I paused for several seconds to let that register and looked Stuart Thomas Rogers straight in the eye. ‘Has there ever—in the history of mankind—been a more important question asked? And can I, in good conscience, perform a wedding ceremony without asking those in attendance if they’ve answered that very question?”
No answers, but then I didn’t expect any. All I really wanted was their attention.
“I won’t go into this now—after all, we have a family to form—but rest assured, we’ll be returning to that question. Feel free to give it some thought in the meantime.” I thought I detected a few sighs of relief, but no one was about to own up to it.
I turned to the couple in front of me: the most precious daughter in the world and the lucky man she was about to marry. Is this the right thing for Mandy to do, Lord? Even as I mentally uttered the prayer, I felt the Lord nudge me as if to say, “You do your job, and let Me do mine.”
Mandy smiled at me with that knowing look in her eye, the one she’s used to twist me around her little finger since the day she was born. No wonder I have back problems. I knew she sensed my hesitation to perform this very special ceremony, knowing how it hurt me to lose my little girl. But as always, I gave in.
Flickering shadows cavorted up and down the walls of the old church, across pews polished to a burnished gold and over the misty-eyed faces of loved ones and neighbors. Candlelight painted the windows with a shimmering glow as if angels hovered just beyond, lending their heavenly light to the events taking place on this side of the glass. The scent of flowers would have made a greenhouse proud—I even imagined I could smell Ruby Mae’s hat.
I took a cleansing breath and began the process of giving away my little girl to another man.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company ...”
Chapter 34
Mack stood on the front porch of the church, his back against the heavy oak door, and meticulously scanned every inch of the landscape in his view. He had three other agents stationed on the two sides and back of the church doing the same thing. Others took positions inside the building and the wooded areas surrounding the town. He even had one man perched atop the roof of the old church. Mack hoped he didn’t fall through the darned thing. He chuckled to himself. Hugh went to all the trouble of replacing the foundation, making it safe for the wedding guests. It’d be a shame if someone caved through the ceiling. Unless they fell on Senator Austin.
He watched the only activity going on outside the church. Bristol Diggs and Grace Headley had their hands full, lighting what looked like hundreds of mason jar candles, hanging them from tree branches and lining pathways from the church to the inn with sand-filled jars. Each glass jar had a candle stuck in the middle of the sand. The mighty men of Road’s End had spent a good share of the day filling those containers with sand and placing candles in the midst of it. Then they tied lengths of hemp to many of them to allow hanging from tree limbs. Others would sit along the pathway.
Grace had explained that the glass jar protected the flame, while the sand protected the jar from exploding and steadied the candle. She showed him one she was getting ready to hang from a tree branch. The hemp that circled the rim of the jar allowed it to dangle safely.
Pretty slick.
While she lit the candles on the steps of the church, she approached Mack. “Don’t you never do anythin’ but stand around lookin’ grumpy?”
He didn’t know what to say. Should he admit that’s all he did and incur her wrath or deny it and have to explain what else he had in his life? He decided to take the path of least resistance.
“That’s pretty much it, Miss Headley,” he said. “Standing around at times like this is considered standard in my line of work. As for looking grumpy, well, I guess you could say looking for danger all the time has its down side.”
Besides, aside from his almost daily trips to the pharmacy to pick up heartburn medications, standing around and looking grumpy was just about all he did do. The thought startled him. There wasn’t much else in Ross MacElroy’s life. Work, sleep, more work, less sleep, even more work. What had happened to him over the years? She happened, that’s what. And there wasn’t a darned thing he could do about it.
His thoughts returned to the task at hand. Grace, with her face up into his, put her hands on her hips and said, “You need to git out more. Socialize, you know?”
For a split second, he was afraid she had the same thing on her mind that her mother did—marriage. But then he remembered Hugh saying something about Grace being hopelessly in love with a clueless Bristol. That gave him an idea. Maybe he’d plant a seed in Bristol’s brain. That’d keep Ruby Mae Headley off his neck, at least. He’d sidestepped marriage once; he could do it again.
After thirty minutes, the candles were lit, and Bristol and Grace slipped into the church to catch the last part of the ceremony. Before she opened the door, though, Grace leaned over and said, “When you hear my momma pounding out ‘The Weddin’ March’ agin, you’d best step aside. This door’ll fly open and send you sailin’ out into the parkin’ lot, Mr. Special Agent Man.” He nodded his thanks and opened the door for them. He gave Bristol a silent two-finger salute, let the door close behind them, and resumed his silent surveillance.
Mack, ever the non-romantic, had to admit the effect of hundreds of flickering candles was breathtaking. The sun had set a few minutes earlier. Evening had fallen across rural Virginia, and the landscape in Road’s End had taken on a fairytale-like atmosphere. Lit only by the glimmer and sparkle of tiny flames reflected and magnified by their glass enclosures, his surroundings looked surreal. Cozy, but jubilant. Festive, yet elegant.
Even the cemetery on the west side of the church was illuminated; pools of light flickered across the names of residents long since gone from Road’s End. One candle sat atop a headstone near the front of the cemetery he’d noticed earlier—flat on its back. Couldn’t they do something about that?
Crickets supplied the background noise, a slight breeze tickled the tiny flames, and a few moths discovered there were hundreds of potential death traps from which to choose. Better stick to porch lights, guys. You’ll be a lot safer.
He heard clapping, which he imagined signaled the end of the ceremony. Sure enough, a second or two later, Ruby Mae attacked the piano with a vengeance. He turned to open the door and was nearly thrown on his behind when both exploded outward in a rush of congratulations and well-wishers. Leading the charge were George Washington and Dewey Wyandotte, followed closely by their wives. Happily, Bristol and Grace came out just then and took charge of the doors, which freed Mack to do what he was there to do in the first place—make sure the President of the United States lived to see another day.
He spoke into his wrist microphone and checked in with his other agents. All was well for the moment. No sightings of anything suspicious, no strangers unaccounted for, taking into account, of course, that just about everyone in the town was strange. All that didn’t mean much, though. Anyone up to no good wasn’t going to announce themselves. He and his agents would stay on high alert until they had the president safely back inside the White House.
He stood to the side and stole a glance at the bride and groom as they left the church. Apparently, the candles had been a surprise because Mandy was near tears at the sight of hundreds of flickering pools of light in the darkness beyond the church. She turned to her mother, who, along with Hugh, had been right behind the happy couple, and hugged her tightly. Mel brushed a tear from her daughter’s face. Mack smiled as he noticed Hugh doing the same for his wife. Well, at least there were four happy people in the world. What would it feel like to be a part of a happy marriage?
He shook his head to clear away thoughts not pertaining to the matter at hand and continued his surveillance. This would be an ideal time for someone to make a move on the president, and Mack couldn’t afford to be distracted. He glanced at the nearest light pole—one of two stre
et lights in the entire town. Either Bristol had removed the bulbs recently or they were burned out. So, when had that happened? Just what he needed. A pitch-black town lit only by candles, the president in full view of a hoard of ... let’s face it, weird folks, intel confirming a verifiable threat against the POTUS, and a storm on its way into town. Well, he’d been in worse messes. He and the president had always survived; they’d do the same this time.
In any event, without those candles flickering in the tree branches and along the path to the inn, the good folks of Road’s End would be wandering around in the dark. He just hoped there wasn’t anyone else wandering around town that night.
Chapter 35
My first thought upon leaving the church was that someone—George, Dewey, Sadie, and most other residents of Road’s End came to mind—had set the town on fire. Thinking back on it, the fact that it even occurred to me, and didn’t surprise me, is a sad commentary on my life.
You can imagine my relief when I realized the flames were tiny and contained in glass jars. Mel explained their purpose, but all I could think of was how long it must have taken somebody to light them all, and how overjoyed I was that my neighbors hadn’t inadvertently sparked an inferno. In any event, Mandy was thrilled to tears, and Jonathan seemed pleased, so who was I to complain? Besides, it did look pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Road’s End by candlelight before. Not bad. Not bad at all.
The trek back to the inn was slow, but joyful. While the reception was scheduled for the following day, Mel had planned an outdoor gathering of friends and family members back at the inn following the ceremony. Hence the candles and the romantic atmosphere, she told me. She all but yanked my arm out of its socket trying to get back to the inn to help set out food, but she needn’t have worried. In a blur of polyester and elbows, Sadie Simms passed us, leaping over candles and weaving in and out of the slower-moving guests.
“Sadie’s on the job, I see,” I said. “Hope she doesn’t knock over the president.”
Mel laughed. “Or poison him.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks, causing Perry and Hazel Parry to smack into us from the rear. I turned to steady the older man and said, “Oh, gee, I’m sorry, Pastor. You, too, Hazel. You okay?”
Perry chuckled and raised his hand to wave off my apologies. “We’re fine, Hugh. Just got caught up in Sadie’s wake, I guess, and lost control. Should’ve been watching where we were going.”
I stepped off the path to get out of the way of other walkers. Hazel smiled at me but headed straight for Mel and before either one of us could stop them, our wives disappeared into the crowd. I turned back to Pastor Parry. “Mel was just telling me she hoped Sadie didn’t poison the president. Scared the daylights out of me. I never thought about that. You don’t think she’s capable of that, do you?”
I must have looked pathetic, because he all but hugged me. “Hugh, Hugh, I know Sadie is an odd one, but even she wouldn’t poison anyone.” He patted me on the shoulder.
I thought about what he said, shrugged, and took off toward the inn again. “You’re right, Pastor. What was I thinking?”
We walked on between the pools of amber light flickering at our feet. Just before we reached the first of the tables set up in the yard, I heard Perry mutter, “Baseball bat, maybe. But no, not poison.”
Chapter 36
The after-wedding gathering was a festive affair with music, food, laughter, and lots of good wishes floating around. The evening was warm with a cooling breeze that helped to dissipate the humidity. I spent most of the next hour eating and staying out of the way. The ladies had everything under control, so I had little to do but enjoy the festivities. Mack walked in and out of the crowd, always scanning the throng of partiers, talking into his wrist, and putting his finger up to his ear whenever one of his other agents contacted him. I noticed Arthur wandering around, usually trailing Mack, and I wondered just how much of a help he really would be in the event of a problem. He was so enthralled with the job Mack was doing I feared he was forgetting his part of it. But that wasn’t my problem. Mine was much worse.
I had the men of Road’s End to deal with.
The usual suspects, George and Dewey, had called a truce during the wedding, for which I was eternally grateful. However, I suspect they began arguing as they left the pews and walked down the aisle to the door, because I could hear little snippets of their conversation—argument—as we strolled toward the inn.
It had something to do with fireflies, or as George called them, lighting bugs. Not lightning bugs, but lighting bugs. George was loudly insisting that the little glowing insects could probably be used to generate electricity if we could just find enough of them to plug into tiny little generators. Dewey scoffed at the idea and proclaimed that there was no way on earth a common bug could be trained to park itself into a slot in a generator, let alone do whatever would be required of it to create electricity.
They sniped back and forth at one another along the entire trek.
“Why do you s’pose they call ’em lighting bugs, then? Huh? It’s ’cause they light things, you dope.” That was George, the human equivalent of the pot calling the kettle black.
Dewey rose to the challenge. “Who you callin’ a dope? ’Sides, they don’t call ’em lighting bugs, you old fool. It’s ‘lighten’ bugs. Get it? They lighten things up? Geesh, were you born in a barn?”
“What’s me bein’ born in a barn got to do with anything?” George yelled. “That barn was in my family fer generations and you’ve got no call to make fun of it, Dewey Wyandotte.”
That shut Dewey up. Apparently, he had no inkling of George’s birthplace—nor did I, for that matter. But all good things must come to an end and so did Dewey’s temporary shut-up.
“I’m not makin’ fun of yer precious barn, Mr. Fancy Pants Born-In-A-Special-Building,” he said, shaking his bony finger in George’s face. “I’m jest tryin’ to tell you that no bug in its right mind is gonna give up its freedom to fly ever’where and anywhere it wants to, to sit in a slot in some teensy-tiny generator to make ’lectricity for folks it don’t know. It’s just not gonna happen!”
By now a crowd had gathered. Everyone knew George and Dewey argued, but they didn’t always have a ringside seat to it. Fresh entertainment is hard to come by in this neck of the woods, and since Rockford Files and Magnum, P.I. are no longer available on regular programming schedules, folks get a little antsy for some real drama. What better way to satisfy that need than to ruin my daughter’s after-wedding party with one of their pointless arguments? Right?
“I’m not talkin’ ’bout ordinary lighting bugs, Dewey.” His shoulders slumped as if the weight of the western world rested upon his arthritic back. “I’m talkin’ ’bout special-trained, farm-raised hybrid bugs.” He shook his head. “Honestly, Dewey, you can be thick sometimes.”
Dewey said nothing for a second, and I feared he was getting ready to clock George on the side of the head. But he surprised me.
“Special-trained? Well, why didn’t you say so, George? That’s makes all the diff’rence in the world. Hybrids, huh? How much d’ya s’pose it’d cost to start one of those lighten bug farms?”
And they were off, best friends once more. I cringed when I heard George say, “Wonder if the prez can pull any strings fer us. Where’d he go, anyway?”
But that was STR’s problem, and it would prove to be just the first of many that night.
Ten minutes later, I ran into George and Dewey again, but this time they had the president backed up against the shrubs that lined the exterior walls of the inn. He appeared to be in a deep discussion with them, and bless his heart, he didn’t even crack a smile. He nodded, listened, commented occasionally, then shook both their hands, and wished them well. They walked off with a gleam in their eyes and a dream in their hearts. I wondered how long it would be before Road’s End was overrun with fireflies.
Mack walked up to STR and said a few words into his ear. The president no
dded then caught my eye and motioned to me to join them. Mack looked grim as I walked up. “Hello, sir. Mack. Having a good time?”
STR grinned. “I can’t recall ever—and I mean ever—having a more interesting time, Hugh. You have some ... well, characters in this town.”
“Characters, sir? You have a wonderful way with understatement. But I do love them,” I said. Every last crazy one of ’em. “They kind of grow on you.”
Mack snorted. “Like mildew, maybe?” He glanced at the president. “Sorry, sir. I was thinking about Mrs. Simms.”
STR nodded his head and said, “Ah-h-h.” Enough said, I guess.
My curiosity got the best of me. “Is there something you need, Mr. President?”
He said nothing for a moment, just stared into the crowd. I followed his gaze and noticed Tanner tugging on Senator Austin’s suit coat. The great man was holding court with a few of Road’s End’s more timid townsfolk—people who wouldn’t call him a criminal to his face. Without saying a word or even acknowledging his grandson, Austin slapped Tanner’s little hand away from his coat. Tanner turned away, tiny shoulders slumped. I could see he was holding a cupcake.
“That man is an abomination,” STR said. He walked toward Tanner, squatted down, and opened his arms.
Tanner’s grin would’ve rivaled any lightning bug’s glow—hybrid or not. After a hug and a few whispered words, Tanner handed the cupcake to the president and skipped away to his dad and Mandy, his here-and-now mommy. I watched as Jonathan and Mandy greeted Tanner with grins and open arms. They looked right together. Three people—one with appalling taste in tea and football teams, one I hadn’t known existed, and my precious daughter—beginning their lives together in the middle of a mass of senior citizens, loved ones, and armed guards. Warms your heart, doesn’t it?
Faux Pas (A Road's End Mishap Book 2) Page 19