His Surprise Son

by Allie Pleiter

  “You did it,” he said, daring to grab her hand. “Matrimony Valley’s first bride is here for her wedding.”

  “I barely slept last night,” Jean said, squeezing his hand. “And when I did sleep, I dreamed of all the things that could go wrong. I’m pretty sure an enormous mudslide could not take over the falls and wash away the bride in a mountain of black dirt, but it made for a very unsettling nightmare.”

  “I’m sure.” He laughed. “You’ll be great. Everyone will be great. As chief bill payer, I think I’m entitled to give a little reassurance in that department.”

  Her eyes took on a soft glow. “You. Here. I mean, would you ever have believed it?”

  “I’m changing the way I think about a lot of things, Jean.” Why couldn’t he be within ten feet of her anymore without having to tamp down the urge to kiss her? Now that he’d stepped into his role as Jonah’s father, he was starting to want much more. Would the wedding about to surround them make that better, or worse?

  * * *

  The bliss of Violet’s arrival lasted exactly three hours.

  Kelly burst into Jean’s office and pulled the door shut quickly behind her, her face filled with a wide-eyed panic. Something major was wrong.

  This is the event business, she reminded herself. Things go wrong. But in the wedding business, things had to be put right for a happy bride. And not just right, but perfect. What bride ever wanted to look back on her special day and think, “We came pretty close”?

  “Violet just called me in tears,” Kelly began. “She wants all the flowers changed. On twenty-four hours’ notice. On a holiday weekend.”

  Jean stood up and came around the desk. “What? Wasn’t she dead set on purple irises?”

  “She was. I bent over backward to find her purple irises. And now, with no time left, she wants all tulips. Absolutely no irises, and nothing in purple. Forget the fact that it’s going to cost a fortune. I’m not even sure it’s possible.”

  Perhaps it was a blessing that Josh was already here. As the man writing the check, maybe he could be persuaded to talk Violet down off this particular floral ledge. Only Violet hadn’t really struck her as the kind to change her mind on the fly. There had to be a reason—and it felt like an emotional one, if she had to guess. “Any idea why?”

  Kelly collapsed into the guest chair. “Oh, there’s a reason. I’m sure of it. This was some sort of emotional crisis thing—bigger than wedding jitters. But I don’t have the faintest idea what it is, and she’s not talking.”

  All the more reason to speak to Josh. “How can I help?”

  Kelly nodded to the desk outside Jean’s office. “Can I borrow Cathy for the afternoon? I’ll need her to cover the register—it’s going to take me all afternoon on the phone and the internet to track down what Violet wants.”

  “Of course.” Young Cathy Bolton divided her time between serving as the town secretary and counter help at Kelly’s shop. Usually, demand was never so pressing that the dual roles collided. Maybe that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. Jean added it to the ever-growing mental list of adjustments to be made as Matrim’s Valley grew into Matrimony Valley.

  “And then there’s the cost,” Kelly went on. “This is going to triple her bill. Maybe more. I’ve got to tell her that, but I don’t think she’ll hear it. Not right now. What do we do?”

  “Why don’t I put in a phone call to Josh. He may be able to shed some light on the drama—or at least take it down a notch.”

  “Good idea.” Kelly’s arched eyebrow asked a dozen questions about Josh that Jean didn’t have time to answer at the moment.

  Jean picked up her cell phone, intending to text Josh and ask him to walk over from the inn. “Anything else?”

  “Not unless you can produce tulips out of thin air by tomorrow.” Kelly rolled her eyes and put her hand to her forehead. “Not exactly Bridezilla, but...”

  “I have a feeling there’s something at work here,” Jean said. “Give me an hour to see if I can get to the bottom of it before you kill yourself hunting down last-minute replacements.” She typed My office ASAP? Re: V and hit Send.

  “I’ll let you know what I discover. I’ll send Cathy over as soon as she finishes a set of school board documents.”

  “Great.”

  Kelly was barely out the door when Jean’s phone let out a ding and showed Josh’s reply: On my way. Everything OK?

  She typed Not sure. She’d have brushed her hair and freshened her lipstick for anyone, she told herself as she waited for Josh’s appearance.

  He pushed through her door just a few minutes later, a concerned look on his face. “What’d Vi do?”

  “She sent Kelly into a fit by completely changing her floral order. Absolutely no purple irises, after insisting on them. Out of the blue. Do you have any idea what’s behind this? Because Kelly will try and make it happen, but she’s worried the bill will shock you.”

  Josh sank into the chair much the same way Kelly had. “I did this.”

  Jean couldn’t quite work out how that could have happened. “You want to tell me how?”

  Josh ran both hands through his hair. “You know Violet knows about Jonah.”

  What did that have to do with a drastic last-minute floral crisis? “Yes. I thought you told me she was really supportive about it.”

  “She was. She is,” Josh replied. “She’s been all gushy and happy about it, and how I’ll make a great dad. But you know Vi. She goes overboard.”

  Jean sat in the chair opposite him. “I still don’t see what this has to do with flowers.”

  Josh pinched the bridge of his nose. “She was going on again before Lyle and his family got here. Talking about fatherhood got her talking about my dad. Vi loved my dad. She didn’t have all the baggage I had with him, you know? They were close. I think maybe his death hit her harder than it hit me, even though he was her stepfather.” When he seemed to sense Jean still didn’t make the connection, he offered, “Purple irises were Dad’s favorite. That’s why she wanted them. She said they would make her feel like he was there.”

  This was heading to a dangerous place. “Oh,” she said, noting the regret in Josh’s eyes.

  “She was going on and on about missing Dad, and that’s not my favorite subject these days, as you can imagine. So I don’t know what came over me. She was putting him on such a pedestal, and it was getting to me. I might have...told her what he did to you.”

  There had been a time when only two people on earth knew what Bartholomew Tyler had done. There had been a time, after his death, when she carried that knowledge alone. Now it felt like an ever-widening ripple, sending shock waves out across the water in all directions.

  It all comes home to roost. Over and over.

  “Oh, no.” How strangely all their lives intersected—no, tangled—now. She was beginning to see how God could transform this situation into a kind of good, but that didn’t entirely outrun the widening circle of pain. Funny how she’d always seen the “Matrimony Valley” concept as bringing happiness into the valley. It would, she hoped, but today it was hard to see how they got there from here.

  “She’s upset. I upset her. I don’t think she ever thought of Dad as someone capable of that. It’s always bothered me, how she saw him. I resented it, I suppose, how he never seemed to show that side of himself to her. As though she were exempt from the demands I was under.” He slumped back in the chair. “On some level, I think I knew what it would do to her to learn what he’d done. And I told her anyway. Today of all days.” He looked over at Jean. “Why did I do that? What was the point of her knowing? She didn’t need to know—I had no right to taint her memory of him. Couldn’t I have just let her have her happiness?”

  Jean sighed. “Pain never feels fair. No one wants more than their share. I could have let Bartholomew’s sins die with him, but I didn’t. I know it expl
ained my silence in some ways, but I also admit there was some selfish revenge in watching you hurt the way I had.”

  Josh’s eyes darkened. “It’s not the same. You had every right to tell me. It’s important that I know. It shocked me that he’d go to that length, do that to you and to Jonah, but I can’t say it surprised me. I knew what kind of man my father was. You didn’t taint my view of him.”

  “And now you’ve tainted Violet’s view of her father.”

  “Tainted? I think Kelly’s trashed flower order tells us I’ve done a bit more than that. It’s like she can’t even stomach the idea of his memory at her wedding now. I didn’t have any right to do that, even if it is the truth.”

  Jean leaned on the chair arm. “We’re all just trying to make sense of this, Josh. We all feel like we’ve been blindsided. It’s hard to take the route of grace when we’re still reeling ourselves.”

  “But this is Vi and her wedding. This is Matrimony Valley’s first bride. This isn’t supposed to be about me, and I made it about me.” He shook his head. “How do I fix this?”

  “Let’s start with you talking to Violet. Get Lyle to talk to her. This is about much more than which flowers are at the ceremony. Help her work through her emotions.”

  Josh laughed. “Sure. Right after I figure out mine.” He held Jean’s gaze again, still with that unmoored look that caught her up short. “What do we do here, Jean? I’ve been a first-class jerk, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  Jean straightened, willing herself into uncharted waters. “I know what my dad would say if he were here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sometimes God takes us to a place where we have no answers to remind us that He does.”

  “That sounds like something your dad would say.” He raised a dark eyebrow. “Do you believe that?”

  She sighed. “I don’t believe in coincidences.” She waved her hand in the air between them. “All this is too much to be chance, don’t you think?”

  “Are you asking me if I think God’s behind my appearance in Matrimony Valley?”

  She paused for a moment, wanting to get the words right. “I’m asking you if it makes any sense any other way. Surely even you can see the divine design in this, how it’s far too particular to be random.”

  It pleased her that he didn’t brush off the notion. She could see him reach out, pushing his brilliant intellect to wrap around such an idea. “It’s getting a little hard to ignore, I’ll grant you that.”

  “Go talk to Violet. Help her see that what your father may have planned for bad still worked out for good. That what Bartholomew did to you doesn’t change who he was for her. Maybe that will help calm her down.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  She gave him a thin smile. “Then get your checkbook ready, because if she still wants to change her flowers, it’s going to cost you plenty.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Matrimony Valley’s first-ever bride could not have looked more beautiful. Or more nervous. Jean helped the maid of honor, Lucy, get Violet’s veil just right as she stood on the flagstone path just out of view of the gathered guests.

  The past twelve hours had been a flurry of last-minute crises large and small—four vegetarian guests who’d “forgotten” to note their preferences on their RSVP cards, one bridesmaid’s dress that sustained a rip, two missed flights resulting in guests who wouldn’t make the ceremony but would arrive in time for the reception—and a monumental compromise from irises to tulips to lilies. Everything was as perfect as it was going to be to join the lives of Captain Lyle Davis and Violet Ann Thomas in front of the Matrimony Falls.

  Josh seemed a bastion of calm Jean wasn’t entirely sure he felt. Then again, scrambling to make deadlines was part of what he did. He’d told her at last night’s rehearsal dinner that more than once he’d been onstage hyping up a product’s release, fully aware the engineers were backstage making a mad dash to ensure it all worked. None of that quite covered the guilt she knew he held for blurting out a truth that should have stayed hidden for another day, if not forever.

  The regret softened him, turned him in tender attention to his stepsister. Jean watched him squeeze Violet’s hand with a surprisingly gentle affection in his eyes. “It’s easy from here. Even if twenty-five things go wrong, at the end of this hour you’ll be Mrs. Lyle Davis. That’s what you came here to do. Everything else is just fringe.”

  Violet adjusted the string of pearls around her neck—a gift from Josh—for the fifth time. “Easy for you to say,” she quipped to her stepbrother. “I feel a bit sick. What if I trip?”

  “I’ll be here to catch you,” Josh said, his voice smooth and reassuring.

  “What if Lyle hates the dress?”

  Josh grinned. “Speaking on behalf of every male in a five-hundred-mile radius, Lyle will not hate the dress. You look incredible. Your biggest problem might be getting him to speak or keep upright, you look so beautiful. Stop worrying. Let me walk you down this aisle to those beautiful falls where Lyle is waiting.”

  With that, Jean stepped out to where the harpist could see her signal to begin the music. At the appointed cue, Jean sent the first bridesmaid around the corner and down the flagstone path toward the gazebo. Her heart swelled a bit at the oohs and aahs of the guests. The tilt of the morning sun perfectly hit the daisy-yellow bridesmaids’ gowns so that they fairly glowed. She knew the hint of sparkle in Violet’s gown would catch the sun with even more splendor. Josh was right; Lyle was in for a stunning first view of his bride.

  One by one, each bridesmaid made her way down the aisle to stand opposite the row of dashing navy seamen in their snappy dress blues. At the bottom of the aisle, Lyle stood in dress whites with the same anxious-yet-thrilled smile that currently beamed under Violet’s veil.

  While never meaning to, Josh stood out himself as the only civilian member of the bridal party in a white dinner jacket. Josh didn’t often wear suits, but when he did, the man looked astounding. Lyle’s astonishment had nothing on the breath that left her when she first saw Josh in his formal attire, or the glow that lit in her chest when he smiled just for her.

  “Let’s go get you married,” he said in a gentle voice to Violet. “Just start walking and hang on to me.” With that, he pulled her gently in motion, and the pair turned the corner to begin their walk down the aisle.

  Jean watched them pass, listening with grateful bliss at the reaction of the guests as the sun did indeed catch Violet’s dress and set it sparkling. She knew that somewhere behind her, a host of valley residents were spreading tablecloths, setting tables and plating hors d’oeuvres. Yet another last-minute brigade was likely shuttling lily centerpieces to Hailey’s Inn as fast as Kelly could assemble them. Poor Kelly probably had gotten less sleep last night than she had, and that was saying something. Still, despite the frantic “backstage” scramble, Jean allowed herself a quiet confidence that most of the guests had no idea anything had gone wrong. And that was how it should be.

  She watched Josh reach the bottom of the aisle with Violet. His broad smile touched her heart as he lifted Violet’s veil and kissed her cheek. Thankful Violet had Josh to give her away, Jean wondered for a painful moment who would give her away if she ever made the walk down this aisle as a Matrimony Valley bride. Would it be so long in coming that Jonah would be old enough to do the honors?

  Josh placed Violet’s hand into that of her groom and took his seat in the first row. I wish I could see his face, she thought, watch him as he watches the ceremony. Would he project himself—or the two of them—into the ceremony the same way she did? Did he wonder what their wedding would have been like, the same way she had since that conversation four nights ago on the mountain?

  Had he come to feel for her as strongly as she’d come to feel for him? It didn’t matter whether it was wise or foolish; today heightened the feelings she had for
him. Maybe it was best she couldn’t lose herself in the dazzle of his gaze right now—the mayor and chief wedding planner of Matrimony Valley had too much to do.

  That didn’t stop her heart from skipping a beat as Pastor Mitchell began, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”

  * * *

  “I now pronounce you man and wife. Friends, may I present to you Captain and Mrs. Lyle Davis.”

  Josh broke into thunderous applause along with the other wedding guests. Drawn silver swords flashed in the sunlight to create a ceremonial bridge under which Lyle and Violet took their first steps up the aisle as husband and wife. The joy in the place blazed full and energizing. Josh felt the stress of his life slough off his shoulders, at least for the next few hours. Today was a day to celebrate how love and happiness still showed up in the world.

  He looked around for Jean as the guests filed out of the clearing, aware she was probably off coordinating some detail of the transition from ceremony to reception. Being one of the last guests to leave the space, he turned to gaze again at the cascade of water that served as Violet’s backdrop. Truly, no church he could think of—even the charming little sanctuary in the valley’s church—could match the splendor of the falls. Who could fault Jean for wanting to get married here? For helping other people get married here?

  I’d want to get married here.

  I’d want to marry Jean here.

  He did. He’d been fighting the growing sense of wanting to be part of Jean’s life for days now. It wasn’t the desire to make it happen that was lacking; it was just the logistics of making it work. The things it might cost him. Things that, up until he’d stepped out of that car with Violet on Aisle Avenue, seemed vastly important. It wasn’t that they weren’t important anymore—the employees of SymphoCync, the career he’d built, the things he’d made possible—it was that he’d discovered some things that were more important. Some people who were more important.