The answer seemed enough to satisfy Harper. She turned to Atticus, her smile radiating warmth. “I’m so delighted. And Carson will be thrilled.”
Atticus thought to himself how the young woman had not an ounce of guile. The genuineness of her joy was endearing. Yet beneath the smile she had a sophistication and innate grace that revealed class. This was the young woman who had purchased Sea Breeze from her grandmother, after all. No small change could have done that.
“Does Carson know?” Harper asked.
“Not yet,” Marietta replied breezily. “He’s only just arrived. Where is she, by the way?”
“Out on the dock. Again. Probably yearning for Delphine.”
“Go fetch her, will you?” asked Marietta. “I’d like her to meet Atticus.”
“You’ll love Carson,” Harper said to him. “Everyone does. Be right back.”
Harper turned and hurried from the room, clapping her hands for the dog to follow her. He leaped to his feet and trotted happily behind.
Marietta smiled broadly, clearly pleased with the turn of events.
“She’s lovely,” Atticus said.
“I told you. Each of them are. Are you sure you don’t want to tell them?”
“Yes,” he said firmly.
“Oh, very well.” Disappointment flooded Marietta’s features. She went to the sofa and sat, fingers tapping her lap.
Atticus walked around the room, filling the empty silence with random questions about the art on the walls. With relief, a short while later they heard footfalls in the hall. Both of them turned toward the noise expectantly.
Harper entered, followed by a taller, striking woman of uncommon beauty. This must be Carson, he realized. She was a study in contrasts with Harper with raven hair and a southwestern-chic style of dress. But as she drew near, he saw the same blue eyes that he now knew were dominant in the Muir line. Those eyes studied him with cool appraisal.
To usher Carson closer, Harper held out her arm, acting as if she and Atticus were already old friends. “Carson”—she waved her sister closer—“come meet Reverend Green, an old friend of Mamaw’s. But we call him Atticus.”
Carson walked closer with long strides and held out her hand. “So you’re the man who’s going to marry us?”
A bold move, he thought, appreciating it. He took her hand. “If that’s okay with you?”
Her handshake was firm and he liked that she looked him straight in the eye. He could tell that she was recognizing the eye color, working it out in her mind, but her smile remained in place as she politely withdrew her hand.
“It’s okay with me,” she said nonchalantly. “You should know I’m not much of a churchgoer.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She ventured a curious smile at that. “And I’ve been told you’re a Baptist minister.”
“Southern Baptist,” he confirmed.
“One’s the same as another. Blake’s family is Baptist,” Carson said. “They’ll be pleased as punch.”
Atticus held his tongue. He didn’t want to get into an argument about her comment “one’s the same as another,” at least not yet.
“Shall we all sit down? I’ll make coffee,” Marietta offered.
“Mamaw”—Harper reached out to stall her with a soft touch on her arm—“I’m sorry but Carson and I have an appointment at the bakery. To taste the cakes. We have to leave.” Harper looked at Atticus. “I’m so sorry to cut out on you.”
Atticus wasn’t sorry. He was relieved. “No, that’s all right. I have to leave anyway. I need to go and check into a hotel.”
“Where are you staying?” Harper asked with alacrity.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Stay here! With us,” Harper exclaimed.
Carson swung her head to deliver her sister a hard stare of warning.
Atticus immediately backtracked, “No, I couldn’t impose.”
“It’s no imposition at all, really. We have loads of room,” Harper said, ignoring Carson. “Well, at least until the weekend when my grandmother arrives.”
Atticus glanced at Carson in her pale blue shirt regarding him from under furrowed brows. She was clearly wrestling with the invitation. He looked at Marietta, and her eyes were shining with reassurance, even hope, that he would accept, reminding him of her warm and sincere welcome.
“No. Thank you,” Atticus said more firmly. This was all moving far too quickly for him. He needed time alone to reflect on all that had transpired—possibly life changing. “I have other business to attend to while I’m in town and will be in and out. I’ll need my own place. But again, thank you for the invitation.”
“Of course. We understand,” Mamaw said firmly, putting the invitation to rest.
Harper reluctantly accepted this, but wasn’t through yet. She took a step closer. “How long are you in town?”
Atticus had taken a leave of absence from his ministry. After a long discussion, his pastor had advised him to take all the time he needed to get answers, to ponder them and come to conclusions before he returned to work. But of course Atticus kept this to himself. Even with Marietta’s warm welcome, he didn’t know how long he could bear to stay in Charleston, caught in this web of lies.
“Undecided. For several weeks. Possibly longer. My, uh, research is just beginning.”
“Then you absolutely must come for dinner Saturday night. I’m having a pre-wedding gathering at Sea Breeze. All the usual suspects will be there. Taylor, my fiancé, Carson and her fiancé, Blake. Our other sister, Dora, and her boyfriend, Devlin, and her son, Nate. And all the parents and grandparents. You can meet us all in one fell swoop. This Saturday. Six o’clock cocktails. Seven o’clock dinner. Casual attire. Please say you will come. You’re the minister, after all.”
He felt the force of Harper’s invitation and thought how much like her grandmother Marietta the young girl was. Gracious and warm, with an underlying will of iron. He felt the lie closing in on him and began to make his exit, subtly backing toward the door.
“Six o’clock. I’ll be there.” He checked his watch. “But now, I really must go. It was nice to meet you, Harper.” He offered his hand.
Harper stepped forward to take his hand, then leaned in to kiss his cheek. The kiss surprised him. He nodded, mumbling some agreeable parting comment.
“Good-bye. See you Saturday,” Carson told him.
Atticus looked to Marietta. Her blue eyes were still shining. With joy or triumph—or both—he wasn’t sure.
“Good-bye,” he said to her. His smile was sincere. “It truly was nice seeing you.”
Marietta couldn’t be restrained. She rushed across the space between them to put her hands on his arms and squeezed tight with a gentle shake. The kind a grandmother might give to her grandchild. Once again she seemed at risk of crying.
“Atticus. You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.”
Atticus couldn’t get to his truck fast enough. The emotions were too strong, too confusing. As soon as he stepped from the house, he took deep breaths of the fresh air and stretched out his arms, not realizing how stiffly he’d been holding himself. He looked behind himself at the closed door, not quite believing all that had transpired in the past hour.
Atticus turned the collar of his suit coat up around his neck and quickly descended the stairs. His heels dug deep half-moons into the gravel as he marched to his truck. He needed some time alone to think. With a yank he swung open the door and had one foot in the truck when he heard a voice calling his name.
“Atticus! Wait!”
He lowered his head, his hand on the truck, and sighed. Not fast enough, he thought. With resignation he dropped his foot back to the gravel and turned to see Carson hurrying down the stairs after him.
“I’m glad I caught you!” she called out, arms tucked, trotting to his side.
“Did I forget something?”
“We don’t have your contact information while you’re here. Mamaw asked me to come fetch i
t.”
There was no way he couldn’t give the information to her. “Right. Let me give you my card. It has my cell phone number.” He patted his pockets but remembered he hadn’t brought his card case. “I keep a box in the glove compartment. Hold on.”
He climbed up into the truck and stretched across the driver’s seat to open the glove compartment. He pulled out a small cardboard box. From this he pulled out several cards, then returned to face Carson. “These ought to do it.” He handed the cards to her. “You can reach me on my cell.”
“Okay. Great. Thanks.” She looked at the card. A brisk breeze blew a strand of hair across her face. She brushed it away, then looked up at him warily. “Will we have to do those pre-wedding discussions?”
“I recommend them. If you were a member of my parish, it would be mandatory.”
“To be honest, I’m not so keen on the idea.”
“I’ll leave that decision up to you.”
The March wind gusted, icy and damp. Carson wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “I hate the cold,” she said through chattering teeth.
He searched her face and sensed anxiety lurking behind her question. Intuition was an important aspect of his work, and he’d learned to trust it. “Do you have anything in particular you’d like to discuss? Something bothering you?”
She looked off a moment, and when she turned back to him, she nodded curtly.
“Step into my office.” Atticus grinned. He leaned over the seat again and pushed open the passenger door. He then closed his own door and started the engine, boosting the heat. Carson climbed into the passenger seat and spent a moment rubbing her hands together in front of the surge of warmth.
“It’s sure cold today,” she said, blowing on her fingers. “Feels like winter. Just when you think it’s spring.”
“To be fair, official spring hasn’t arrived yet. But the promise of spring is in the greening trees and flowers.”
She tilted her head and smiled at him, liking his answer. “True.”
He waited for her to begin. It was close quarters in the front cab of the truck, and the heater was barely doing its job. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“It’s all this wedding business. Now that I’m home, it seems all anyone thinks or talks about are the wedding preparations. When Harper’s grandmother arrives in a few days, everyone will be in full wedding mode. Aka hysteria.”
He had to chuckle at this.
Carson sighed. “You met Harper. Sweet, elegant, thoughtful—right?”
He nodded.
“Be forewarned. She’s turning into a bridezilla. She’s got us all on a short leash. Her favorite new expression is chop-chop. I hardly recognize her.”
“And you?”
Carson shrugged noncommittally and tucked her hands between her knees. “I care, of course. But honestly”—she looked up at him—“I’m not all that interested in wedding plans. Frankly, I’ve got so much on my plate right now, I can’t be bothered.”
This was often a warning flag for him that something else was amiss. “Are you feeling pressured into getting married?”
“No, it’s not that. Well . . .” She pursed her lips. “Maybe a little.”
“How are you feeling pressured?”
Carson looked out the windshield and said miserably, “Blake and I just went around the block on this. There are outside issues that are causing problems. Schedules.” She paused, then turned to look at him. “Do you have time to listen to all this? I thought you had to go.”
“I have time.”
She heard this, glanced at the front door of the house as though she expected Harper to come running out for her. “We can’t agree on my working situation. I have a job as a stills photographer with a film company that takes me away for months at a time. Usually eight to nine weeks. But it can go longer with delays. Blake doesn’t want me to continue working that job after we’re married. Thinks it’s not a real marriage if I’m gone a lot.” She puffed out air. “And to be fair, when we got engaged, I promised him I’d quit after this last gig.”
“I hear a but coming.”
“But . . . I got offered another job. It’s great money and I love what I do.”
“Sounds very cool.”
“It is. At first. The travel gets old after a while. But more than that, I don’t have another job waiting in the wings. Frankly, I’ve been unemployed, and it freaks me out to face that possibility again. I mean, why should I give up my career just because he doesn’t want me to travel? So I can wait tables again? I don’t think that’s fair of him to ask me to do that.”
“Is he asking you that? I thought you just said you’d promised him you would.”
She lowered her head, seemingly contrite. “I did. That’s why I suggested we change our engagement to a promise that we want to get engaged. Just until we work this out. But Blake won’t do that. He says we’re beyond that point. We’re either engaged or we’re not.”
“Sounds like he’s a pretty strong guy. Do you feel comfortable with that? Safe?”
“Oh, sure. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Blake is not opinionated as much as he has strong convictions. I like that. He’s old-fashioned about some things, like marriage. But he can be pretty flexible, too. And fair.” She smiled at some memory. “Always fair.”
“Are you in love with your fiancé?”
“Yes! Intensely. Loving Blake is the only thing I am sure about.”
“Intense feelings are pleasurable and desired,” Atticus said evenly, “but they’re not a measure of compatibility for marriage. Whether or not the relationship is solid requires time and personal conversations. That’s part of what I hope we can do when we all sit down together. To help you navigate whether or not you feel whole in your relationship, secure enough to voice your private thoughts and truths and know you’re heard. To evaluate your relationship with your heart and your head.”
“But if we find out we have problems? What then? We simply break up?”
“No, not break up. Perhaps postpone the marriage? Give yourselves more time.”
“That’s what I’d suggested.”
“Carson, you say you’re worried about quitting your film job. Are you more worried about losing that particular job, or about not finding another? There’s a difference.”
Carson took a deep breath, and he could see she was seriously considering what he’d asked.
“That’s hitting the nail on the head,” Carson answered with finality. “I’m worried that I won’t find a job that’s as rewarding. That gives me validation.” She looked down at her hands, and her long dark hair fell over her face like a veil shielding her expression. Her voice emerged from behind, shaky and soft. “I know I come across as strong, but I’m not. I have a soft underbelly. The thought of floundering without a job, without a sense of purpose or of who I am and what I want out of life leaves me feeling lost and frightened. That leads to feeling angry and frustrated. And that leads to . . .”
She paused and blew out a plume of air, one that indicated a long story that she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell. She tucked her hair behind her ears and turned to look at him. “This is between us, right? Is this like a confessional? With a priest?”
Atticus chuckled and shrugged. “I suppose. But I don’t want to hear your sins.”
She laughed. “Thank God. We’d be here all night.”
Atticus liked her all the more for her openness. He’d always found that someone with a good sense of humor had a sharp brain as well.
“I’m afraid I’ll start drinking.”
Atticus snapped to attention. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a family curse. And I don’t mean the one that was placed on the head of our ancestor the pirate. Though, who knows, the disease may have its roots there. I’m an alcoholic. And so was my father.”
Atticus went very still. The news that Parker—Carson’s father . . . his father—carried the genes for alcoholism was not so much a shock as
a brain-searing epiphany. There it was. The answer to the question that had dogged him since he tasted his first liquor.
Atticus closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath. He was an alcoholic. For so long he didn’t know why he’d had the disease. Neither his father nor his mother were alcoholics. Nor their parents. Genetics accounted for only about 50 percent of alcoholism; the other 50 percent was due to environmental factors or poor coping mechanisms. But he’d grown up in a strong home with lots of support. So he’d wondered, Why me? Now he knew. The taste of the revelation was bitter in his mouth. This was his gift from his biological father. Thanks, Dad.
“Atticus?”
He blinked and brought his attention back to Carson, who sat across from him studying his face, concerned.
“Sorry.” He brought himself back to the moment.
“I lost you for a minute.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes and then, dropping his guard, said, “I feel it’s only fair to be honest with you, too. I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
Carson stared back at him, then asked quietly, “How long have you been sober?”
“I haven’t had a drink in eight years.”
“Impressive.”
“Being a Baptist helps. We don’t drink.” Atticus cracked a grin. “Maybe you should consider converting? I can help you out with that.”
She smiled. “Maybe, but AA is working for me now. I’m going on eight months.”
He nodded, acknowledging it. “Does Blake support you?”
“One hundred percent.”
Atticus rested his hands on the steering wheel and looked out the windshield as he spoke. “So, let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re a recovering alcoholic with a fiancé who is supportive. But you’re afraid that if you quit working, you’ll lose your identity and fall apart, which, for you, would mean falling off the wagon and starting drinking.” He turned to face her. “Does that sound about right?”
She pulled her long dark hair up with both hands onto the top of her head in a loose pile, then, with a groan, she let her hair drop and faced him. “Yep. That sums it up,” she said flippantly. “You’re good at your job, you know that?”
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