Reaching, she put her hand on the man’s shoulder. “The polite thing to do is just accept the favor in the spirit it was tendered. If it helps you any, think of it as a wedding present,” she suggested.
“Cash has already given me—us—a wedding present,” Harry protested. “A mighty generous one. He gave us two first-class plane tickets to Hawaii and he’s paying for a two-week stay in this really fancy hotel. I can’t accept both,” he declared. “That wouldn’t be right.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Alma saw Cash opening his mouth to launch into a rebuttal. She held up her hand for him to hold his peace as she addressed his grandfather’s concerns.
“Sure you can,” she told Harry. “It’s the gracious thing to do. It makes Cash happy to do this for you, for both of you. Don’t you want your grandson to be happy, Harry?”
Harry felt as if the road had somehow twisted in another direction beneath his feet. “Well, yeah, sure I do, but—”
“All right, then it’s settled,” Alma declared, cutting in before Harry could launch into phase two of his argument. “You’re going on a two-week honeymoon with your bride and when you come back you’ll have a ranch to come home to. What could be better?”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Harry attempted to appear disgruntled one more time, but it was only an act. Blowing out a long, heartfelt sigh, Harry glanced at Alma’s father, his lifelong friend, and asked, “You ever win an argument with her, Mike?”
Miguel Rodriguez shook his head and laughed. “Not since she was four. None of us in the family have,” he added.
Harry nodded, as if he hadn’t expected anything else. “I didn’t think so.” And then he regarded his grandson. “Thank you, boy,” he said with feeling. “But I still say this is too generous.”
“Don’t worry, he can afford it,” Alma assured the man. She’d heard a great deal about the firm Cash worked for and how elite they were considered. Some of the clients they took on were rich beyond the average person’s dreams. “Besides, it’s what he wants to do. So hug, make up and let the man get back to working on your surprise wedding arch.”
Turning to look at the almost-completed structure—it still needed to have flowers woven through it—she felt obliged to ask, “Does anyone not know about this?”
Miguel answered for his friend. “No, I think it’s pretty safe to say that everyone in Forever knows about it.”
Alma pressed her lips together as she appraised the arch. “Well, at least you won’t have to try to transport it in the middle of the night in order to keep it a surprise,” she said philosophically. “That’s one worry down.”
“What did I tell you?” Miguel said to Cash. “She always finds the silver lining to everything—even if it looks hopeless.”
Harry nodded, getting on the other side of his grandson. “If you ask me, that’s a really good quality to have.”
“Speaking of asking,” Miguel said, picking up on the word, “I’ve got a pot of coffee on the stove.” He looked at Harry. “You up for a cup?”
“If you’re playing host,” Harry told him, “I’d just as soon have a cold beer.”
Miguel grinned, the laugh lines about his eyes crinkling. “Even better. Let’s go inside, it’s hot out here.”
Alma turned to Cash as her father and his grandfather disappeared into the house. “He’s right, you know. It is hot out here. Maybe you should go inside now, wait until it’s cooler to finish working on that.”
“Heat doesn’t bother me,” he told her. He took a step up the ladder, then paused. “Besides, I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy working with my hands.” He gazed down at her for a long moment, then lowered his voice before saying, “Forgot how much I liked being with you, too.”
Was that his way of apologizing again? Or did he think she hadn’t even noticed? Or was she so wrapped up in whatever it was that was bothering him that he couldn’t even see outside his glass prison?
For now, because she’d just quelled one potential flare-up, she decided to keep the situation light. “Is that why you disappeared for two days? You don’t phone, you don’t write—”
But he didn’t banter back. Cash was dead serious when he told her in response, “That was for your own good, not mine.”
Alma watched him climb up the rest of the way on the ladder so he could finish working on the top of the arch. “I thought we settled that line of thinking Sunday morning. Remember?” she prodded. “I said I could decide for myself what was and wasn’t good for me?”
He looked as if he was just going to let that go, but then he couldn’t. “Not if you don’t know the whole story,” he pointed out.
She stood below him at the base of the ladder, her hands on either side to keep it steady. “Then tell me the whole story,” she pleaded.
The need to unburden himself was tremendous, but at what cost? he asked himself. If he told her everything and she was repelled by what he’d done, how could he cope? How could he see her looking at him differently and still be able to go on?
No, it was better just to keep it to himself, to pretend that she wouldn’t judge him and that eventually things would somehow work themselves out. That eventually, his guilt would lessen and that he would learn how to live with what he’d done.
He shook his head in response to her entreaty. “I can’t, Alma. Not yet.” And then, because he had to be honest with her, since she deserved nothing less, he said, “Maybe not ever.”
It was like being slapped in the face. He was supposed to trust her, to know that no matter what, she would be on his side.
“I can’t accept that.” But to keep from having this escalate and get out of hand, she made him a counteroffer. “But I’m willing to put up with ‘not yet’ for a little while.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I forgot how you could argue the birds out of the trees.”
She grinned. “Funny, I never thought of you as being a bird, but, hey—” she shrugged “—whatever works.”
“Speaking of ‘works,’ I’d better get back to working or this thing is never going to be ready on time for the wedding.”
No matter what, he still kept his word, she thought. Which meant that there was hope for him. “You do realize that my brothers left you to do most of the work here, right?”
“I don’t mind.” He paused to hammer in another nail to secure the arch. “They’ve got work to do. I’m just here on vacation.”
Well, that certainly didn’t ring true, Alma thought with a sudden pang. But she wasn’t about to call him out on it, not yet. Instead, she pretended that she didn’t know he’d taken a leave of absence from his firm. “So you’re going back to L.A. right after the wedding?”
“Maybe a day after the wedding,” he told her, raising his voice above the noise of his hammering.
“But you are going back?” she pressed, waiting to see just what he’d say.
He paused for a moment, as if weighing something, then said, “Yes, that’s the general plan.”
She noticed that he kept his back to her when he answered, rather than looking her way. He didn’t want to risk making eye contract.
Because he was lying and he knew she’d know it.
It stung her that he was deliberately lying to her. Just for a split second, she thought about telling him that his firm was under the impression that he had taken a leave of absence and that they had told her that at present they had no reentry date for him. But it would only bring about a confrontation and what good would that do?
This wasn’t about showing him how smart she was or that she knew he was lying to her. This was supposed to be about giving him enough space to work things out on his own.
Okay, so she’d give him that space.
It felt as if someone was twisting a knife in her gut, but reluctantly, she backed off and let him have his precious space. She could be as patient as the next person, but not infinitely so. If he didn’t come clean after his grandfather and Miss Joan left for their honey
moon, she was determined that she and Cash would have words.
Lots and lots of words.
But until then, she’d rein herself in and let things slide. After all, the wedding was only three days away. She could afford to give him three days.
“By the way,” she said, changing the subject entirely, “that was a very generous thing you did, paying off the note on your grandfather’s ranch.”
He shrugged, as if her flattery made him uncomfortable.
“It was the least I could do,” he told her. “Seeing as how he initially got into debt because he wanted me to get an education.”
“You would have gotten it one way or another,” she told him. “It would have just taken you a little longer, that’s all.”
“Not the point,” he said. “He did that for me, without saying a word. I wanted to do the same for him. I would have, too, if Mr. Miller at the bank hadn’t caved the way he did.”
Alma frowned. “Come again? What does the bank manager have to do with it?”
“I told him I wanted to remain anonymous. I know how proud that old man is and I didn’t want him feeling indebted to me. Miller promised it was our little secret. But when my grandfather badgered him, he crumpled like a house of cards in the wind.”
She grinned, picturing the scene. “Your grandfather can be pretty persuasive.”
Cash got his height from his grandfather. They were both six foot three. “The word is intimidating,” he corrected.
Grinning, she inclined her head. “There’s that, too,” Alma conceded.
About to climb farther up on the ladder in order to continue working on the very top of the arch, Cash shifted on the step and looked down at her. “Did you come here to lend a hand or just to talk and play supervisor?” he asked.
Turning her face up toward his, she pretended to be surprised. “You mean there’s a choice?”
“There’s always a choice,” he answered a bit more seriously than she’d expected.
She’d intended to stay and work all along. “Then I guess I can lend a hand. The sheriff doesn’t need the three of us in the office, bumping into one another, anyway. I figure that he can probably spare me for a couple of hours.”
“Yeah, he can always put the crime wave on hold for two hours,” Cash agreed, then laughed at the very idea of anything remotely close to a crime wave hitting Forever. “I didn’t realize how really peaceful it was here until I moved to Los Angeles.”
“So I take it that it’s not the City of Angels?” she teased.
“Oh, there’re angels,” he told her. “But I think most of the time, they’re ducking and hiding to keep from being mowed down.” As he positioned the next strip he intended to hammer in, he lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Like any city, parts of Los Angeles are beautiful and parts you don’t want to walk through, even during the daytime.”
“I guess that’s why I like it so much here,” she confessed. “You could walk anywhere in Forever, night or day, and know that you’ll be safe.”
“Yeah,” he said after a beat. There was a wistful note in his voice.
He was somewhere far away again, Alma thought. Had her words triggered a memory, a thought that took him somewhere against his will?
The expression on Cash’s face told her it did.
It took everything she had not to ask him again, not to demand to know what was really bothering him.
But soon, she promised herself as she began to work, soon she was going to corner him and make Cash tell her what had invaded his soul to this extent to make him so unhappy.
Chapter Thirteen
When she looked back at it later, Alma decided that the hardest part of pulling off the wedding successfully was keeping to a minimum Miss Joan’s participation prior to the actual exchanging of the vows.
That was no easy feat.
Miss Joan kept insisting that she needed to be involved in every aspect of the preparations, from inception to final execution. And, being Miss Joan, everyone had a difficult time trying to persuade her otherwise.
Difficult, but not impossible.
And no one fought harder than Alma to keep the bride in check.
“This isn’t the town’s annual Christmas party,” Alma insisted the morning of the wedding.
She had arrived at Miss Joan’s house only to find the woman in her kitchen about to begin preparing the main course at the reception. As gently but firmly as possible, Alma physically removed the older woman from her kitchen and brought her into the bedroom where Tina was waiting for her, curling iron in hand.
“You’re not expected to be in charge of everything and be everywhere at once. This is your wedding, Miss Joan,” Alma pointed out firmly. “You’re supposed to just sit back and let all of us take care of the details for you.”
Everyone had gladly pitched in, supplying chairs, decorating the area where their vows were going to be said with flowers, and Olivia—who had discovered a fortuitous aptitude for creative cooking—along with several of the waitresses, had prepared the food to be served at the reception, from appetizers to the main course to the elegant wedding cake.
“But I don’t want to just stand on the sidelines. If I have too much time to think, I’m liable to just take off,” Miss Joan warned. “I really need to be doing something.”
“And you are, Miss Joan,” Alma assured her. “You’re getting ready for your wedding.” She squeezed the woman’s icy hands and whispered, “You’re just having prewedding jitters, but it’s going to be all right,” she promised. Ushering the woman into her own bedroom, Alma turned toward Tina. “She’s all yours, Tina.”
But Miss Joan remained standing rather than sitting down in the chair that Alma had pushed her way. She eyed the curling iron in Tina’s hand.
“Just what do you intend to do with that?” she asked.
Because Tina dearly loved the older woman and had seen the softer side of Miss Joan on more than one occasion, she chose her words carefully. “I intend, Miss Joan, to make you even more beautiful than you already are.”
Miss Joan sighed, but Alma could see that she was being won over. “I’m not getting all dolled up,” she warned. “Harry knows what he’s getting. God knows he’s unwrapped the package often enough.”
But, despite her protest, Miss Joan slowly sank down into the chair and reluctantly turned herself over to Tina.
Tina took her cue and began to deftly apply a little makeup to the wise, weatherworn face before she tackled Miss Joan’s rather coarse strawberry-blond hair. “Everyone likes to get dolled up once in a while, Miss Joan,” she told her as she worked. “It’s human nature.”
“Well, I don’t,” Miss Joan countered stubbornly, squaring her thin shoulders.
Afraid that Miss Joan might just decide to walk out, half-done, Tina put her request on a very personal level. “Then do it for me.”
“And for Harry,” Alma interjected. “After all, this is a very special day for both of you.”
Miss Joan made a funny little skeptical noise that sounded something like a humph.
“And what’s that old man doing for me?” she asked, making it sound more like a trade-off than a wedding celebration. She didn’t really expect an answer and was rather surprised when Alma actually gave her one.
Alma looked at her watch. “Well, right about now I believe that Cash is trying to help Harry put on his tuxedo—”
“Wait.” Miss Joan grabbed Alma’s forearm, pulling her in closer. For a woman somewhere in her seventies, she had a grip like the jaws of a pit bull. “Harry’s going to be wearing a tuxedo?” she asked incredulously. “Are you sure?”
Alma nodded. “Absolutely. Cash had it sent in from Dallas. It came by special delivery yesterday,” she told the woman.
“And he’s actually going to wear it?” Miss Joan marveled. Amused, her words were accompanied by a deep chuckle.
Released from Miss Joan’s viselike grip, Alma patted the woman’s hand. “I heard him say to Cash that he wante
d nothing but the best where his lady’s concerned.” She smiled at the woman. “He really is taken with you, Miss Joan.”
Miss Joan did her best not to look as pleased as she was, but she wasn’t a hundred percent successful at hiding her reaction.
Clearing her throat, she said, “I guess that old man’s got a lick of sense in him after all.”
Alma didn’t bother hiding her own smile. “I guess so,” she agreed.
Tina had finished applying Miss Joan’s makeup and picked up the curling iron again. She frowned slightly at the fidgeting woman, who had been like a second mother to her these past couple of years.
“Miss Joan,” Tina said tactfully, “if you don’t want me burning your head with this thing, I’d appreciate it if you sat still for a few minutes.”
Mindful that she’d become a moving target, Miss Joan sighed and then settled down. Like someone in a dentist’s chair facing a root canal, she gripped both armrests. “Okay, do your worst,” she instructed, bracing herself like a captured soldier in enemy territory awaiting torture.
“I intend to do my very best,” Tina contradicted with emphasis as she got started.
Mona peeked into the ever-more crowded bedroom. “How’s everything going?” the sheriff’s sister asked.
Her question was addressed to Olivia, who had, for the most part, remained silent as she readied Miss Joan’s dress for her. Glancing in her direction, Alma saw that Olivia was too busy to realize she was being asked a question, so she answered it for her.
“So far, so good,” she told Mona. “We just might be able to pull this off without a hitch.”
Mona made her way into the room, careful not to disturb anything or jostle against Tina with her curling iron. She looked up at the wedding dress hanging on the back of the closet door.
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