A Dusty Dreams Wedding

by Kat Carrington

  "That's a good-looking job they did, Brady," Red commented.

  Brady nodded in satisfaction. "They were a little more expensive than the other roofing companies we talked to but not a lot, and we decided their reputation was worth it. Now I'm glad we did." He nudged Jessie. "How about you? Are you glad we did?"

  Jessie said, "Yes. I really am. I was a little leery about the extra money, but I drove past a place that Triple A did and that roof doesn't look nearly as good as this one does."

  Brady grinned at her. "Sometimes you get what you pay for."

  "It's true," Jessie admitted. "And you were right."

  Brady put his hand over his heart and said, "I love hearing those words!" The others laughed at him, and he said, "It's still early enough to get a little more work done, but if you guys want to get out of here, it's okay with me."

  Red said, "I'll stick around for a while. We can get set up for tomorrow if nothing else."

  Tom agreed, "Fine with me too. I don't have anything else going on."

  "Okay." Brady finished his beer and pulled his gloves back on, kissing Jessie. "I'll see you in a couple of hours, baby."

  Jessie and Indy rode back to the house, and Jessie went to the garden to pick green beans. She picked enough for dinner and noted that she'd be canning beans the next day. She got a couple of nice tomatoes for slicing and carried everything into the kitchen. Once she got inside, she saw that she'd had a text from Kayla. You'll never believe what Mitch asked me. Call me!

  Jessie chuckled and punched in Kayla's number.

  "Jessie!" Kayla sounded breathless. "Oh my gosh, you'll never believe what Mitch asked me last night!"

  Jessie laughed. "Where are you?"

  "I'm about halfway home from work. I got out early; my patient cancelled."

  "Do you want to stop here and tell me about it?"

  "That's a great idea! Mom won't be expecting me yet to pick up Caleb anyway. Okay, I'll be there in fifteen. Open a bottle of wine."

  Jessie was laughing as she hung up and went to open a nice bottle of red. She dumped the beans into a colander to wash and was snapping them when Kayla got there.

  Kayla rushed in, bubbling over with excitement, and Jessie immediately handed her a glass of wine. She took a sip and then took a deep breath. "Mitch asked me to go away for a weekend, just the two of us."

  Jessie's mouth dropped open and she did her best to look surprised. "Really? Oh, Kayla, that's so exciting! Where are you going? And when?"

  Kayla said, "I didn't give him an answer yet. I was so surprised that I just couldn't think. I don't know if I'm ready for this! What if we go, and then we don't have any chemistry? What if he's disappointed in me? What if…oh, I don't know what I'm thinking!"

  "Kayla, maybe it's time to let the barrier down. You like Mitch, and I think he's crazy about you. Anybody looking at the two of you can see it. Stop worrying about everything so much and just let yourself live a little. If it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. But, personally, I think it's going to work out a whole lot better than you think."

  Kayla looked terrified. She gulped wine and said, "I'm just so scared to take the first step."

  Jessie gave her a hug. "Remember when you made me take the first step? Look at me now."

  "I know, but you and Brady are perfect for each other. How do I know if Mitch and I are even compatible that way?"

  Jessie laughed. "You try it. You're both consenting adults; you have every right to have a sex life. Just try it, relax and let yourself feel for a change."

  Now Kayla looked at her seriously. "I guess that's the scary part. Letting myself feel. If I don't let it happen, then it can never hurt me."

  "But it can. If you turn away a second chance at love, it's going to hurt you a lot."

  "Oh, Jessie, you're right. I know you're right. I've told you the very same thing. I just have to find some courage somewhere."

  Jessie said, "Do you trust Mitch?"

  Kayla looked surprised. "Absolutely. He's the best guy I've met in years. And he's so steady and dependable that it's easy to trust him."

  "Then stop worrying so much and just go for it. Remember that kiss you made me promise to give Brady?"

  Kayla nodded.

  "Well, I want you to promise the same thing."

  "I can't kiss Brady!"

  Jessie laughed and said, "Haha. You know exactly what I mean. Now promise."

  Kayla took a deep breath and then said resolutely, "Okay. I promise."

  Jessie clinked her wine glass to Kayla's and said, "Here's to new beginnings."

  They both drank to it and Kayla finally smiled. "I don't know what happened, but I feel better."

  "So where is it that the two of you are going to go?"

  "Oh. I have a brochure. It's to Sea Island off the coast of Georgia. Look at this."

  "Oh, Kayla, that's beautiful! What a great idea. Everybody's always going to the Bahamas or Jamaica; this is different."

  "I know, I love that! It's really gorgeous there. So, you really think I should go?"

  Jessie raised her eyebrows and said, "Girl, if you don't, I will! Don't be crazy; you have to go."

  Kayla gave a little shrug of excitement. "I'm going to do it. I'm really going to do it. Oh, God, please don't let it be a mistake!"

  "Kayla." Jessie smiled at her friend. "It's not going to be a mistake. I know that. I feel it right to the bottom of my heart. You're going to have a wonderful time, and you're going to start a whole new chapter in your life."

  Kayla hugged her hard. "I love you, Jess."

  "I love you back, Kay."

  They talked over the trip for a while and Kayla had another moment of panic when she suddenly thought about clothes. Jessie laughed and promised to go shopping with her.

  Finally, Kayla looked at the time and said she had to go. "I don't want to be late picking up Caleb. I have to figure out what I'm going to tell him."

  Jessie pointed out, "You don't have to tell him anything if you're not ready to do that. He spends weekends with his grandparents every chance he gets; it won't be any different."

  "That's true. Well, I think that's the best thing to do, especially until after I see how it goes."

  Jessie laughed at her again and gave her another hug before she left. She was delighted for her friend, and when Brady got in at the end of the day, she beamed at him.

  "I know something you don't know," she said.

  "Is it that I'm starving and that smells fantastic?"

  "No, silly, everybody knows you're starving at the end of the day."

  "What are you cooking? Is that fried chicken?"

  Jessie laughed at him and handed him a cookie. "Yes, it's fried chicken and mashed potatoes and fresh green beans and tomatoes out of the garden. And, by the way, I'll be canning green beans tomorrow."

  "It smells so good; I hope it's going to be ready soon."

  "Fifteen minutes. Go take your shower, and I'll tell you my news while we eat."

  When they sat down to the small feast Jessie had prepared, she dimpled up at him and said, "Now. As I said, I know something you don't know."

  Brady swallowed a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy before he said, "This must have something to do with Mitch and Kayla."

  "Yep. Kayla stopped here on her way home from work and showed me the brochure. What a beautiful place!"

  Brady stared at her, a piece of chicken poised at his mouth. "And?"

  "And she's going to say yes!"

  Brady grinned at her. "Well, I never had any doubt about that."

  "Ha. You should have seen how I had to talk her into it. Not talk her into Mitch but into being brave enough to go."

  "Wait. Kayla was scared of Mitch?"

  "No, silly, she was scared of taking that first step, being brave enough to risk being in a close relationship again."

  "Oh. I guess I hadn't thought of that. I guess it would be scary for her after losing her husband the way she did. So how did you talk her into
it?"

  "I pointed out to her the same things she pointed out to me before I took that first step with you. That it's normal to never want to risk being hurt like that again, but it could hurt even more to give up the chance. She said she met a woman when she was going to grief counseling and that woman told her that having a second chance is a gift you should treasure. I didn't lose a husband, but losing Jake was more hurt than I ever wanted to go through again. But Kayla was right. Our love is a gift and it would have been awful to turn it away."

  "Kayla's a wise woman," Brady said.

  "She is, isn't she? And I'm so excited for her; I think she's going to get that second chance. I really do."

  "I'm really excited too. This is the best chicken I've ever had!"

  Jessie laughed at him. "You're a very rewarding person to cook for."

  "Oh, good, I really want to keep my cook happy. That's very important to me."

  "Well, you're in luck because I'm really happy."

  Brady clinked his glass of milk to hers and winked at her as he drank. "Have I told you lately that I love you?"

  "Only as often as I've told you that I love you."

  The next weekend Jessie found herself shopping with Kayla for beach resort clothes. At the end of their shopping trip, Jessie surveyed the back seat of the car, packed full of shopping bags and shoeboxes.

  She turned and looked at Kayla, hands on her hips. "Kayla, you've got enough stuff here for six weekends!"

  Kayla looked at the back seat and said, "I guess I did go a little overboard."

  "A little!"

  "Well, I never did this before. And some of that stuff is for Caleb," Kayla pointed out.

  Jessie was laughing. "Yep, there's some stuff in there for Caleb. I'll give you that."

  "Well, I haven't shopped for myself in a long time. It was fun."

  "I think it's time for a glass of wine, don't you?"

  "Yes! I think it's even past time. There's a place not far from here that's nice."

  They stopped at a little bar down the street from the shopping center. It was a pretty place, with lots of green hanging plants and pretty little tables with a bud vase and a rose on each. They ordered glasses of wine and a plate of cheese and fruit while they talked over Kayla's purchases and Jessie's wedding plans.

  Jessie winked at her. "Who knows? Maybe we'll be making some more wedding plans soon."

  Kayla looked alarmed and said, "Whoa! You're getting way ahead of things there! Nobody's even thinking about marriage. Are you trying to scare me out of this again?"

  "No, no, I'm just teasing. But, maybe in the future."

  "Just stop right there," Kayla said firmly. "No speculation about things that are not even distant ideas."

  "Okay, okay."

  They drove back to Kayla's house, chattering the whole way. Kayla's mom had begged to keep the little boy for the night and Jessie asked her if she wanted to come over for dinner. Kayla decided to stay home and look over her purchases, trying to decide what to take and she wanted to put all of Caleb's things in his room to surprise him when he came home. So, Jessie went on home with the two shopping bags that were hers. She'd bought herself a pair of shorts and a top and a summer dress and some shirts for Brady. She loved seeing him in a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the way he'd been the first time she'd met him.

  While Jessie had gone shopping for the day, Brady was touching base with a buddy of his from the Army. The guy was a complete computer nerd and Brady had asked him to see what he could find out about Devon Bridges. They got together at a Mexican restaurant that was about halfway in between them and greeted each other with a handshake and a man hug.

  Kirk Manning, Brady's friend, had a manila folder with him. After they ordered beer and got a basket of chips with salsa, they caught up a little.

  Kirk was surprised to hear that Brady was soon to be married and congratulated him with a tip of his bottle. "You'd better send me an invitation to this event," Kirk said.

  "You can count on it," Brady told him. "Don't let me forget to take your address with me. What about you? Are you married yet?"

  "Not me, no woman could put up with me for that long. I'm happy single."

  Brady turned serious for a minute. "I haven't told you who I'm marrying."

  Kirk cocked an eyebrow. "Is it someone I know?"

  "In a roundabout kind of way. It's Jake's little sister, Jessie."

  Kirk let out a low whistle. "I remember him talking about her. She was the only family he had, wasn't she?"

  "Yes, and Jake made me promise to go help her if anything happened to him. And now here we are, about to get married. She's a helluva woman, Kirk."

  "I don't doubt it. Here's to Jake. He was the best."

  They drank to Jake, lost in memories for a moment.

  "So. You can understand when someone with some kind of secret past comes around, I get a little curious. Maybe it's nothing, maybe this girl has nothing whatsoever to do with Jessie, but I need to know. What did you find out?"

  Kirk opened his folder, which was pretty thin, and said, "Devon Bridges, from Georgia, you knew that. She was born and raised in the Columbus, Georgia area. She got a scholarship to Auburn, but she went for one year and quit. Then she went to work in construction. She learned carpentry from her dad, growing up, and she's good at it."

  Brady said, "She had a scholarship to Auburn and didn't go? Wow."

  "Yeah, she seems to have always gone her own way."

  "Columbus, Georgia. Isn't that near Fort Benning?"

  "Yeah, it is. Anyway, she worked in the construction trade for several years, and then she had a baby. Little boy named Jacob Boyd, no father on the birth certificate. After he was born, she left the construction business; the hours would have been awfully demanding for a single mother. If she was. I couldn't dig up anything about a romantic relationship, but that doesn't mean she didn't have one. A couple of years later, her dad died and left her some money. She sold his house and went to work from home as a freelance business writer. And a little more than a year and a half after that, she bought the place in Nebraska. Paid cash and settled in to remodel it herself. And that's pretty much all I found out."

  Brady was thoughtful. "The stuff you found out matches up with the stuff we know about her. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. No signs of an abusive relationship?"

  "Not that I've found. But when someone gets out of that kind of thing, they do a damn good job of erasing the history so the abuser can't get another chance. I'll keep looking, but I'm not hopeful I'll find much more."

  "Well, that's a little more than I knew before. I appreciate it, Kirk."

  "Not a problem. Now buy me lunch. I'm starving."

  Chapter 11

  It wasn't long before the Jasper emergency network got its first real test. Deanna Peters, who lived in town, had a ten-year-old son, Donnie. Her son had gone out to play with his best friend, Joey Martz, and when Donnie's mother went out to call him in for lunch, she saw no sign of the boys. She went over to the Martz home and Gina Martz said she thought the boys were playing at the Peters' house. They searched all the usual places and found no sign of the boys. Jessie received the call and immediately called her list of contacts. Devon was her first contact and she promptly promised to call hers and so on down the line. In less than a half hour, there was a sizable group of people in the town square, organizing to search for the boys. Sheriff Danvers addressed the group.

  "Okay, people, you're going to go door to door, to see if the boys are somewhere playing and forgot to tell their moms and if anyone has seen them. With a little luck, that's exactly what we're going to find out, so there's no need to panic. Let's find them."

  More and more people joined the effort to find the boys; they went door to door and soon found that one woman had seen them at the park earlier. The sheriff led a group to the park, and they fanned out, looking for any sign of them. There was a shout when someone found a baseball glove lying in the grass. People w
ere calling for the boys, and a couple of minutes later, Devon ducked through a hedge, and there they were. The boys looked up, completely startled when Devon let out a gasp of relief.

  "There you guys are! I bet you don't know what time it is." Devon didn't want to scare them. "Your moms have been looking for you."

  Donnie gulped and said, "Oops, I forgot to tell my mom we were coming here."

  "I thought you told her!" Joey said.

  "Let's don't worry about that now," Devon said. "How about you follow me back to where you left your baseball mitt?"

  Joey looked at her and said, "But we're not supposed to go with strangers."

  "Okay, let me just call and tell everybody you're all right."

  The boys watched her call the sheriff and tell him where they were. Within minutes, the sheriff ducked through the hedge and both boys gulped, wide-eyed.

  "Oh, boy," Joey said mournfully. "We're really in trouble now."

  "Hi, Sheriff Bret," Donnie said glumly.

  "Hi, Donnie. You two had better come with me; your moms and dads have been worried about you."

  "Geez, we're going to be grounded forever." Donnie got up and followed the sheriff, dragging his feet toward his fate.

  Devon walked with the boys and the sheriff, and he called the frantic parents and gave them the good news. By the time they got back to the main part of the park, the parents were pulling up at the curb. Deanna and Gina threw their arms around their sons, overcome with relief to see them alive and well. The boys were shocked to see all the people.

  When Deanna showered Donnie's face with kisses, he struggled to get free. "Geez, Mom, look at all these people! Stop kissing me!"

  "Donnie, I thought something terrible had happened to you! Oh, you are in so much trouble, young man!"

  "Oh, crap, I'm sorry, Mom. I thought Joey told his mom, and he thought I told you."

  Gina said grimly, "You're not going to have to worry about that for the rest of this summer, since you won't be leaving your own backyard, Joey Martz!"

  The whole crowd began to disperse as the missing boys were loaded into their cars and headed home to face the music. The sheriff thanked everyone and shook Devon's hand, thanking her specifically.