Accidental Fiancé

by R. R. Banks

  Clementine opened her eyes just long enough for us to prop her up against one of the trees in her blanket, tuck an apple in her lap, and snap a picture of her. I looked forward to putting it in her scrapbook so that when she grew up and might not want to come back here every fall and pick apples with me, at least I could remember when she was this tiny and really didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  Ah, parenthood. Squeezing a lifetime of memories into the years when your children will go along with you and then taking what you can get afterwards.

  We hadn’t brought a picnic with us so when we finished filling our baskets with apples and put them in our car, we took the trek back to the market and got in line at Bubba Ray’s food truck. He grinned out at us from the window when we got to the front.

  “Well, hi there,” he said. “Beautiful day to be out picking apples.”

  “It sure is, Bubba Ray,” I said. “How’s business?”

  “Can’t keep up,” he said proudly. “I can’t thank you enough for this. Used to be I had to wait for people to come into the restaurant, and while I had my regulars and there were some people who would stop by for a bite after seeing my Christmas bowls, it just wasn’t all that I wanted it to be and I was starting to get a little worried, if I can be honest with you. But this food truck,” he reached out and patted the side of the shining white vehicle with all the pride of a father patting his quarter back son on the back, “this thing is making my dreams come true. You know that someone called me the other day from the Daley fair? They want me to go all the way out there and set up my truck. Prime spot, too. Right near the Ferris wheel.”

  “That’s wonderful, Bubba Ray. Congratulations.”

  “Well, it’s all because of you.”

  “No,” Richard said, shaking his head. “It’s all because of you. This is just a truck. You’re the one with the ideas and the food.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. And speaking of food,” he stepped back from the window and held out his arms as if to encompass the entirety of the truck and all that was in it. “why don’t you let me rustle you up something to eat? My treat.”

  “In celebration of your ever-growing success, I think I’ll try the County Fair-jitas,” Richard said.

  “And I’ll have the chips and queso,” I said.

  “Make that two.”

  I turned toward the voice behind me, knowing that it couldn’t possibly be who it sounded like. My heart jumped when I saw Christopher standing behind me, the tiny red and yellow apples embroidered on his shirt the perfect touch for the day. He smiled at me and opened his arms, gathering me in a hug that smelled distinctly of cinnamon.

  Dear lord I loved this man and his details.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when we stepped back from each other.

  “I thought I would do a little apple picking,” he said.

  “Do you think that I can pull this off?”

  Tessie’s voice was distinctive in the bustle of the market and I turned to see her coming toward us. Her arms were laden with packages and bags from the various vendors and she wore an enormous hat with a pale blue blusher, satin ribbon, and what looked like a cluster of frosted cherries.

  Dolly Simpson made that. I would know her monstrous creations anywhere.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Christopher said. “You could wear that to church.”

  “I will,” Tessie said, coming to my side. “I’m going to wear it to the Homecoming picnic with my blue pantsuit. Jesus will like it. I will wear it for his glory.”

  I loved when Tessie suddenly reached down into roots and got deeply spiritual for no particular reason.

  I shook my head and hugged her, trying to duck out of the way of the brim of the hat so that it didn’t hit me in the eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked again. “I’ve never been able to get the two of you out here without dragging you kicking and screaming.”

  “Not true,” Christopher said. “We came to your post-baby shower.”

  “Via satellite,” I said. “Beaming you into the room through a laptop screen doesn’t count as you actually being there.”

  “We recreated all of the decorations and games in Tessie’s living room,” he protested. “Besides, it’s not our fault that we weren’t technically invited and that the one that we planned for you was going to be so much better that we didn’t want to waste any of our merriment.”

  “That’s a lovely sentiment, but it still doesn’t answer my question as to what has dragged the two of you out of your concrete playpen and into my neck of the woods.”

  “So, so literal. So literal,” Christopher said, shaking his head. “Where’s my child?”

  I gestured toward Richard, who handed Clementine to Christopher before accepting our plates of food from Bubba Ray. I noticed that he had snuck a couple of orders of Choreos in and was now trying to lift his plate up to his mouth to take one without aid of fingers.

  “We missed you,” Tessie said.

  “I missed you, too, but you’ve been missing me for weeks. Why now?”

  “I invited them.”

  The slightly muffled sound of Richard’s voice told me that he had managed to get the cookie and was munching his way through it as he tried to talk. I had to laugh as I reached up and brushed a few crumbs from the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t too long ago that he never would have done something like that. The thought of eating a deep-fried Oreo would have been enough out of his comfort zone to make him shudder, but to do so while speaking and wearing clothing that didn’t have his monogram inside would have been just too horrible to fathom. While I never would have wanted him to be a totally different person than the one I met, after all, it was that man who I fell in love with, it was nice to see him soften up and discover the simpler pleasures of life. And to be fair, I wasn’t exactly frowning about the upgrades he had made to the house, the second, much larger house that he was building just behind it, or the new closet that I was steadily filling with clothes. We had blended into each other, and it was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.

  Almost.

  “You did?”

  He nodded and gestured for us to follow him.

  “There’s something I want to show you.”

  We walked past the market and beyond the old farmhouse that had been converted into a year-round Christmas shop when the Crozet family built another house on the other side of the orchard. Soon we were away from the bustling of the market and into an open area that I could imagine was once a pasture for the animals that would have worked the farm when it was still in operation many generations before. There was a truck sitting in the middle of the pasture, and for a second I thought that it was just an abandoned vehicle, or possibly one of the trucks that Billy Crozet used to gather up the apples that fell on the ground and bring them around to the neighboring farms to use for feed.

  When I looked a little harder, however, I realized that it was the same beaten-up old truck that Richard had bought from Cletus and brought to my house the night of our first real date, the night Clementine was born. It had been painted completely white, though none of the dents or scratches had been filled up or fully covered. Richard smiled at me when I looked up at him curiously and continued toward the truck, the rest of the group in tow. As we approached I realized that the bed of the truck had been spread with a quilt and a picnic basket was sitting on the tool box at the back. He settled the plates of food onto the wheel well and helped me up into the bed before climbing in after me. I expected Christopher and Tessie to come in as well, but they hovered back several yards away from the truck, talking to Clementine as though they had become her parents and for a few minutes they were their own little family.

  A bizarre, bizarre little family.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, turning my attention from them back to Richard.

  He was sitting on his knees beside me and staring at me intently.

  “I wasn’t supposed to meet you,”
he said, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. “I wasn’t supposed to need a baby contract. I wasn’t supposed to have to fight so hard for someone to know that I love them. I wasn’t supposed to ever have a difficult moment in my life. I was supposed to marry Flora, have children, and live out the rest of my life in a bubble of my own creation without ever thinking about anything that was happening to those not floating around with me. Then I met you. Now I know that the only two things in life I was ever really meant to do was meet you and have Clementine. Because that’s the difference. I wasn’t supposed to meet you, but I was meant to. And for every other thing that I was not supposed to do, I thank you with all of my heart for forcing me to do them. And for everything that I was supposed to do, I thank you with all of my heart for not allowing them to happen.

  You’ve taught me that paths are winding, not straight. The most meaningful choices in life are often the most difficult to make. If you don’t have to fight for someone, then they aren’t really yours. I wasn’t real until I met you, Rue. I didn’t truly have a life. I had an existence. I had things that people dream of and think will make them happy and create the perfect life for them. But what I didn’t have was so much more important than what I did, and I didn’t even know it until I met you. I have loved you for far longer than I admitted, but I will make up for it by loving you passionately and fully, without question and without hiding, every day for the rest of my existence. You have given me everything that I have ever wanted, even things that I never knew that I wanted but now know are the most precious things that I could ever have. Almost. You have given me almost everything that I have ever wanted. There is only one more thing that you could possibly give me that would make my life any better than it already is. Be my wife.”

  I felt my heart soar and tears forming in my eyes. I reached out and took Richard’s hand, pulling it close to me so I could press it to my chest.

  “Richard,” I murmured.

  He turned and reached his free hand into the picnic basket. When he turned back to me he was holding a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies.

  “I found a recipe in the kitchen. It was tucked in the back of a drawer. I don’t know if it’s the right one, but I made them for you.”

  It was a strange detour in the conversation, but I couldn’t resist the warm, spicy smell of the cookies and I reached forward to take one of the cookies from the plate. I took a bite of it and sighed as the flavor melted on my tongue. It was a bite of childhood, carrying with it the feeling of my grandmother’s kitchen and the memory of my father’s hugs. I was so enraptured by the cookie that I nearly missed the hint of black velvet that was peeking out from underneath the mound of cookies. I finished the cookie I held and moved the others away to reveal the box that had been tucked beneath. Withdrawing the box with a trembling hand, I held it still in front of me, not opening it, almost afraid to as though that would somehow break the fantasy that I was almost convinced I was imagining. Richard watched me for a few still moments and then took the box from my hand. He opened the lid and turned the box toward me. I gasped at the sight of the ring inside.

  The vintage piece was crafted out of white gold, the sides elaborately scrolled to hold up a massive center diamond with a cascade of smaller stones along each side. It was at once extravagant and elegant, not the gaudy over-done rings I had witnessed on some of the women who roamed around in Richard’s circle, but also not overly simple. It was nothing short of perfect and I felt breathless.

  “Will you marry me?” Richard asked.

  I looked into his eyes and nodded, feeling as though I couldn’t speak. Finally, I found the words.

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Yes, I will.”

  Richard took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my hand. It hugged my finger perfectly, telling me that he had gone through the effort of making sure that he knew my ring size and ensuring that the ring was sized to fit. I didn’t want to take it off for even a second. I stared down at it for a moment, realizing that until that moment marrying Richard had been an almost distant thought in my mind, something that I just figured might someday happen, but that I wasn’t actively seeking. Right then, though, as I felt him pulling me closer to kiss me, I felt a surge of fulfillment as if everything in my life had fallen into place.

  Christopher and Tessie walked up to the truck and climbed in, each giving me a congratulatory hug before settling onto the quilt. Clementine was awake, and I gathered her into my arms to feed her, gazing down into her perfect little eyes. I knew that she would never remember this, that by the time that she got old enough to form the memories that she would look back on when she was an adult all she would remember was us being married and having settled into life as a family. As much as I loved that she would always have that sense of security and wholeness, I also wanted her to know how much both of her parents went through to create this family and this life for her. I thought to her scrapbook and looked forward to the day that I would sit with her and tell her about this day.

  “Do I get to plan the wedding?” Christopher asked.

  I smiled at him and tucked my hand around his cheek.

  “You know what?” I said. “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Rue

  Six months later…

  Dear lord, that’s a lot of tulle.

  I stood at the doorway to the converted barn and stared around me at all of the hustle and bustle that was happening around me. The last few weeks had been some of the most chaotic that Whiskey Hollow had ever seen. Richard and I decided that there was no real reason for us to have a long engagement because we both wanted nothing more than to finally be married.

  Despite how some of the old men sitting in front of Malloy’s General Store made mutterings about how we had already shacked up and were going into our wedding with a built-in flower girl.

  Considering so many of Richard’s friends were going to be in attendance, we went along with Christopher’s urging and decided to have the wedding in the city. That meant, however, that we were going to have to make sure that everyone from the Hollow was able to come. Within a week of mentioning to Richard that I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to make it and that Clarabelle’s Fancy Dress Extravaganza wasn’t exactly equipped to handle the surge of business of the entire population of the Hollow coming to find something to wear, a crew arrived ready to convert the massive old barn that had been hunkering on the edge of the valley for as long as anyone could remember. Because the family that had once owned it had been wiped out in an inter-clan shootout several decades back, Richard had been able to purchase it without much fuss and the crew went to work changing the tired, overgrown old building into an elaborate extension of Clarabelle’s, filled to the brim with every type of dress, suit, shoe, and accessory that he had been able to source from all of the boutiques in close enough proximity to send them in time.

  The price tags had been snipped out of everything and everyone was told to choose what they liked as a wedding favor from us. Though he hadn’t yet mentioned it to her, Richard planned to sign over the satellite shop and everything that was left in it after the wedding to Clarabelle. I had it on good authority from her oldest daughter that Clarabelle had a deeply held dream of extending her little shop to include a full-service tailor, lingerie section (behind proper Chinese screens, of course), and gift shop that would allow the women from the Hollow to sell their jewelry, handmade soaps, and other creations as gifts and favors for all occasions. It was a lofty aspiration that she likely thought was never even going to be a possibility, but through Richard’s kindness, and the promise that I would always get first choice of the lingerie and milk soaps, this barn would give her the space and the jump start to do it.

  All around me women were scurrying around trying to find the perfect dress for the wedding. It was coming up so fast. I almost wished that I had made our engagement just a little longer. As much as I was looking forward to being Richard’s wife, it felt like I had barel
y even gotten a chance to enjoy being engaged. My bridal shower was that night, Christopher and Tessie were whisking me away for a bachelorette weekend the next weekend, and then the wedding was the next. Just two more weeks and the whirlwind would come to an end. Our honeymoon would follow and then all that would be left would be to settle into daily life.

  I sighed, a dreamy smile coming to my lips.

  Life. That sounds like Heaven.

  “Are you here to try on your dress?”

  I turned to see Clarabelle rushing up to me. Her face was high with color and her forehead damp with sweat, curls of her blond hair sticking to it. Her arms were overloaded with multiple colors of dresses and she seemed to be teetering precariously on her heels.

  “Yes,” I said. “But there’s no rush. I can just look around.” I looked down at her shoes. “Those are pretty fancy.”

  Clarabelle peeked down and turned one of her feet back and forth to display the crystals on the back of the heel so that they glittered in the light.

  “I thought that they might be a little much, but Sue Ellen said that I could pull them off with just the right dress. I think I’m going to go for it, but I need to break them in first, so I’ve been wearing them around the shop.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’ve got to get these to the dressing rooms. Apparently, some of the ladies have a little bit of difficulty with honesty when it comes to their size.”

  “Well, some formal wear can be deceptive when it comes to the size,” I said, trying to be diplomatic.

  “You’re sweet, honey, but there is nothing deceptive about Sissy Bigelow trying to squeeze seven children worth of ass into a twenty-year-old virgin worth of dress.”

  Diplomacy gone.

  Clarabelle shuffled away toward the dressing area in the back of the barn and I made my way in the opposite direction, settling onto a plush couch and accepting a glass of champagne offered by one of the staff that Richard brought in for the push before the wedding. I had sipped my way through the glass and was considering going and searching for Clarabelle among the women trying on their dresses, afraid that one of them might have caught sight of the size label on her dress and started a mutiny, when Tessie came around the corner carrying my dress. She had made the tremendous sacrifice of taking a leave of absence from her job, which I was fairly certain was her code for her doing something stupid and getting fired again, and coming to stay with me to help me through the last few weeks leading up to the wedding. I wasn’t sure what I really needed help with considering Christopher was handling all of the preparations, spectacularly successfully I was happy to say, and I had not only been reassured that I didn’t need to try to do anything but told in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch or attempt to change anything. This led me to believe that what had gotten Tessie fired had likely been one of those things that would cause her to want to get away from prying eyes for a little bit. Besides, since the last couple of times this had happened to her it had involved a hushed situation that resulted in her collecting a fairly large severance package, and I was starting to feel a little bit of stress, I happily accepted her being around.