by Lin Stepp
Boyce shook his head as he walked through the night. He’d laid out his heart to Jenna, even proposed, and she told him it all would have to wait for Sam. She had to see to Sam; she had to go back to New York. She hadn’t even said if she would marry him.
“So fine.” He ground the words out. “I guess I’ll wait again. And maybe she’ll call after a while. Maybe she’ll write me some more letters.” He kicked at a stone in the path. “But it’s not what I wanted, and I can’t pretend that it is.”
The whole week had been one long, exasperating experience, and at the end, when it looked like things were going to work out like he wanted, everything had gone sour. She had conditions. She still insisted she had to go back to New York. She wanted to put Sam first. It rankled him. And it ruined everything.
The next morning, when he went over to say his polite goodbyes and learned Jenna was in the shower, he felt a sense of relief. He knew he could avoid seeing her.
He told Sam and Henry his fib about needing to go into Knoxville.
“Jenna will be down in a minute,” Sam said to him, wheeling his chair over closer to Boyce. “If you can wait a few minutes, you can see her.”
Boyce made a point of studying his watch as though considering it.
“No, I’d better get on off.” He avoided Sam’s eyes. “You tell her I stopped by and why I had to leave. She said she’d call me when she got back to New York.”
“She said that, did she?” Sam looked amused. “Just in that way she said she’d call you when she got back to New York?”
Boyce, confused, wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer that. He found his annoyance rising again.
“She said she had to see you back to New York.” His response sounded too curt. He knew it as soon as it was out. “You are going back to New York, aren’t you, Sam?”
“That I am,” he said, smiling as though at some secret joke.
Boyce scowled. He wasn’t in the mood for any of Sam’s jokes today.
Sam patted Boyce on the arm then and grinned at him widely. “You have a good day, Boyce. You have a good day. And when you get back, stop over here at the cabin and check on things for me. Be sure I didn’t leave any lights on - or leave anything behind. Would you do that?”
Boyce’s anger softened. “You know I will take care of things for you, Sam.” He shook Sam’s hand with warmth. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. I always do. You know that.”
“I’m counting on that attribute in you.” Sam reached out to shake Boyce’s hand firmly. “You’re a good man, Boyce Hart. I’ve always thought you deserved life’s best.”
Boyce felt churlish now as he remembered that warm goodbye from Sam. He felt the first twang of guilt. It had been wrong of him to be jealous of Sam. And it was kind of Jenna to care that Sam had a good time down here. As she’d explained, with Sam’s poor health, who knew when he might be strong enough to make the trip again.
Boyce sighed heavily. He might have over-reacted a little through all of this. “I just didn’t want to let her go again,” he said out loud. “I just didn’t want to let her go.”
He closed up the gallery with a heavy heart and started for home.
When he pulled up at his house at the end of Orchard Hollow Road and looked over to Sam’s place, he saw a small shaft of light coming through the front window.
He shook his head. “I guess Sam left a light on at his place. I’d better go over and turn it off and check on things.”
He got his key out as he started across the lawn and soon let himself in Sam’s front door. On the couch, stretched out asleep in front of a small fire, lay Jenna.
Boyce stopped dead in his tracks for a minute, thinking he might be having a fantasy. Then he slipped over to the sofa, and got down on his knees beside her.
Her shiny, dark hair was down, lying about her shoulders, and the firelight played over her gypsy gold skin. Merciful heavens, she looked so beautiful. What was she doing here? Had something happened to Sam?
“Jenna?” he said to her softly. “Jenna, wake up. It’s Boyce.” He watched her eyes open sleepily, and then watched her mouth curve in a sweet smile.
“Is everything all right, Jenna?” His voice was anxious now. “Has anything happened to Sam?”
“No, Sam is fine.” She reached up to touch his face softly. “I saw to Sam just like I told you I needed to. We made it a special last day, and then I put him and Henry on the 3:00 pm flight straight back to New York.”
“You decided to stay for me?” Boyce asked, touched and incredulous.
“I’d always planned to stay.” Jenna yawned slightly. “I meant to tell you but I never seemed to have a chance. And you kept acting so stand-offish. I wasn’t sure how you felt. I started to think maybe you wouldn’t want me to stay.”
She sighed. “I was getting ready to tell you last night when you got mad about Sam.”
A spurt of annoyance shot through Boyce. He jumped up to put space between he and Jenna and then turned angry eyes on her. “You knew this whole week you would be staying on here for a while longer and you didn’t see fit to tell me?”
Boyce paced across the room. “Do you know the agonizing week I’ve been through – thinking you were only here for a short week and then leaving? Do you know how awful it was for me - as the week drifted by full of people and events without any private time for us? Do you have any idea how I felt? I was hurting, Jenna. If you’d told me you were staying a little longer after Sam left it would have really helped.”
She bit her lip. “Don’t be angry, Boyce.” She sat up on the couch and pushed her hair out of her face. “I meant to tell you.”
“Did Sam know all this week that you were staying on after he left?”
She nodded.
“Well, great. You both knew and neither one of you bothered to tell me. And both of you knew I was hurting and having a hard week.”
She wrinkled her brow. “You’re seeing this like a conspiracy, but it wasn’t. In fact, I came looking for you last night – after you got mad - to tell you but I couldn’t find you. I even told Sam last night that I was going to tell you first thing this morning – and then you left.”
Boyce frowned. “And Sam didn’t bother to fill me in?”
She looked puzzled. “He said you had to go to Knoxville but that he’d asked you to come by here on your way home tonight.” She smiled then. “He said our story would be a good one we’d all enjoy telling someday.”
Boyce snapped his answer back. “Well don’t expect me to jump up and down because I got to have a part in a cute and amusing story I knew nothing about.”
He kicked at the woodpile beside the fireplace in frustration. “Especially when apparently I was the only actor that didn’t know he was in a play at all.”
Boyce heard Jenna sigh deeply. “I’m sorry, Boyce. But if you had told me earlier in the week that you cared, I would have shared with you sooner. And last night, when it was finally the right time … you got so upset about me needing to see to Sam that I didn’t get to tell you everything I wanted to.”
“There’s more?” His reply sounded sarcastic, even to him.
She crossed her arms, giving him an irritated look. “Are you even going to let me tell you the rest, Boyce Hart?”
“Maybe,” he answered, poking at the ashes in the fireplace. “If you’ll tell me how long you’re going to stay before you go back. I’d like to have the truth in front of me this time. And no more games.”
“I’m not going back at all.”
He turned to her, stunned, and searched her face. “What about your job? What about your apartment and your friends?”
She smiled at him. “I’ll still have my job and my friends. And I’m keeping my apartment for times I need to be in New York. My company is still there, and my family, and there will be times I will want to go back.”
She twisted her hair up and secured it with a clip. “Park Press has said I can do my work from here. They just want
me to keep on working!” She smiled.
Boyce frowned, trying to understand. “So, Sam is just going to let you stay here at his place indefinitely? Isn’t that rather an imposition on your part?”
“Oh, stop being so cross.” She stood up to face him. “I won’t be imposing on Sam at all. This is my place now, Boyce. I bought it.”
Boyce knew his mouth dropped open. “Sam Oliver let you buy the place he and Frances built?” His eyes narrowed. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, there are some conditions.” She crossed the room toward Boyce. “We’re sort of partners in the cabin for now, meaning that Sam gets to come down whenever he can and that he’ll still have a stake here for as long as he lives. But after that, the cabin is mine.”
“How can you afford it?” asked Boyce. “A place like this in the mountains doesn’t come cheap.”
Jenna sighed then. “Actually Elliott bought it for me,” she announced with a giggle. “Of course, he doesn’t exactly know that. But, indirectly, it’s true.”
Boyce crossed his arms, scowling now. “I think you’d better explain,” he demanded.
She leaned against an arm chair. “You see, Sam agreed to drop assault charges against Elliott if he agreed to two stipulations. First – that Elliot move out of the apartment building where he and Sam live. And second - that Elliott pay a settlement award if Sam would drop the charges.”
“He blackmailed Elliott?” Boyce was shocked.
“Well, now, that’s not exactly the way Sam and Maury put it.” Jenna lowered her lashes. “You see, Sam wanted Elliott out of the apartment. But Sam and Maury also wanted me to sue for more damages in the divorce, and I didn’t want to. So they decided that Elliott would pay a little settlement money through Sam. That seemed fair to them.”
“And this seemed fair to you?” He was surprised.
A little frown creased her forehead. “I didn’t know anything about it until Sam told me the night of the awards banquet. Sam said he knew I wouldn’t take the money, so he said he was giving me the cabin and he was taking the money. He’s leaving it in a special fund for Henry and Mary for all the care they’ve given them. He worries they won’t have enough retirement saved up to live comfortably after he’s gone.”
“Good Lord,” Boyce marveled. “That man just never stops being an amazement to me.”
Jenna gave him an appealing look and started toward him. “So you’re not mad now, Boyce?”
“No, I’m still mad, Jenna,” Boyce said, backing away from her. “And I’m going to go home to sleep on all of this now. You and Sam played a dirty trick on me. You both kept things from me that I think you should have told me much earlier. It would have saved me a lot of grief and anxiety.”
She dropped her lower lip in disappointment. “Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked tentatively.
“I’ll think about it.” He let himself out of the door, emotions warring.
He was halfway across the yard when he heard her voice calling out to him. “Boyce?”
He paused, a little in exasperation and a little in delight at all the memories her calling out to him in the dark brought back to mind. This had always been the pattern with them since the first.
“What do you want, Jenna?” he called back quietly.
“I want the happily ever after, Boyce. Do you think we could do something about that Hart and Hart suggestion you made soon?” Her voice slipped into a whisper. “I don’t like sleeping alone any more.”
He groaned. Mercy, she had a way of getting to him like no other woman.
“Yeah, we’ll think about that and try to plan something real soon,” he answered her. “I don’t like to sleep alone any more, either.”
Her soft laugh in response tantalized his senses.
He paused. “What will you do with your new mountain cabin after we hang up one shingle over here at my place?”
She laughed. “Let Sam come whenever he wants and let my friends come here to visit. I want them to see Orchard Hollow. I know they’ll love it. It will be nice for us to always have a guest house.”
He looked toward where she stood – framed in the light of the doorway. So beautiful. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking this all out.”
“Yes, I have.” Her voice was silky and seductive. “I’ve been thinking it all out on those long nights when I couldn’t sleep. When I was thinking of you.”
He shook his head. “You’re asking for trouble talking like that to me, Jenna. It’s very late, and we haven’t had a proper wedding ceremony yet.”
“Well, we could practice around the edges a little,” she suggested. “I made a nice fire just like you taught me. We could sit on the couch together and watch it and talk.”
“That we could.” He let the last of his anger go and turned around to walk back toward the house, grinning now. “We can talk heart to heart.”
Her soft giggle floated out over the night air as he started across the lawn toward her. Oddly, Boyce’s last thought before he reached her porch was that his life was unlikely to ever be uneventful again.
Epilogue
On a fine Sunday afternoon in late September, two months later, Boyce Hart and Jenna Martin were married in the Wildwood Church in Wear’s Valley. A few folks might have said it was too soon after Jenna’s divorce, while others said it wasn’t soon enough.
Boyce wore a black tux, and Jenna wore a long, simple white lawn dress, trimmed in old lace. On her hair, she wore a garland of multi-colored roses with a swath of veil trailing down behind it, and in her arms, she carried a mixed bouquet of roses.
The little church was packed with friends and family. Boyce’s brother Charles was the best man and Jenna’s friend Carla was the matron of honor. Tyler Dean served as the ring bearer, and one of Boyce’s little nieces, Rita, was the flower girl. Rita and Tyler Dean almost got into a skirmish coming down the aisle because Tyler Dean wanted to help her throw down the petals before the bride, but other than that the wedding went smoothly. Jenna’s father proudly gave her away. Sam, Henry, Mary, and Carla’s husband, John, attended from New York, but Jenna’s mother didn’t make it down - reportedly due to ill health.
The reception was held on the lawn behind Boyce’s mother’s house. Charles and Boyce built a brush arbor for a covered setting for the tables - soon loaded with food and refreshments brought by all - and Reece Wakefield’s band provided entertainment well into the night. The women of the family draped the arbor and many of the trees with white lights, and the whole backyard looked like it was filled with stars. At least that’s what Alice and Sharon said. They wore their new Easter dresses, since Jenna hadn’t gotten to see them in the spring.
Loreen and Betty Jo McFee were determined that they were going to catch the bouquet this time. Alice Graham, visiting the wedding with Scott and Vivian Jamison, sat on a bench well back from the festivities. She had been spotlighted for inadvertently catching a bouquet at the last wedding she attended in the valley and didn’t want to repeat the experience. However, the bouquet sailed across the air and plopped into her lap, anyway, only to be snatched up immediately by the McFee girls.
They claimed Alice catching the bouquet wasn’t legitimate, and they tussled over the bouquet while many of the guests gasped. Alice remained totally unperturbed through it all.
When Doris McFee broke up her daughters’ squabble and tried to give Alice back the bouquet, Alice refused to take it. She agreed with Loreen and Betty Jo that she hadn’t been standing with the young girls to catch the bouquet and that it wasn’t right that she caught it. She sweetly suggested the McFee girls should split the bouquet so they could both enjoy the flowers and share the memory.
Ruth Hart whispered to her daughter, Susan, that a generous heart like Alice’s was a blessing to see. “Blessings will come back to Alice Graham for all the love she gives away,” Ruth said. “You mark my word, Susan. Something good is going to come that girl’s way.”
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; To find out if blessings do come Alice Graham’s way, watch for the next book in the Smoky Mountain series, entitled For Six Good Reasons, set in the Greenbrier area. After that, plan to take a trip to Gatlinburg to meet Delia Walker and Tanner Cross in the fourth novel, Delia’s Place.
Acknowledgements
THANKS also goes to ….
My husband, and on-going, tireless business manager and friend, J.L. – who shares my writing journey.
My wonderful publishing team – who believe in me and support me in all I do.
Wendy Dingwall – President and Publisher of Canterbury House Publishing, Ltd.
Carolyn Sakowski – President and CEO of Distributor, John F. Blair Publishing, Inc.
And my fine editor, Sandy Horton.
Cover Art
The beautiful work of art, featured on the front cover of this book, was painted by the well-known regional artist Jim Gray. It is entitled Mountain Memories.
Jim Gray is a nationally recognized artist who has been painting Smoky Mountain scenes and southern landscapes for over thirty years. In 1966, Gray and his family moved to East Tennessee so that Jim could explore and paint the beauty of the countryside surrounding the Smoky Mountains. Today, Jim Gray has three galleries in East Tennessee and one in Alabama. He has sold over 2000 paintings and 125,000 prints to collectors in the United States and abroad. Jim is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and has been featured in many publications, including National Geographic and Southern Living.
Prints of Mountain Memories, or other fine works of art, can be purchased in Jim Gray galleries or ordered through Jim Gray’s website at: http://www.jimgraygallery.com