Country Bride

by Debbie Macomber

  That seemed to ease the tension a little more. Beading had a way of doing that, she had discovered.

  “Here you go,” Claire said, rather stiffly. “Just in from that supplier we like in Oregon.”

  Evie admired the boxful of beads in a variety of shapes, from rounds to ovals to flowers in all different colors. “Wow. You’re right. They are beautiful. I think they’ll go well with these new spacers.”

  The beads clacked softly as Claire shifted the box and set it down rather abruptly on the table.

  “Which ones do you like, Taryn?”

  Evie poured a handful onto the table, Taryn began to sift through them. After a minute, she laboriously separated a colorful pink-daisy bead from the pile and then a green tube-shaped bead with pink polka dots.

  “Oh, perfect,” Evie said. On impulse, she pulled a chair from the perimeter of the room and set it next to Taryn. “Here, Charlie. Maybe you could help Taryn make a bracelet.”

  “Wha—at?” He jolted as if she’d instructed him to go outside and stomp on a couple of baby bunnies. “I don’t know anything about beads.”

  “I’ll show you what to do. First you need to sort through this box and find more just like those two. Start with about ten each, though we might not need that many. I think a basic A-B-C-B pattern here, don’t you, Taryn? Daisy, spacer, green-tube bead, spacer, daisy, spacer and so on. Here, I’ll get you started.”

  She knotted the cord and quickly strung enough beads to show the pattern twice before she handed it over to him. “Your turn. Taryn, your job is to pick up the bead or the spacer you want—with your left hand—and hold it steady so Charlie can thread the cord through. Got it?”

  “Yes,” Taryn said. She actually looked excited about it, something Evie would never have anticipated.

  After an awkward moment, everyone returned to her own project at the table, though Evie didn’t miss the frequent narrowed gazes as Charlie and Taryn worked together on her bracelet. The boy didn’t say anything for several moments but soon he was telling Taryn about a movie he had seen the weekend before and about a waterfall he had discovered back on one of the mountain-bike trails surrounding Silver Strike Reservoir.

  Taryn floundered with the fine-motor skills necessary to pick up just the correct bead but she didn’t give up. With her brow furrowed in concentration, she would painstakingly struggle until she was able to clasp the requisite bead between her thumb and forefinger and then she and Charlie would work in tandem to thread it on the cord.

  It was actually a little sweet, but Evie was quite certain she was the only one at the table who thought so.

  “I left a project upstairs last night, that crimped crystal necklace I’ve been working on. I’m going to run up to my apartment and grab it, since Hannah’s not here yet.”

  No one answered her, everyone either ignoring her or concentrating on what she was doing. Evie really hoped it was the latter, that she hadn’t just destroyed these cherished friendships. She headed for the back door and had just started to close it behind her when Claire pushed it from the other side.

  “What are you doing, Evie?” Claire murmured after she closed the door behind her.

  “Grabbing my project.”

  “You know what I mean. With Charlie Beaumont.” Claire gestured through the back window and from here Evie could see the two young dark heads bent together.

  She sighed. “He’s just a kid himself, Claire. Everyone in town has turned him into the Antichrist.”

  “Have you forgotten Layla? She’s dead because of him. My children nearly were!”

  Claire was moving around so well these days it was sometimes hard to remember she had also been involved in the accident that night and had spent months in multiple casts from her injuries.

  In his rush to escape police pursuit, Charlie had forced Claire’s vehicle off the road during a late-spring snowstorm and she had ended up driving into the icy reservoir. If not for Riley’s heroic efforts, she and her children might have died from exposure to the bitterly cold water.

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten Layla or anything else about that terrible night! Charlie Beaumont made some really stupid choices, especially to drink and drive. As a result, people’s lives have been altered forever. I understand that.”

  “So why encourage him? He should be in jail, not out walking around as if nothing has happened.”

  “He’s not untouched by this, Claire.”

  “Big deal. So he might have to spend some time in juvenile detention.”

  Apparently Claire didn’t always see the good in people. Evie supposed it was refreshing to know her friend was capable of anger against someone who deserved it.

  How could she argue with Claire’s distress? She had been physically and emotionally injured because of Charlie’s actions. Beading was still difficult for her because of her injured wrist but she managed to work through the pain to create beautiful work.

  “I’m sorry,” Evie said quietly. “I shouldn’t have invited him. I thought it might be good for Taryn. I get the feeling she misses her social life more than she misses all the other things she can’t do yet.”

  Claire looked slightly mollified by that. She looked back inside the store, where Taryn was now smiling at something Charlie had said to her.

  “I can see how hard it must be for a fifteen-year-old girl to lose her social network along with everything else.”

  “It’s my fault he’s here. Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

  Claire seemed to consider. After a moment, she sighed. “If he’s really helping Taryn, I suppose it’s okay, for now.”

  “I should have asked permission from you first. I’m sorry for that.”

  To her vast relief, Claire stepped forward and hugged her. Tears swelled in Evie’s throat and the tension she hadn’t realized had a tight grip on her shoulders seemed to ease. “You don’t have to ask me for permission to invite people to the store. Good grief, am I that much of a tyrant?”

  “Yes. Working for you is worse than a highway chain gang. I go home every night wondering how I’ll possibly make it through another day.”

  Claire laughed and hugged her again. “You have a soft heart, Evie. If you’re not careful, one of these days it might lead you into trouble.”

  Like compelling her to take on a job she didn’t want so she didn’t hurt Katherine? “Thanks for the warning.” Somehow she managed to hide her dry tone.

  “That’s what friends are for, right?” Claire smiled, then gave her a careful look. “Are you doing something different with your makeup these days?”

  Evie grimaced. In the chaos of her morning, she had completely forgotten what she must look like. “I let Taryn go all Mary Kay on me. We made a deal and I had to keep my end. It was occupational therapy, right?”

  Claire’s features softened and she hugged Evie again. “You’re going to make me cry now. You’re a wonderful person, Evie, and I’m honored to call you my friend.”

  Evie rolled her eyes. “You know better than that, honey. But thank you.”

  She hurried up the stairs to her apartment and quickly found the box containing the project she’d been working on the night before, mostly as therapy to help her calm her troubled mind after that kiss with Brodie.

  A quick side trip took her into the bathroom with its old-fashioned fixtures for a good look in the round, slightly wavy mirror that she liked to think was original to the old building.

  Really, it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, just a few eye shadow smears around the corners of her eyes and a little bright on the blush, something she rarely used anyway. She did her best to fix it as best she could, then grabbed her project box and hurried back down the stairs to the store.

  To her vast relief, the mood seemed a little warmer when she returned—maybe just a degree or two ab
ove freezing. It was still uncomfortably nippy but at least seemed out of the frostbite zone.

  Katherine and Alex were even laughing about a story Claire was telling about how Riley and her son Owen were trying to build a tree house behind her graceful old brick house on Blackberry Lane.

  Charlie stayed about ten minutes longer, until he and Taryn had finished stringing enough beads to make a bracelet.

  “I can finish it,” Evie said, when Charlie looked to her for guidance. She took the bracelet and quickly knotted the ends together.

  “Great job, you two. It’s wonderful.” She snipped the ends and helped Taryn slide her wrist through the loop.

  “I’d better go,” Charlie said abruptly.

  “Thank...you,” Taryn said, holding up the arm adorned with the flirty new bracelet.

  “You’re welcome. It was, uh, fun. See you around.”

  He hurried out of the store, his face tight and set, before Evie could even say anything. Sludge-thick silence filled the room after his hasty exit.

  “Don’t start on me yet, before I can even apologize,” Evie said to Katherine and Alex, when they turned toward her in tandem. “I invited him completely on impulse. I never really expected him to stop by, I swear.”

  “Why...not?”

  She blinked at Taryn’s question, unsure how to answer.

  Katherine grabbed her granddaughter’s hand. “Because he hurt you, darling.”

  Taryn frowned. “How?”

  The four women looked at each other. Evie was finally the one who spoke. “He was driving the pickup when you were injured. You remember that, don’t you?”

  The girl’s frown deepened. “It wasn’t...his fault.”

  Evie didn’t quite know how to answer her. No one—not even Charlie’s father or any of the other attorneys in his firm—disputed that Charlie had been driving the pickup that fateful night. Riley McKnight had seen him behind the wheel when he’d tried to pull over the truck on suspicion that the teens inside had been involved in a series of robberies in town and at vacation homes in Silver Strike Canyon.

  “Why do you say that?” Katherine asked, but before Taryn could answer, the door burst open and Hannah Kirk rushed in.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m so sorry. My mom had a meeting with the divorce lawyer and she needed me to watch my little brothers. I thought I would be done in time but her meeting went longer. I’ve been going crazy. I would have called but I couldn’t find the number. I’m so sorry.”

  “No worries,” Evie assured her. “You needed to be helping your mother. We had plenty to do this morning. Taryn, show her your bracelet.”

  Taryn gingerly held her arm out again for Hannah to admire. “Nice. Really nice! Is it too late to do my mom’s earrings? It’s okay, if it is. I can come back another time.”

  “Taryn, what do you think? Can we stick around a little longer?”

  Taryn smiled. “It’s...better...than therapy.”

  They stayed and beaded with Hannah for another hour. In that time, a few other customers wandered into the store, mostly tourists. Though Hannah, Evie and Taryn attracted a few curious looks, they were removed from the main sales floor slightly and most of the shoppers seemed to barely notice them.

  By the time they’d finished, Hannah had created a half dozen pairs of earrings with Evie’s help, using both wire wrap and basic earring headpins.

  “Thank you so much for this. Um, I only paid for the fittings. How much do I owe for the beads?”

  “Nothing,” Evie assured her firmly. “These were old beads I’ve had lying around for a long time. I had no plans for them. Really, I’m just happy to see you making good use of them.”

  “Are you sure? It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”

  “I promise. I hope your mother enjoys them.”

  “She will. I’m sure of it. Thank you. All of you. It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.”

  Evie smiled. “We enjoyed it too, didn’t we, Taryn?”

  The girl nodded, but her eyes were a little glazed over and Evie wondered if the morning had been too much for her. “We’d better go, too,” she said to Katherine and Claire. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Do you have to?” Katherine asked.

  Evie gestured to Taryn, who had a distant, tired look. “We’d better.”

  Despite the shortness of the drive through town and then up the hill toward Brodie’s house, Taryn dozed off against the head support of her wheelchair before they reached the summit.

  Even after they pulled into the driveway, she didn’t open her eyes. Evie sat behind the wheel, pondering her options: Should she let the girl remain sleeping in that uncomfortable position or wake her up and take her inside for a real rest?

  She was still trying to make up her mind a few moments later when the front door of the house opened and Brodie walked out toward her. He wore tan slacks and another of those ubiquitous cotton oxford shirts, this one a soft pale blue that made him look more dangerously masculine in contrast.

  Her insides did a long, slow roll and she wanted to smack herself. This ridiculous reaction to him had to stop. She was acting like some kind of girl Hannah and Taryn’s age with a crush on the captain of the football team, turning giddy every time he was near.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “I was working in my office and saw you pull up a few minutes ago. When you didn’t leave the van immediately, I thought maybe you were having trouble with the ramp or something.”

  “No trouble.” She pitched her voice low and gestured toward Taryn, who still hadn’t stirred. “She fell asleep on the way home. I thought she could use a few moments to rest before I take her inside for lunch and our afternoon exercises.”

  “Ah. How did things go at the bead store?”

  She debated telling him about Charlie coming into String Fever at her invitation and helping Taryn make a bracelet, then decided against it.

  Okay, maybe she was a blatant coward but she chose to avoid the inevitable confrontation and opted to keep that information to herself for now. Katherine—or Taryn herself—would probably tell him anyway.

  Besides, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really. And her crazy impulse had paid off. Taryn had been attentive and involved, had even participated a little in the conversation, and had utilized more fine-motor skills in the half hour she and Charlie had cooperated together on the bracelet than during the entire week Evie had been working with her.

  “The visit went well,” she finally answered, then decided she didn’t want to continue talking in whispers through the window.

  A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed that Taryn hadn’t awakened yet, so Evie climbed out the driver’s-side door and closed it gently behind her.

  “I think she had a good time,” she continued. “She seemed to be enjoying herself, anyway. She made a very pretty bracelet, which I’m sure she’ll love showing off.”

  He studied her, head canted to one side. “I guess you probably want me to admit I was wrong.”

  She laughed. “No. I think we can both agree it’s more important that you admit I was right.”

  His smile lit up his features, making him look far less austere and forbidding. “You were right. There. I said it. And the words only burned a little.” He studied her, a soft light in his eyes. “Seriously, thank you, Evie. For pushing both of us outside our comfort zones. You’re making a huge difference in her life.”

  “I hope I can help for the short time I’m here,” she said.

  He looked briefly annoyed at the reminder that her involvement in their lives was fleeting and conditional but he concealed it quickly. “So you rushed off this morning before we could talk after the interview. What did you think about Ms. Martin?” he asked.

  “She certainly seems to know what she’s doing,”
she said, picking her words with care.

  He picked up on her hesitation. “But?”

  “I know it was a job interview and those can certainly be stressful, but she didn’t seem particularly warm, did she?”

  “In what way?” He looked genuinely confused and she wondered just where his attention had been focused during that interview if he hadn’t picked up the same vibe.

  “Didn’t you notice? She didn’t smile or laugh one single time for that entire half hour, not even when we were just making small talk at the beginning of the interview, talking about her family and college and friends.”

  He frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I was watching for it. She answered every question as if she were in the middle of a congressional hearing.”

  “Maybe she’s just a serious person. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be the life of the party all the time.”

  Ah. That’s why he hadn’t noticed. Because Brodie himself was one of the most measured, careful people she’d ever met—most of the time, anyway. She decided not to count that heated kiss that she was really, really trying not to dwell on more than, oh, once or twice every five minutes.

  “I agree. There’s nothing wrong with being serious all the time. I’m sure it’s a very good trait if you’re a funeral director.”

  Or a sexy entrepreneur whose seriousness tended to make a woman’s mind race with various ways she could help him lighten up...

  She dragged her mind away from that dangerous plan. “I’m just not sure she would be the best one to encourage and motivate a somewhat stubborn fifteen-year-old girl.”

  “Warmth can only take you so far. Look at my parents. My mother is probably the most kind, encouraging soul in town. But when it came to motivation, I invariably worked harder for my father, whom anyone in town can tell you was one serious son of a bitch.”

  She had heard a few murmurs about Katherine’s husband and had picked up the impression that he had been stern and uncompromising. She was sad for Brodie, suddenly. Her own father had been mostly a distant figure in her life, busy with work and his civic involvement, moving in Santa Barbara political circles.