by Lori Wilde
“Please,” Valerie had pleaded with Sam in a whisper after drawing him aside in the exam room, while Charlie sat tenderly stroking the calico. “Don’t let the cat die. I don’t think he can handle losing the cat on top of losing his father.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised her. He’d gone on to discover that Speckles had a heart defect that could be corrected with surgery. He’d charged her only the cost of his supplies. Speckles had pulled through, thrived, and ironically had outlived Valerie.
They’d look so vulnerable, mother and son, that he’d taken to dropping by their place—the place where he and Charlie still lived—to check on them, mow the lawn, hang pictures, build shelves. A friendship had blossomed among the three of them, and when Valerie learned she’d been called up as a nurse in the Army reserves, he’d proposed. She’d had no family left. Although Jeff had parents, they were really old so she had no one to take care of Charlie while she was gone. By marrying her and adopting Charlie, Sam vowed to stay behind and look after her son, while she put her life on the line tending to America’s soldiers in Iraq.
She’d been a hell of a woman. He’d admired and respected her. And he’d loved her, even if it had been more like a dear friend than a passionate lover.
Thinking of passion made him think of Emma again and how his pulse had sped up when he’d found her standing on his porch. How even after sixteen years she could still make his heart misfire. Maybe there was something to the town’s sweetheart myth. Maybe there was nothing like your first love. But even if that was true, he had no business exploring these feelings.
She was only in town for a little while. It was best to steer clear of her, even if she was staying at his sister’s house just around the corner. He had his work, he had Charlie.
It was enough.
CHAPTER FIVE
Quilts are permanent hugs of love.
—Jenny Cheek Cantrell, owner of the Merry Cherub and member of the True Love Quilting Club
The Merry Cherub lived up to its name.
The house was a restored Victorian converted into a homey bed-and-breakfast. The minute they stepped through the door, Emma’s nostrils were assailed with charming aromas of vanilla, grapefruit, and lavender. Underneath the initial potpourri fragrance she detected fresh paint, new carpet, and polished wood. The comforting sound of Pachelbel slipped quietly through a piped-in stereo system. But the intriguing scents and the uplifting music weren’t what took center stage at the Merry Cherub. Rather it was the overabundance of angels.
Everywhere she looked, Emma saw angels.
Angel wallpaper, thick and velvety-looking. She traced a finger over the paper in the foyer; amazingly, it felt like velvet. Angel mobiles dangled from the ceiling, flying gently from the movement of the air-conditioning. Angels were carved into the staircase and the impressive crown molding. Ceramic and porcelain angels sat on display inside a mahogany curio cabinet beside the front door. There was an angel umbrella stand and an angel coat rack and even an angel rocking chair.
The angels came in every conceivable style and color—round, cherubic angels that looked like babies; fun, playful cartoon angels; tall, thin angels with windblown hair and benevolent expressions.
She fought an overwhelming urge to burst into tears and she had no idea where the emotions were coming from, but they flowed over her, along with the baroque music. She felt at once incredibly inspired and sad all the way to the center of her bones.
Jenny reached over to pat her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Sensitive, artistic people often have a strong emotional reaction to the Merry Cherub.”
“Really?” Emma said.
“Glenn Close started crying when she walked through the door.”
“Glenn Close stayed here?” Emma was impressed.
“Yes, she and Nina are good friends. She did a two-day run at the playhouse in Tobacco Road. She is the nicest person. I got my picture taken with her and she wrote a letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram praising the Merry Cherub. Business has been brisk ever since.” Jenny picked up Emma’s suitcase and started for the stairs.
“I can carry that.”
“No, no, you’re my guest. Come on.” Jenny’s eyes sparkled.
“Put the suitcase down, I’ll take it upstairs,” a male voice scolded. “How many times have I told you to leave the luggage for me?”
From a side room a handsome, blond-haired man appeared and took Emma’s suitcase from Jenny. He was built like a lumberjack, with broad shoulders and bulked-up biceps. He had lively, garrulous brown eyes and a ready smile.
“Hi, I’m Dean. Jenny’s husband. You must be Emma.” He extended his hand. His handshake was warm and welcoming.
“Nice to meet you, Dean,” she said.
“Patches herded her over to Sam’s,” Jenny explained.
“Just like we figured.” He went up the staircase ahead of them.
“We’re putting you in the pink room,” Jenny said. “That’s where I put all the VIPs.”
“I’m not a VIP.”
“Sure you are. Local girl does good on Broadway.”
She wasn’t really a local girl and she hadn’t exactly done good, but Emma let it go and followed Jenny up to the landing that was carpeted in an angel-print rug.
The pink room was just as angelic as the rest of the place, except here all the angels were various shades of pink—mauve, salmon, magenta, rose, cherry blossom, fuchsia.
“Best room in the house. The mattress is a pillow-top Stearns & Foster and your bathroom has a pink spa tub,” Dean said, setting her suitcase down at the end of the bed.
“Wow.”
“I know, right?” Jenny grinned and hugged herself. “It still gives me goose bumps.”
Or nightmares.
“Hard to believe this B&B is ours.” Dean draped his arm around his wife’s waist.
“So,” Jenny said, handing Emma the room key. “Is this weird for you or what? Seeing your first love for the first time in what? Sixteen years, is it?”
“You mean Sam?”
“Of course I mean Sam.”
“Sam’s not my first love,” Emma denied. At fourteen, they’d both been very shy about labeling their affection for each other as anything other than friendship, until that kiss in the theater. But then the day after that Emma had moved away for good.
“Don’t be silly, of course he is.” Jenny lightly punched her upper arm the way she’d punched Sam’s earlier. “Everyone in my family knew it. He moped for months after you left town.”
The punch on her arm was an intimate gesture. Something you’d do with a sibling or close friend, not to a woman you barely knew. It unsettled Emma. Not because she didn’t like it, but rather because she did. She ran a hand over her arm.
“Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry.” Jenny rubbed with her palm where she’d just punched. “I get carried away sometimes. Coming from a big, boisterous family with four brothers does have its downside.”
“She doesn’t know her own strength.” Dean ruffled his wife’s hair with a big hand.
“I’m fine,” Emma said.
“Whew, good. Sam would kick my ass if I hurt you. He’s always standing up for the underdog and taking in strays.”
“He does seem to have grown into a very nice man.”
“Out of all my brothers, he’s the most tenderhearted. He was always quiet, but after he got mauled by the mountain lion he did turn a bit dark and broody.” She clicked her tongue.
Shock seized Emma. “Sam was mauled by a mountain lion?”
“Junior year in high school, on a Boy Scout camping trip, he comes across a young male mountain lion in Big Bend National Park. The lion is sick, can’t walk, but does my brother go for the game warden? Does he even go back for his scoutmaster?” Jenny shook her head. “Nooo. Sam tries to help it. And even when the rest of his troop came upon him, bleeding and almost unconscious, he wouldn’t let them shoot it.”
Emma hissed in her breath through gritted teeth. “Tha
t’s how he got the scar on his forehead.”
“Yeah. He’s very self-conscious about it and he’s worn his hair long in front ever since to cover it up. But, you know, women are crazy for the scar. I mean, come on, he’s so handsome and the scar lends him a dangerous air, don’t you think? Even though Sam’s not the least bit risky.”
I do. Emma said nothing.
“But that kind of attention makes him uncomfortable. I swear I think that’s a large part of why he hooked up with Valerie. She was a nurse and she didn’t make a big deal about his scar. She was neither impressed nor repulsed by it. She saw him for who he really was beneath it.”
“He must have loved her a lot.”
“She was good for him,” Jenny hedged. “Brought him out of his shell a bit. But since she’s been gone, he’s reverted. Although he does take such good care of Charlie. It still amazes me.”
“Why does that surprise you?” Emma asked. “He’s Steady Sam, and Charlie is his son.”
Jenny raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Charlie’s not his. Not biologically anyway.”
Emma pressed three fingers to her lips. “Are you saying his wife cheated on him?” Why she should suddenly feel an irresistible urge to kick a dead woman’s ass, she didn’t know, but she felt it all the same.
“Oh, no, no. Sam married Valerie after her first husband was killed in a car crash, and she got called up from the reserves to active duty. She didn’t have any family to take care of Charlie. So Sam adopted him.”
“It wasn’t a love match then?” Damn. Why had she said that?
Jenny’s eyes sparkled. “Not like you and Sam, but he and Valerie had a nice thing going. Of course he and Charlie both have been in a blue funk since she’s been gone. That’s why it’s so cool you’re here.”
“What do you mean? What do I have to do with it?”
Jenny spread her arms wide, “Come on, Emma, you’re in Twilight, the town that specializes in hooking up their childhood sweethearts with each other. Don’t you remember the town myth?”
Emma shook her head.
“Rumor has it that if you throw pennies into the fountain in Sweetheart Park, you’ll be reunited with your high school sweetheart. Many reunited lovers come to Twilight to get married under the Sweetheart Tree, and in fact, that’s how Aunt Belinda got started as a matchmaker.”
Emma shook her head. “That sounds pretty farfetched.”
“It worked for me,” Dean said. “That’s how I won Jenny back after we had a big blow-up after high school and broke up for a year. I bet I tossed a hundred dollars’ worth of pennies into that fountain.”
Jenny grinned at him and then said to Emma, “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s something about Twilight that brings old lovers back together.”
“Well, see there. I have nothing to worry about. Sam and I were never lovers. We were just kids.”
“You don’t have to get physical to be in love,” Jenny said sagely. “Now we’re going to let you freshen up, and then in half an hour, I’m going to take you on over to the Methodist church on Holloway so you can meet Nina and the rest of the True Love Quilting Club.”
Half an hour later, Emma walked into the community center of the Methodist church with Jenny, who was chattering like a cheerleader on amphetamines. Did the woman ever wind down?
Emma recognized Nina Blakley, the Tony award–winning actress. She moved with a grace and elegance that spoke of someone who’d trained for the stage. She was as tall as Emma was short, probably close to six feet, and she appeared to be in her early fifties, but Emma knew that if she’d won a Tony award in the sixties, she had to be a decade older than that. The minute Emma and Jenny appeared, Nina got to her feet and crossed the room, arm outstretched to take Emma’s hand.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Emma,” she said in a smooth, controlled voice that didn’t reveal a hint of Texas accent even though Emma knew she’d been born and bred in the Lone Star State.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Emma said, craning her neck upward.
Nina held her hand a moment and gazed into her eyes. “Anyone who has the courage to kick that tyrant Scott Miller in the family jewels when he tries that casting-couch crap is forever on my favorite person list.”
“I have to tell you,” Emma said, “it wasn’t the smartest move I ever made on Broadway.” She furrowed her brow. “Come to think of it, it was the only move I ever made on Broadway. Blew my big chance before it ever got started.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Nina patted her hand. “You’re a legend around here. Come meet the members of my quilting club and your devoted fans.”
Feeling more pleased than she should about that comment—after all, she didn’t want to be infamous for sending a handsy Broadway director to the hospital to have a testicle removed—Emma tried to keep up as Nina introduced her to the members of the quilting bee.
“This is Patsy Cross,” Nina started with the first woman seated on the left. “She’s on the city council and runs the Teal Peacock, it’s the most adorable little curio shop just off the square.”
Patsy looked to be in her late fifties. She had short blond hair that feathered attractively around her face. A pair of reading glasses rode the end of her nose, and she studied Emma like a high court judge sizing up a defendant. “You used to live in Twilight.”
“For a year. When I was fourteen. My f…fa…father”—she stumbled over the word—“worked at the nuke plant in Glen Rose.” She managed to avoid adding, “Your Honor,” but the phrase sat on the end of her tongue.
Patsy nodded. “I thought I remembered you. That makes you one of us.”
Emma wasn’t sure what made her one of them. The fact that Patsy remembered her, or that she’d once lived in Twilight. Either way, she felt that dangerous sense of delight again.
Patsy leaned over the section of quilt in front of her and went back to her stitching. The women clustered around a quilt that was rolled like a scroll around two wooden rods mounted on metal stands. The quilt was pulled taut between the two poles—spaced four feet apart—and even in its unfinished state, it was stunning. The pattern was intricate, the stitches precise, the colors complementary.
“It’s called a double wedding ring,” Nina explained, catching the direction of Emma’s gaze. “We’re making it for Patsy’s nephew, Jesse. He’s getting married to Flynn MacGregor next month.”
That meant nothing to Emma, but she smiled like it did. “Congratulations.”
“This wedding was a long time coming,” Patsy said. “Jesse and Flynn were high school sweethearts who took a long, tortuous road to romance.”
“Not everyone realizes they’re destined when they first meet,” said the round-faced woman sitting next to Patsy.
She was forty-ish, with a ready smile. The T-shirt she had on bore the photographs of five adorable kids, and along with the unflattering mom jeans she wore, told Emma the woman was a busy mother who didn’t have the time or inclination for stylish dressing. She reached out a hand to shake Emma’s. “I’m Belinda Murphey. Jenny and Sam’s aunt on their mother’s side and the local matchmaker.”
“Jenny told me about you.”
“I specialize in reuniting long-lost loves.” Belinda beamed. “I married my own high school sweetheart, and I’ve successfully matched over a hundred happy couples.”
“Um…that’s nice.”
Belinda cocked her head, eyed Emma’s bare ring finger. “Are you in a relationship?”
“Don’t let her pressure you,” said the thin, sharp-nosed woman positioned just to the side of one of the metal stands. She was around the same age as Patsy Cross. “Belinda’s a love addict. She can’t help herself. Whenever she meets a single person, she feels duty-bound to fix them up.”
“Oh,” Emma said, taken aback by this woman’s frankness. She was still attractive at sixty and she styled her blond hair long and straight in a modern
cut. She wore a miniskirt that wasn’t age appropriate, but she did have a nice pair of toned, shapely legs to show off. Emma instantly liked her and hoped she would have as much chutzpah when she was this woman’s age.
“Name’s Raylene, by the way. Raylene Pringle.”
“Pringle? Like the potato chips?”
Raylene pointed a finger at her. “If you laugh, I’ll hold it against you.”
“She will too,” Belinda said.
Patsy laughed.
Raylene glared.
Belinda waved a hand. “Pay those two no mind. They have history.”
“And yet they’re in the same quilting club?” Emma commented.
“We’re in a knitting club together as well,” Patsy said.
“No kidding?” Emma didn’t know what to make of the dynamics between these two.
“I hate her like a sister.” Raylene grinned and reached over to hug Patsy’s neck.
“You smell like booze.” Patsy sniffed.
“One glass. I had one glass of red wine. Dr. Longoria said it’s perfectly okay for me to have one glass of red wine a night. Right, Terri?” Raylene winked at the youngest woman in the group, who was sitting directly opposite her.
“Terri’s husband is chief of staff at Twilight General,” Belinda explained.
Terri raised a hand. “Hi, Emma. Yes, my husband, Ted, is the big cheese over at the hospital and I run Hot Legs Gym. Drop by sometimes. I’ll give you a free pass to check out the facilities.”
“That’s nice of you.” Emma tracked her gaze over Terri. She was six or seven years older than Emma, with beautiful caramel-colored skin and dark brown hair cut pixie-style.
“We want you to feel welcome in Twilight,” Terri said.
“I already do,” Emma assured her. Too welcome. That was the problem. She already felt as if they had too many expectations of her. Expectations she was sure she couldn’t fill. Honestly, she felt overwhelmed. “Thanks to Jenny.”