The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

“Joly, is that pickled okra I see?”

Joleen turned her widest smile on another of her father’s brothers. “You bet it is, Uncle Stan. Help yourself.”

“I surely will.”

With the buffet all ready to go, Joleen went to check on the punch table again. The bowl needed filling. She took care of that. Then she went back inside to look for those little frilly toothpicks that everyone kept using up the minute she set them out.

She got stalled in the kitchen for several minutes. Burly had a traveling-salesman joke she just had to hear. Once he’d told it and she had finished laughing, she found the toothpicks and headed for the back door once more.

Outside again, she discovered that her mother was dancing with yet another of the guests from Wayne’s family. And Aunt LeeAnne whispered in her ear that Uncle Hubert had gone behind the garden shed to be sick.

Joleen suppressed a sigh. “I’ll go see to him.”

“I think that would be best. I’d do it, of course, but you saw what happened the last time I tried to give the poor man a hand.”

When Joleen got to the other side of the shed, she spotted two little DuFraynes and a small niece of Wayne’s peeking around the far end. Uncle Hubert sagged pitifully against the shed wall, his head stuck in among the dark pink blooms of a tall crape myrtle bush.

She dealt with the children first. “You kids go on now.”

The three stared for a moment, then began giggling.

“I mean it. Do not make me get your mamas.”

The giggling stopped. Three sets of wide eyes regarded her. Joleen put on a no-nonsense glare and made a sharp shooing gesture with the back of her hand.

The three vanished around the end of the shed, giggles erupting again as soon as they were out of sight. The giggles faded away.

Uncle Hubert groaned. And then his thick shoulders shook. Joleen swallowed and pressed her lips together as she heard splattering sounds behind the bush.

She waited until that attack of sickness had passed. Then she dared to move a few steps closer. “Uncle Hubert…”

Her uncle groaned. “Joly?”

“That’s right.”

“Go ’way.” He spoke into the crape myrtle bush.

Joleen edged a little closer. “Uncle Hubert, I want you to come in the house with me now.”

“I’m fine.” He groaned again. “Go ’way.”

“No. No, you listen. It’s too hot out here. You can lie down inside.”

“No.” He made a strangled sound. His shoulders shook again, but this time nothing seemed to be coming up.

Joleen waited, to make sure he was finished. Then, with slow care, she moved right up next to him. “Come on, now…” She laid a hand on his arm. “You just come on.”

“No!” He jerked away, half stumbling, almost falling, bouncing with a muffled gonging sound against the metal wall of the garden shed. “Leave,” he growled. “Go…”

Joleen stepped back again, unwilling to give up but unsure how to convince him that he should come with her.

A hand clasped her shoulder.

Dekker. She knew it before she even turned to see him standing right behind her. She felt easier instantly. Between them they would manage. They always did.

“Need help?”

She nodded.

He raised a dark brow. “You want him in the house?”

She nodded again.

He stepped around her. “Hubert…”

“Ugh. Wha? Oh. Dek.”

“Right. Come on, man. Let’s go…”

“Ugh…”

“Yeah. You need to stretch out.”

“Uh-uh…”

Dekker took Uncle Hubert’s arm and wrapped it across his broad shoulder. Uncle Hubert moaned. He kept saying no and shaking his head. But he didn’t pull away. Slowly Dekker turned him around and got him moving.

Joleen went on ahead, warning the other guests out of the way, opening the back door, leading the way through the kitchen and into the hall. Uncle Hubert would probably be most comfortable upstairs in one of the bedrooms, but she didn’t know how far he’d be willing to let Dekker drag him. So she settled for the living room.

“Here,” she said, “on the couch.” She tossed away her mother’s favorite decorative pillows as she spoke, then spread an old afghan across the cushions. It would provide some protection if Uncle Hubert’s poor stomach decided to rebel again.

Dekker eased the other man down. Uncle Hubert fell onto his back with a long, low groan.

“Let’s get his shoes off,” said Dekker, already kneeling at Uncle Hubert’s feet. Before he had the second shoe off, Uncle Hubert was snoring. Dekker set the shoes, side by side, beneath the coffee table. “They’ll be right here whenever he needs them.”

Joleen stood over her uncle, shaking her head. “It seems like we ought to do something, doesn’t it? We shouldn’t let him go on hurting himself this way.”

Uncle Hubert had lost his wife, Thelma, six months ago. The heavy beer drinking had started not long after that.

“Give him time,” Dekker said. “He’ll work it out.”

“I hope he works it out soon. A man’s liver can only take so much.”

“He will,” Dekker said. “He’ll get through it.”

They were good words to hear, especially from Dekker, who had never been the most optimistic guy on the block. “You sound so certain.”

He winked at her. “I oughtta know, don’t you think?”