of the store.

  This was the second time he’d rescued her but, in truth, Nora was the one rescuing him.

  “Sorry about my slow response time back there,” she said, mimicking the first words she’d spoken to him.

  He halted and kissed her. It wasn’t a quick kiss. He made good, thorough work of it. Then he strode, with her in his arms, into the central part of the mall.

  “You can put me down now,” she whispered.

  “What’s that you say?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “Too late.”

  “John! I don’t want everyone to see me being carried out by you. Again.”

  He smiled wickedly. “Too late.”

  Two days later, Nora made an exquisitely frustrating discovery.

  She was sitting at her desk scrolling through a spreadsheet that detailed the monthly budget for the Friends of Merryweather Historical Village, a volunteer group of village enthusiasts bent on finding new and delightful ways to support Nora’s endeavor. The income and expense columns followed an uneventful trajectory, right up until she saw that someone had made an online donation to the Friends of Merryweather Historical Village in the exact amount, down to the dollar, of what Nora had charged John for her help with his birth mother search.

  Wait! What?

  “John,” she hissed savagely.

  The Friends of Merryweather Historical Village were not controlled by her. They valued her as a member of their group, and she attended all their meetings. But they were a separate entity. She couldn’t take that money from them and thrust it back at John. He’d given her the money in a way that made it impossible to give back.

  “Did you mention John?” Nikki called from the adjoining room. “I was just daydreaming that I was bobbing at sea in a life preserver, and he was lowering out of a helicopter to save me.”

  “Get your own boyfriend!” Nora hollered.

  “I’d rather have yours,” Nikki answered.

  Nora snatched up her phone and texted John. Did you make a donation recently to the Friends of Merryweather Historical Village?

  He responded immediately. That’s really not my style, Nora. I prefer to give to Christian or veteran’s charities.

  John Truman Lawson, you’re diabolical!

  I don’t see how giving to Christian or veteran’s charities is diabolical.

  I wanted to donate my help to you just like I do to every other person who walks in the door of this library! Her fingers jabbed quickly at the letters. I wanted to donate my help to you MORE than I’ve ever wanted to donate it to anyone.

  Just think of all the things the Friends of Whatever Whatever will be able to do thanks to whoever gave that generous gift. You should be more civic-minded.

  I’m the most civic-minded person in Merryweather!

  You know what?

  What?

  Checkmate, Nora. Checkmate.

  Into their fourth week of dating, John still hadn’t received a response from Sherry.

  When it was Nora’s turn to plan their date, she took John to a dinner party at Harrison and Rory’s.

  She’d purchased a flowy peach sundress for the occasion. Willow had been over in the afternoon with Ben & Jerry’s and had offered to style Nora’s hair. Thus, she wore a thin gold headband and a low, loose bun at the nape of her neck. She had a crush on her high-heeled espadrilles. Best of all, her hand was intertwined with John’s as they made their way up the walkway to Harrison and Rory’s two-story colonial.

  The roiling hurt, bitterness, and betrayal she’d been battling since the day Harrison had broken her heart had at last faded to an echo.

  “Why are we doing this again?” John asked. His business shirt looked very crisp and white against the skin of his throat and face. “I don’t want to spend time with your ex-boyfriend.”

  “We’re doing this because Harrison and Rory are impossible to avoid. Merryweather is a small town. They live here and I live here, and if I spun in a circle with my arms outstretched like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, I’d be hard-pressed not to hit one of them.”

  “Tell me you didn’t just make a Sound of Music reference.”

  She drew him to a halt so she could explain what needed to be explained before they reached the door. “Against all natural laws, Harrison and Rory continue to go out of their way to be nice to me and to invite me to their events. I don’t know if it’s motivated by guilt or misguided pity or genuine kindness. Probably a little of all three.”

  “I might be hard-pressed not to hit one of them. And not because I’ll be spinning around like Julie Andrews.”

  A few weeks back, Harrison and Rory had sent her a gorgeous invitation to this evening’s Midsummer’s Night Soiree. The invite had offered her the opportunity to bring a guest. Because she was dating John, she’d taken them up on their invite and the “plus one.”

  “I turned down as many invitations as I could over the years, but I couldn’t decline them all because I didn’t want them to think I was rude or so gutted that I couldn’t bear to see them. I said yes to tonight because I’m petty enough to want to show you off.” She straightened his collar. “Maybe now they won’t imagine I’m home alone sniveling into embroidered handkerchiefs.”

  “Did you just say embroidered handkerchiefs?”

  “Maybe now they’ll stop sending me invitations. But even if they keep sending me invitations, I promise that I won’t make you attend any other event that they host. Just this one dinner.”

  “I haven’t met Harrison yet, but I can tell you that I don’t like him, and that I won’t like him because he broke his engagement to you.”

  “The thing is, though, Harrison was honest with me back then. Also, I really do think he was genuinely sorry about what he put me through.” As sorry as a man who lands a lovely, stylish wife who’s a mite too good for him can be, anyway. Nora set her palms on John’s chest, feeling his body’s heat, marveling afresh that she had the privilege to touch him.

  “I still don’t like him,” he stated.

  His animosity toward Harrison probably shouldn’t please her as much as it did. “Let’s go in so that I can gloat over you. We’ll enjoy what’s going to be a fantastic meal. Then we’ll go.”

  They rang the doorbell. Rory answered.

  Rory appeared to be just weeks shy of her due date. Only she could look as fresh and darling as she did at such an advanced stage of pregnancy. “Good to see you, Nora. . . .” Her greeting trailed off when she spotted John. Her artfully eye-shadowed eyes widened.

  Could it be, Rory, that you’re astonished by John’s incredible appeal? Nora wanted to ask.

  “Come in.” Rory motioned them inside her beautiful, tasteful foyer.

  “I’d like you to meet my boyfriend,” Nora said, “John Lawson.”

  Nora could feel surprise rolling off Rory in waves, though Rory was too sophisticated to gawk or allow the conversation to lag. She and John chatted amiably.

  My boyfriend, Nora had called him.

  She and John had spent part of every day together since their first kiss, with the exception of the three miserable days earlier this week when he’d traveled to Chicago for work. When they’d parted, she’d kissed him as if he was never co
ming back. While he’d been gone, missing him had felt like a backpack she’d been made to carry around. When he’d returned, she’d kissed him like he’d been raised from the dead.

  She hadn’t known that three days apart from someone could feel like three months. That distance could physically hurt. The only beauty in their separation, the only solace in it, had been that John had felt exactly the same way.

  They’d never had a conversation in which they’d put a label on their relationship, which was fine with her. She didn’t need a label for it at this point because she believed that they already understood each other very well.

  She knew they were exclusive. She knew he felt deeply about her. His actions and her actions and the way they were with each other was enough. It was way, way better than enough, actually. It was beyond what she’d expected for herself, ever. It was new and blissful and heady and it made her heart ache with joy. They were dating. They were dating, and it was more romantic and wonderful than any movie she’d ever seen and any book she’d ever read.

  It was also as scary as scary could be, emotionally. She was trying her best to be wise. Not to rush. Not to get ahead of herself and fall crazily in love with this man she’d only been dating for a matter of weeks. It was just that what was happening within her at times felt next to impossible to control. Like attempting to hold back an avalanche. How was she supposed to pace the rate at which she fell for him?

  Over the last week or so, John had started introducing her to people as his girlfriend, which had given her the courage to introduce him in kind just now.

  My boyfriend.

  “Hon?” Harrison’s voice called from the region of the kitchen. “Do we have any more toothpicks to use on the antipasto brochettes?”

  “I think so,” Rory answered. “Come say hi to Nora.”

  Harrison appeared, and Nora felt John stiffen. Her ex-fiancé had on a gingham Vineyard Vines shirt, flat-front khaki shorts, and slip-on loafers.

  “I’ll go look for the toothpicks,” Rory said to Harrison, “so you can visit with Nora and her boyfriend.”

  Harrison’s forward motion stuttered.

  Could it be, Harrison, that you’re astonished by John’s incredible appeal?

  “Glad you could come.” Harrison gave her a polite hug during which their chests came nowhere near touching. Then he shook John’s hand with more enthusiasm than necessary as the two men exchanged names. “What do you do, John?”

  “I own Lawson Training in Shore Pine.”

  “I’m not familiar with it. What kind of training do you offer there?”

  “Emergency preparedness and response.”

  “Great, great.”

  “What do you do?” John asked tersely.

  “I practice orthodontics at the office I founded. It’s meaningful to own a business here in the community where I was raised. To give back. Nora and I”—he gently squeezed her elbow—“have known each other a long time. We’re both invested here.”

  John set his mouth in a flat line.

  “We just received our plaque,” Harrison said to her. “The one we received from the city because of our Best of Merryweather recognition?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “We already have it hanging proudly in our waiting room.”

  Men. So tiresome. What was with their irrepressible need to beat their chests in front of one another? You work there? Well, I work here! You drive that? I drive this! You vacationed there? I vacationed here! That’s your golf handicap? Here’s mine! Chuckle chuckle chuckle.

  “Come this way,” Harrison said. “I’d like to show you the fireplace we just had re-rocked.” He kept up a steady stream of subtly self-congratulatory talk.

  For the next half hour, the ten guests mingled with Rory and Harrison in their beautiful and tasteful den and kitchen. Folk rock played softly. Antipasto brochettes circulated.

  Then they all moved into a dining room swathed in decorations that paid homage to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Two light fixtures dripped sparkling beads. Vases of varying heights held flower arrangements in shades of plum, pink, and deep red. Actual, honest-to-goodness moss served as placemats and wooden slabs served as chargers. The plates and goblets shone matte-gold. In the center of every place setting rested a tropical leaf as big as a child’s head on which had been written the dinner menu in scrolling calligraphy.

  Nora heard John grumble something dark under his breath and had to bite her lip to keep a giggle at bay. No doubt, the table had already been photographed extensively for the Say Yes to Beauty blog.

  When they took their seats according to their place cards, it became apparent that Harrison and Rory had assumed Nora’s guest would be female, because single guys were sitting on both Nora’s side and John’s side. The single guy next to Nora had a trendy beard and hair shaved on the sides and slicked back on top.

  She had to hand it to Rory. He wasn’t bad. He was fairly eligible. It was just that he wasn’t John. Every man other than John, including the formidable Adolphus Brook, had now become a pale, watery also-ran.

  Before they began eating, Rory took out her huge Nikon and snapped candids. She repeated the process after the first course arrived.

  “What in the world is she doing?” John asked, bending his head near Nora’s shoulder. She could feel his breath on her skin. Tingles flowed down to her fingertips in response.

  “Shooting pictures for her very successful blog.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Look at her? Not look at her?”

  “Either. So long as you appear to be having an amazing time.”

  “The fact that she’s taking pictures is making it hard for me to have an amazing time.”

  “Therein lies the rub.”

  “This will be my one and only visit here,” he vowed.

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  “Harrison’s a tool.”

  She glanced in Harrison’s direction and caught him watching John with a troubled expression. The grim cast of his jaw may have indicated a twinge of . . . jealousy? “I know now what I didn’t back then,” Nora said. “Harrison wasn’t the one for me.”

  “No. He didn’t deserve you.”

  She met John’s eyes.

  “I don’t deserve you either,” he said. “But I’m smarter than he is because I know better than to let you go.”

  At work the following Monday morning, John was making his way through his email inbox when he spotted a name that caused his heart to miss a beat.

  From: Sherry Thompson

  Subject: Meeting

  He leaned back in his chair, letting his hands fall away from the keyboard. He stared at her name.

  For as long as he could remember, he’d thought about finding his birth mother. And now, suddenly, here was an email from her. He was thirty-three years old and for the first time in his life had received a communication from his biological mother.

  The familiar need for information about his heritage and his medical information still existed within him. However, over the past four weeks since he’d mailed his letter to her, he’d gotten used to not hearing from Sherry.

  He’d stopped thinking every phone call was from her. He’d stopped bracing himself every time he opened his mailbox or email. He’d adjusted to Sherry’s silence, mostly because his time, energy, and thoughts had been focused on Nora.

  He planted his elbows on his desk and rested his forehead on the heels of his hands. He prayed until the commotion within him calmed. Then he lifted his head. And opened her email.

  John,

  Thank you for your letter. It was so good to learn about you and your life.

  My husband and I saw Uncommon Courage when it came out. We had no idea, of course, that you were related in any way to me. I’m amazed by the fact that you are the John Lawson of the movie and book. Your accomplishments are truly impressive, and I’m more pleased than I can express by the success you’ve made of yourself.

  I appreciate the courtesy y
ou extended to me when you assured me that the next communication between us would be mine. That was both respectful and thoughtful.

  Contact between us is difficult for me. Because of that, after receiving your letter, I took some time to decide how best to respond. In the end, I’ve come to hope that it might be beneficial to us both to meet in person. I’d like to answer the questions that you very understandably have and I’d like to explain my situation to you.

  I’m free this Thursday or next Tuesday for lunch. Perhaps we can meet at The Grapevine restaurant, which is located between where you live in Shore Pine and where I live in Aberdeen. Let me know if either of those dates or that location is convenient for you.

  Sincerely, Sherry

  Text message from John to Nora:

  John

  I just received an email from Sherry. She suggested we meet for lunch this Thursday or next Tuesday at The Grapevine. According to my phone map, it looks like The Grapevine is on the outskirts of the town of McCleary. Will either of those times work for you? I’d really like for you to come.

  Nora

  John! Oh my goodness! I’m surreptitiously texting during a town council meeting on tourism. I’ll call you as soon as this meeting wraps. I’m visiting a caterer in Olympia Thursday morning to discuss the Antique Fair, so I can drive to The Grapevine and meet you there in plenty of time to have lunch with Sherry. But please don’t feel obligated to include me.

  John

  I don’t feel obligated. I want you there.

  Sherry,

  Thank you for your email. Lunch this Thursday at The Grapevine will work for me. Is it all right with you if I bring my girlfriend? She’s a genealogist and was instrumental in my search to locate you.

  —John

  John,

  If you feel comfortable with your girlfriend being there, then it’s certainly all right with me if she joins us for lunch. I’ll make a reservation at The Grapevine for noon on Thursday. I’ll wear a bright pink scarf so you’ll be able to identify me.