The Groom Came Back

Aunt Nancy flapped her hands to gain the attention of the audience.

The bride emerged, stunning in a low-cut ivory silk dress. “Oooh,” Nancy gasped, and started dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“Wow, cuz, you turned out not bad looking,” Jack said.

Sarah stuck out her tongue. Then her eyes widened. “Uh…Aunt Brenda?”

Callie turned, and saw Brenda, white-faced, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Mom,” Jack said, alarmed.

Brenda waved her hands in front of her eyes. “Sorry…can’t…stop…” The words came out as hiccuping sobs. Then she smiled—a deliberate clamping of the teeth, widening of the lips. “You look…so…beautiful.”

Nancy offered her own damp tissue, patted her sister-in-law’s shoulder. When Brenda didn’t show any signs of drying up, a tangible unease rippled through the room.

At least the women felt it. Jack looked awkward, but not bothered. He probably thought women reacted like this all the time at the sight of a bride.

“Jack,” Callie said sharply, “how about you take your mom home?”

He followed her cue. “Right. Let’s go, Mom.” He led the still-weeping Brenda from the room while Callie raced to get changed. Nancy would have to adjust the left breast another day.

By the time she got out to the street, Brenda was in the Jaguar and had stopped crying. But her pallor was alarming.

Callie leaned in through the window. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, sweetie, you don’t need to tell me I over-reacted in there.” Brenda sounded her normal self. Only her white-knuckled grip on her purse revealed her stress.

“Hey, it was an emotional moment,” Jack said from the driver’s seat.

As if he knew the first thing about it! Brenda’s tears were exactly the kind of change in behavior Callie had warned him about, and he’d chosen to ignore the heads-up. But now wasn’t the time to argue. “Nancy will understand,” she told Brenda.

Jack’s mother bit her lip. “Nancy might,” she said carefully, “but Dan won’t.”

“Huh?” Jack said.

“Dan might not hear,” Callie said. But of course Nancy would tell Frank, and Frank would repeat it to his brother.

Brenda dropped her head back against the seat. “I must look a mess.”

“You look fine,” Jack assured her.

Honestly, the man had no idea! Callie hadn’t wanted him back in town so he could humor his mom.

“I’d like to freshen up before we go home,” Brenda told Callie.

“How about a cup of tea at the Eating Post?”

“Thank you.” Brenda reached awkwardly to squeeze Callie’s hand through the open window.

“So…we’re going to the Eating Post?” Jack asked.

“That’s right,” Callie said. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

The restaurant was on the opposite side of Bicentennial Square from Fresher Flowers. Being Sunday, the place was deserted. Brenda headed straight to the bathroom; Callie led Jack to a table.

He slid into the other side of the booth from her. She drew a breath, and in the confined space, she inhaled him—soap and mint, the fresh-pressed cotton of his shirt, the scent of expensive leather. She sat back.

“Tell me why we’re having tea,” he said. “You and Mom were talking in code back there.”

“To give your mother some time to pull herself together before she sees Dan.”

He half laughed. “Dad’s seen her upset before. I think he can handle it.” He signaled to the waitress that they were ready to order.

“Dan doesn’t like this kind of upset.”

“It’s the time of year,” Jack said. “I’d expect them both to be a little tense.”

“That’s part of it,” Callie admitted. Last week had been the anniversary of the day Lucy had drowned. She’d been swimming in the Tallee River during a school picnic. “There was certainly friction last year, but this year, your parents have been…stressed.”

Jack looked skeptical. “Mom and Dad are rock solid.”

Callie wanted to ask, How would you know? Instead, aware Brenda might return any moment, she forced herself to loosen her grip on the edge of the table.

“I didn’t expect to see you at Nancy’s house,” she said conversationally. “I thought you’d be sleeping off your jet lag.”

“Lying in bed staring at that mauve-and-magenta border was making me nauseous.”

Callie tried hard not to imagine Jack lying in bed. Then she remembered it was her bed, when she was staying with Dan and Brenda. Casually, she ran the back of her hand over one cheek, then the other. Definitely warm. Probably red.

Jack leaned forward, his gaze assessing. “Are you okay? Do you have a fever?”

Good grief, did he have to try to diagnose her every reaction?

“I’m fine,” she practically snapped. The only thing wrong with her was that she needed to spend less time talking to flowers and more time with living, breathing men, because her brain was still hung up on that bed thing.

He leaned in even farther to look at her, as if he could see right into the neural pathways of her mind.

Yikes. She eased away, thankful for the arrival of the waitress, and ordered tea for Brenda and herself. Jack asked for coffee.

When the woman left, he said abruptly, “You’re mad at me.”

“Excuse me?”

Jack had lain awake most of the night, due to a combination of jet lag and racing thoughts rather than lilacpaint-induced nausea. At 3:00 a.m., he’d turned his mind to Callie, and concluded that getting annoyed at her was counterproductive, given he needed her cooperation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at the shop,” he said. No woman liked to think she was forgettable. He should have realized that earlier.

“You think I’d get mad about something like that?” She gave a toss of her nut-brown hair, which must have highlights in it, the way it caught the light and glinted gold where it touched her shoulders. “I took it as a compliment. I figured I’m a big improvement over the last time you saw me.”