The Bride Wore Blue Jeans

Kevin felt his mouth curving in a grin. “I don’t need details, Lily.”

“And you’re not getting any,” she informed him with a laugh. “But I want you to come up here. For the wedding. It’s in three weeks and I wouldn’t feel as if it’s official unless you’re here to give me away.”

He refrained from saying that no one had ever held on to her long enough to pretend that she was his to give away. Lily had been her own person from a very early age.

Yes, he thought, he really was going to miss her.

“I’d be proud to, Lily.”

He heard her clear her throat. Lily hated to get sentimental. “Now I know how you feel about getting away from the business, but maybe Nathan or Joe could take over while—”

He cut her off briskly. “Not a problem. I sold the business.” In response, he heard nothing but silence on the other end. Everything had happened so quickly he hadn’t even had time to tell any of them that he was thinking about selling, much less that he’d signed on the dotted line and made Quintano Cabs a thing of the past. “Lily, are you there?”

He heard her take in a sharp breath. “Yes, I guess the connection just went weird for a second. I thought I heard you say—”

He didn’t want to hear her say it. He couldn’t exactly explain why hearing one of his siblings give voice to what he’d done would make it that much more difficult to bear, but it did. “You did. I did.”

“But, Kevin, why?”

The last thing he wanted to do now was discuss what he’d impulsively done over the telephone. He needed to reconcile himself to today’s wrinkle first, then think about his late business.

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” He changed the topic. “Anyway, three weeks, eh? That’s really short notice. You’ve got a lot to do before then.”

“I know.” She sighed, as if trying to brace herself for what lay ahead. “I can manage—”

He suddenly knew what to do with himself. At least, for the next three weeks. “Especially with help. I’ll come up early.”

“How early?”

Unless he missed his guess, he’d managed to stun Lily twice in the space of two minutes. “I’m not doing anything right now. I’ll be there as soon as possible.” He was already walking toward the cabinet where he kept the phonebooks stashed. “Let me book a flight and then I’ll get back to you.”

Still very numb, Lily murmured a half-audible “Okay.”

“Great. Talk to you later. Bye.”

The line went dead. Lily let the receiver drop slowly as she turned around to face the rest of her family who were gathered in the room around her. Her brother and sister were there with their spouses, as well as Max and June, who absolutely refused to be left out of anything, family oriented or otherwise. Alison and Jimmy looked at her in surprise, clearly disappointed that they didn’t each get a chance to talk to Kevin on the phone.

Closest to her, Jimmy stared at the medical clinic telephone, one of the few in Hades that didn’t still possess a rotary dial. He raised his eyes to hers in protest. “You hung up.”

“He hung up first,” Lily muttered, still staring at the receiver and feeling as if a piece of the known world had just disappeared from her life.

Max came around to face her. “Lily, what’s the matter? Isn’t your brother coming?”

Slowly she nodded her head. Sold, the business was sold. Gone. Wow. She would have thought that the Space Needle would have wound up on eBay for an auction before Kevin would ever even consider selling the taxicab service.

“Oh, he’s coming all right.” Raising her eyes, she looked at the others.

“Then what’s the matter?” Max asked.

Lily’s eyes met his. “Kevin just told me he’s sold the business.”

“He did what?” Jimmy’s jaw went slack. He’d put in seven summers driving one of Kevin’s cabs. It was as if a member of the family had died

Lily turned to look at him. “Sold the business.” Unable to fathom it, she waved her hand vaguely in the air. “Said it seemed like the thing to do.”

She looked from one face to another as if waiting for one of them to unravel the mystery for her, to make sense of the situation. Why would Kevin do that? He loved the business.

June Yearling lifted her slender shoulders, wondering what the big deal was all about. People sold businesses every day. She had, just recently. The one-time owner of the only auto-repair shop in over a hundred-mile radius, she’d sold the business that had been passed on to her, because it had felt like the right thing to do at the time.

“Maybe it was,” she said to her brother’s fiancée. “Maybe he has an itch, and selling his taxicab service is the only way he knows how to scratch it.”

Lily sighed. It still didn’t make any sense to her. Kevin was acting rashly, especially for Kevin. Why hadn’t he discussed this with any of them? She looked at Jimmy and Alison, but they looked as mystified as she was.

Lily ran her hands up and down her arms, despite the fact that the day was warm. “But he’s had that business forever.”

June thought of herself, of her own feelings when she’d made up her mind to sell. “Forever’s a long time. Maybe he needed something new. Maybe he got tired of having things break down on him and—” She bit her lip, realizing that she’d allowed her own experiences to intrude into her interpretation. “Sorry. They always say, stick to what you know.”

Max laughed shortly, shaking his head. She might have the face of an angel, but June was the wild one in the family, especially now that April had ceased her wandering ways and returned to live in Hades. June had never made noises about moving out of state, the way over three-quarters of the adolescent population had, but she had been a restless pistol in every other way. She was always full of surprises.

“If that were the case,” he said to her, “you wouldn’t have sold the shop to Walter Haley and announced that you were going to make a go of the family farm.”

Family farm.

It was almost a euphemism at this point. In reality, it had been abandoned land for years. They’d left it without any thought when he, Alison and June, along with their mother, had moved in with their grandmother after their father had taken off for parts unknown. The thought of making a go of the property had vaguely crossed his mind, only to be quickly discarded. The town needed a sheriff and he needed to be it. Max knew he was lucky enough to have found his true calling.

June frowned, looking down at her hands. They were scrubbed clean now, but there were still traces of dark stains on them. She’d never been one to dress up or try to compete with her sister, or any of the other girls in town, but even she had a place where she drew the line.

“I got tired of trying to get motor oil off my hands,” she retorted. She looked accusingly at the older brother she secretly adored. “A woman’s got a right to want to keep her hands clean.”

Max gave her an innocent look. “Never said otherwise.”

Concern creased Alison’s fair features as she looked at her own brother. “Think Kevin’s having a midlife crisis?”

Luc laughed at his wife’s suggestion, shaking his head. He’d always liked Kevin. “Thirty-seven’s a little young to have a midlife crisis.”

June looked at him. She might be the youngest in the room, but age to her was not a brittle thing, without rounded edges or flexibility. “Seems to be just about right to me. Unless he’s planning on living until he’s a hundred.”

Jimmy smiled, remembering the promise Alison had extracted from their brother after their father’s funeral. “Kevin is planning on living forever.”

“Well, then you’re right,” she said glibly. “Thirty-seven’s too young for a midlife crisis. Maybe he just needed a change.” With the bluntness of the very young, she looked at Kevin’s siblings. “After all, you all picked up and left him.”

It almost sounded like an accusation. Lily exchanged glances with Jimmy.

“None of us planned it that way,” Alison protested for all of them.

June shrugged. She had to be getting back to work. The land wasn’t going to tend itself. And she still had cows to milk and a disabled tractor to curse. “Still, that’s what happened. Maybe he thinks it’s time to start over.”

Jimmy looked thoughtful. Maybe June had stumbled across something. “In Kevin’s case, it’s starting life in the first place. He’s never had time for a life,” he told his in-laws. “Been there for all of us and never had time to be there for himself.”