Libby says: Which is why we were careful not to be too obvious.
Libby says: Aggie? You’re very quiet.
Aggie says: Do you think…
Aggie says: Never mind. Oh, and regarding dates, we settled on
March 7th.
Libby says: I’d rather mind it if you please. Are you truly upset that
we tried to give you both opportunities to discover each other?
Libby says: My, that sounds so… geographical. You know what I mean.
Aggie says: Not upset, really. I just wondered if maybe it wasn’t quite real if it was orchestrated somehow. Then I felt stupid. Making it possible to be together to get to know each other isn’t the same as making up stuff to make it fake.
Libby says: Oh, it’s Luke. BRB
Aggie says: Have him tell you about my wedding idea. I really want you to be honest if you think it’s something that will offend people or not. I don’t want to do that.
Libby says: Sorry. I didn’t see that. Let me call him. BRB again.
Aggie says: That’s ok. I’m just here making party lists
Aggie says: Isn’t there some other kind of “fancy” food I can feed people besides crab cakes? I don’t know how to make them and I am not paying for a caterer.
Aggie says: And where do I get gold balloons???
Aggie says: Oh, it’s not that hard after all. I can get a bag of 100 from a place on Amazon. That’ll work.
Aggie says: *theme from Jeopardy plays*
Aggie says: Maybe it was a bad idea to give the job of explaining to the guy who takes a week to say what most can in a minute.
Aggie says: How many Lukes does it take to make my heart flutter?
Aggie says: None! But it doesn’t take a Lucas any trouble at all!
Aggie says: A Luke, an Aggie, and a Cari walk into a bar. What
does each one say?
Aggie says: Answer—Luke says, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Aggie says, “What’s a nice guy like you doing
bringing me to a place like this?” Cari says, “Ouch! That huwt!”
Aggie says: Hey, Luke signed on! Where are you? Did you faint? Are you not speaking to me? Come baaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccckkkk!!!
Libby added Luke to the conversation:
Luke says: Mom was reading me the conversation and cracking up so hard that I couldn’t understand her. I thought maybe I could see, but it’s not in here.
Aggie says: I’ll copy and paste to email. I was amusing myself.
Libby says: I love your wedding/reception idea. It’s perfect.
Aggie says: Really? You’re not just saying that?
Libby says: Not at all. I like that you’re taking the vows part of your day very seriously.
Libby says: Now that I know my son is alive and that my new daughter-to-be is happy, I’m going to scoot off to bed. Goodnight!
Luke says: Goodnight, Mom.
Libby has signed out of the conversation.
Aggie says: Goodnight almost Mom!
Luke says: I forgot to ask what I could do to help with this party.
Aggie says: I don’t know what we’re doing myself. It’s crazy. Why did I agree to this?
Mibs says: There. That’s better.
Luke says: That is one of my favorite things to see. The first time you did that was the first time I had any hope at all.
Mibs says: Every time you said, “Aw, Mibs,” I think I fell just a little in love with you and didn’t even know it.
Luke says: I’ll remember to say it often.
Mibs says: I think whenever I need to keep my thoughts to myself, I’m going to have to go upstairs with the laptop and make you stay downstairs to talk to me.
Luke says: I’m starting to be able to “read” your writing too.
Resistance is futile.
Mibs says: Then maybe I should say goodnight before I get myself into trouble.
Luke says: Good night, Mibs.
Aggie says: ‘Night.
Luke says: I love you.
Aggie says: Love you more.
Aggie has signed out of the conversation.
Chapter Four
Golden Mishaps
Tuesday, December 9th
“Can’t believe that the Merchamps have a birthday on the same day we’re throwing the kids a surprise party,” Aggie muttered, sliding on a slick patch on the walkway to the guilty family’s house. “Also can’t believe I let them talk me into a Tuesday. It’s not like they knew we’d joked about adding a wedding to it!”
A row of snowmen decorated the front of the house, hinting at a contest. Aggie hoped the one with the saucy grin and cockeyed hat won. Before she reached the door, Ellie and Tavish burst from the house, waving at their friends, and raced for the van. Tara Merchamp shook her head and closed the door behind her, shivering against a blast of wind that swirled around the corner of the house.
“Kids are funny, aren’t they?”
Aggie, already turning to follow her charges, nodded her agreement. “Sorry about that. I—”
“Oh, no! I wasn’t trying to hint anything. Just a minute ago they were complaining that you’d be here any minute and then when you arrive, they fly out the door as if they can’t wait to leave.” Tara shrugged. “I just think kids are too funny for words.”
“Oh, they’re something all right.” She tried to shuffle back down the path, but the woman kept talking. “Ellie and Sarah won the snowman contest with that one—” Tara pointed to the one Aggie had liked. “They won hot chocolate kits. I hope that’s ok?”
No matter how obvious Aggie was in inching away from the chatterbox masquerading as her children’s friend’s mother, the woman kept talking. Desperate, she leaned forward and whispered, “There’s a surprise party for the kids just waiting at our house. I need to get them there before the people jump out and scream, ‘Surprise!’ at the mail lady or something.”
“Oh, that’s great! I was …”
The rest of Tara’s words were lost in a buzz that made her feel as if she had a bee hive nestled in her brain. Waving, she hurried down the sidewalk, slipped on the same icy patch, and clutched at the picket fence for balance. “Thanks!”
“Are you—”
With another wave flung into the air with wild abandon, she rounded the front of the van, opened the door, and climbed inside. “I thought I’d never get away. It’s too cold out there to sit around listening to the nuances of snowman competitions—congratulations, by the way. Well done, Ellie.”
“I think Tavish had the best idea, but he was paired with Braydon and—”
“When we get home, I need you guys to get your junk put away downstairs. You left a mess down there this morning.”
“But Cari—”
Aggie frowned to see Ellie nudge her brother in the rearview mirror. That was odd. “I don’t care who, what, when. Just do it.”
~*~*~*~
“Surprise!” Ellie and Tavish whirled and shouted with the rest of the room.
A flash somewhere froze the moment for future enjoyment as aunt and children screamed in unison. Aggie’s eyes rose to see the banner hung over the fireplace. “Congratulations Aunt Aggie and Soon-to-be-Uncle Luke.”
Her eyes roamed the room, looking for her fiancé to see if he knew anything about the sign—and the wave of well-wishers. Vannie beamed and cried, “It worked! We did it!”
Laird frowned. “Where’s Luke?”
Just as he spoke, Luke pushed through the door, carrying a caterer’s box from a place in Brunswick. “Aw, I missed it! Surprise…” His eyes absorbed the words in the banner and his forehead scrunched up. “What—”
“We got you to help us pull off your own surprise engagement party,” Ellie explained.
Music filled the room as people came forward to congratulate the couple, killing the other questions in Aggie’s and Luke’s minds. As she glanced around the room, she saw Libby, most of the people from church, and then in the corner of the couc
h, her mother. “These were some thorough kids,” she muttered to Luke.
“Oh, speaking of which, I’ve got the crab cakes. I better go put them wherever they’ve spread the food. They have to be put in a chafing dish, but Mom said she’d bring one.”
While Luke hurried to find the necessary dish, Aggie smiled to herself and went to hug Vannie. She’d managed to find an incredible man. How had that happened?
A hand beckoned her from near her mother, but it was too masculine to belong to Martha Milliken. She’d recognize that wedding band anywhere. Aggie wove through the guests, smiling and accepting congratulations and arrived, after traversing the whole of eight feet, three minutes later. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“We couldn’t miss your engagement party!” Ron Milliken hugged his daughter before shifting to one side to allow her to sit and talk to her mother.
No sooner had she seated herself when Vannie rushed to her side. “You’ve got to come play games!”
“But Grandma just got here.”
“Grandma’s been here for half an hour. You just got here.”
Her protests were futile. Vannie dragged her from the couch to the wall by the library door. “Ok, we’re going to pin the bouquet on the bride!”
Hanging on the walls were two long silhouettes of a bride. Luke and Aggie were blindfolded and spun in circles. At the rate and number of spins that Cari gave Luke, he stumbled about like a drunken sailor for several seconds before trying to tape his paper flower bouquet onto Aggie’s shoulder. “Not me, the wall!” she cried.
They stood back from the wall and waited to get their blindfolds removed. “Hey, Luke. Wanna take bets on who was closest?”
Luke laughed. “I say you.”
“That’s not much of a bet. I say me too.”
“Ok, how about bets on inches from the mark?” Luke frowned. “I say six.”
“I say twelve.”
“You’re on.”
Ellie giggled as she pulled the blindfold from Luke’s eyes. His blue bouquet was perfectly situated on the bride’s head—on Aggie’s side of the room. Aggie’s pink one was nearly perched on the bride’s shoulder. “HA! I win!” Doing a victory dance, Aggie grabbed Tina’s arm and Tavish’s hand and shoved them forward. “Your turn.”
By a strange turn of events, only one person managed to pin the bouquet into the silhouette’s hands—William. His face flushed, but he accepted the wrapped box prize graciously. Kenzie found him in the corner, toying with the bow.
“It’s hot chocolate—lots of flavors.”
“That’ll be good.”
The child wrinkled her nose. “No it won’t. You can’t stir with a candy cane if the flavors are funny.”
“Good point,” William agreed, “but since I don’t have any candy canes, I think it’ll work.”
As he watched his little friend, her first teeth missing just in time for singing about them at Christmas, he saw her mouth droop as she leaned her head on his arm. “What’s wrong, Kenzie? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like you lost a friend.”
Kenzie’s lip quivered and she whispered. “I lost the daddy I wanted.”
“The daddy you wanted?”
Several seconds passed before Kenzie responded at all. She stood, removed the box from William’s hand, and set it on the table behind him. Then, as if something she did every day, she climbed up into his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and whispered into his ear, “I love Luke—Uncle Luke, I guess—but I wanted you to be my uncle-daddy.”
William’s throat constricted as he squeezed the little girl. “I would have been proud to be your uncle-daddy, but I didn’t want to marry Aggie, sweetheart. We wouldn’t have been happy, and it would have made Aggie and Luke unhappy. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“You all could have learned to be happy. Luke could have married Aunt Tina.”
“I think,” he whispered, trying to word his answer as simply and carefully as possible, “most people don’t want to have to try to be happy from the beginning. God knows what He’s doing, Kenzie. He knows.”
“That’s true. I think it’s time for the breath contest. I want to win that.”
“Breath contest?”
Kenzie grinned. “Yep. Come on. You play too.”
Laird called the room to order once more, blissfully ignorant of the frustrated expressions on the partiers faces. “Ok, the bride is supposed to take ‘our breath away,’ so this game is simple. Hold your breath!”
Luke and Aggie exchanged pained glances before Aggie turned to Libby and mouthed, “What on earth?”
Libby scooted around a couple of guests and whispered, “They really thought everyone would want to play games ‘like a shower,’ so they worked hard on these. I think everyone understands,” into Aggie’s ear.
Most of the room made a big show of puffing out their cheeks, holding their breath for about ten seconds, and then exhaling in a gush of air. The prior conversations continued as if uninterrupted, but Aggie and Luke played along with the rest of the children. Twenty-one, twenty-two, Aggie exhaled, gasping for air. “I’m lousy!” Luke only made it a few more seconds before he slowly released the air in his lungs and took a deep breath. “I’m not much better.”
Tavish beat all of the children but Cari. The little girl turned a revolting shade of puce as she refused to give in until Tavish did. Aggie tried to insist that she give up, but the girl shook her head, staggering a bit with the movement. Desperate, Aggie whispered for Tavish to stop, and he did, gasping for breath as he leaned his hands on his knees, but Cari didn’t give in.
“You won, Cari!”
The little girl’s face screwed up in protest and then the child collapsed at their feet. Aggie’s eyes went wide, and she reached for Cari. “She fainted! You can really do that? Hold your breath until you pass out?”
“Toddlers have been doing it for centuries,” Mrs. Dyke said. “I’m surprised that one hasn’t done it before.”
Cari stirred, one hand reaching for her head. “My head huwts. Did I win?”
“Yes, you silly girl! You scared me!” Aggie’s panicked voice brought a smile to the little girl’s face.
“Yay! I won! I get the balloons!”
Sure enough, Vannie arrived and tied a huge bouquet of balloons to Cari’s wrist. “I should spank you instead of giving you these.”
“The rules said the one who went the longest, Vannie. Next time we’ll add a pass out disqualification.”
Cari sat up swiftly, swaying, and with one hand to her head. “That’s not faiw!”
Libby announced that the food was ready, giving Aggie time to take Cari upstairs to get a little Tylenol and lay down with an ice pack for a few minutes. While the guests munched on crab cakes and bruschetta, Aggie sat beside her youngest niece, brushing wisps of hair off the girl’s forehead and trying to get her to relax long enough for the medication to work.
A shadow filled the doorway. “Are you ladies hungry?”
“Did you bring cwab cakes? Vannie said you brought some after all.”
“I did.” Luke passed the plate to Cari, curious to see what she thought of the food.
“I don’t get any cake? I didn’t mean to be bad, but I’m vewy good at it. Laiwd said so. He said it’s my talent.”
“That’s not true, Cari. Your talent is in inventing things,” Aggie insisted. To Luke, she whispered, “Even if it’s just trouble for right now.”
“I like that. I want to be an inventor.”
Cari’s switch from substituting Ws for Ls and Rs told Aggie that the child would be fine. “I think you can come back down to the party if you want.”
The girl jumped from her bed, ice pack flying off in the process, and raced for the door. Luke’s words stopped her cold. “I thought you wanted crab cakes.”
“I do!”
He passed her the golden plastic plate. “That’s a crab cake, right there.”
“But there’s no frosting.”
“No… most people don’t like frosting on crab cakes,” Aggie choked.
The little girl took a big bite of her “cake” and spat it onto the plate. “That’s awful! I think Luke should ask for his money back. That is a nasty, nasty cake. I don’t think we should serve that cake at your wedding. No way. I’m going downstairs for good cake.”
Luke and Aggie exchanged amused glances. “Well,” Aggie said. “I guess we know what not to serve at her wedding.”
“Bet you she loves them by then and wants them on the menu. Can you imagine the toast we could give?”
“I’m terrified at the thought of Cari married.”
“Well,” Luke said, taking her hand and leading her from the room, “if your mother can be trusted, you weren’t very different than Cari at that age—worse she says because of her heart condition. She wasn’t very good at discipline she tells me. Something about throwing a handful of Jell-O at your Aunt Agatha because she didn’t serve you enough…”
“You are not allowed to talk to my mother until after the wedding.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t want her giving you any ideas about revoking your proposal.”
“Aw, Mibs. Not possible.”
~*~*~*~
Since she’d never seen them kiss, Vannie concocted the perfect game to ensure the whole party could enjoy it. Much to the boys’ disgust, while the guests enjoyed their food, she hung mistletoe on about thirty hooks she’d prepped all around the living room. Aggie watched, nervous, but decided to wait before protesting. Once most of the guests no longer held plates, Vannie went into action.
“Ok, can the men help me push the furniture back?”
The improvisation of Mother May I under the mistletoe made no sense until the group saw how Vannie ordered couples to navigate the floor until they were beneath the mistletoe. Aggie’s mouth went dry at the thought of it, and Luke excused himself to speak to Ron. Seconds later, he hurried back to his place in line and challenged Vannie with a gleam in his eye.
Sure enough, Vannie called for him to take four giant side steps which put him directly under mistletoe. Three more people went, Mr. Vaughn kissing his wife and they were excused from the game. A fumble nearly sent William kissing Aggie, but he adjusted his steps to be one step behind her and to her right.
Here We Come (Aggie's Inheritance) Page 6
