“Cute.”
“Then I said, ‘Mrs. Middleton?’”
I could imagine my mother’s fear at hearing Westley’s voice. Sense her concern. “What’d she say?”
He gave a dramatic roll of his eyes before answering. “She said, Miss Worry Wart, ‘Did y’all get held up?’ To which I said yes and that we’d explain everything when we got there.” His eyes found me again, the whites of them more pronounced against the darkness surrounding us. “She also said, ‘Well, it sounds like y’all had a good time.’”
He grinned at me then and I slapped his shoulder. “Stop it,” I said, aware of the blush racing madly through me.
“So,” he said after several minutes of silence. Silence that held, I knew, the two of us remembering the night before. The way he’d held me. Kissed me. Drove me nearly to a place of torment without upsetting the apple cart and wishing for our wedding day to be over and our wedding night to begin. “How do you want to handle this?”
I took a deep breath as a billboard I recognized came into view. I pointed to it. “When we were little,” I said, my words veering away from his question, “my sister and I used to use these billboards to mark how much farther we were from home.”
Westley glanced toward the sign. “In what way?”
“There are five of them, all advertising the same motel on the other side of Bynum. The first one says ten miles and then the next one tells you that you’re getting closer … Anyway, Julie and I used to see that one back there and we’d both say, ‘One …’ and then we’d watch for the next one.”
“And I bet when you saw it you’d say, ‘Two …’”
I laughed. “Yes.” I studied the side of the road, whirring past us in deep shades of green. I blinked at the farmland beyond the fence posts strung together with barbed wire. The shadows of trees that loomed toward the horizon. And I waited for the next sign. “I guess,” I said, “we just tell them.”
I looked at Westley. “They’re going to be upset, Wes.”
He reached for my hand and I gladly gave it, happy for the warmth and the softness of it. With one wrap of his fingers I felt that everything in the universe—no matter how awful—would be all right. There was nothing we couldn’t get through as long as we held on to each other as we held on now. Even if only by our fingertips. “I know,” he said, then added, “I think your father will be okay. I think he’ll understand.”
I returned my attention to the world beyond us. To the second sign that stood out in the now pitch-black darkness of the night. Two … I heard Julie and me saying from the backseat of the car, our voices the high pitch of children who had nothing but promising futures ahead of them.
Suddenly then I missed my sister. I missed her terribly, wishing that I’d not let so much time go by since we’d talked. Really talked. Even on the Sunday after Westley had asked me to marry him, I’d said hardly two words to her when she and the bum had come over.
“I should probably start thinking of him by his name,” I said out loud.
“Hmm?”
“My sister’s husband. Dean. I’m just thinking that, really, I shouldn’t call him the bum anymore.”
Westley hand squeezed mine again as he nodded toward the windshield. “Three.”
I followed his gaze, then smiled.
“What made you decide that?” he asked, his voice soft and kind and open-ended. As if he cared what I thought and why I thought it.
“I was just thinking about Miss Justine. She asked me why we call him the bum and, you know, around her it seemed out of line. Dean is a nice guy, really.”
“Maybe it would help if he were a little more financially secure. Did more than hunt and peck all day.”
“Maybe.” I looked forward again.
“I can see why your parents don’t like that so much.”
“Can you?”
“Sure. Parents—especially fathers—want only the best for their little girls.”
I smiled, grinning deeper on the inside at the thought of Westley as the father of our daughter or daughters. The ones we’d have one day. The ones he’d nurture and protect with every fiber of his being. I could see him so easily, there in my mind’s eye. Tickling them. Nuzzling them. Reading bedtime stories as their lids grew heavy from a day of play.
I gave another glance to the world and her possibilities. “Four …” I said, then took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “We’re almost home.”
Chapter Twelve
My mother cried, of course. Soft and sniffling tears that nearly drove me to stand in the middle of the family room—my mother sitting in one chair, my father sitting in another, my fiancé and I perched on the edge of the sofa—and shout, “Never mind. Do over! Do over!” I nearly had to bite my tongue to keep from pleading with Westley to forget Odenville and Miss Justine and the doll house we’d first settle in. Never mind the throw pillows and the possible afghan and the front bedroom where the sun spilled through the window and onto what would become our marriage bed.
Instead, I looked to my father for his reaction, hoping to glean my next move from him, not yet depending fully on Westley’s. “Now, hon,” he said to Mama. “We raised ’em so they’d grow up and make a life of their own. Seems like this one is doing just that. And it’s not like they’re moving to another country, now is it?”
Mama worked her hands, then laced the fingers and squeezed. “May as well be.”
Westley leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Mrs. Middleton, I know this comes as a shock. And I probably should have warned you—” He looked my way before continuing his speech to Mama. “All of you. But I didn’t want to cause undue worry and stress. I knew of the possibility, but until we got there and I talked with my brother and sister-in-law and then, of course, Miss Justine herself, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure myself.”
A flash of memory came to me as he spoke. Me standing in the stairwell. Westley and Paul and DiAnn sitting at the kitchen table, talking in hushed tones of what Westley couldn’t keep from me forever. Then, just as easily, my thoughts reverted to Westley holding me near a dying fire. I could feel the pressure of the chair’s wood across the back of my legs. His splayed fingers on the warm flesh of my waist as he nearly took possession of what little mind I had left. I inhaled deeply. Swallowed the heat rising in me again. How many more days … how many more days … my brain clicked furiously until Westley’s words brought me back. “. . . fact is, I can provide better for Ali there. And Miss Justine has already found a nice house for us.” He looked to me again and smiled, which I returned.
“It really is the cutest,” I said to my parents, more than anything wanting to show solidarity between Westley and me. “And there is a spare bedroom for the two of you and …” I sent my attention to my father. “And, Daddy, if business ever takes you to Odenville, you’ll have a place to stay.”
Daddy nodded, his recliner rocking and creaking with the movement. “I go through there quite a bit actually.”
Mama ran her fingertips through the dark curls that crowned her. “I suppose we’ll need to get some things for the house,” she said, her hair now tousled, and her tone resigned to the finality of a decision she wanted no part of.
“No,” Westley and I said together. We laughed easily and he yielded the floor to me. “Mama, Miss Justine went out and got some furniture. It’s all set up for us. Right down to the drapes and throw pillows and I’m thinking that with the stuff we get from the showers, we’ll be all set. But—well, I was also wondering if maybe you could knit an afghan for the living room sofa and maybe even one for the bedroom. I can give you the color scheme and—”
“Why in the world do you already have a place to live?” Mama asked. “Complete with furniture and throw pillows and draperies?”
Westley cleared his throat as I pondered a question I should have asked myself already but hadn’t. Why indeed. Why hadn’t Miss Justine waited until closer to the wedding, especially seeing as she hadn’t been aware of t
he date until earlier that day? Why had the house already been rented for a couple who couldn’t move into it for nearly two months?
“Well,” Westley said, clearing his throat in discomfort. “You see, I’ll be moving over there right before Thanksgiving and—”
“What?” I asked, turning my whole body to look at him. “You didn’t—you didn’t tell me this.”
“Ali,” he said, his voice now low, a hint of warning in the shortened version of my name.
A tone I’d never heard before, but instantly understood. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said.
“We’ll talk about it now,” I said, more aware than ever that my parents sat mere feet from us. “Westley?”
His hand cupped my elbow, then squeezed as he brought me up to stand with him, the pressure nothing like the reassurance I’d felt earlier at Miss Justine’s. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Allison about this,” he said as an apology to my parents, one that probably seemed pretty ridiculous given that we’d just spent an entire four hours in the car together. “Will you excuse us?”
Westley escorted me—so firmly I wondered if my parents could tell—out the door until we stood next to his car where he leaned against the driver’s door, directing me until I stood in front of him. “Now listen,” he said, his tone remaining foreign to me. “Don’t ever embarrass me like that in front of your parents again.”
“Embarrass you? Westley, my parents now know that you just blindsided me. What kind of marriage are we going to have if you’re doing that now? Before we’re even married?”
“Furthermore,” he continued, ignoring my questions. “Miss Justine isn’t going to wait forever.”
“It’s not forever,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper for fear of waking the neighbors. Or worse, alerting my parents that something was more wrong than we let on as we left the inside of the house. “It’s two months.”
“And in two months I can make a lot more money for us, Ali. We’ll be more prepared for our lives together once we’re married, sweetheart.” He rubbed my arms, up and down, lightly. But, for once, the thought of being Westley’s wife didn’t send quivers through me as it usually did. I was too stunned by his sudden revelation to feel too much of anything at all.
“But there’s so much to do and I’ll need you to be here with me.”
“Like what?”
“Like … I don’t know.” I threw my arms out, forcing his hands away from their journey, my own falling dramatically. “Wedding plans.”
“Which you don’t need me for. That’s the bride’s deal. Not the groom’s.”
“What about—I don’t know …”
“Bridal showers?” His brow rose and his eyes twinkled under the light of a streetlamp. Enough to let me know the old Westley—the one I knew and trusted—had returned. No longer angry with me. No longer on the opposing team. “Teas? Or whatever it is you girls do before you meet your groom at the altar?”
I crossed my arms. Looked down at my feet. At the clunky wedge shoes that made walking difficult but had surely improved my calf muscles. Saw his—brushed dark-beige suede—pointing toward mine, so close and yet not close enough. When I looked up again, Westley smiled at me. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms, having returned to the man I loved.
“Westley,” I whispered without moving, knowing that, even though we’d not finished our argument, he’d won it.
His fingers curled in a “come here,” gesture. I dropped my arms, sliding them around his waist, and laid my head against his shoulder, turning my face toward his, inhaling the resilient musk cologne that lingered along his Adam’s apple. “Westley,” I said again, determined to make him understand. “You just can’t go springing things like that on me.”
His lips found my temple and rested there. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I thought you understood.”
“How could I?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t say.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t like the idea of you not being here. With me. Always.”
“Me either. But it’s just a little while, sweetheart. Not forever. Never forever.”
We remained silent for a few moments, our breath finding rhythm until it became a melody sung in unison. “Ali,” he finally said.
“Wes.”
He chuckled. “I only need you to trust me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be back at least two days a week. Every week. Whatever you need me for, I’m there to help. And we’ll talk every night. Ma Bell is free after nine o’clock.”
“Okay.” I squeezed my arms tighter around him.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes. But there’s not a fire nearby or a chair for you to hold me in.”
He kissed my temple again. “Goodness, woman. You’re really something, you know that?”
I grew warm under the fullness of the compliment. “I may be, but I still don’t want to plan a wedding without you.”
“You won’t have to. Whatever you need me for, I’m here.”
“We have to pick a china pattern. And silver. And crystal and linens.”
“Whatever you want, Mrs. Houser.”
I snuggled closer as a giggle rose from inside of me. “I want to be Mrs. Houser.”
Westley shifted, forcing me to look at him. Truly look at him. To see the softness in his eyes. The care that rested there. The tenderness that laid against his lips like roses on the vine. “I love you,” he mouthed more than said.
My senses nearly caught fire and my knees threatened to buckle. “I love you, too. And we need to go back inside and talk to my parents some more. Let them know we’re okay.”
“Are we? Okay?”
I nodded. “We’re more than okay, Westley. We are.”
Within a week, Westley had moved to Odenville, leaving me to stay busy with work and showers and teas and all the things that, as he’d said, went with planning a wedding. Flowers. Candelabras. Bridesmaids dresses. Every night at 9:01 on the nose, our home phone rang, me practically sitting on top of it. Mama wanting nothing more than to hover as Westley and I talked and Daddy doing whatever it took to keep her occupied. My grandmother continued to come over, recipes in hand, bent to make me into the next Julia Child and failing miserably. And, when Westley returned two days a week, true to his word, we chose china and silver, crystal and linens and stole every moment we had to be together. We went over wedding party lists and guests lists and, once Westley had returned to Odenville, I addressed envelopes and licked stamps until my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my mother brought in a relieving damp cloth.
The days passed to weeks and the weeks spun toward our wedding day. And, as it turned out, Miss Justine had been correct about my dress. My mother, grandmother, Julie, and I made a “day of it,” driving to Savannah to a little shop where I found a simple but elegant dress with an empire waist and a high-neck collar formed of delicate lace and sheer puffy sleeves with wide cuffs. The long skirt fell in folds of satin overlaid by chiffon and the bodice had just the right number of pearls stitched into it. Grand declared it “beyond perfect for my little figure” and, while the seamstress did a little tuck here and a pinning there, Julie walked around the store, returning only when she’d found the “perfect headpiece and veil.”
“Don’t you think?” she asked, holding it out to me.
I looked into her eyes then, dark and lovely and hopeful. In spite of being—at least as far as I knew—fabulously happy with the man she’d chosen, she’d never had this moment. Instead, she’d run off with Dean during what was supposed to be a Friday night date but ended up a wedding across the South Carolina line followed by a honeymoon in a cheap Charleston hotel. So I wasn’t surprised at the waltz her eyes danced. She’d never had this. Never played “dress up” for real. My moment would be all she ever experienced of this until, perhaps, she had a daughter of her own who would one day ask her to accompany her to
Savannah for “a day of it.”
I took the veil as if it were the most prized possession in the world and smiled at her. “It’s beyond beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Westley
A two-week vacation so soon after joining a company for most employers was unheard of, but that was exactly what Westley had included in his employee package when he came to work for Knight Pharmacy Odenville. That and a decent increase in pay from what he made in Bynum. And every Wednesday afternoon off, which enabled him to drive over to Baxter for a visit with Michelle. At least for the time being.
Treasured as those afternoons were, they also meant dealing with Michelle’s mother, who did everything but open the front door in her birthday suit in an effort to lure him back to her bed. Whether Lettie Mae or Leticia or Jacko were at home didn’t seem to matter. She wanted what she wanted and what she wanted was him.
More specifically, what she wanted was his cash flow and whatever easy life she thought being married to him would afford her. And, now that he’d had more time with her and more time to think about how he’d gotten himself in this situation, he’d come to realize that the moment he walked through that greasy spoon of a café where she worked back in February of the year before, she’d seen him as her ticket out.
Well, her flirtatiousness may have worked back then, but it no longer held any power over him. Now, the only thing that mattered was Allison. Allison and Michelle. Marrying one and getting custody of the other. A long-term plan. A life plan that minutes of pleasure were not going to steal from him.
With each visit he toyed with the notion of telling Cindie the truth—that come Christmas he’d be a married man. Especially when she talked about how they could celebrate the holiday, finally, as a family. That he could come over that morning—or the night before if he wanted to spend the night—and be there when Michelle spied what Santa left for her under the tree.
As wonderful as that sounded—seeing his daughter’s eyes light up over the presents he’d already purchased and given to Cindie for safekeeping—it couldn’t compare to waking up Christmas morning with his new wife. His arms wrapped around her and hers around him, if he had his way about it. Most likely at his mom and dad’s home. They’d get up, exchange gifts, eat his mother’s delectable French toast smothered in butter and homemade maple syrup, then get ready for church. Then, after church they’d drive to Bynum where they’d spend the rest of the day with his new in-laws.
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