Steps to the Altar
Page 30
The knowledge of who he was flooded back into her face and her eyes fluttered and closed.
“A bad dream,” she repeated and laid her head down on the pillow.
“Sí, mi corazon, a dream.”
He curled around her again, cradling her body to his. Before he fell toward sleep, he sent up a prayer to the God he would never understand and whom he had no choice but to follow.
“Protect her,” he whispered to the shadows. “Protect us all through this long, dark night.”
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Sunshine and Shadow
the next Benni Harper mystery by
Earlene Fowler
Prologue
March 18, 1995
Saturday
Dove’s Wedding Day
“ARE YOU SCARED?” I asked my gramma Dove as I pinned the delicate spray of baby’s breath around her smooth white hair, arranged today in an elaborately braided bun. She had sent everyone away but me, her matron of honor and oldest grandchild. Her bright lupine blue eyes were glassy with excitement.
We stood in the pastor’s book-lined office at San Celina First Baptist Church. Muted conversation and laughter seeped through the thick mahogany door to the sanctuary. In ten minutes she would walk down the church’s center aisle clutching the solid right arm of her oldest son, my father, Ben Harper. The church, built a hundred years ago of smooth gray and tan stones dug from the hills of San Celina County, was filled to almost law-breaking capacity with five hundred people, including friends and neighbors, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They were all excited for this momentous and unexpected occasion to commence.
“So, are you?” I asked again.
Dove turned away from the round mirror we’d hung next to the picture of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane to stare at me with solemn eyes. “Down to my very toes,” she said.
“Isaac loves you,” I replied, picking a speck of black lint off her lacy, sky blue dress. Isaac Lyons, world famous photographer, five-time-married man-of-the-world, had fallen face-down-in-love with my gramma from the first moment they met.
“Love isn’t always enough,” she said flatly, her still obvious Arkansas accent slightly slurring the words. She fingered one of her deep blue sapphire earrings, Isaac’s engagement gift.
I pondered her words for a moment, knowing what she said was true. “But sometimes you have to take that chance. Sometimes love is all you have.”
Her ample chest rose and fell in a sigh. “Maybe so.”
“It must be weird, getting married after all these years.”
Dove was seventy-seven years old and had been widowed since she was forty-two.
“Thirty-five years I’ve done as I’ve pleased.” She turned back to the mirror, critically eyeing her reflection. With a wetted finger, she smoothed down a stray piece of hair.
I looked at her reflection in the mirror, rearranged a small piece of baby’s breath. “Isaac won’t try to tell you what to do. He knows better.”
She smiled at herself. “Yes, he does.” Then her face turn soft with what seemed like sadness.
“Are you thinking of Grampa?” I asked.
Her eyes dropped, revealing the delicate blue veins on her eyelids. “How did you know?”
“I thought about Jack when Gabe and I got married.” Jack was my first husband, my high school sweetheart, who was killed three years ago in an auto accident.
Her eyes came back up and caught mine. “Both times?”
“Yes.” My second husband, Gabe Ortiz, and I had eloped to Las Vegas, but were married in a second ceremony in this very church a little over two years ago. “But especially when I was married here. Jack and I spent so much time here.” My own reflection showed a thirty-seven-year-old woman in a round-collared peach dress, reddish-blond hair pulled back in a French braid. I’d worn my hair up when I married Jack, in dancing curls that took a can of hair spray to hold in place.
“I am thinking about your grampa.”
“You still miss him.”
She ran a finger under one eye, uncomfortable with the mascara she was wearing. “You know how I feel. He was my first love.”
I slipped my arm around her shoulder. The stiff lace tickled my palm. “Remember standing in this room with me when I was getting ready to marry Jack? Daddy was so nervous. He still smoked then and I think he had ten cigarettes in ten minutes. He reeked of tobacco when we walked down the aisle.” I wrinkled my nose.
We both laughed. I had been nineteen, full of hope and excitement, bubbling over with youthful arrogance. Now I can look back and savor those carefree times, as brief as they seemed now. Perhaps we’re given those perfect moments to sustain us through the hard times that inevitably come as we maneuver through this life on earth.
“Your daddy is pacing outside the door right now,” she said. “He told me last night that he hopes all the women in his life are settled for a while, that he was tired of all the romantic intrigue.”
I grinned at her in the gray-tinted mirror. Part of my smile was hidden by a clover-shaped dark spot in the silver. “He needs some romantic intrigue of his own.” It would be hard to imagine my father in love. He’d been widowed himself for over thirty years.
A soft snort came from her pale pink lips. “I’ll leave that to you.”
From behind the wall we could hear the muffled sound of organ music. The door to the sanctuary opened and MacKenzie “Mac” Reid, our minister, walked in. His six-four, ex-football-player figure seemed to fill the warm room.
“How’re we doing, ladies?” he asked, grinning widely from behind his bushy chestnut beard. Forty-three and a widower himself, he was thrilled that Dove had found someone after all these years. “Means there’s hope for me,” he told us at the rehearsal dinner last night.
“How much time does she have left before walking the plank?” I asked, grinning back.
He glanced at his black sports watch. “Five minutes. Looks like everyone’s here.” He took both of Dove’s hands in his massive ones and gazed down at her with his gentle, pewter gray eyes. “Sister Ramsey, are you ready?”
There was a small moment of hesitation, then a strong, “As ready as I’ll ever be, Brother Mac.”
“Then I’ll see you out there.”
After he left, I grabbed her hand. “I’m so happy for you. It’s about time you had someone of your own.”
Her eyes grew misty. “Maybe this isn’t the right thing. Time is so short. One of us will have to survive being widowed again. Isaac has lost three wives to death. I’ve lost your grampa. I don’t know if I want to go through that again.” Her normally booming voice was low and afraid. It was a voice that had soothed me and scolded me, threatened me and praised me throughout my life. “I don’t know if I can.”
I paused a moment before answering, wanting to comfort her, wanting to help her through this dilemma as she had helped me through so many sad and difficult times in my thirty-seven years. She’d essentially been my mother since I was six years old and my own mother died of cancer. Without hesitation or complaint, she’d uprooted her whole life in Arkansas and moved to the Central Coast of California to help Daddy raise me as well as run the Ramsey ranch. She deserved this happiness.
I held her cold hand tightly, trying to transfer my hand’s warmth to hers. “Remember when Jack was killed and so many people were telling me that I was young, that I could still find someone, that my life wasn’t over, that I shouldn’t give up?”
She clucked under her breath. “People never just say they’re sorry. Always got to be giving advice.”
“Remember when I finally blew up and yelled at you that I was sick of people telling me what I should or shouldn’t do, that I never wanted to love anyone again, that I never, ever wanted to suffer the pain of losing someone again? You listened to me rant and rave and then told me that I didn’t have to, that I could sit in my room and do nothing for the rest of my life if I wanted a
nd that you’d support me in that decision and would always love me and never nag me to do anything else.”
Her pink lips turned up in a smile “I lied. I did eventually nag you to start a new life.”
“Yes, but not at first. You let me wallow, you let me grieve. You gave me the gift of time. That was what I needed. Time to get used to my new life, a life that didn’t include Jack. I had to get used to that life before I could even think about having a life with someone else.”
She glanced up at the clock on the wall. Its ticking seemed like a tiny, insistent voice telling us time was running out.
“I know, get to the point. My point is, if you want to ditch this marriage and run back to the ranch, I’ll drive you. My truck is right outside. I’ll support you in whatever you want to do and I will love you no matter what. Just like you always have me. But first, tell me truly, how do you feel about this man?”
She sighed again. “I’ve had a long time to get used to a life without your grampa.”
“Yes, you have.”
“His passing tore my heart to shreds.”
“Yes, I know.” I continued to hold her hand.
“But I didn’t fall apart.”
“No, you didn’t. Ramsey women don’t fall apart. You’ve told me that more than once.”
“We had us some wonderful times, me and your grampa. Oh, honeybun, I wish you could have known him. He had the most beautiful singing voice. He was always a’singing, when we’d pick cotton and beans, when I was going through labor to have our babies, when they’d get the colic and couldn’t sleep. I knew he’d died when he was chopping wood because he quit singing in the middle of a song.”
She sang softly, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine . . .” She stopped, swallowed hard. “He stopped right there and I knew something was wrong because he never stopped singing in the middle of a song, not in all the years I knew him.”
The outside door opened and Daddy stuck his head in. “Dove, we need to get out to the front of the church now. It’s time.”
The sound of the organ thrummed through the office walls. I could just make out the melody—“We’ve Only Just Begun.” Dove had always loved the Carpenters.
“One last time,” I said. “How do you feel about Isaac?”
She looked directly into my eyes. “He pure out gladdens my heart.”
I squeezed her hand gently. “Then it’s time, Gramma.”
For a moment, her pale blue eyes widened and she grasped my hand so tightly I almost winced. “Don’t leave me.”
“Not a chance,” I said, leading her to the door toward my father. “Not until I deliver you safely into the arms of the one who loves you.”
“And then?” she asked, her voice reedy with panic.
“Then I’ll stick around to make sure he’s treating you right. Just like you always have me.”
With that, she let go of my hand, straightened her spine, and stepped over the threshold, the old Dove restored. “Then let’s get this marriage on the road.”
A Berkley Prime Crime Hardcover
0-425-19597-X
National bestselling author
EARLENE FOWLER
Sunshine and Shadow
Spirited ex-cowgirl, quilter, and folk-art expert Benni Harper is investigating the connection between her favorite author, the murder of a family friend, and a crazy quilt.
When she starts receiving strange phone calls and anonymous letters telling her she’ll be the next victim, Benni’s interest in the case becomes even more urgent.
“BEGUILING...INGENIOUS.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)
“WARMHEARTED.”—BOOKLIST
Available wherever books are sold or to order call 1-800-788-6262
PC002
Berkley Prime Crime Books by Earlene Fowler
THE SADDLEMAKER’S WIFE
The Benni Harper Mysteries
FOOL’S PUZZLE
IRISH CHAIN
KANSAS TROUBLES
GOOSE IN THE POND
DOVE IN THE WINDOW
MARINER’S COMPASS
SEVEN SISTERS
ARKANSAS TRAVELER
STEPS TO THE ALTAR
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
BROKEN DISHES
DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS
TUMBLING BLOCKS
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - GABE
Chapter 2 - BENNI
Chapter 3 - BENNI
Chapter 4 - BENNI
Chapter 5 - BENNI
Chapter 6 - GABE
Chapter 7 - BENNI
Chapter 8 - BENNI
Chapter 9 - BENNI
Chapter 10 - BENNI
Chapter 11 - BENNI
Chapter 12 - GABE
Chapter 13 - BENNI
Chapter 14 - BENNI
Chapter 15 - GABE
Chapter 16 - BENNI
Chapter 17 - BENNI
Chapter 18 - GABE
Chapter 19 - BENNI
Chapter 20 - BENNI
Chapter 21 - BENNI
Chapter 22 - BENNI
Chapter 23 - BENNI
Chapter 24 - GABE
Chapter 25 - BENNI
Chapter 26 - GABE
Teaser chapter
EARLENE FOWLER