“I see.” Brooke’s smile was fixed and brittle. “Well, all the best to you then.”
“Brooke?” Nancy Jo came up to the little group and put her hand on Brooke’s shoulder. Brooke stepped slightly out of her reach. “They’re ready to start serving dinner now. Would you or David like to make the announcement? Or maybe Chris?”
“I’ll tell David.” She started to leave but turned back to Brother Parker and bestowed a gracious smile on him. “Reverend Parker, I do hope you will honor us with grace before we eat.”
She moved away, and Kaitlyn banged her head softly against Steven’s shoulder. “I am so sorry. But in her defense, I have to say she thought she was giving you a compliment.”
Steven shook his head and grimaced. “I didn’t react very well. I’m going to have to figure out how to get back on her good side. What do you think my chances are?”
Kaitlyn made a face. “Oh, knowing you, I’d say pretty good.”
“Hey, everyone.” David stood in the middle of the patio and raised his voice. “They tell me we’re ready to eat. I guess it would be kind of pointless to thank everyone for coming since you all were here already, and we’re the ones who turned up. But I can’t tell you how pleased Chris’s mother and I are that we all can gather tonight for this happy occasion. Now, Padre, they tell me you’re going to say grace.”
Brother Parker asked God’s blessing on the food and on the young couple. As soon as he said amen, Chris bellowed across the yard, “Carlos! Step away from the smoker. You’re the best man. Come over here and sit down. Pete can do anything you can do with that smoker, and you know it.”
Carlos came, though he didn’t look too happy about it, and took his place at the bridal party table with his wife. Everyone else found their places at the appropriate tables, and the buzz of conversation began as platters of food were placed in front of them.
When the dessert had been served and eaten, and while Lainie and Ray and Sarah’s brother, Justin, and his wife, Bethany, lingered over coffee, Steven thoroughly embarrassed Kaitlyn by grabbing her hand and standing up.
“You are wonderful people,” he said. “But you are old and married and probably haven’t even noticed that there’s a full moon coming up over that mountain, so Kaitlyn and I will take our leave. Enjoy your coffee.”
The folks at the parents’ table looked up and smiled, and Steven waved. So did the bridal party, and Steven waved at them too.
“You missed the kids’ table.” Kaitlyn felt her face redden to the roots of her hair. “Don’t you want to let them know we’re leaving too?”
“Are you kidding? They’d just want to come with us, and I want to be alone with you.”
The murmur of conversation faded as they walked around the house. Away from the lights and heat lamps of the patio, the stars, just beginning to come out, were brighter, and the air was cooler. Kaitlyn rubbed her arms.
“Cold?” Steven put his arm around her and briskly rubbed her arm.
“A little.”
“Just a sec.” Steven opened the front door and grabbed a jacket off the coat rack. Draping it around her shoulders, he pulled her close. “Better?”
“Yes, it is. Thanks.”
“Here, let’s sit over here.”
He led her to the wooden park bench on the front porch and put his arm around her again when they sat down. For a while, they watched the moonrise in silence, but finally Steven spoke.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing very profound, I’m afraid. I was thinking about my salon opening next weekend.”
“Well, that’s romantic.” Steven pretended to be miffed.
Kaitlyn smiled at him. “It is when I’m thinking about what you did for me to make it happen.”
“All right then, since you put it like that.” He sounded mollified. “Everything ready for the grand opening?”
“Are you kidding me? Rita’s pretty much taken over. There have been radio spots for the last two weeks and flyers all over Last Chance and San Ramon. We’re going to have a drawing for some free services. She really wanted a balloon rainbow over the salon, but I was able to talk her out of that. I’m telling you, if you want anything done, Rita is your go-to girl.”
“Known that for years.” Steven stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his boots at the ankle.
Comfortable silence drifted down onto the porch again, and after a while, it was Kaitlyn who broke the silence.
“Do you think Chris and Sarah will be happy?”
“You can’t know what the future holds, but I have never been surer of any two people than I am of Chris and Sarah.” He looked at her. “Why do you ask?”
“It all happened so fast. They didn’t start going out until last Thanksgiving, and in January, they got engaged. Who does that?”
Steven didn’t answer for a long time. He pulled her closer and rested his cheek on her hair. “As I see it, two types of people do that. Really reckless people—and Sarah and Chris certainly aren’t reckless. And people who have never totally crashed and burned. People who might still have reason to believe in happily ever after.”
“Not like us.”
“No, not like us.”
They were quiet again, and the moon finally cleared the crest of the mountain and began its journey across the sky.
“Kaitlyn, I think the first time I told a girl I loved her, I was probably about eight, and when I think of the number of times I’ve said it since then, and the reasons why I’ve said it, I don’t like myself very much. So when I think about saying those words to you—and I think about it a lot—they sort of stick in my throat.”
She looked at him and slowly nodded. “I know. I know just what you mean.”
He took her face in his hands. “These next few months are going to be so busy for both of us. You here in Last Chance, and me at the academy. Tell me I can think about you and Olivia coming home together and having dinner and doing homework and all the other things you do in the evenings. Tell me I can picture you working in your salon with the Desert Bluff walls. Tell me it’s okay to imagine myself standing next to you and holding the hymnbook on Sunday mornings. Because whether or not you tell me I can, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. And I’ll be counting the days until I can come back to you and Livvy.”
Still holding her face in his hands, he lowered his lips to meet hers. When he raised his face to look in her eyes again, she smiled.
“We will be here waiting.”
Acknowledgments
My warmest and most heartfelt thanks to Marcy Weydemuller, who calmly and with warm encouragement keeps pace with my manuscript as deadlines approach and panic ensues; to Wendy Wetzel, editor extraordinaire and expert on seven-year-old girls; and to Naomi Sims, who first noted that Last Chance was sadly lacking a hairstylist and then set about helping me create one. I love you all. This book wouldn’t exist without you.
Cathleen Armstrong lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Ed, and their corgi. Though she has been in California for many years now, her roots remain deep in New Mexico where she grew up and where much of her family still lives. After she and Ed raised three children, she returned to college and earned a BA in English. Her debut novel Welcome to Last Chance won the 2009 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Award for Women’s Fiction. Learn more at www.cathleenarmstrong.com.
Books by
Cathleen Armstrong
* * *
A PLACE TO CALL HOME SERIES
Welcome to Last Chance
One More Last Chance
At Home in Last Chance
www.cathleenarmstrong.com
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