Love's Little Secrets (Sweet Grove Romance Book 2; First Street Church #10)

by Sharon Hughson

  As her shiny coral mouth closed over the fork, Herman imagined kissing her, gobbling the frosting from her soft lips. His pulse spiked. Norma pressed closer, still not touching him, and tilted her head toward him.

  “Kiss the bride,” someone hooted.

  Herman’s lips brushed against hers, tasting the trace of vanilla from the buttercream frosting. Delicious.

  She pulled away before he’d finished sampling her sweet lips. Kissing in public wasn’t something they did, and she was probably embarrassed, but the simple action made the sleeping giant of desire rumble to life.

  People crowded around them. A couple church ladies sliced up the cake and served it out on the tiny plates decked with silver bells. Their efficient teamwork made short work of the line of well-wishers.

  Norma was opening cards, handing each one to him when she finished reading. He glanced at them before setting them aside, but his mind didn’t really comprehend the words. Conversation flowed around him.

  Norma addressed everyone by first name, smiled, touched them with warm hands. She asked them about pets, children, gardens, and their health. It struck him that she belonged in Sweet Grove, but most of the faces were only vaguely familiar to him since he’d been on the road for so many years.

  Herman stood beside her, munching on a generous slice of cake. Everyone loved her. A stirring in his chest reminded him of his affection, dampened by time and distance, and the bitterness of her broken dreams and his unfulfilled plans. He’d never stopped loving her, even when his duty kept them apart.

  If the gem on her finger didn’t prove his love, certainly the four-bedroom farmhouse on twenty acres must do the trick. Every anniversary and birthday, he brought rose bushes and flowers, which she loved planting. And that darned gazebo she’d wanted a few years back, situated just so beneath the arching shade of pecan trees, had been a special addition.

  Norma’s hand stayed on his arm as she led him through the crowd. Herman spoke a few words to everyone, nodding in acceptance of their well wishes. Talk of the Apple Blossom festival circulated, smothering him. Finally, a woman hugged his wife and her hand dropped away from him. He sidled toward the door.

  A motor revved, roaring nearby before cutting off. Many heads turned toward it. Herman stepped closer, yearning for fresh air and space without clingy near-strangers.

  A dark-haired young man in a black leather jacket swished through the doors. His fawn-colored skin contrasted with the white walls. Tousled curls flopped nearly to his shoulders, and he glanced around the room. White teeth flashed when he answered a query from one of the men clutching a cup of coffee near the door.

  Herman glanced toward Norma, meeting her questioning gaze. He jerked his head toward the door. It was too soon to expect they could leave, but surely she wouldn’t begrudge him a few moments away from the crush.

  He shuffled toward the door in time to hear the coffee man growl, “Don’t know no Manny Wells.”

  The sound of the name anchored his feet in place. Only one person called him Manny Wells. One person he never wanted to see in his hometown.

  “Do you mean Herman Wells?” Summer Davis slipped beside the older man, a carafe of water in her hand. “This is his anniversary party.”

  “Can you point him out?” The younger man’s voice was smooth but unfamiliar.

  All three of them turned, and Summer’s finger pointed directly to him. Her lips moved, but Herman heard nothing above the slamming of his heart against his eardrums.

  The handsome stranger’s amber-flecked brown eyes fixed on Herman’s pale ones. His square jaw and wide nose were twins of Herman’s, while the rest of him reflected the Hispanic beauty of his mother.

  “Dad.” Fire lit the boy’s eyes, and his full lips didn’t smile.

  Herman stiffened. Questions swirled through his mind at dizzying speed, and the sinking sensation in his stomach turned the spice cake to gravel.

  “Hello, Adonis.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed, aware of his Adam’s apple scraping along his neck.

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Awkward silence fell on the crowded room. The stuffy air pressed against Herman’s nose until he feared it would suffocate him.

  “Looks like you found me.”

  Herman’s little secret had crashed his anniversary party.

  3

  Norma’s heart dove into her feet while her pumps turned to cement. Dad?

  Her husband, suddenly a stranger, rested his gnarled hand on the obviously Hispanic boy’s shoulder.

  “Why are you here?” Herman’s face was a stone mask.

  Norma’s jaw sagged. Less than thirty minutes ago, she had guided the knife through a cake proclaiming twenty-five happy years with this wide-shouldered man. Now, a young man she’d never seen gazed at him with chocolate eyes and called him Dad.

  “I had to find you.”

  The one called Adonis stood nearly as tall as Herman, and his shoulders were as wide, too. Jeans worn thin at the knees hung low on his narrow hips.

  “This might not be the best place to talk.”

  Adonis gazed around, his glare resting on Norma for a moment. Her stomach bucked. He blinked, and his gaze slid past her.

  “Did I crash your party?” Malice edged the tone, and chills raced down Norma’s back.

  Maybe it was a prank. But if that was true, why didn’t Herman say anything? Why did he seem to accept the boy’s statement?

  A cool hand wrapped around Norma’s bicep. She twisted her head. From beside her, Kyanna glared daggers at Herman and the stranger. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “I don’t—” But whatever Norma had planned to say slipped away.

  Kyanna led her through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea at their approach. Looks of pity, confusion, and ire graced the faces of Norma’s friends and church family. The bodice of her dress seemed two sizes too small. Dark spots edged her vision, and she stumbled.

  A warm hand rested on her lower back. Someone pulled the cup from her frozen fingers. Norma blinked, trying to clear her fuzzy vision. Anna Ring walked beside her, gently pressing her palm into Norma’s flesh, guiding her toward the parking lot.

  A motorcycle blocked the pathway into the church yard. From the seat, a helmet glared at her with its vacant face mask. This would be the cause of the roar that turned everyone’s attention away from their comfortable chatter.

  Stewing emotions bubbled into her throat. Wasn’t it bad enough that everyone felt sorry for the woman whose husband cheated? Now the childless wife was replaced by a fertile mistress. This must have been how Sarah felt when Hagar presented Ishmael to Abraham. Although, hadn’t it been Sarah’s idea for Abraham to sleep with the Egyptian? Norma had never given her blessing to Herman’s philandering.

  Anna nudged Norma into the back seat of Kyanna’s car and pressed her thigh against Norma’s. Tissues appeared in her boss’s hand. Norma clenched them against her nose and eyes with one hand and squeezed Anna’s fingers with the other, like they were the ledge keeping her from plunging to her death.

  Because at the moment, they were.

  Norma’s fantasy world with a loving husband collapsed. He gave her everything she wanted, except for children.

  But that wasn’t his fault. The ravenous wolf of truth tore and snarled, shredding her soul.

  A wound she’d been sure had healed gaped and bled. She’d accepted that there would be no children. After begging God and then railing on Him, she’d come to the place where she’d moved forward on a path that didn’t involve motherhood. Sure, she volunteered in the nursery at church and stepped into the toddler classroom when no one else could handle it, but those little ones never healed her barrenness.

  Herman had a son. He’d had a son for most of their married life. The boy’s age was difficult to determine since his cheeks were smooth, but he had to be close to twenty. Which meant she had Herman for all of five years before he found someone else, and that was before they struggled with inferti
lity for a decade.

  Had he already given up on her? Is that why he’d run into the arms of another woman? Did she even want to know his supposed reasoning? She thought she accepted the gossip that he slept with a woman now and again when travel kept him away week after week.

  But setting up house with someone else? Raising a child with this woman?

  When the SUV jerked sharply onto the road leading to Cider Mill Park, Norma bounced out of her reverie. On a Saturday afternoon, they’d be lucky to find a bench not occupied by screaming families or necking teenagers.

  “Sorry,” Kyanna muttered. The edge in her voice was something Norma hadn’t heard in the time they’d worked together.

  And the woman had faced more stressful situations than Norma could easily recount.

  Kyanna parked at the unshaded end of the lot, away from most of the other vehicles. Norma dabbed her face. Anna handed her a fresh wad of tissues.

  “Do you have a box of these in your purse?” Norma gaped at the woman who didn’t even curl her nose as her hand closed around the snot-encrusted tissues.

  “Allergies.”

  Norma focused on the younger woman. Her round face framed by bouncy light brown curls held compassion. Summer sky blue eyes studied her as her slender fingers offered a new wad of tissues.

  “Walk? Sit here and talk?” Kyanna peeked between the seats. “How can we help, Norma?”

  Norma reached for the door handle. Part of her soul had been irredeemably blasted to smithereens by a truth she’d never even imagined. Heat slapped her face, drying the streaks on her cheeks to tight splotches.

  Anna slid out behind her, hand resting on her elbow.

  A cluster of trees shaded a dilapidated bench. The trio moved slowly off the path and across fresh grass to sit on the faded wood. Norma, sandwiched between her friends, sighed.

  Both women, members of the weekly Bible study group the pastor’s wife led, were divorced. Would they encourage her to leave Herman?

  “What a trashy, lying womanizer!” Kyanna’s voice shook with controlled rage.

  “If he can’t keep it in his pants, that’s one thing. But having a full-grown son in his secret closet?” Anna growled the words.

  Their ferocity pulled Norma from the numbing fog of denial. How many other people in the church were blaming him? Norma was so quick to take responsibility for every wrong in their life. Were these friends taking her side rather than seeing the reality of it?

  “That’s not how I expected today to go.” Norma heard the sarcasm, a familiar ingredient of conversation at her day job, and it made her gummy lips quirk.

  “It’s your party and you can cry if you want to.” Kyanna snorted after she sang the 60’s beach tune.

  “Or walk out instead of facing his dirty laundry.” Anna wrapped her hand around Norma’s. “As much of a horror story as my ex is, even he wouldn’t have pulled something like this out of his pocket.”

  Norma stared at her friend, who might be on the high side of thirty-five. “He didn’t have enough time to pull a twenty-year-old son out of his pocket.”

  Anna laughed, a brutal slash of sound. “I wouldn’t have put it past him if he wasn’t the kind who got a vasectomy to avoid anything paternal.”

  “This isn’t about our exes.” Kyanna’s meaningful look at Anna didn’t escape Norma’s notice.

  “I don’t want an ex-husband.” Norma glanced between them. “Nothing against the two of you.”

  “No one wants an ex-husband, darling.” Anna’s drawl thickened. “But the risk of life is death, and the chance you take with a husband is that he’ll become an ex.”

  Norma shook her head and sagged against Kyanna.

  “Tell us.” Kyanna wrapped her cool fingers around Norma’s other wrist. How could she have cool hands after all the drama?

  “Everyone assumed he had affairs. I never…” She never wanted to believe it, but now the proof was evident.

  A bird in the branches above them called harshly. An answer came from a lone tree closer to the path. Laughter spilled from somewhere nearby, stinging like acid in a wound.

  “We were going to have four kids. Both of us only had one sibling, and we always wished we’d had more.” She swallowed and closed her eyes against the rising emotions. “That’s why he bought the farm out here, so far from his job in Austin.”

  “Poor planning on his part,” Kyanna said.

  “Unless he was planning his adultery even then,” Anna said, then grunted.

  Was he? Was that the true motivation for bringing Norma hours away from where he worked? She shook her head.

  They loved each other once. In the back room of her memory, she could see adoration shining from his eyes. Him kneeling in front of her with a ring. You’re too good for me, but I’ll work hard to deserve you.

  “It wasn’t like that. We were like newlyweds. Every weekend was a honeymoon.” She gasped to a stop.

  She’d dressed carefully for his homecomings, and he undressed her with slow, heated movements. There’d been roasts cooked beyond done and jerky-like chicken, dinners she’d planned and prepared with care. Only to forget about them in the circle of his arms, under the pressure of his lips, and beneath the weight of his passion.

  Could he have been sharing similar moments with the mother of that strange boy?

  A sob tore from her throat. Every memory was suspect now. If he hadn’t been faithful to her when their marriage was a torrid love affair, she couldn’t imagine what he’d done during the decade of barrenness that underscored their unfulfilled dreams.

  God, tell me it was real. Please let him have loved me once.

  But if he didn’t love her now, was there any reason to stay with him?

  Love is a choice. Pastor Bernie’s voice echoed in her head. She knew he was right. When she was nothing, Jesus loved her enough to die for her. He chose her before she even knew He existed.

  Could she choose to love Herman after such an enormous betrayal?

  “When I couldn’t get pregnant, he wouldn’t see the specialist. Refused to get tested.”

  “Tested?” Anna started to say more, but a glower from Kyanna, her most powerful teacher look, assassinated the diatribe.

  No one needed to say it. He had a son hidden away, so he knew the problem was with her all along. The only thing she couldn’t comprehend was why he hadn’t left her for the fertile woman who gave him a family. Why keep coming home to her on the weekends when he had what he wanted elsewhere?

  Her chest ached. Catching her breath became excruciating.

  “Why...didn’t he leave me?” She gasped the words.

  Kyanna rubbed her hand down Norma’s upper arm. “They say women are hard to understand. Men do completely illogical things.”

  Was staying with the wife of his youth illogical? If he was a man of faith, Herman might have stayed as a matter of conscience. But he disdained her belief in God, constantly tried to convince her to spend Sundays with him doing anything but church.

  “Money or guilt.” Anna’s voice dripped spite in a way Norma had never heard.

  She looked at her friend’s pinched mouth and furrowed brow. “I don’t know your story.”

  Anna glanced up, and Norma imagined Kyanna giving her a pointed look. “Now’s not the time.”

  Norma squeezed the hand resting on her arm. “I’m sorry you had to go through pain like this.”

  Anna snorted. “At the moment, I’m thinking my donkey’s hind end wasn’t as horrible as I thought. At least he didn’t have a secret family.”

  Another sob ripped through Norma’s chest, sounding like someone strangling an angry cat.

  All those years, she’d pretended the gossip about Herman didn’t matter. But he’d proven every speculation true. Worse than that, he’d managed to silence the backbiters with the outlandishness of his sins.

  She’d never guess a man could have a family in every town.

  Until now.

  4

  Dust clouded
behind the tires of his truck as Herman turned off the main highway. He checked his mirror and ignored the niggle of pity in the pit of his stomach.

  He hadn’t seen Adonis for five years. The last day was branded into his memory, but he didn’t regret his decision. Osaria knew he wouldn’t be back once the district sales manager duties at the branch were shuttled to someone else. Herman didn’t need to spend weeks on end in Las Cruces, and he’d found excuses to never return.

  Now his son had come looking for him, and he was coating him in road dust.

  His son. The only child he had sired was with his Mexican-descended mistress. If his mother had lived to see this day, she would have died from shame.

  Herman braked and turned into the driveway. A few hundred yards later, he pulled the truck in front of the detached garage -- his workshop.

  Rose bushes decked in new growth lined the sunny side of the house. Tulips and daffodils shed purple, pink, and yellow joy in the bricked flower boxes on either side of the front porch. Herman shut off the ignition and stared at the proof Norma loved their home and worked hard to make it welcoming.

  And he’d shamed her today.

  She deserved better. The part of his heart that froze during their decade-old struggle with infertility thawed a little. She’d never understood his reluctance to get testing, but the roaring motor as the street bike pulled beside the truck revealed it. Herman knew who couldn’t bear children, and the thought of her feeling more crushed and inadequate had wilted him. Of course, he wasn’t all that fond of the idea of doctors poking and prodding his privates, either.

  Herman slid out of the rig and waited for Adonis to join him.

  His son stood eye to eye with him. Osaria had light skin for a Mexican native, and Adonis’s was a shade paler. Herman saw himself in the boy’s stubborn jaw.

  “I wanna change.” Herman waved toward the house. “Come on in. There’s tea.”

  Adonis strode beside him, eyes scanning the property. When Herman had bought the old place, he’d imagined it teeming with children and animals. A country haven, what he’d always dreamed of having when he was a kid. Instead, he had lived out of a travel trailer following the oil field jobs with his father while his mother waited tables or cleaned motel rooms to keep them fed.