“I love your husband,” Emma said as Sherilyn placed a gawdy plastic tiara made out of rhinestones and pink feathers on her head.
“And now I love Jackson again, too.”
Emma clucked at the joke. Jackson had returned to Sherilyn’s good graces with the about-face on the sale of The Tanglewood. He could rest easy now, and all was right with the world.
Greetings crashed into and over one another as Emma stepped out into the great room, where most of her favorite females had gathered in her honor. Her mother and Aunt Sophie; Jackson’s sisters Madeline, Georgiann, and Norma; Pearl and Fee; Audrey and Kat; and . . .
“Hildie?”
“Hey, Emma!”
“What in the world . . . ?”
“Fee asked me.”
“And your foster family was good with it?”
“Yeah.”
Fee shrugged casually. “I thought the kid could use a break from civilization.”
Sherilyn laughed as she chided, “Are you saying we’re uncivilized, Fee?”
“Yeah. A little.”
A line of women took turns hugging Emma as she moved inside, dropped her bags, and sat down on the sofa next to Hildie.
“How’s it going for you?” she asked, placing an arm around the girl’s shoulder.
“Okay.”
“Do you like your new school?”
“It’s okay.”
“Made any new friends? And do not say they’re okay!”
Hildie giggled. “There’s this one kid who’s pretty cool. Her name is Bethany, and she’s pretty good at skateboarding.”
“Yes, and what about the family where you’re staying? Are they okay, too?”
“They’re all right. I mean, they sort of have the family thing down already, so it’s like I’m trying to jam my squareness into their roundness, you know?”
“I think I do,” Emma replied, grinning at Fee over Hildie’s shoulder. “But give it some time. They’re going to fall in love with you eventually, just like we did.”
“Yeah, that’s what Fee said.”
“Dude,” Fee added, ruffling Hildie’s curly hair. “You’ve got lovable written all over you.”
“Yeah,” Hildie cracked. “I know.”
Sherilyn cranked up the stereo on her way toward Emma, shaking her hips as she lip-synched along with Bob Seger’s song, “Her Strut.”
“Really?” Emma said dryly as Sherilyn danced in front of her. “This is what’s ahead of me tonight?”
“We’ve already laid down the law,” Norma announced. “Some of us have brought alternative music for after the shower, when the wusses in the room leave us behind and the slumber portion commences.”
“My sister just called me a wuss,” Georgiann remarked, and Avery touched her hand.
“It’s all right. The non-wusses have to stay in sleeping bags while the wiser ones of us go home and sleep in our own beds.”
“What is a wuss, anyway?” Sophie asked, and Emma laughed.
“It’s a very, very wise person, Aunt Soph.”
“Anyway, we’ve got a wide variety of music,” Norma said. “From Brandon Heath . . .”
“I love Brandon Heath!” Kat exclaimed.
“. . . to Casting Crowns . . .”
“My contribution,” Pearl chimed in.
“. . . and I think Fee brought some classic oldies, right?”
Emma knew Fee’s musical tastes well. They’d spent many a late night in their kitchen, bopping around to the likes of the Kinks, the Temptations, and the Four Tops while finishing off a wedding cake or a selection of delectables for the tearoom.
“Excellent!” she said, and Emma jumped to her feet as she and Fee exchanged their traditional “secret handshake”: Tap-tap of their fists, then both palms upright . . . two slaps given . . . two more slaps returned . . . a couple of quick hip bumps . . . and “Hoo-yeah!” in unison.
“Hey!” Hildie piped up. “I want to learn that. Do it again!”
Sherilyn shook her head at them. “While these two initiate Hildie into their secret club, I’ll just tell you all about the food. There’s every snack known to mankind spread out on the table. There’s a giant lasagna in the oven whenever we’re ready, and some garlic knots and salad. And Fee has made a very appealing assortment of cupcakes that she has arranged into a cake.”
“You did?” Emma asked her. “When?”
“Let’s just say I am sleep deprived, so nobody keep me awake with snoring tonight . . .” And nearly the whole group joined Fee in the chorus. “. . . Nor-ma!”
“What?” Norma cried. “I do not snore!”
Pearl bent double with laughter, and Norma smacked her arm.
“So, let’s get some drinks and some snacks, and open some presents!” Sherilyn suggested. As they all moved into action, Sherilyn leaned close to Emma and softly told her, “I love this part.”
“The gifts? Yes, I know.”
“Grab a snack. I got you some of the crackers you like with those light cheese wedges.”
“Thanks. What are you having?”
“What do you think? There are chocolate chip cookies on that table.”
“Ah. Well, that answers that.”
“Emma, I think your purse is ringing,” Hildie announced before stuffing an entire cookie into her mouth.
Emma pulled her cell phone from the front pocket of her bag and opened it, grinning.
“Did you call to check on me?” she asked Jackson.
“I wanted to hit you before all of that estrogen left you crazy and curled up in a ball in the corner,” he teased. “Are you having a good time?”
“I got here late,” she whispered, turning away from the group. “But it would appear that they started without me.”
“I’m sure you’ll catch up any minute. How did your appointment go?”
“Good. I have the name of a nutritionist to work with. The labs were good, but my glucose is a mess. We’ve increased the blood pressure meds for just a few months, but she thinks I may live. At least through the wedding.”
“Good to know.”
“I was just headed to the snack table,” she said on a chuckle as Sherilyn tugged on her arm. “It looks as if the Falcons will be stopping by. There’s enough food to feed every one of them! What about you? What are you having for dinner?”
“Chinese. Sean’s coming over.”
“Oh, sure. Chinese? Talk about someone collapsing in a corner at the end of the night. Estrogen’s got nothing on Chinese takeout, Jackson.”
“Yeah. But in a good way,” Jackson retorted. Emma laughed, and Jackson softened as he said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I have to work tomorrow, but I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Emma?”
“Yep?”
“Relax tonight. Have a good time.”
“With my girls around me? Of course.”
Jackson chuckled. “G’night.”
19
What’s that?”
Emma looked up at Hildie, standing over her and staring down at the paper towel laid out on the tabletop.
“Oh. I was inspired.”
“To draw a cake?” Hildie asked her. “When there’s cupcakes and cookies all over the place?”
“Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“Kinda.”
“Well, I’ve been a little cake-challenged lately, and the wedding is almost here and I haven’t been able to settle on one design. I spoke to my fiancé earlier, and I was thinking how easy it is to be with him, and . . .” She quickly scribbled the words Pure and Uncomplicated underneath the paper towel drawing before finishing with “. . . he inspired this.”
“Looks weird.”
Emma looked up at her and raised one eyebrow. “What do you mean? It does?”
“Well, yeah. Is that a tree growing up the side?”
She took a second look at the cake and grimaced. “No,” she defended. “It’s a . . . branch. You know, like—” Cutting herself off, she
sighed and leaned back in the dining chair. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
“Okay, ladies,” Sherilyn called out from the other side of the great room. “It’s time for more games! Come on over here, Em.”
“Oh, goodie,” Hildie muttered dryly. “More games.”
“I know, right?”
“If this is a slumber-shower, when do we get to slumber? I’m kind of over the games.”
Emma broke into laughter. “Whatever the game,” she announced, “Hildie’s on my team.”
“I appreciate your coming over, buddy.”
“Well, when you nixed Andy’s idea of a bachelor party—”
“Andy’s idea of a bachelor party,” Jackson pointed out, “is a poker game with the baby in a carriage in the corner and Henry noshing on the snacks when we’re not looking.”
“True enough. Anyway, I figured Chinese was the least I could do on the night of the bachelorette deal,” Sean told him as he handed over a quart container of shrimp lo mein. “You want moo shu?”
“Yeah.”
Sean dumped a glob of the pork and egg mixture on a plate, topped it with a fork, and slid it across the slick table toward Jackson.
“You get egg rolls?”
“Dude,” Sean said, sounding a lot like his wife. “Duh.”
“I wonder if that will happen to me.”
“If what will happen?” Sean asked, pushing a wax packet at him with an egg roll sticking out of it.
“If I’ll start to sound like Emma, the way you sounded like Fee just now.”
A bright-white smile wound its way across Sean’s dark face. “Yeah. You’ll wake up one morning, out of the blue, craving cake or something. It happens before you know it.”
“I look forward to it,” he commented.
“Got anything to drink?”
“Water,” Jackson said. “Maybe a Coke or two.”
Jackson dug into the meal while Sean grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator.
“Yeah, I didn’t really anticipate all the ways she would impact my life,” Sean said. “Like that kid, Hildie. I just thought Fee was a little crazy and it might pass, but before I knew it, we were both invested. I almost hope we pull it off.”
“Pull what off?”
“Oh. Yeah. We’re trying to adopt her.”
Jackson coughed on the lo mein noodle stuck halfway down his throat and gawked at Sean with bulging eyes. “What? You’re what?”
“Yeah, we met with that caseworker woman . . .”
“Mrs. Troy?”
“Yeah. Troy. And she’s helping us work through the system.”
“Does Emma know?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I just assumed Fee would have told her, but maybe not. She’s pretty close to the vest with this thing. She seems like she’s got a duck’s back, but she’s invested in this.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
“I’m learning to love the kid, to tell you the truth.”
“Have you spent any time with her?”
“Yeah, a little,” Sean replied, and he paused to show Jackson another container. “Sweet and sour chicken?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“We took her to the Braves game. Man, the kid really loves baseball.”
“And the foster family is okay with this?”
“Oh, yeah. The Rameys are great.”
Jackson dunked an egg roll into plum sauce and took a bite, chewing on it while he also nibbled on the idea of Fee and Sean adopting Hildie. If Emma knew, she surely would have mentioned it. He hadn’t realized he was staring until Sean’s smile twitched.
“What, man?”
“Fee as a mom,” he stated. “That . . . boggles my mind.”
“Yeah. I hear ya. But I think she’s better suited to it than you’d suspect.”
After they ate, they decided to go around the corner to shoot a game of pool at the sports bar Jackson used to frequent now and then to watch a game with his buddies, the ones he hadn’t seen or talked to for months on end. He hadn’t been to O’Hara’s since before the hotel opening.
Sean cleaned up in the first two games, but Jackson pulled out a win for the third. They each ordered something to drink and watched the end of a soccer game on the corner TV screen before heading out.
“So how was it?” Sean joked before heading for his car. “Better than a bachelor party, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Jackson slapped Sean’s arm as they shook hands, and he still wore the parting smile as he stepped back into his house. It had been a great night. He’d forgotten how much time had passed since he had made time for a simple night out with a friend. Sean was great company, and spending time with him made Jackson think about his old friend Decker Stanton. He wondered if Decker and Felicity had responded to the wedding invitation.
Without much forethought, Jackson grabbed his cell phone and dialed Decker.
“My caller ID must be on the fritz,” Decker declared as he answered. “It says Jackson Drake is calling, but that can’t be. He dropped off the earth months ago.”
“The rumors of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated,” he cracked. Maybe Emma wasn’t the only one who had gotten a little lost in her work at the hotel.
“Man, how are you? Felicity just showed me the invitation to your wedding. You’re finally marrying that girl, are you?”
“I thought I might.”
“Glad to hear it, bro. We knew the first time you brought her out to tailgate that she was the one. Took your guff and gave it right back to you.”
Jackson laughed at that, and, after about fifteen minutes of catch-up on the phone with Decker, he headed for the shower, still thinking about that day. He couldn’t remember whom the Falcons had played, but he vividly recalled Emma jumping out of her seat and doing a happy dance with his friends when Ryan threw a forty-yard touchdown play. He’d found himself thinking how Desiree hadn’t cared one iota about football, and the comparison between the two women had shaken him to the core.
Who would have thought then that we’d end up here? he wondered.
The tumble down Memory Lane sent him to a crash landing at the bottom of that dream he and Emma had just given up—the one where they packed up their new marriage and took it to Paris for a spell. He never really thought of himself as much of a romantic, but the nights they’d spent fleshing out the details of that dream had made him feel like one.
Now, he just felt like a weary, clashing combination of disappointed dreamer and the luckiest guy on the planet.
As they watched the second movie of the night, Henry, Sherilyn’s massive Old English sheepdog, nuzzled Hildie’s leg while she rested her head in Fee’s lap where they sat on the floor, Fee braiding the girl’s long, curly locks. Norma, Pearl, and Audrey occupied the sofa behind them, and Kat sprawled on the floor at the foot of the coffee table.
Sherilyn and Emma had moved to the dining room, where Emma made notes on gifts and the people who had given them. Sherilyn pushed the bows they’d removed from each present through a hole in a thick paper plate to form a ribbon bouquet.
“You don’t have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable,” Sherilyn told her quietly. “I mean, Jackson was married before. And I know you weren’t always celibate. So I just wondered, you know, how you’ve waited such a long time for the wedding.”
Emma chuckled. “I don’t know. We both kind of renewed our faith in God at the same time that we found one another. It just seemed like that was the way it was supposed to go somehow.”
“Do you regret waiting?”
“Aside from the sheer torture of it?” Emma asked with a grin. “No. I don’t think either of us does.”
“Do you wonder if you’ll be . . . you know . . . compatible?”
“I can honestly tell you, Sher, I haven’t had a moment’s thought about that. Jackson is . . . everything.”
Sherilyn’s hand went immediately to her heart, and she rolled her head
down to her shoulder and grinned. “That’s so great. They say it’s all in the kiss. Is he a good kisser, Em?”
“The best. Seriously, I’ve never kissed someone where I felt it all the way to my toes, the way they do in the chick flicks they’re watching.”
They glanced over at the group of women in the living room, enthralled with big-screen images of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Sherilyn giggled at Emma.
“Sometimes I look at Jackson,” she continued, “and I can’t believe he wants to spend his life with me. I’m the luckiest woman on earth.”
“After me.”
“Yes. After you.”
“So I guess you’re pretty disappointed about not going to Paris, huh?”
Emma sighed and tossed the pen down on the pad of paper. “Yeah. We’d been building on this pipe dream for so long, and then it was suddenly something that could actually happen. You don’t get over it so fast when something like that evaporates.”
“But you get to keep The Tanglewood,” Sherilyn encouraged her.
“And I’m so grateful about that, believe me. Jackson changed his mind all because of me. I know he didn’t do that lightly, and I don’t take it lightly. But I can’t help choking a little on the thought of us holding hands, walking along the Seine, or sipping coffee and eating croissants in some charming little bistro.”
“Other than the geography, you can do all those things right here, can’t you?”
Emma thought about it. “Sure,” she conceded. “Still.”
“I know.” Sherilyn completed the ribbon bouquet and extended it toward her. “Here ya go! A memento of your slumber-shower.”
Emma grinned as she took the bouquet. “Thank you, Sher. Really. For everything.”
Sherilyn hopped up from her chair and dove at Emma, rocking her in an enthusiastic embrace. “I love you so much, you know.”
“I know.”
“Come on,” Sherilyn said, grabbing Emma’s hand. “Let’s make popcorn. The next movie is bride’s choice. After that, we’ll let these losers sleep on the floor and we’ll sneak upstairs and crawl into the cushy California king in my room.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” Emma said, following her into the kitchen. “Is it?”
Always the Baker, Finally the Bride Page 20
