The Family Wish (Match Made in Devon Bridal Shop Book 3)

by Danielle Blair

  32

  Alex

  Freesia stood in much the same way Alex had seen her on day one: distant, willowy, olive skin, clothes layered and earthy and cinched in all the right places. Had she been dressed in white, Alex might have thought her a spirit, a figment of the moonlight, a trick of the mind, though Alex knew now that wasn’t the case. She was a statue at the far reach of the field, staring at them.

  And something was wrong.

  Alex was as certain of this as she was that Devon was where she belonged.

  No longer stoic, Freesia turned, hugging herself, one hand rubbing at her bare arm as if battling a July chill, the other clutching a sheet of paper. At the sight of Charlotte and Alex approaching, she languished.

  A sliver of unease worked its way along Alex’s vertebrae.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Charlotte asked.

  Freesia shook her head.

  Charlotte motioned toward the trailer. “I’d suggest we sit but there might be Clement Grant’s semen inside that old thing.”

  The three exchanged looks, made an unspoken, collective decision that standing in a field was preferred.

  “Why are we out here, Freesia?” said Alex.

  “Seemed fitting. Place that finally brought us together. Place that got us to our truth.”

  Freesia turned, just so. Streaks of wetness on her cheeks caught the moonlight.

  “I thought about something the lawyer told us,” Freesia said. “How he loved Stella Irene, told her he would do anything, go anywhere, for her. And when I put it right up against Mama’s ramblings as she lay dying, it all made sense. Part of her fantasy inside the snow globe. The ultimate lie she told herself.”

  Charlotte reached for her.

  Freesia stepped away. “I’m not your sister.” She looked at Alex. “And I’m not your sister. Elias March was not my father.”

  Alex stood, staring at Freesia’s stunning face, her heart picking up speed, far out-distancing her mind. The trailer seemed to move, there one moment, gone the next, and then, in her hand, the paper Freesia had been holding: folded, crinkled, imprinted with the name of a DNA company logo.

  “What’s this?” Alex asked, but she already knew.

  “Evidence none of us asked to see. A condition of settling the estate. A comparison to Charlotte’s DNA sample. Grant admitted to ordering the test so it would appear the estate had been properly handed, so we wouldn’t question, but he buried the results.”

  Charlotte frowned. “Mama didn’t know?”

  Alex’s brain caught up to speed, pieced through the motivations, decided Grant had none. Since the first moment at the Evangeline Oak, Stella Irene had a hand on every marionette in her display of love. Either way, the performance was a show of guilt. “She knew what she was doing.”

  “He said Stella Irene wanted to give me a name, a future that included the bridal shop, a family who would love me the way Elias loved my mother. Told him it was the only way to make things right.”

  Charlotte let out a wet, choking sob. “It’s not true.”

  Stinging gathered behind Alex’s eyes. Her throat closed at the intensity with which Charlotte lost herself, surprising but not.

  Freesia pressed the back of her hand to her quivering lips. Fresh tears threatened.

  The paper in Alex’s hands said it all. She knew the results to be their new truth.

  But they didn’t have to be.

  Work backward, Alexandra. What Elias would have said had they been at the kitchen table, grinding through a puzzle. Start at the beginning.

  The beginning.

  If only…

  The four-wheeled behemoth of their past settled as if issuing her challenge.

  Fury found her feet. Alex set her cell phone to flashlight on her way toward the trailer.

  All the pieces showing. Know what you have.

  “Where are you going?” Charlotte called.

  Footsteps rearranged the field behind her.

  First known parameter. The paper in your hand.

  Alex climbed inside, headed straight for the kitchenette.

  Second known parameter. Mama hid her lighter in the oven.

  Charlotte and Freesia gathered at the trailer’s door. Alex seized the lighter and came out to meet them. Freesia’s eyes were as big as constellations.

  The strike wheel budged. No flames sparked. Alex shook the lighter. Fluid sloshed inside. She tried again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again-again-again.

  Charlotte reached for her as a spark swelled into a glow—weak and purple, a flame nonetheless. Alex held the paper to the flame, steady, steady, until fire licked the page.

  Rid yourself of irrelevant information.

  No one said a word.

  A tongue of fire worked its way up the results, curling and scorching and disintegrating the colored pie chart, the conclusion paragraph, the words no match in boldface type.

  Charlotte reached for the side of the page yet to be destroyed and took it from Alex. She tossed the incendiary paper through the trailer door with a squeal.

  Fire took to the dry paneling like an alcoholic to drink.

  “Fuck the trailer,” Charlotte shouted. “Good riddance.”

  A wheezy, jubilant laugh escaped into the night. Alex realized it was her.

  Freesia slow-smiled, then joined in.

  The fire intensified. The three created distance, stood at the field’s center, watched flames consume curtains, glove boxes, uncapped pipes with a view to a mattress.

  Alex couldn’t say what started it—the hug that squeezed back, the hug to rival all others that had come before, the three-way hug that filled both arms and was strong enough to fit all their pieces back together—but she could say what ended it. A mini-explosion lit the night. Propane tank, gasoline tank, oil reserves—the inferno pushed back the darkness in spectacular fashion.

  Charlotte clapped and cheered.

  Independence Day had come early.

  33

  Alex

  The moment Alex suggested a surprise wedding to Charlotte, just family and a few friends out on Jonah’s completed back deck, what guests would believe was the engagement party he suggested but would really be attended by Pastor Clay and a willing bride, Charlotte was convinced that body snatchers had made their way to the delta, abducted her real sister, and replaced her with a woman who uttered things like I’m tired of lists and plans, schmands. Alex vowed to stock smelling salts in the shop from that moment on.

  She was strict in her directive: no one could know but Charlotte and Freesia—Charlotte to help her pull off the surprise and Freesia so that she didn’t leave for New York until after the vows. Not the Silver Swarm. Not Nash or the girls or Gabriel. But as the evening drew close and Alex looked on from the upstairs guest room where she had laid out a Freesia Day original on the bed and Jonah switched on the deck bulbs below, his Christmas in July, Alex knew she did not have the courage to move forward without telling one more person.

  Alex knocked on Isabel’s door.

  “Come in,” Isabel’s sweet, sing-song voice said.

  She was dressed for the party in a summery romper. Her hair was parted in the center, carefree brunette strands tousled and airy like Alex had caught her spinning around, everything about her kind and warm and full of life, so much like the Katherine in the wedding photo Jonah had placed on the second floor of the bridal shop.

  Alex closed the door behind her. “I need your advice.”

  Ibby hopped on her bed, put on her matter-of-fact expression that she brought to all entrepreneurial dealings—playground and elsewhere—and said, “Step into my office.”

  Alex smiled and climbed up beside her.

  “I’m thinking about a merger, but it has to be…” Alex stopped herself from saying perfect. “…right.”

  “Tell me about the two parties.”

  Ibby was the most precocious girl Alex had ever known, a CEO before her time.

/>   “One of them is this established, well-run partnership that has so much to offer.”

  “And the other?”

  “An unknown. Risky but motivated to be successful.”

  Ibby pressed her lips together, chin in hand. “Hmm. I hired someone a few weeks ago. Total risk because he’s a boy. But his mother is a nurse at the hospital and sees patients and families all day. Mega exposure. He got fifty cents for every piece he sold.”

  “Yeah? How’s that working?”

  “I fired him.”

  Alex’s jaw dropped. Not what she was expecting. “Why?”

  “He didn’t love the jewelry.” Ibby reached for Alex’s hand. “Love is everything, don’t you think?”

  Nearly made Alex speechless. “I guess it is.”

  “I saw the wedding dress Miss Charlotte brought in. She swore me to secrecy.” Ibby’s voice was still all business.

  Cautiously, Alex asked, “And?”

  “And I think the merger is right.”

  Alex’s heart caromed, expanded.

  “Even better because it’s a surprise. Dad will freak.”

  “Good freak or bad freak?”

  “The best freak.”

  Ibby launched into Alex’s arms. Luckily, she had elevated her hugging game, of late.

  Alex brushed the hair from Ibby’s eyes. “I don’t want to replace your mother, but I hope our friendship can replace her loss.”

  “She knew about you.”

  “She did?”

  “Dad brought out his old photo album one time. Mom said you must have been pretty special to give him your family when he lost his.”

  Her pulse fluttered. She had never thought of it that way.

  “Will you help me get ready?” Alex said.

  Ibby vaulted off the bed, nodding, all smiles.

  “I have one problem left to solve.”

  “What’s that?”

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t have any jewelry to wear. Know where I might find some?”

  A little like asking Charlotte about the Evangeline poem, and equally embellished. Ibby pulled her travel jewelry case from her school backpack, untied the fastener, and rolled out the choices like a trunk merchant. “How about something blue?”

  Alex chuckled. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the girl was already Charlotte-gone, a romantic, talking about love and something blue. Maybe she would even run Match Made in Devon someday. The girl had killer business instincts and the good sense of a much wiser woman: no risky boys.

  Pastor Clay announced, “You may kiss the bride.”

  Jonah and Alex wasted no time. There had been enough of that. They had years of a missed union to seal. And seal it they did—lips, extended cheers, and laughter.

  The gathering was nothing like Alex’s first ceremony. Charlotte’s weepy acoustical love music dripped from the speakers. Bernice wore her Death to Hipsters! t-shirt. Hazel was packing heat because she had stopped in after a day at the shooting range. Taffy brought day-old bread for her catered sandwiches because she was still sore about Alex digging up the past. And Alex and Ibby stood, holding hands, united in their barefootedness, because Alex had no proper shoes and that was what happened sometimes when you didn’t make lists. But she would use one word to describe Jonah’s expression when he saw her in a wedding dress and Pastor Clay clapped him on the back in congratulations.

  Perfect.

  34

  Freesia

  Freesia said goodbye to Devon on a Monday at Taffy’s. Nearly everyone in town stopped by to wish her well. The road from stranger to family, blood or otherwise, had been long, smooth pavement to nasty switchbacks. The road back to herself, only better, would take longer.

  Nash hoisted her suitcase into the back of Elias’s truck. Jonah wished her well. Men who proved abandonment was not an XY chromosome trait. In a nod to how life sometimes circles back in unexpected ways, Jonah repeated his well-wishes from weeks earlier. “Safe travels, Freesia. Show those New Yorkers how it’s done.” This time, instead of a handshake, an embrace.

  Stella Irene’s silver-haired posse swarmed. Bernice gifted her a t-shirt that read If found, return to the South. Hazel gave her pepper spray strong enough to take down a grizzly bear should the Yankee men get ‘handsy.’ Taffy baked Freesia’s favorite Lemon-Macadamia Nut cookies for the plane, and sweet little Frances gave her a “Jesus wept” because the Savior isn’t always readily found in New York.

  Natalie and Allison made plans to visit. Freesia promised them tour of the colleges in the city and all the pizza from Luca’s they could stomach. She gave Maddie a kiss on the cheek and tried not to think about all she’d miss. Way they’re always changing, they’re a good reminder that the present is a gift.

  Freesia was relieved that was one gift that would wait. As it turned out, she wasn’t pregnant. The stress of losing someone you thought you didn’t love was rivaled only by the stress of losing someone you did. When those things coincided, losses played havoc on the mind and the body. Over the freshly turned earth of her mama’s grave, she had told her, “A body needs to get away every now and then. But someday, I’ll understand.” After the love of a family, a real family, motherhood was now on her destination list.

  Alex and Charlotte pulled her aside.

  “You sure you don’t want me to go with you two to the airport?” Alex asked. “I can get one of Mama’s friends to watch the shop.”

  “You just got married,” said Freesia. “Stay close to your new family.”

  Alex pulled her into an embrace. “Won’t be complete without you here. Come back to us.”

  From Alex, the most surprising outcome of the bunch, tender sentiments never failed to summon all the tingly feels inside Freesia.

  Charlotte and Freesia loaded into Daddy’s truck and waved as they pulled away from the curb, headed north. Charlotte happened to have a folded copy of the Jackson newspaper, business section, on the seat between them. She patted it and said, “Interesting article on page one.”

  Freesia picked up the paper and read the headline. “Bull Market Forecast for the Coming Year.”

  Charlotte tsked her tongue. “No silly. Below that.”

  Scott Enterprises Restructuring, Top Down.

  Freesia cast the paper aside.

  “Georgetown isn’t so far out of the way,” Charlotte hinted. “We’ve got time.”

  Twenty-seven miles to the highway turnoff, to be exact. Not that she was calculating. “We said our goodbyes.”

  “Bless your heart. I wouldn’t exactly say we. Seems one of you did all the talking up there on that hill.”

  A heartbeat of time passed. Charlotte took her eyes off the road long enough to give Freesia a good once-over peep.

  “It would never work,” said Freesia. “We’re too different.”

  “Load of heifer dust if you ask me.”

  Despite the dumpster fire that was this conversation, Freesia laughed.

  “I am going to miss your delivery.”

  “Then you’ll just have to…” Charlotte’s words broke off. She took an inordinate interest in the truck’s mirrors—rear and side. She puckered into a frown and finished her sentence, more as an afterthought. “…call often.”

  Freesia’s stomach tightened. “What is it?”

  “Either Taffy spiked her pancake batter like her fish this morning or there’s a man on a bicycle chasing us and waving like a lunatic.”

  Freesia straightened, cranked her head to get a good look behind them.

  Tight shoulders, ripped muscles, pale as the road’s center stripe. Without a helmet, his brown hair was a crazy torrent.

  The intensity on his face shredded her defenses.

  “Pull over,” Freesia said. “It’s Jay.”

  Charlotte clicked on her right turn indicator, put tires to gravel. “Would you look at that?” She pointed to the green sign that read City of Devon, population 4,051. “Everything good happens at the city limit sign.”

  The old F
ord rolled to a stop. Freesia hopped out.

  Jay climbed off his bike, dropped it in the weeds. He tried to speak. Nothing came but syllables and a heaving chest that gave her more pause than it should have. The last time she saw him that winded, on a tangle of fabric above the repair shop, flashed through her mind and swerved down to her crux.

  “Jay, what on earth?”

  He hinged forward, palms resting on his knees. “Riley…overheard…his aunt…say you were leaving. Waited…too long…to tell me.”

  “So you chased me down on a bike?”

  “Riley had his truck torn apart…and you wouldn’t answer your phone.”

  Freesia slipped her cell from her pocket. Eleven missed calls. She had put it on silent for Alex’s wedding and forgotten to switch it back.

  “Where’s your brother’s Lamborghini?”

  Jay brought the collar of his t-shirt up to swipe perspiration from his cheek then straightened the full, impressive length of his spine. “Sold it.”

  “Where’s your driver?”

  “He’s only on the clock for the CFO.”

  Freesia blinked. She wasn’t processing—that he was here on Monday, not in a boardroom, that he was without transportation when he owned half of the oil reserves in the country, that he nearly gave himself an aortic rupture trying to catch her after she had been so cold to him.

  “I turned in my resignation. Told my family I had other dreams. I want to start that non-profit. Honor Jack’s name. Keep his legacy alive some way other than balancing spreadsheets.”

  She swallowed. It seemed impossible, the inertia of his decision, unraveling such a tight weave of responsibility.

  “You were right. I never really got out of that car on the highway. I hadn’t listened to myself in so long, I lost who I was, what I wanted.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I want to travel, live stories, like I used to before Jack died—not just hear about them from someone who’s been there. I want to go to Chora and share bread with monks. I want to eat short rib hot dogs from roadside stands and Aloo Poori at train stops in India. I want to go with you to New York, and I want to pull you so far my direction that you won’t want to pull away. I want you, Freesia.”