Barefoot Brides

by Annie Jones

  “Jo asked me to write something for the paper in response to the article about ‘our’ family.” She made quote marks in the air.

  He looked at her blankly.

  “I wouldn’t mind that, of course, but yesterday the whole family—” more quote marks with crooked fingers “—had to get together to read the original article together.”

  “All of you?”

  “All of us reading one lone newspaper at the same time in Dodie, Jo and Kate’s kitchen. A bit too much togetherness in that, if you ask me. Like we couldn’t all just read it on our own then maybe make some phone calls to talk it over?”

  “Hardly seems like enough to get this worked up over.”

  “It wouldn’t be, I suppose, except Jo asked me to come to the beach to help her start a group there.”

  “What’s that got to do with the newspaper article and her asking you to write something else?”

  “My point exactly.” She stabbed her finger at him.

  “She didn’t start anything.”

  Moxie replayed the frustrating encounter in her head leading her inevitably to another encounter she had had shortly after that. R. Hunt Diamante. She clenched her jaw. “On second thought, maybe she did.”

  “Did what?”

  “Start something.” She gave the man a “please try to keep up” pat on the arm and dived headlong back into voicing her theory. “Because in the end she excused all of her wishy-washiness about starting a group, not starting a group, whatever, by making this big, emphatic announcement saying that she wasn’t going to play it safe.”

  “Play what safe?”

  “I don’t know, really.” She only knew how her sister’s emphasis on the idea had affected her and how that eventually led to her embarrassing herself in front of the new newspaper editor.

  That’s what she was really mad about. Not about her sister’s total disregard for her time, but for the way Jo or Kate or Dodie could get her worked up into such an emotional state that she made a fool of herself.

  “I’m still lost, Moxie. Where does the twice shy part come in?”

  She bit her lower lip to keep herself from furthering her humiliation by repeating the tale of the overwrought maiden in distress mistaking the town’s newest citizen for Road Rage Pharaoh.

  “I’m just saying I’m stressing a little here, Lionel, and I wanted a little…” She turned to smile at him, squinted, then sighed. “Lionel, you have on Kate’s lab coat.”

  “Do I?” He looked at the name tag and laughed. “I’m not used to having another one hanging on my hook. The residents usually bring their own.”

  “Are you two still sharing an office?”

  “For now.” He slid off Kate’s lab coat then hung it on a row of hooks attached to the back of the intake office door. “What with her only here part-time.”

  “Only here when she feels like it,” Moxie corrected. While she had found much to admire and even love about her oldest sister, Moxie couldn’t help noticing a pattern among the Cromwell sisters. “Don’t let her boss you around. She has a dominant personality and doesn’t hesitate to tell people what she wants from them.”

  “Are you giving me advice or talking about your own, shall we say, burning issues?” He gave her a wry yet knowing smile.

  “Got me,” she confessed. “But still…”

  He shrugged into his own coat.

  She stepped forward and looped his stethoscope around his neck, straightened his name tag and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “I just want you to look out for yourself.”

  “Isn’t that what I have you for, Moxie?”

  She studied the title, Lionel Lloyd, M.D., and sighed. “Doesn’t really seem like enough, does it?”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Me looking out for you.” She finally said what had been on her mind for quite some time now. “It doesn’t really seem like enough to build a marriage on.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Everything from his tone to the distant look in his eyes suggested he was asking himself this and not her.

  “I think you know the answer to that, Li.” Speaking softly, she prodded him to consider it all a moment.

  He did. Casting his gaze away, he stared out the window for several long moments before finally looking her in the eyes again. He exhaled, making his shoulders slope forward, and tilted his head to one side. “Moxie, are you breaking up with me?”

  “I think I am.” Shouldn’t she feel sadder about that? Or sad at all?

  Moxie took only a few seconds to marvel at that and to try to distinguish just what emotions she was feeling. When she couldn’t instantly pinpoint them, she figured they could wait and she turned her attention to Lionel. “I didn’t come here with that in mind. It just sort of came around to that conclusion.”

  He nodded. “It’s been coming around to that conclusion for a while now. Neither of us just said it out loud.”

  “I guess the stress and pressure of dealing with my new situation has sort of made me feel the need to…” How could she put this considerately?

  “Create a little more space in your life?”

  Not very considerate but a good way of putting it. “You don’t seem all that upset by this,” she noted.

  “Hey, just because I’m easily distracted doesn’t mean I’m easily fooled.” He tugged at the lapels of his coat. “I’ve pushed for us to make our engagement official for a long time now and you’ve kept putting me off. I knew the chances of us making the big leap were pretty slim.”

  She nodded awkwardly, trying to think what they might have left unsaid, trying to come up with a gracious way to say goodbye and get out.

  Finally, Lionel cleared his throat, folded his hands together behind his back and asked, “So. How long do you think we should, uh, um, mourn?”

  “Mourn?” It didn’t seem like the right term.

  “We did date for a long time,” he justified.

  “Hmm. True.” She almost blurted out, “But my heart wasn’t really in it for a while now,” but caught herself. If she said that much, she might say too much. Not that she had anything to hide, no potential new love waiting in the wings. “Hey!” She jerked her head up. “Why do you want to know about the proper ‘mourning’ period for our relationship? That’s the kind of thing people say when they are trying to decide how long to wait before they jump into a new relationship.”

  “Just, um…”

  “There’s somebody you want to ask out, isn’t there?”

  “I didn’t, honest, Moxie. But since you broke up with me, well, I can think of someone.”

  “Someone I know?” She had no right to be so nosy. Or so bossy, making that kind of demand. She supposed if he confronted her about that, she could rightly call it a Cromwell family trait.

  “I don’t think you know her. You might. Possibly you do.”

  “Possibly?” That meant probably. She told herself it was her pride more than her feelings that were hurt by this news. “I guess the only way to know for sure is for you to tell me who she is.”

  “Just one of the new residents taking shifts here at the clinic recently.”

  “A resident? That works here?” Moxie could hardly believe her ears.

  “Nothing’s happened, Moxie. I don’t even know if she would consider going out with me.”

  “And if she does, then what? You two get involved and decide you don’t need Kate around here anymore and squeeze her out completely?”

  “What? I don’t have any plans to…And didn’t you just tell me a few minutes ago not to let Kate boss me around? Now you think I’m going to go behind her back and—how’d you put it?—squeeze her out?” He laughed. “Where your sister is concerned, Mox, you don’t even seem to know your own mind.”

  “Oh, I know my mind.” It wasn’t a lie. She did know her mind. It was her conflicting emotions toward her family that had her tangled in knots. She met his bewildered gaze with cool determination. “Whatever happens between you and this resident, pro
mise me that you will deal squarely with Kate.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I want to believe that, Lionel. You’ve never given me any reason to think otherwise. But—” Moxie looked at Kate’s lab coat hanging on the hook “—while I might complain about Kate and want to tell her to go eat a bug because sometimes she gets on my very last nerve, I will totally kick the behind of anyone who does anything to hurt her. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it, Mox.” He laughed, deep and genuine and clearly a little bit at her expense. “Despite your every effort to avoid it, you’re beginning to be a real—”

  “Watch it,” she warned.

  “Sister,” he concluded.

  “Sister,” she whispered. Huh. She blinked a few times then cocked her head. “Ya think?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered before coming to her and hugging her. “Take care of yourself, Moxie. It’s been fun. You’ll always have a special place in my heart and in my prayers.”

  She looked up at him and mouthed a thank-you.

  The briefest of kisses followed then Moxie turned and moments later stepped out into the bright November morning feeling lighter somehow.

  Letting go of Lionel, walking away from that relationship which clearly hadn’t served either of them for some time, emboldened her. So did the notion that she could stand up to her family and still be…

  “A sister,” she murmured, somewhat awestruck.

  She could do this. She could make more room in her life. More room for her dreams. Her work. Her life.

  She’d start by steadfastly refusing to help Jo write that ridiculous letter to the editor.

  The editor.

  Just the thought of the man’s title made her want to…

  Well, do anything but what he’d suggested she do, write an article. Wasn’t that basically his job?

  Wait. He had told her to do that. Why had Jo suddenly horned in and taken over?

  Not that Moxie wanted to write anything but R. Hunt Diamante had invited her to do it. Not Jo.

  Once burned. Twice shy.

  Wrong.

  Moxie was anything but shy. She was going to tell her new family just that.

  Breaking up with Lionel had created some much-needed space in her life. It also inspired her to make a little more. To ask these people who were closing in on her to back off. Although they were very important to her, they were making her feel…

  “Moxie, I am so glad you’re here!” Dodie hopped out of her car, flushed and frantic, which Moxie had come to suspect was the woman’s natural state.

  “Dodie, you didn’t have to track me down. You could have just—” Her hand froze halfway to her cell phone as the older woman rushed to the passenger door, popped it open and a parrot feather stuck in a hat fell out.

  “Come and help me with Billy J. I think he’s having a heart attack.”

  Chapter Nine

  Kate shut her eyes and sank back against the arm of the couch, not sure of her next move.

  Her mother was terrified.

  Billy J could well be experiencing a life-threatening episode.

  Jo was who knew where.

  Kate was stuck at the cottage.

  She’d never felt so helpless in her life. At that moment her thoughts touched back on the evening before and the look on Vince’s face when Gentry broke the news of his impending move. Kate had felt plenty helpless then, too.

  She had wanted to show support for Gentry and tell him how happy she was for his new opportunity. But she didn’t have to see the worried expression on Vince’s face or suffer the virtual black cloud of his grim mood that settled over the rest of the evening to know he would have seen that as a betrayal. Or an intrusion.

  Either way it would have forced a wedge between them that their relationship might not have recovered from. So Kate had reminded them all that her foot ached—not a lie, her foot always ached—and asked Vince to take her home early.

  She’d gone to her room, not wanting to rehash the details with Jo or their mother, and tried not to think about any of it, about any of them. When she couldn’t sleep, she’d taken some medication prescribed by her own physician—something she didn’t do often—and conked out, oblivious to the comings and goings around here. She had awoken a little disoriented, dressed, then gone downstairs to see if a cup of strong coffee could chase away the last of her gloomy mood and grogginess from her medicine. Until Dodie had called on her way to the clinic moments ago, Kate had assumed both her mom and sister were still at home.

  She sighed, then turned to make her way back to the kitchen and the phone so she could call the clinic and see if anyone could come get her or at least update her on the Billy J situation. Helpless did not begin to cover her feelings about that. First she hadn’t had enough metaphorical backbone to stand up and speak her mind to Vince about the kids and now she couldn’t come to Billy J’s aid because she literally did not have strong enough foot bones to get herself to the clinic under her own power.

  Her head hurt and the light from the window didn’t help. She had just put her hand up to cover her eyes when the sound of a car engine made her jerk her head up. “Vince!”

  The kids must have left Fabbie with Vince overnight, and he was bringing her home to them now.

  She winced at the light but that quickly shifted into squinty-eyed determination. She lunged, flailed, almost fell, then lunged again and in two attempts had propelled herself to the front door. She swung it open, swallowed to keep the nausea and dull pain down and bellowed, “Vince! You have to take me to the Urgent Care Clinic right now. Mom is on her way there with Billy J—it’s an emergency!”

  Like a well-practiced troop of circus performers, everyone fell into step.

  Gentry ran to get Kate’s cane.

  Pera got the baby out of her car seat, gathered up the baby’s things, then held the door open for Kate to climb in.

  Vince took the cane from Gentry, stashed it behind the seat then slid behind the wheel.

  “Will Billy J be all right?” Gentry asked as he helped Kate into her seat.

  “I don’t know. Could be his heart.” Kate clicked her seat belt.

  “His heart?” Gentry squinted. “Aren’t you a foot doctor?”

  “And an E.R. specialist,” Vince reminded him.

  “More importantly, I’m family.” Kate took a deep breath, unsure how Vince, or Gentry for that matter, would respond when she added, “When your family needs you, even if it’s not your blood relative, you drop everything and are there for them.”

  “That’s my cue,” Vince told his son. He slammed the driver’s-side door, gave his son a “catch you later” wave and gunned the motor of his pickup truck.

  “Thank you so much for doing this,” she said as they took off along the side roads of Santa Sofia.

  “That’s what families do.” He smiled.

  Her stomach fluttered. “Is that how you feel? That we’re family?”

  “I guess the true test of that is whether you’re willing to do for me what you’re doing for your mom, Moxie and Billy J.” He did not throw it out there like a challenge but matter-of-factly. This is how things are. “If it comes down to it, Kate, and I need you to, do you think you might drop everything and be there for me?”

  Propose.

  She fixed her eyes on his and willed it. Just ask me. She couldn’t very well say yes to the vagaries of “if it comes down to it,” “do you think” or “would you drop everything.” Say the words. Ask me to marry you.

  She shifted in her seat. She could not take her eyes off him. Her skin tingled with the anticipation more of what he left unsaid, the possibilities. The air in the truck cab practically crackled.

  Propose now, please.

  “Will you…”

  Marry me.

  “Need me to go on after I drop you off?”

  “Yes!”

  “All right then.”

  Kate winced. “I just meant that…”

  “No, I understand. You’v
e got to focus on Billy J. On gathering your resources for helping him.”

  She should. The healer in her felt a twinge of guilt that she’d let her focus shift to personal issues.

  After Vince pulled into a staff parking space, he quickly retrieved her cane, handed it to her and got out of his truck.

  He looked so strong, so sure of himself, so capable and yet so vulnerable.

  She gripped the brass cat’s head topper of her cane and swung her legs gingerly out the truck door. He stuck out his arm to lend her support as she climbed out. She pushed her door open and he finished pulling it open.

  “I won’t stay. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go in and find out what’s going on with Billy J, and if I can do anything for Moxie.”

  She started to tell him it wasn’t necessary, that she’d call him when she knew more. But before she could find the words to say it without snapping and maybe showing just a hint of her disappointment that he had just blurted out his feelings, Jo and Travis came rolling into the parking lot in her bright blue PT Cruiser.

  “It’s going to get awfully crowded in the clinic if this keeps up!” She met Vince’s gaze.

  He smiled a little at her and took her hand to help her steady her injured foot on the ground. “That’s what family does. When there’s a need, they go. They don’t let anything stand between them and their loved ones.”

  She nodded and, even as Travis and Jo got out of her car and started up the walk, took a long stride toward the clinic. She really didn’t think she needed to hang around for the extended version of a lecture on the lengths to which families go for one another. Especially when she wasn’t sure who Vince counted as her family and just how far he wanted her to go.

  “Don’t y’all take another step!” Dodie came rushing out at them, her hands extended, her eyes wide, her usually perfectly coiffed hair windblown and about as stylish as a wrecked bird’s nest.

  “What’s going on?” Jo asked.

  She, Travis, Vince and Kate all completely ignored Dodie’s decree and rushed forward. Apparently all of them adhered to that “not letting anything stand in your way” creed.

  “I think only Kate should go inside.” Dodie stepped forward, tugged her oldest daughter by the arm and then gave her the gentlest of shoves toward the door. “Given the circumstances, she’s the only one of us I think necessary, the only one that would be welcome.”