Somehow the inn had sprouted even more Valentine’s decorations today than yesterday. “Look at all the hearts, Daddy.” On Sunday, Carly had pointed out the collection of knitted hearts that hung in the inn’s front lobby windows. “They’re like the one in Lulu’s mom’s shop. And I saw one when we had ice cream.”
“Well, I just keep running into you two.”
He turned to see Kelly holding a huge arrangement of red and white flowers with shiny foil hearts sticking out between the blooms and leaves. “That’s...festive.”
“It’s so pretty,” Carly said, reaching up to touch one of the sparkly hearts. “Are those the flowers we saw in your car today?”
“Some of them,” Kelly replied. “They’re for that big table over there.” She tilted her head in the direction of the large round table sitting in the center of the lobby. “Lulu’s at piano lessons, and I need someone to help me sprinkle the confetti that goes around it. Think I should ask your dad?”
Carly’s love of all things glittery popped her eyes wide as she said, “Ask me! Ask me!”
“Carly! You could help me.” She pasted a mock look of surprise on her face. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Bruce offered her a dubious look as the three of them walked over to the table with a big round silver platter at the center. He felt compelled to give her a hand when it became clear Kelly could barely maneuver the massive arrangement into place. The awkward size seemed to hinder more than the weight, which surprised him because the thing must have weighed twenty-five pounds. He kept assuming her small frame made her delicate, and she kept proving him wrong.
Carly fairly squealed when Kelly reached into her bag to produce a package of glittery pink, red and white hearts to scatter on the silver platter. She handed the package to Carly and said, “Would you like to do it all yourself?”
“Sure!” Carly exclaimed, immediately getting to work as Kelly and Bruce stepped back.
“She’s a natural,” Kelly remarked with a laugh. “She should do great as the flower girl on Saturday.”
“We might have practiced a bit with some wood chips,” Bruce admitted.
“Good for you, Dad.” After a moment, she added, “So, do you dread this girliest of holidays? You don’t strike me as the unicorns and glitter type, despite Carly’s fascination.”
He couldn’t decide how to answer, given she was a florist and all. She probably loved all this stuff. “Truthfully?”
“Yes.”
He looked around the living valentine of a town and rocked back on his heels. “I usually avoid it like the plague. Which makes me wonder why I thought hiding out in ‘plague central’ would be a good idea.”
She stepped back a bit, gesturing him to join her out of Carly’s hearing. “Seems to me you need an escape plan.”
“A what?”
“An escape plan. Some days just need...avoiding for a while. Birthdays, special occasions, you know.”
He stared, not expecting to hear that sort of thing from her.
“My late husband proposed on Valentine’s Day, and it was two years before I could get through it without feeling like I was made of glass. Not exactly useful for someone in my profession. All the couples, all the well-meaning but ridiculous things people say to...well, people like you and me.” She sighed. “Was your first Valentine’s Day bad?” She shook her head. “Look at me, asking a dumb question like that. Of course it was.”
“Torture,” he said, watching Carly’s joyful engrossment in arranging the confetti just right. “Or whatever word’s worse than torture. Everybody was so carefully cheerful. Everybody tried to make sure I wasn’t alone when being alone was the only thing I wanted. This year, I’d sort of hoped to avoid it altogether.”
“Here?” She laughed. “Hide from Valentine’s Day in Matrimony Valley? You’re right—bad plan.”
Bruce had heard the valley’s transformation story at the hands of the present mayor. Maybe that’s what had drawn him to have a longer stay in the town—it was a place that had fought its way back to life after an economic death nearly shut it down. The valley spoke to him that life’s comebacks were still possible. It was an inspiring thought—on any day but today. “Like I said, I didn’t quite think it through.”
“No, sir,” she countered. “You did not.”
“Got any advice?” Asking a florist for advice on how to do an end run around Valentine’s Day? Seriously?
“You know, the church throws a party for all the kids after school. I’m sure Lulu would love Carly to come. It might occupy a few hours.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Why did I know you’d suggest more church?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. Just pick a few of your 101 Things to Do, then.”
She was teasing him. And he was enjoying it. That was scary. “You’re going to this church thing?”
“Absolutely—wouldn’t miss it.”
“You sure you aren’t swamped with deliveries or something?”
“Most are done by then. It’s tonight that I’ll be working until the wee hours.” She lowered her voice. “Lulu and I actually do a sleepover at the shop, but don’t let Carly know that or she may want to come along.”
The church party seemed like the best option he had. He’d hoped to get Carly back outdoors, but that was looking unlikely. “I’m sure Carly would love to come to the church Valentine’s Day party. But doesn’t Lulu have other school friends her age she’d rather play with?”
He immediately regretted the remark as her face sank. “You’d think so, right? But Lulu has only one really good friend in town—Jonah, the little son of Mayor Jean. Dads are invited, too, by the way. I’m sure Jonah’s dad will be there, and you can meet him. But I’m sure you understand that little boys don’t quite get into Valentine’s Day the same way little girls do.”
As if to underscore the fact, Carly danced around the table sprinkling confetti like a Cupidian fairy. Even if it made him slightly ill, all that girlie stuff made her happy. And sometimes, her capacity for simple happiness seemed like the only thing that kept him going. “We’d love to come.” The “we” was a gross overstatement, but Bruce suspected she knew that.
“It won’t be so awful, you know. There’s good food, loads of other parents and the kids have a ball. And even if you end up thinking it is awful, you can always drown your sorrows in a mountain of baked goods and ice cream.”
He frowned. “Not exactly my coping mechanism of choice. Guys don’t really do the ‘cry into a pint of ice cream’ thing.”
“Too bad. It’s very effective. So what do ‘guys’ do to cope?” She raised an eyebrow, indicating she meant one particular guy—him.
How did he cope? It unnerved him that he didn’t really have an answer for that. Because he mostly didn’t cope. He just endured. All the grief had burned itself up inside him, leaving a hollow space that didn’t seem to want to be filled with anything—certainly not with calories. In fact, he’d lost enough weight in the last two years that his doctor chided him at his last physical. His indulgence of Carly’s sweet tooth recently was partially to see if anything really could be “delicious” anymore.
“Guys don’t do anything.”
Kelly planted one hand on her hip. “This, from a man in possession of all those shopping bags I saw this morning. It seems to me like retail therapy is your choice.”
“That’s different.”
“No, I don’t think it is.”
When he glared at her, not in the least bit interested in being analyzed by someone who’d known him all of four days, she simply gathered her bag and offered an irritatingly knowing smile. “The party’s in the church hall at 3:00 p.m. I’ll tell Lulu you’re both coming.”
* * *
Wednesday afternoon, all but two of the deliveries had been made. The mountain of Valentine’s Day
arrangements had left her shop. She’d had a decent holiday—logistically and financially—and George had stayed up and running. Even so, all of Kelly’s exhaustion evaporated at the sight of her friend when she walked into the church. “You’re here!” she exclaimed as she gave Jean a big hug.
“Well, I thought I’d better show up in a few places, and Josh is here to handle most of the parental duties.” Normally a bubbly personality, Jean today held tight to a glass of ginger ale and sank back onto her pair of chairs in the corner with her sprained ankle raised. “I’m really hoping to make the wedding, too.”
“You will. It’s going fine,” Kelly said with confidence she didn’t really feel. She’d been basking in Valentine’s Day victory until an hour ago, when she reviewed her list of tasks for Tina and Darren’s wedding and felt her heart sink at everything that still needed to be done—and the things, like the weather, that were out of her hands.
Jean smiled at her son and his father. “Look at Josh doing the dad thing like he’s been at it all of Jonah’s life.” Josh was Jonah’s biological father, but hadn’t been in his life until a startling “God-incidence”—as Jean was known to call it—that brought him to Matrimony Valley with the town’s first official wedding last May. The rekindling of Jean and Josh’s love, and the blossoming relationship between father and son, was a truly happy story. After all, shouldn’t the mayor of Matrimony Valley be a happily married woman?
“In a month he’ll be better at sign language than I am,” Jean went on. Her son had been profoundly deaf since birth, and much of the valley had learned the basics of sign language to help Jonah feel at home. Josh, who’d known no sign language before meeting his son, had applied his famous brilliance to the new skill with zeal, and Kelly watched him signing fast and happily with his son. “He’s an amazing father. Really.” The woman fairly glowed from love and happiness—and the new life growing within her.
Kelly squeezed her friend’s hand. “And you’re an amazing mother.” She leaned in and whispered, “And soon you’ll be twice as amazing.”
“As soon as I can stop feeling twice as queasy,” Jean whispered back.
“When are you going to tell everyone?”
“I want to get past the twelve-week mark, so maybe around Saint Patrick’s Day.” Jean gave Kelly a pleading look. “I’ve got to believe I’ll feel better by then. I certainly don’t want to stick you with any more weddings mostly on your own.”
“Fortunately, this one is very low maintenance and comes with an advance team,” Kelly replied, nodding toward Bruce, who was currently being a good sport and dipping a pair of frosting-doused cupcakes into bowls of sprinkles with his daughter.
“I’d think a maid of honor would be more help than a best man,” Jean said as she sipped her ginger ale. “But the flower girl’s adorable.”
“Carly’s so sweet. How that little girl goes so happily along with her father’s frantic parenting is beyond me.”
“Frantic?”
Kelly sat down beside her friend. “You know how Norm Myers just sort of froze solid when Polly died?” she said, citing one of the church’s recent senior-citizen widowers. “Well, it seems some men go the other way. Bruce is in a high-speed orbit—my guess is that he does it to outrun the pain, bless him. I think he’s just about to realize it doesn’t work. I mean, I like to keep busy, but the guy makes me look like a tortoise.”
“I don’t think I realized his wife had died. You were nice to invite him here. Today can’t be an easy day for him.” Jean slipped her arm around Kelly. “Or you. Still.”
“I’m better off than Mr. Frantic over there, that’s for sure. I don’t think five-year-olds should have quite such a packed schedule, especially on what’s supposed to be a vacation. I’ve been encouraging Lulu to invite her places simply so the poor thing can catch her breath.”
“Speaking of catching your breath, he is rather easy on the eyes, don’t you think?”
Kelly furrowed her eyebrows. Bruce was a very handsome man, yes, but still an emotional minefield. “Stop that right now, Your Honor. Even if I were looking, which I’m not, I’d want less of a walking-wounded case—or in this case, I should say running wounded. Sprinting, actually.”
“He does look a little lost, doesn’t he?”
“A little?”
“Well, I still say you were nice to bring him here. And it’s nice for us to have him here. Josh told me he was sure he’d be the only male of the species between ten and sixty.”
Kelly looked around the room. Josh wasn’t that far off. Aside from Bruce and Josh, the party consisted of kids, moms and a smattering of grandparents. Bruce and Josh really were the only men present even close to their age. So when Lulu introduced Carly to Jonah, carefully spelling out Carly’s name in sign language before the trio of children began eating their cupcakes together, it wasn’t at all surprising that Josh brought Bruce over to join Kelly and Jean’s conversation.
“Finally, someone to talk basketball with over cupcakes who won’t show me pictures of his grandchildren,” Josh said with a laugh.
“Poor Josh,” Jean offered, chuckling herself. “He doesn’t get out for cupcakes with the guys nearly as often as he should.”
Bruce tried to play along. “It’s a sad day when a man can’t enjoy a good cupcake with his buddies.” His words were teasing, but his tone was tight and strained.
That set Josh laughing. “Where’d you find this guy?”
“The elk wedding,” Jean replied. “Bruce is best man.”
“I decided to take some time off and come in early,” Bruce said as he tried to figure out which angle was best for attacking the huge mound of frosting and sprinkles. Instead, he gave up and set it on the table next to him, stuffing his hands rigidly into his pockets.
“I did that for my stepsister’s wedding. And after that first visit, I couldn’t stay away.” Josh took a bite of his own confection.
For so long, as the local economy spiraled deeper into decline, all people could think about was how to leave this valley. Now, thanks to Mayor Jean and the Matrimony Valley campaign, people came. And stayed. Someone like Bruce looked as if he needed a place like Matrimony Valley to slow him down and bring him back into life instead of running around on the outside edges of life.
“I’ve got no interest in relocating,” Bruce offered as Josh licked a glob of frosting off one finger. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice break. Being here, I mean. But this town is a tad small for my taste. And six hours from work. Makes for a bit of a commute, even if they let me take the helicopter to get home—which they don’t.” His words came out in the short burst of a man trying too hard to look like he was having fun. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to invite him.
“Hey, I came from California,” Josh said. “You gotta be careful—this valley has a way of growing on you.” With that, Josh gave his wife a gentle kiss. “Want half of my cupcake, Your Honor?”
“No thanks.” Jean looked at the cupcake as if the sight alone sent her stomach tumbling. Very deliberately, she directed her gaze to Bruce. “Matrimony Valley is a lovely place to live. My family has been here for four generations.”
“That’s nice,” Bruce said. He looked so uneasy. Stop worrying about it, Kelly told herself. We host weddings. It’s not our place to repair families. Still, as she gazed at Jonah, Lulu and Carly happily running and playing with each other, she couldn’t help but think that the valley she’d called home for all her life had indeed repaired her family when death broke it apart. And it had repaired Jean’s, as well. As for the fidgeting man in front of her, however, it was hard to believe restoration could ever come to someone like Bruce.
“I’ll go tell Lulu I’ll be back to pick her up at five when the party’s over. I’ve got two more deliveries today, and then I need to get everything in order for Darren and Tina. Plus, Samantha Douglas arrives tomorrow.” Kelly looke
d at Josh. “Maybe try to see if you can get those three to eat something other than just frosting?”
Josh responded by swallowing half the frosting on his own cupcake. “Not a chance.”
“He’s impossible,” Jean bemoaned.
“Hey, you wouldn’t want me any other way,” Josh teased, taking his wife’s hand.
Holding hands. It had been one of her favorite things about being with Mark. Lulu held her hand all the time, but it wasn’t the same. Now I’m getting sentimental? Keep me busy, Lord.
Staying busy to outrun the grief. Wasn’t that exactly the thing she’d judged Bruce for doing? You’re being awfully hard on a guy who is just doing his best to cope.
“Can I walk out with you for a minute?” Bruce asked, surprising her. “I’ve got a question about the...boutin-whatevers for the wedding,” he said. “Josh said he’d watch Carly, and she looks like she’s having a ball so...”
Bruce had looked okay—or close to okay—at first, but now his eyes held the familiar “get me out of here” panic she remembered from some parties and events in the months after Mark died. Granted, she didn’t need further distraction after a busy day like today, but Bruce clearly needed an excuse to leave despite the fun Carly was having. Certain situations just had a way of making a soul feel excruciatingly single, and despite her good intentions, she’d plunked him down in the middle of one. The least she could do was give him an escape route. That was, after all, why she’d suggested the party in the first place.
“Boutonnieres,” she corrected, then shrugged. “Sure. Actually, I can use someone of your height to give me a hand with something over at the shop, if that’d be okay with you and Josh will watch the kids.”
“Glad to help,” he said, relief filling his features. “Whatever you need.”
Snowbound with the Best Man Page 6
