Meet Me at the Chapel

by Joanna Sims

  Hannah had slowly adjusted to her new routine—during the week she attended summer school and on the weekends she worked with Casey. Casey was able to spend a lot of time with her sister and her niece. She had been working with Gigi regularly, she visited Bent Tree at least once a week and she was still plugged into what she loved to do: work with students with disabilities. At night, after dinner, and after Hannah had gone to bed, Brock and Casey would sit outside on the front porch together. Some nights they talked; some nights they didn’t say hardly anything beyond “good night.” And on the days she went to Bent Tree, she found herself walking up to the chapel to sit with Brock and listen to the genius of Bach and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky beneath Michael’s oak tree. Casey couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had been more content or relaxed. As it turned out, Montana was her idea of paradise.

  “You coming out to Bent Tree tomorrow?” Brock asked her.

  The dishes were done and they were relaxing, as was their way, on the porch.

  Casey made a small circle with her finger on the top of Hercules’s head. “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you want to meet me at the chapel?” he asked her after a pause.

  She looked over at Brock’s profile. It was a strong, masculine profile—hawkish, prominent nose, squared-off jaw. He wasn’t a classically handsome man, but he was a man’s man with some pretty appealing twists—like his dedication to being a father and his love of animals, his protective nature and his work ethic. The fact that he preferred to listen to classical music instead of country made him interesting to Casey. There was a lot to like about Brock; there was a lot there to respect.

  “Sure.” She nodded with a smile. “I’ll pack lunch for us.”

  “Even better.” He gave her a small smile with a quick wink.

  She was just about to ask what kind of sandwich he would fancy—he liked ham and Swiss cheese on wheat bread with extra mustard—but the ringing of his cell phone stopped her from asking him the question.

  Brock tugged his cell phone out of his front pocket, looked at the name on the screen and his expression changed.

  He stood up. “Excuse me.”

  She gave him a nod to let him know that she had heard him. The screen door slammed behind him as he went inside the house. The nights were cool enough to leave the windows and the front door open for a cross breeze, so even though Casey didn’t really want to eavesdrop on Brock’s end of the conversation, it was impossible not to do it.

  “No. Absolutely not. We already covered this in mediation.”

  Brock’s voice started out fairly calm, but got increasingly agitated and forceful as he verbally volleyed with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

  “We already covered this in mediation!” he repeated loudly.

  At night, on the porch, and when they were in a talkative mood, they covered a wide variety of subjects. But there were two subjects they never broached: Shannon and Clint. They were two very emotionally charged subjects that both felt very comfortable avoiding.

  “Shannon,” Brock said and waited. “Shannon,” he repeated. “Damnit, I’m sick to death of talkin’ about this with you,” he snapped at his estranged wife. “Listen...listen...no...you listen! We’ll either work this out in mediation...we’ll either work this out in mediation or we go to court. Your choice. But I’m not selling the house. This is Hannah’s home and I won’t let you take it away from her. You’ve already got her so twisted up in knots with all of this BS you pulled, the doctor’s had to adjust her meds twice.”

  Brock stopped talking, so Casey assumed that he had ended the conversation without saying goodbye. A minute or two later, the screen door swung open wide and Brock strode out onto the porch. He walked straight ahead to the railing post and rested his hand against it, his head lowered. He shook his head a couple of times before he banged the post with his closed fist.

  “You ever been married?” he asked her without turning his head.

  “No,” Casey answered him quietly. She hadn’t meant to know this much of his business; they were becoming friends of a sort, but they weren’t confidants.

  “I’m surprised.” Brock took the rocking chair next to her. “You seem like the settling kind.”

  She didn’t respond. She had always wanted to get married—hoped that she would while she could still have several children. Women were still having children into their forties, with some assistance from modern medicine, so she still had time. But she had considered freezing her eggs, just in case Mr. Perfect didn’t show up in the next couple of years.

  “I’m the settling kind, too.” Brock seemed like he needed to talk.

  Casey didn’t mind listening.

  “I always wanted to be married—have a wife, kids, the white picket fence. My mom took off when I was young. Hell, I wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her in a picture. Matilda. Pop used to say her name like he was talking about a saint—she broke his heart. Left him to take care of me. Then Clint’s mom broke his heart a second time—he adopted her kid and then she takes off, too. But, this time, good ol’ doormat Dave—he didn’t recover. He smoked himself right into an early grave. And I got stuck raising Clint who never failed to do the wrong thing.”

  At least now she knew why Brock hated her sister’s husband so much—he blamed Clint and his mother for his father’s death.

  “I wanted that family I never had growing up. I wanted it so bad that I think I pushed it on Shannon.” He nodded his head at himself. “I did. I pushed it on her. She never really wanted this life. Truth be told, between you, me and that fence post...” His voice lowered so that his next words would only reach her ears. “She never wanted to have kids.”

  Casey had been staring straight ahead at the darkening horizon. When Brock confessed to her that Hannah’s mom might not have wanted her, she couldn’t stop herself from sucking in her breath and turning her head to look at the man beside her. She understood why many women didn’t want to have children. That was what they wanted out of life and that was okay. But to know this about Shannon and Hannah, it made her feel sad for all of them.

  “I’m sorry.” It was trite and stupid—yet it was all she could muster.

  Brock stopped rocking and leaned forward so his elbows were resting on his thighs and his head was in his hands.

  “All of this—all of this fighting about custody and about selling the house—that’s not really what all of this is about.” He sat back up. “Months of mediation, and the plain truth is that she’s not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”

  “What does she want?”

  “Taj.” Brock gave a small shake of his head. “She wants Taj.”

  * * *

  “Hey! Can I interest you in a ham and Swiss on rye?”

  Casey appeared at the top of the hill, her face flushed from the wind and the climb up the hill to the chapel. She was smiling that smile that he had grown very fond of over the last several weeks. That smile transformed her girlish, impish, unremarkable face into something quite lovely. It had not escaped his notice that he had been staring at the top of that hill for fifteen minutes waiting for his tenant. It also had not escaped his notice that he felt a sense of excitement and anticipation on the days he knew Casey was going to meet him at the chapel for lunch. He would think about her arrival all morning—and much to the amazement of his men, he would let everyone finish a couple of minutes early for lunch.

  He was genuinely happy to see her. That’s what he was feeling—happiness. Perhaps it felt odd because it had been a long time since he had actually felt happy.

  “Do you want to spread this out for us?” Casey held out the blanket she had brought with her.

  Brock shook out the blanket and then laid it down in the spot that had become their favorite place to eat lunch together.

  “What’s on the menu for you?” Brock held out
his hand to help her sit down.

  Casey was a petite woman; her hand felt dainty and fragile in his oversize hand. But he knew Casey wasn’t fragile—she was a tough cookie. And she was a lot tougher than she looked by a long shot.

  “Avocado and Swiss on rye.” She sat cross-legged on the blanket.

  Casey reached into her basket, a basket she’d borrowed from her aunt, and pulled out two fat sandwiches for Brock and a bottle of water.

  “Didn’t Hercules make the trip?” He unwrapped a sandwich and took a giant bite. “Mmm. So good. Thank you.”

  “Hercules is with Aunt Barb—she’s obsessed with him. And, of course, he’s not going to say no to all of the attention.”

  They chatted easily while they both ate their lunch. Brock thought that Casey looked particularly nice today—she had opted to wear her superthick, waist-length red hair loose today. Usually she wore it in a ponytail or a single braid down her back—not today. Today it swirled around her shoulders, wispy strands dancing on the wind, as shiny as Christmas tinsel in the afternoon sunlight. He wanted to reach out and see how soft it was to the touch. It looked soft.

  “I’m going to have to cut lunch short today, I’m afraid.” Casey balled up her wrapper and tossed it into the basket. “My sister is having an ‘I’m almost forty’ crisis.”

  He was disappointed—he had a new concerto he wanted to share with her. And there was something he wanted to talk to her about—something that he knew needed to be said.

  “What kind of crisis?”

  “She needs glasses.” Casey laughed. “I told her I would go pick out glasses with her. She’s all worried because she thinks glasses are going to make her look old, and here she is a cougar—married to a younger man.”

  The words came out of her mouth and she wished she could reel them right back in. It was hard to constantly avoid talking about Clint when he was such a huge part of Taylor’s life. And, while she knew Brock had his reasons, however unreasonable, she genuinely liked Clint. He loved Taylor and he was a good father to her niece. Whoever Brock was remembering his stepbrother to be wasn’t there anymore. Clint had changed. It surprised her that Brock, who was known to be a tough but fair man, hadn’t been willing to forgive Clint for his past transgressions.

  After an uncomfortable silence, Brock cleared his throat several times. She looked at him curiously.

  “Are you okay? Do you need another water?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. I’m just trying to get some words unstuck.” Brock looked over her shoulder before he brought his eyes back to hers.

  “I shouldn’t have said all that stuff about Shannon last night,” he finally said to her. “I don’t want you to think she’s a bad person. Because she’s not.”

  Her eyes widened a bit at the turn their conversation had just taken. She had hoped that it was a moment that would just slip away, forgotten by the both of them.

  “I don’t want you to think that she’s a bad mother,” he continued.

  “I don’t.” She furrowed her brow.

  “She loves Hannah.”

  “I’m sure she does.” Casey leaned back from him a bit and crossed her arms in front of her body.

  “She’ll always be Hannah’s mother,” he added as if he was saying it to himself instead of saying it to her.

  He stopped talking then, and it took her a couple of minutes to figure out what she should say to him.

  “We all need to vent sometimes, Brock.” She uncrossed her arms to briefly touch his hand. “All it means is that you’re human. I was there to be a sounding board—and I promise you, I’m not a reflective material. What you said won’t be repeated.”

  Chapter Seven

  “What do you think of these?” Taylor was modeling a pair of Vogue eyeglass frames.

  Casey was in charge of pushing Penny’s stroller, carrying Hercules on her arm and providing honest feedback for eyeglass frames.

  She wrinkled her nose a bit and shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

  “Really?” Taylor looked at her reflection in the little mirror on the eyeglass display. “I thought they made me look sophisticated.”

  “Uh-uh,” Casey repeated.

  Taylor took off the frames and put them back on the display. “I’ve tried on almost all of the ones I like. I have to find something—turns out I’m blind as a flippin’ bat!”

  “What about these?” Casey handed her sister a pair of rimless frames.

  “And the doctor tells me that I’m right on schedule—that when most people hit forty, their lens hardens and becomes less flexible. As if that really helps! Any way you slice it, I’m getting old.” Taylor tilted her head and studied her reflection. “These aren’t so bad. What do you think?”

  Casey took a nice long look at her sister before she nodded and said, “Those are the ones.”

  Taylor got fitted for her glasses and then they decided to stop for a bite to get a caffeine infusion before Casey headed back to Brock’s ranch. Taylor moved her straw around in her iced coffee, took several sips and then said, “When I talked to Aunt Barb yesterday, she said that you borrowed one of her picnic baskets to have a picnic with Brock?”

  Casey knew that information traveled quickly in the family, and she hadn’t told Aunt Barb not to mention the picnic basket. Why would she? She wasn’t doing anything wrong, after all.

  Taylor continued, “I guess I was just surprised that you would be spending so much time with someone you know has been a really negative person in my life. It’s one thing to stay on his ranch and work with his daughter—but a picnic?” Her sister shook her head with a frown. “I just don’t know why you would do that.”

  Casey was holding her niece, making her smile and laugh by playing peekaboo. “Tay—I’m trying to stay out of the middle of the family feud. I know that Clint and Brock have a problem with each other, but why does that mean that I can’t have him as a friend? He’s been really good to me, actually. And, as my sister, I would think that that would mean something to you.”

  She could tell that her words had struck a chord with her sister, but not enough to swing her opinion about Brock. Taylor shook her head and looked away, her brow furrowed. “I don’t even understand what you would have in common with him. He’s so...stuffy.”

  “He’s not stuffy,” Casey blurted out too quickly not to be noticed by her sister’s keen ears.

  “Huh...” Her sister put her drink down on the table harder than necessary. “That sounded awfully defensive.”

  “I’m not being defensive,” Casey said in a singsongy voice while smiling at her sweet niece. “Am I, Penelope? No, I’m not...”

  “Is there something going on between the two of you?”

  Casey held up her niece and smelled her. “Wooo! Penny! You stink. Here, Momma. This little piggy needs to go home and get changed.”

  Taylor took her daughter. “Nice try. What gives?”

  They both stood up and prepared to drive the short distance to Taylor’s rental house. Taylor could be a bit of a germophobe and wasn’t crazy about changing Penny in public bathrooms and usually avoided it if she could.

  “Nothing,” Casey said—and when her sister gave her a look that said I don’t believe you, she added, “I’m serious. He’s going through a divorce and you know I don’t do drama.”

  “But you like him, Casey.” Taylor seemed genuinely puzzled by this fact. “I can tell.”

  Casey got into the passenger seat of Taylor’s green Avalanche. “Well, yeah—I do. He’s fun to be around.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Everyone experiences people differently.” Casey shrugged a shoulder, not really wanting to talk about Brock. Perhaps it was because Taylor’s questions were hitting a bit too close to home. She did enjoy spending time with Brock. He was
nice and kind and liked to eat good food and listen to classical music on his lunch break. He was interesting.

  Yes. She did like Brock McAllister. A lot.

  “People aren’t always what they seem,” Casey said thoughtfully. “He’s...introspective. He loves classical music.”

  “You hate classical music,” Taylor reminded her. “You used to throw a fit every time Mom and Dad took us to the symphony.”

  That was true. She did used to hate classical music. But the way Brock introduced it to her, explaining the intricacies of the arrangements and the reason each instrument mattered to the composition of the piece, made classical music interesting through his eyes. And something that used to irritate her and make her feel impatient actually made her want to lie back, close her eyes and let the melody take her on an adventure.

  “All I know is that Brock treats my husband like a second-class citizen. And my loyalty is to Clint. If Brock doesn’t like the father of my child, then it’s going to be really hard for me to overlook that.”

  Taylor should be loyal to her husband. But did that mean that Casey had to be loyal to her sister and stop spending time with Brock? Was the fact that she liked Brock a betrayal to her sister?

  “I feel like you’re expecting me to dislike someone just because he doesn’t get along with Clint. That’s not right, Tay.”

  Her sister pulled into her driveway, shifted into Park and turned off the engine. Hands still on the steering wheel, Taylor turned her body toward her.

  “Maybe it is wrong, Casey. But I don’t want you to end up with someone who I wouldn’t invite to my house for the holidays.”

  Casey laughed with a shake of her head, breaking the tension. “Lord have mercy, Taylor! You have me married off to Brock and all I’ve done is have a picnic with the man! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Taylor stared at her—her eyes very intent on her face. “You don’t see it, but every time you talk about that man, you smile like it’s Christmas morning.”