A May Bride

by Meg Moseley

  I knew it. Weeks ago, I’d noticed him filling his cup at the self-serve carafe of breakfast blend. It was my favorite too.

  With her usual grace, Betty checked her watch and began to detach herself from the conversation. “Let me know how your showings go, Ellie. It was a pleasure to meet you, Gray.”

  “And you, ma’am.”

  She walked away, and I met his eyes. Warm magnets, they pulled me in.

  “She doesn’t seem like a tyrant,” he said.

  I checked to be sure she was out of earshot. “I never called her a tyrant. She’s just a stickler for professional behavior.”

  “Your time off should be your own, though.”

  “It is, mostly.”

  He glanced at my to-go cup. “Do you have time for a refill and a chat?”

  Wow, he moved fast. It was both exhilarating and scary. I really didn’t know this guy—but I’d been wanting to.

  “I wish I had time,” I said. “But I have an appointment.”

  “How about dinner tonight?”

  I blinked. “Tonight?”

  “A girl’s gotta eat sometime.”

  “True . . .” Now I was really glad I’d Googled his company and found his name on their website. He was who he said he was.

  “What do you say? About six?”

  I did a whirlwind assessment of my day. After the showings, I might have an offer to write up. Or I might be back at my computer, starting from scratch. Either way, a mountain of unrelated work awaited me too.

  “I don’t know what my day’s going to hold,” I admitted.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Your job doesn’t have an off switch?”

  “Well . . .” A gust of wind whipped around the corner, rustling the trees with a tempting whiff of springtime.

  “Live a little,” he said with a grin. “You like Italian? I know a great little mom-and-pop place on Roswell Road. Except I guess it’s more of a mama-and-papa place.”

  He was adorable. My mother’s stories still floated around my head like nightmares, though. My father the rat had once looked adorable.

  I knew what Betty would say too. If a client flirts, never flirt back. Never mix business and pleasure. But Gray wasn’t a client.

  “Okay,” I said. “As long as you can be a little flexible on the time. Can I text you late in the afternoon when I have a better idea?”

  “Sure. You still have my card?”

  “Yes, and here’s mine.”

  He took my card and studied it. “This only has the office address. I’ll need to know where to pick you up.”

  Mom would have advised me to meet him in a public place with a friend in tow, but I wasn’t quite that paranoid. Still, I didn’t want him to know exactly where I lived, so I gave him my street address but not my apartment number. “I’m at the Myrtle Gate Apartments. I’ll meet you at the gate.”

  “That’s easy to remember. The Myrtle Gate gate. Look for a black BMW.”

  “Ooh, nice.”

  “With well over two hundred thousand miles on it,” he added quickly. “But it looks okay and it runs great. It’ll do until I can buy my dream car.”

  “What’s your dream car?”

  “A Mustang convertible. Red.”

  “I’ll look for a black Beemer, but I’ll pretend it’s a red Mustang.”

  “A brand-new one, please?”

  “Of course. Brand new.”

  Like Gray. New, exciting, and fast.

  I gave him a little wave. “Talk to you later, then.” I walked away sedately enough, but I was skipping on the inside.

  I ’d managed to get away early, so Gray picked me up at six. It felt later, though, with nasty storm clouds bringing an early nightfall.

  As I fastened my seat belt, I checked out the interior of his shiny black car. Either he’d tidied it for the occasion, or he was naturally neat. He wasn’t too finicky, though, or he would have dealt with the thin layer of dust on the dash.

  The dome light went out, leaving us in cozy darkness just as a downpour hit. The weather gave us something to talk about while he made the four turns that took us to I-85.

  “How did your workday go?” he asked, eyeing the rearview mirror as he merged into a rush-hour slowdown made worse by the heavy rain.

  “Parts of it were frustrating. The clients I took out this morning are too nice. They pretend to like every listing, even the ones that don’t appeal to them. Or maybe they haven’t figured out what appeals to them.”

  “I’ve figured out what appeals to me, and I’m not shy about making it known.”

  He wasn’t talking about houses. I decided to let his flirtatious little remark hang there, unanswered.

  He seemed entirely unperturbed by my silence. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You sell real estate but you rent an apartment?”

  “Yep. If I sell enough real estate, maybe I can afford my own house someday.”

  “And if you—”

  Lightning ripped a blue-white gash across the sky, and thunder crashed. I jumped and let out a puny squeak.

  “Whoa, Nellie!” He leaned forward, scanning the sky. “That was close. What’s it like on your side?”

  Knowing he meant funnel clouds, I swallowed hard and peered out my window. “It’s too dark to see much.”

  “The storm’s coming from that direction.”

  “No kidding.” Wind rocked the car, and a torrent of water covered the windshield. “How can you see the road?”

  “I can’t.” He made a cautious move to the exit lane. “Turn on the radio for me, would you? The traffic and weather guys are the second button.”

  I did as he asked. Hyperventilating weather reporters delivered rapid-fire tales of woe. Downed trees. Flash floods. A possible funnel cloud sighted downtown. All of metro Atlanta was under a tornado warning, and the rest of North Georgia was under a tornado watch.

  “And it’s only February,” he said with a laugh. He got off the interstate, made a couple of quick turns, and pulled into a Publix parking lot.

  I took momentary comfort in the familiarity of my favorite grocery chain, but I didn’t like the look of things. Waves of water sloshed across the pavement, turning it into a shallow lake. The western sky was a massive wall of black clouds.

  Gray pulled out his phone and checked a radar map. “If we wait it out here, it’ll miss us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He swiveled his head to follow the progress of a couple of intrepid shoppers dashing through rain and puddles toward the store.

  A cop car drove through the intersection, lights on and siren screaming, followed moments later by a fire truck. More sirens wailed in the distance.

  “Ever been through a tornado?” he asked casually.

  “No. Have you?”

  “Two. They’re no fun.” He unfastened his seat belt and turned toward me, his face peachy in the glow of the halogen lights. He was smiling.

  We were hiding from possible tornadoes and the man was smiling?

  “You think maybe you’ve been through two tornadoes because you don’t try hard enough to avoid them?”

  “It’s okay, Ellie. In an hour, we’ll be chowing down. Laughing about this.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am.” He leaned his head against his window and studied me. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

  Fine. If he could be fearless, so could I. I could fake it, anyway.

  “Are you from around here?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m that rare bird, a native of Atlanta. Born and raised inside the Perimeter.”

  ITP, we called it at the office. The part of Atlanta that was encircled by I-285, it ranged from shacks to mansions.

  “You’re a city boy. In cowboy boots.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You?”

  “A country girl, born and raised in Wynnville.”

  “East of here, right? Rolling hills. Big horse farms with white fences. Money.”


  It would be a cold day in the chicken fryer before I told him exactly where and how I grew up, but I could at least admit to being a farm girl.

  “Parts of Wynnville are pricey,” I said. “Right in town, it’s typical suburbia, and on the outskirts it’s a mix of new money and old working farms. I grew up on a working farm. I learned to drive a tractor before I learned how to apply mascara.”

  “I can’t see you plowing the fields.”

  “I didn’t. We used the tractor mostly to haul stuff around.”

  “This city boy has never driven a riding mower, much less a tractor.” The smile fled his lips but still shone in his eyes. “And I’ve never worn mascara.”

  I laughed. “That’s a relief.”

  He didn’t answer, but he kept his gaze on me. Drinking me in.

  My insides wobbled. I wasn’t quite as afraid of the storm anymore, simply because he wasn’t, but I was afraid of myself. I could fall hard and fast with this one.

  I wasn’t going to let some fast-moving charmer make a shotgun bride out of me, though. I would make better choices than my mom. Of course, if she’d made better choices, I wouldn’t have been born. Sometimes that put a damper on my high-minded notions about personal morality.

  A heavy gust of wind shook the car. The streetlights went out, followed in short order by the parking lot lights. The lights in Publix dimmed as if they’d switched to generator power.

  The new darkness gave me cover. I didn’t have to worry that he could see the bedazzlement in my eyes.

  “Tell me more about yourself,” I said.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Everything. “Start with the basics.”

  “I’m twenty-eight. Never married. I live alone. No roommates, no pets.”

  “Any siblings?”

  “Two older brothers. A lot older. They made it their mission to keep me from growing up spoiled. If I wanted something, I had to earn it. If I had problems, I had to solve ’em myself.”

  I had failed Alexa in that respect. “Maybe I should apply that principle to my little sister, but if she has a problem, I try to help.”

  “I hope it goes both ways.”

  “It does, usually. She’s a good kid.”

  I asked more questions, and he was free with his answers. He played guitar, rather badly, and he’d played soccer in college. He was a lefty. A semi-decent cook. He’d made good grades all through school, and he had a clean record except for a parking ticket. That dent in the rear fender of his car, though? He’d put it there. Backed right into a light pole.

  He pulled the same level of information out of me. Never married. I’d made good grades too. After college, I’d worked for a mortgage company for a few years. I hated being cooped up in an office all day, so I segued to real estate. I liked to cook when I was in the mood, and my favorite coffee spot was my own patio.

  “Java Town’s breakfast blend?” he asked.

  “How did you know?”

  He laughed softly. “I noticed you a long time ago, Ellie. The first time I saw you, weeks ago—or maybe months ago, I don’t remember—you were standing at that carafe. Filling your cup.”

  Wow. That might have sounded stalkerish, except I’d been watching him the same way. For a long time.

  I closed my eyes in the darkness and enjoyed the gentle closeness of the diminishing rain tapping on the car. The comfortable silence. The sense of having made a new friend.

  Or maybe my bad-guy radar was broken. It wouldn’t hurt to keep asking questions.

  “Tell me about your parents,” I said.

  “Oh boy.” I heard the smile in his voice. “As my brother Tony puts it, our folks don’t care what people think, and that’s what makes them so much fun. Or, as Tony’s wife puts it, they don’t care what people think, and that’s why they’re so aggravating. They’re good people. Just unconventional.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Nothing at all. Now tell me about your family.”

  I gave him the slightly sanitized version, focused on Mom’s gardening prowess instead of her paranoia. Alexa’s wedding plans instead of her meltdowns. Eric’s kind heart instead of his country-boy ways. I didn’t mention chicken houses, but I mentioned Mom’s fantastic fried chicken and homemade biscuits.

  “She’s a cafeteria lady,” I added. “She loves to feed hungry kids.”

  “I want to meet her,” Gray said drowsily. “Think she’d feed me?”

  I wanted to postpone that drama as long as I could. “Sure, she would feed you,” I said bravely, then changed the subject. “Hey, the storm’s about over.”

  Gray turned on the radio for the road closures. Accidents had shut down the interstate in both directions near us. Roswell Road was blocked by a fallen tree. Traffic lights were out everywhere.

  He turned off the radio. “Can I give you a rain check on the Italian place and go to Plan B for tonight?”

  “What’s Plan B?”

  He nodded toward the store. “The Publix deli. They have great subs. Messy and drippy and delicious.”

  “I love Publix subs.” My stomach growled, and we both laughed.

  “I think I’ll take that as a yes.”

  My phone tootled Mom’s ringtone. Instant guilt. I should have called to see how she’d fared in the storm. I dug the phone out of my purse.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  “Yes, but are you? Channel 2 says there was a funnel cloud downtown.”

  “Everything’s fine here. Did Alexa get home before the roads got bad?”

  “She’s home. Are you sure you’re in the clear, baby?”

  “Yes, it’s barely sprinkling now. Thanks for checking on me, but I’ve got to run.”

  “I hope Eric’s okay,” Mom fretted. “Alexa says he’s over in Monroe . . .”

  When Gray walked around to open my door, I was still sitting there, trying to escape the conversation. Mom was tenacious.

  A distant roll of thunder inspired a solution. “Mom, we shouldn’t be on the phone in a thunderstorm.”

  Gray laughed. “Or on a date.”

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Bye!” I placed my phone in the console, where it could ring its little heart out, and climbed out of the car. Taking a deep breath of misty air, I looked around. I hadn’t seen such a dark night since I’d moved to Atlanta, but the power outage had temporarily put us back several generations.

  At first I could hardly see Gray, but then I saw him holding out his hand.

  And I took it.

  We’d sat at a dinky table in the Publix deli for a couple of hours, staying long after the storm had passed. Then there were so many downed trees and road closures that a five-mile trip home took two more hours. The whole time, we didn’t run out of things to talk about. We compared our churches and our jobs, our childhoods and our college years, our pet peeves and our preferences in everything from ice cream to computers. I hadn’t laughed so much in years.

  As Gray walked me to the door of my apartment, the love songs of frogs and crickets filled the chilly air. Moths flung themselves at the porch light like suitors desperate to win the object of their affections.

  “I’d like to see you again,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

  “Of course it’s all right.”

  “I’ll take you someplace a little nicer than the Publix deli. Can I call you tomorrow so we can compare calendars?”

  “Sure.” Feeling quite daring, I touched one finger to the cleft of his chin.

  Shoot. Now I’d practically invited him to kiss me.

  He moved closer, his eyes searching mine. Oh, those eyes. Warm and lively and kind—with a dash of mischief.

  “Ellie?”

  “Yes?” My voice sounded normal but my heart rate went into overdrive.

  He cupped my chin in his hand. “May I?”

  A good girl won’t kiss on the first date, Mom scolded in my head. A good man won’t ask her to.

  I would consid
er that guerrilla wedding our first date, then. It was a stretch, but I didn’t care.

  “Sure,” I whispered, tilting toward him on tiptoes.

  He bent toward me, and our lips met in warm, delicious union. He encircled me lightly in his arms. His lips pressed mine a little harder.

  The Mom-tape played again. Watch out for the fast-moving, fast-talking charmers. They’ll lead a girl astray every time.

  I pulled away, and his long-lashed eyes crowded Mom’s warning right out of my head. “Thank you for dinner. Even with the storm, it was a wonderful evening.”

  “Unforgettable.” He leaned in for another kiss.

  I was starting to understand what Alexa meant when she said being in Eric’s arms made her woozy.

  I stepped back. “Well. Enough of that. Good night, Gray.”

  He smiled, took my hand, and kissed my fingertips. “Good night. Sleep tight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  He walked to his car, but he didn’t drive away until I was safely inside.

  City men, they’re all alike, Mom would have said. They’re like your father the rat.

  She always ran it together like that. Your-father-the-rat.

  She would have said I was on the fast track to hell, doing exactly what she’d always warned me not to do. I had gone out with a man I didn’t know. I’d kissed him on the first date. And I’d already agreed to go out with him again.

  I would set clear boundaries, though. If he didn’t respect them, it was all over.

  I flopped onto the couch and stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but Gray, who was anything but gray. Gray, who kept me laughing even in tornado weather.

  I couldn’t tell Mom. Not yet. She would take all the joy out of it.

  Gray didn’t call. He just showed up at the office a few minutes past ten. Fortunately, Betty didn’t frown on visitors if their stays were brief. Every visitor, after all, was a potential client.

  Unless my eyes deceived me, he was holding a tall to-go cup from Java Town and one of their gigantic cookies in its neat little paper wrapper. With the cookie hand, he managed to hold the door open for Rosie Kramer as she hurried out with her phone to her ear. She was late for an appointment, as usual, but she had time to give him an appreciative smile.