What Matters in Mayhew (The Beanie Bradsher Series Book 1)

by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

  Luke 2:1-14

  And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

  Just as every other Christmas, the reading brought a sense of peace and wellbeing to Sweet Lee. When she sat back and considered her situation, she realized that abundance did not mean perfection, and discomfort did not mean disaster. Whatever would be, would be, and they would handle it together.

  There was general chaos while the children tried to identify which package seemed the most promising. Bitty found a small square box with her mother’s name on it and gave it to her. She looked around, but Bubba was still not back. Really? This is your big surprise? Nice, Bub.

  Ten minutes later the living room was covered in wrapping paper and the little ones were playing with assorted new toys. B-Kay was programming her new Kindle Fire and Beanie was thrilled with the necklace Sweet had ordered online. And still no Bubba John.

  It would serve him right if I opened this right now, without him even here, Sweet thought. She was just pulling the tape off when T-Ray and Bubba John came in through the kitchen.

  “Glad you waited,” Bubba John said, seeing the package basically intact.

  “Almost didn’t,” Sweet said. “T, honey, pick you out a present to open.”

  “Go ahead, baby, open it.” Bubba sat on the arm of her chair, and seemed a little breathless, which Sweet found endearing despite her annoyance.

  When the package revealed a jeweler’s box, Sweet laughed and said, “I knew it, Bubba. You shouldn’t have done this, but it’s very sweet that you did.”

  Bubba laughed. “Open the box, honey.”

  She pulled off the lid and lifted a small wad of cotton revealing…a key? Except it wasn’t even really a key, just a half-moon of a handle with a long key-like prong.

  “What in the world is this?”

  “Here’s the other half,” Bubba said and handed her a key fob, which the key she held fit snugly into. “Let’s go outside.”

  Bubba stood and helped Sweet to her feet. The older kids followed, but Beanie stayed in the living room with the younger ones while they played. Before they reached the door, Bubba handed her a card. The front of the card had embossed wings, an emblem she recognized, and the note inside read, So glad you’re better. Enjoy your new car! Love, Angel. P.S. Dios es Buenos!

  Sweet tore the door open and went outside to find her beautiful gray minivan parked in the driveway.

  “Oh, my gosh, Honey! Oh, wow, and I thought I was just gonna get a silly old ring!”

  “What, you don’t want a ring?” Bubba John laughed and kissed his wife.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”

  He kissed her again. “Obviously…I did.”

  “For heaven’s sake, honey, you have driven me crazy with this surprise thing, and it’s a car? You could have just told me,” Sweet fussed, but mostly in jest.

  “Are you surprised?” Bubba John walked around the car and opened the driver’s door with a flourish. “Your chariot awaits.”

  By then, the younger kids had caught wind of the grand surprise and all of them crowded around trying to get a good look.

  “Wanna go for a spin?” Bubba John asked.

  “But I can’t drive yet,” Sweet protested.

  “You can ride. Come on.”

  And so, they all piled in and road through town and around it finding all the Christmas lights they could before heading home. But when they got to their road, Bubba John did not turn. He went straight on by, turning right onto the highway that went toward the river.

  “Where are you going?” Sweet asked.

  “Just thought you’d want to see how the house is coming along. I’ve been working hard, trying to get it ready.”

  “Oh, I hope it sells so we can pay this car off,” Sweet said. “I don’t like owing money to anyone.”

  The kids were just beginning to whine when they pulled into the driveway at Mam and Pap’s old place. Sweet gasped at the sight of the old farmhouse, now painted white and sporting new black shutters. The lights were all on and there were candles in the window, and a wreath on the front door, and—what in the world? There was furniture inside, like the house was just waiting for its family to come home.

  “You did all this?” Sweet turned to her husband, tears streaming down her face.

  “Well, I had help, but yeah.”

  “How? It must have cost a small fortune.”

  “Worth every penny, don’t you think?” Bubba John asked.

  “It’s beautiful, honey, but honestly—at this point—I just wish you hadn’t even brought me out here to see it. How are we ever going to sell it? It’s just…perfect.”

  Bubba John said nothing, just shut off the car and walked around it to open Sweet’s door. T-Ray and B-Kay were busy shushing the little ones in the back, and they complied with little resistance.

  Bubba John walked his wife to the front porch and dropped to one knee.

  “What are you doing?” Sweet asked, her folded hands covering her mouth as if in prayer.

  “Sweet baby,” Bubba John began. “I have loved you from the first time I met you. I’ve never had much to give you, but you never wanted more than love, which is a good thing, because I have enough of that to last a long, long time. You, on the other hand, have given me everything. You have made what little we had seem like more than enough and then some, and you have always been happy. That’s why, I’m pretty sure—no, I’m positive—you’ll be happy with this, too.” Bubba John reached into his pocket and pulled out another key. Holding it up to her, he said, “Sweet Lee Atwater, welcome home.”

  She could not answer, just stood and let the tears flow down her cheeks.

  “Aren’t you going to unlock it?” he asked.

  “I can’t. I’m shaking too much.”

  He unlocked the door, turned and swept his wife into his arms, then carried her over the threshold.

  50

  Goodnight, Will

  Meanwhile, back at the Atwater house, Beanie Bradsher was cleaning up the mess from the Christmas tornado, and feeling more than a little lonely. When she finished the kitchen, she retrieved her lovely gift from the living room, took her hat off the rack and headed out the door.

  The phone rang just as she stepped onto the back porch. She figured it was just family calling, and certainly not for her, so she stood on the porch in the chill winter air and listened to it ring. Finally the machine picked up and she heard Will’s voice on the recorder.

  Hey, this is Will Thaxton. I was just returning Beanie’s call, if you could just let her know and…um…Merry Christmas to you all.

  The phone clicked off and all was silent again.

  Beanie Bradsher was not a girl to wallow in her misery. This wasn’t the first Christmas she’d spent alone, and likely wouldn’t be her last. She thought of Suvi and h
ow she had daydreamed many times about their Christmases together, all gathered at his house, nieces and nephews fighting over toys, aunts cooking in the kitchen and uncles gathered with Suvi in the living room talking about their glory days. And where did she see herself in that happy scene? She closed her eyes and realized she didn’t see herself at all.

  She saw herself at The Château making hot chocolate with Will, sitting quietly in front of the fire. She saw Will reading a book while she crocheted Christmas ornaments for the tree, Will gathering more wood for the fire while she set the table for breakfast the next morning.

  But did she see herself in love? That was the question. It was one thing to be comfortable with someone you like very much, and quite another to see yourself in their arms. Because, if she was honest with herself, at the end of that scene, she still saw herself telling Will goodnight and going to her own room. And that would never be fair to him.

  Beanie stood and looked up at the clear, cloudless sky.

  “Goodnight, Will,” Beanie said to the moon and the stars. “Merry Christmas.”

  Author’s Note

  I hope you enjoyed Volume 1 of the Beanie Bradsher Series. Turn the page for excerpts from the next installment, due out in September 2017.

  Epilogue

  Oh, Beanie…

  That’s what I said when that last chapter wrote itself of its own accord. I had such high hopes for Beanie and Will. Truth be told, I had the same hope for Beanie and Suvi, but there may be too much water under that bridge. Can Beanie and Suvi possibly salvage the relationship that seemed to be doomed from the start? Or will Beanie fall in love with Will Thaxton? What are Sweet Lee and Bubba John going to do with their lottery winnings? Has LouWanda Crump learned anything at all? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Please enjoy a couple of excerpts from the first two chapters of the Volume 2 in the Beanie Bradsher Series, to be published in the fall of 2017.

  1

  What’s Wrong with Bitty?

  Sweet Lee Atwater pulled her mini-van into the parking lot of the Mayhew Elementary School, grabbed a Vera Bradley handbag from the back seat and sat for a moment to compose her thoughts. It was a bit more than two months since she had the surprise of her life, and she still hadn’t gotten used to her newfound fortune. Literally a fortune. Sweet’s unassuming and thoroughly reliable husband had gone behind her back for years, playing the lottery with money they could ill-afford to lose. Fortunately for them both, their numbers hit before she discovered his duplicity and they were now millionaires.

  And what did that mean, actually? They still lived in the small town of Mayhew Junction, population roughly ten-thousand if you counted everyone in the entire county, who all shared Mayhew’s zip code. Their kids still went to the same small schools, and they still didn’t have the first fast food restaurant or even a Walmart for crying out loud. What they had was more money than they needed and fewer worries than before. Unfortunately, money would not help with the problem Sweet currently faced. Her middle child Bitty had always been a little different. She had habits that had been endearing when she was a toddler, but were apparently disruptive now that she was in a public school setting. She was a few minutes early for a meeting with Bitty’s teacher and the guidance counselor. They were going to discuss what interventions might be necessary to make everyone’s experience more – what was the word – tolerable? Sweet sighed. Bitty was a bright light in her life, always cheerful, smart as a whip, and incredibly kind-hearted. It was disheartening to watch that little light fade as her daughter grew more and more frustrated with the structure of the classroom.

  No use sitting here fretting, she thought. Time to face the music. Sweet slid from her car, locked the doors and made her way to the entrance of the school office. Signing in at the front desk, she scarcely had time to give her name to the receptionist when the guidance counselor came around the corner, right arm outstretched and Pandora bracelet crackling heavily.

  “Mrs. Atwater, so glad you could make it.”

  Sweet took the hand in her own and smiled. “Please, call me Sweet. Mrs. Atwater is so formal.”

  Libby Daniels laughed. “I know, and I agree,” she said in a soft country lilt, “but we have standards here that make it a requirement. You’re Mrs. Atwater and I’m Mrs. Daniels and we’re both stuck with it.”

  Sweet decided right then and there she liked Libby Daniels very much. Though she had never met her personally, she knew the family Libby married into before moving to Fletcher County and they were good people.

  “Come on back,” Libby said. “Mrs. McMinn is waiting in the conference room.”

  Sweet did know Delia McMinn. They had gone to school together many moons ago, and Sweet had been happy that Bitty was assigned to her classroom for third grade. This was not a conference Sweet had looked forward to, but she allowed herself to relax a bit as they settled in to discuss what might be done to help Bitty cope with the classroom setting. She had a feeling she was going to need all the help she could get.

  2

  La Patisserie

  “Will?” Beanie Bradsher called out from the kitchen of The Chateau, where she had lived since moving out of her flood-ravaged house on the Suwannee River, minus a stint out at the Atwater house while Sweet recovered from surgery. It had been one of the most dramatic Christmases Beanie ever experienced and she still wasn’t sure she was quite recovered herself.

  “You need me?” Will Thaxton appeared at the doorway with a bundle of firewood in his arms. “Thought I’d stock up in the living room. Looks like we have a cold front coming through, though it always makes me laugh saying that. You haven’t seen a cold front until you’ve seen one in Minnesota. Now those are real cold fronts.”

  “Oh, shoot, I needed an extry hand here, but you ain’t got one. Can you put that load down and come help me a minute?”

  “Sure, I’ll be right back,” Will said and disappeared down the hallway.

  Beanie could afford to get her own place, considering her lottery winnings were drawing interest, however meager, in her account at the bank. But she was comfortable here with the widower Thaxton, and he was happy to have her help, so she stayed. Besides, they were well on their way to opening a bakery, by accident mostly, but plans were taking shape and they were already filling orders for three months in advance. Will had once taken a cake decorating course with his late wife Marie and was surprisingly good at it. Beanie, on the other hand, had never had a day’s formal training, but had made a name for herself with the baked goods she distributed to her Avon customers over the holidays.

  Will was in the process of installing glass cabinets in the unused front room of the Chateau. Salvaged years ago from an old jewelry shop once housed in the small building on the same property, the cabinets were perfect to hold pastries and cookies and other baked goods. The Chateau, built in 1883, was originally the county courthouse, but had not been used as such since the current courthouse was built in 1907. It had been remodeled as a bed and breakfast over the years, and there were still several rooms left unused in the enormous wooden structure. Will had been looking for ways to increase his income, and there wasn’t a bakery to be found in the entire county, so La Patisserie it would be.

  “At your service, Ma’mselle.” Will had taken to using French terminology lately, which vaguely annoyed Beanie, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. “Sorry it took so long. I washed up first.”

  “That’s okay, I actually need help with this cooling rack here. It’s all whoppy-jawed and I cain’t have my moon-pies slidin’ down into a heap.”

  “Beanie, we’ve talked about this. We are making macarons,” Will said, rolling the “r” dramatically and giving the last vowel a nasal sound like he’d learned in high school. “They are not moon-pies. There’s a difference.”

  “Look like moon-pies to me,” Beanie said, rolling her eyes. “If they’s macaroni, where’s the cheese?”

  Will laughed so hard he could barely hold the baking rack steady whil
e she adjusted the height of the legs.

  “Oh, stop,” Beanie complained, smiling in spite of herself. “It ain’t that funny.”

  But it was, which was why Will had found himself smitten with Beanie Bradsher months ago. She was only half-serious about the moon-pies. She knew the difference, but she wasn’t one for pretense and, besides, she also knew how to milk a good joke.

  They laughed a lot in this kitchen, and that carried as far as the living room, but no further. Their relationship was like the rack they were fixing, just a little off-kilter. Love on Will’s side, great friendship on Beanie’s, and it looked a lot to Will like “never the twain shall meet.” That did not stop him, however, from hoping.