Blythe darted a look in April’s direction, then shrugged. “I have no idea. Not something we discussed.” They passed a small farm, the flat, open field choked with Canada geese foraging for harvest leavings. “But you know, our grandmother made her own bed, pushing her daughters away.”
“True, I suppose.”
“So you’ll go back to Richmond for the holiday?”
“Maybe. Haven’t decided yet.”
“You’re welcome to hang with me. Or I’m sure Mel—”
“Thanks. But I probably will spend it with my folks.”
Actually, she had no intention of going to Richmond—which she’d already told her mother, who’d then said they were having dinner with friends anyway. Just as well, being as April had realized that since this would be the first holiday without Clayton and his mother, she simply wanted some space to absorb that. And heaven knew she didn’t want to spend it with Mel, since for one thing even though April adored Ryder—whom Mel had loved from the time she was a little girl, and who was the main reason she’d returned to St. Mary’s after swearing six ways to Sunday she never would—all that bliss was hard to take in a confined space. And for another Ryder’s parents and Mel were still working out their own issues with each other, fallout from yet more of her grandmother’s madness. Best to stay well away from that for a while—
“So. What’s going on between you and Patrick?”
“What? Nothing—”
“No, if nothing was going on, he wouldn’t have kept asking me questions the past couple days that he should’ve been asking you. Honestly, I leave town for one day, and it all goes to pot.”
April frowned at her. “Excuse me?”
Her cousin pushed out a why-me? sigh. “You’re single, he’s single. You’re young and adorable. He’s young and sexy as hell. No chatter than I can tell that he’s seeing anyone, no evidence that his injuries affected his testosterone level—”
“Blythe, jeez—”
“And I’m guessing you haven’t been secretly getting it on with anybody, either, since Clayton’s death.”
Heat seared April’s cheeks. “You don’t have to be so...matter-of-fact about it.”
“About what? That your husband is dead? And you’re not? That you’re only twenty-freaking-six years old, your husband has been gone for, what? Nearly a year? And you’re still wearing your wedding rings even though—even though,” she said when April opened her mouth, “you’re looking at your landscaper like you’ve been on Atkins for a year and he’s a Krispy Kreme donut. So, yeah. I’m matter-of-fact. Because somebody has to be, and apparently that’s not you.”
April gawked at her. “This from the woman who thinks, and I quote, that ‘romance is a load of horse pucky’?”
Blythe snickered. “That’s not exactly quoting me. And that applied to me. Not the rest of the world.”
“Isn’t that being a trifle hypocritical?”
“Ask me if I care.”
Gravel crunched as she steered the car into the restaurant lot. Not a huge crowd, this time of year. During the summer, though, hour-long waits for tables at the seafood joint that always smelled of French fries, hush puppies and heaven were not uncommon. They spotted Mel’s car, parked close to the wide plank leading to the pylon-supported building.
A chill traipsed up April’s spine. “Oh, Lord—you’ve been discussing this with Mel, haven’t you?”
“Hellz, yeah.”
“So is this lunch? Or an intervention?”
Blythe cut the engine, grabbed her purse and grinned at April, all smokey-eyed devil woman. “Who says it can’t be both?”
April groaned.
“You interested in Patrick or not?”
“Whether I am or not has nothing to do with—”
“Just answer the question.”
So here it was. Moment of truth and all that. Even if it was little more than a formality, since if she hadn’t been interested she wouldn’t be obsessing like she was.
Blythe tapped the steering wheel. “Clock’s ticking, sweetie.”
“How about...intrigued?”
“Close enough,” Blythe said, then patted April’s knee. “Oh, c’mon...it’ll be fun.”
“For you,” April muttered. Blythe chuckled.
Except the thing was, maybe she did need an intervention. Or at least a sounding board. Or two. Something her cousins had excelled at when April was fourteen, and they’d been only too willing to help her with her boy problems. They should only know how little progress, actually, she’d made on that particular front in the intervening years.
Although, if this went down the way she suspected it would, they were about to find out.
Chapter Four
April couldn’t quite tell whose mouth was hanging farther open, although she gave the edge to Blythe.
“Get out. You’re still a virgin?”
“Yep.”
Okay, so she hadn’t really meant to lead with the punch line, except her cousins had overwhelmed her with all this advice, and it sort of...popped out.
They exchanged flummoxed glances, then Mel frowned at her. “But you were—”
“Married. I know.”
And Patrick thought he was the freak. Heh.
“So, see...” April frowned at her overstuffed shrimp salad sandwich, wondering how she was going to pick it up without half of it plopping back on the plate. “I really don’t have a whole lot of experience. Or any, really. When it comes to, you know...”
“Seduction?” Blythe offered—kindly, it should be noted—and April’s eyes shot to hers.
“Oops,” Mel muttered, her pink hoodie clashing with the maroon vinyl booth seat. “Deer in headlights, straight ahead.”
“I hadn’t exactly thought of it like that,” April said, finally picking up the bulging sandwich. Plop. She scooped up an escaped shrimp and bit into it. “But I guess I have to start somewhere.”
Both women were still staring at her, absolutely still except for their chewing mouths. April sighed.
“My marriage...” She devoured another shrimp. “It wasn’t about romance. Clayton and I were doing each other a favor.”
“As opposed to doing each other,” Blythe said, and Mel swatted her.
“I know, it sounds weird—”
“You think?”
“For God’s sake, Blythe,” Mel said, “will you shut up and let the girl tell the story?”
As in, the whole story. Instead of the uber-edited version she’d offered when they’d first reconnected in September, when she wasn’t sure how her cousins would react to something that still sounded surreal, even to her.
“Okay,” she said on a breath, then met their dual gazes. “Five years ago an agency in Richmond sent me to interview for a companion position to Clayton’s mother, Helene, who lived with him. Which was bizarre in itself, since I have no idea why the agency thought I’d be a good fit. But I’d had so many rotten jobs by that point—” already privy to her sketchy childhood and her father’s predilection for pipe dreams, her cousins nodded in sympathy “—that this one sounded too good to be true. It didn’t require any real skills, which I didn’t have, anyway. And it paid well.” She blushed. “Really well. And Clayton was desperate, since the old gal had run off no less than six companions in the previous year.”
Mel’s eyes widened. “He told you that?”
“No. She did. Within a minute of meeting me.”
“Sounds like a peach.”
“But that’s the thing—we hit it off right away. Not sure why—maybe because she reminded me of Nana, rattling around in her big old house. So there was nothing she could do or say I hadn’t seen or heard before. I stood up to her, I guess. Wouldn’t take her guff.” She smiled, remembering. “Within a week, she was making faces when it was time for me to leave. Clay was her only child, and had never married, and I think she thought of me as the granddaughter she never had.”
Blythe forked in a bite of her lobster salad. “So you
tamed the beast?”
April laughed. “Not hardly. Old gal was a pain in the butt until the day she died.” She sighed. “Six weeks after Clay did. I knew how to deal with her, is all. Clay was stunned.” She felt a smile warm her insides. “And very, very grateful.”
“So...?” Blythe gently prodded, buttering a homemade cheese biscuit.
April let her gaze drift outside, to the marina beyond the restaurant, the tethered boats gently bobbing in the slate blue water. “Clay and I would chat, when he was around. Mostly about his mother, at first. But then about other things. Movies, the news, whatever popped into our heads. And...it was nice. Not what I expected.”
She looked back at her cousins. “A few months in, he asked if I’d consider living there full-time. In my own suite. Sitting room, fireplace, jetted tub, the works. And with a very hefty salary hike, to boot. I’d’ve been an idiot to refuse. And once I moved in, he and I started spending more time together, when he wasn’t away on business. Didn’t take long before I realized he was one of the kindest men I’d ever met. Very fair. And funny, in his own way. Even though he was a lot older than I was. And I liked him. Quite a bit, actually.”
“Define ‘a lot.’”
“In his forties.”
Mel frowned. “And you weren’t dating guys your own age?”
“My own age? As in, their early twenties?”
Blythe snorted. “Good point.”
“I’d never dated much as it was. Even after we all stopped coming here for the summer. Besides, between school and working there wasn’t any time. And anyway, the Rosses kept me plenty busy.” She grinned. “They even took me to Europe with them. Ladies, I have seen Paris, and it is everything it’s cracked up to be.”
“And Clayton...” Mel said, munching a fried clam. “No girlfriends?”
“Helene said something about a fiancée years before, but I guess it never panned out. And he certainly never seemed...” She hesitated. “Interested.” In front of her, two sets of eyebrows raised, and April sighed. “Yeah. Although I never knew for sure if he was gay. And this is all hindsight, anyway. Also not my point.”
Her sandwich somehow finished, April wiped her fingers on her napkin, then tucked it under the rim of her plate. “Shortly after we got back, Daddy came down with some weird infection that nearly killed him. My parents had no insurance, and even though he pulled through, it was a long recuperation. And only Mama to take care of him. I nearly worried myself sick, wondering how we were going to pay the medical bills, if he’d have a relapse and we’d lose him altogether, about how hard this all was on Mama. But I couldn’t quit work to help her, since by then my income was all we had.”
“Oh, honey...” Mel reached across the table for her hand. “I had no idea things were that bad.”
“Nobody did. Mama didn’t want the family to know, because then it would get back to Nana and she couldn’t deal with the ‘I told you sos.’ About her marrying Daddy to begin with, I mean.”
Blythe sighed. “And she would have, too.”
“Yeah,” April said. “Anyway, I tried to keep it together when I was around the Rosses, not let on what we were going through, but that’s kind of hard to do when you’re living in someone’s house. Especially when your employer walks in on you when you’re crying your eyes out.”
“Oops,” Mel said, and April smiled.
“I blurted out the whole sad story. And Clay simply...listened. And within the day...” Her throat got so tight she could barely speak. “He’d settled all their bills, arranged for a monthly stipend for them while my father was recuperating, and a nurse’s aide to come in every day so Mama could get a break.”
“Holy cannoli,” Mel breathed. “That’s like...” She slammed her chin into her hand. “Wow.”
“I know. He said, after the miracle I’d worked with his mother, it was the least he could do. Then a month later he found out he was sick. But in his case, it was terminal. He told me, but he didn’t want his mother to know. Not yet. I didn’t think it was right, not telling her, but of course I said I wouldn’t.” She released a breath. “Less than a year, they’d given him. Poor man...he’d been knocked on his pins. He was quiet and reserved, but he took such a simple joy in life, in everything it had to offer, you know? Then he knocked me into next week by asking if I’d consider marrying him, saying how happy it would make Helene, especially since he knew how fond she was of me.”
Her eyes glanced off first Mel’s, then Blythe’s. “After everything he’d done for my parents—and me,” she said softly, “how could I say no?”
The waitress came over, asked if they wanted dessert. Blythe and April said no, they were good, but Mel ordered a piece of strawberry chiffon pie as big as her head. Which the waitress served with three forks.
Mel duly distributed the utensils, pushing the pie into the center of the table for easier access. No fool, she. “You didn’t even consider refusing?”
April took a tiny forkful of the airy dessert, letting the tart sweetness melt on her tongue before she said, “I was shocked, of course, but...no. I cared for them both too much. He also promised,” she said softly, “that I’d never have to worry about my parents’ finances again.”
Fork halfway to her mouth, Blythe frowned. “But you were married for nearly four years.”
“I know. His oncologist was incredulous. Especially since Clay refused any aggressive treatment. In fact for a while he was even well enough to do some more traveling.”
“And you never...?”
April swiped another tiny bite that blurred as her eyes swam with tears. “Even if he could have...that wasn’t what we had.”
“But was it what you wanted?”
“I suppose I didn’t let myself think about it.”
Blythe took the last bite of pie. Mel signaled for another piece. “But...four years...? Wow.”
A tight smile tugged at April’s mouth. “Oh, when Clay realized he apparently wasn’t leaving on the doctors’ schedule, he asked me if I wanted to reconsider our arrangement. Several times. With the understanding that he’d keep his end of the agreement. About my parents, I mean. But each time I told him no.”
“Because of everything he’d done for you?”
April thought about that for a moment. “I’m not going to say that wasn’t part of it. Aside from that, though, I’d also made a promise, of my own free will. And I’m not one to back out of something simply because it gets hard. Or inconvenient. But the real reason I stayed was because I loved him. Loved them both. They were very dear friends, and I wouldn’t have turned my back on either of them for the world. And what other people think about that...well, it’s really none of their concern, is it?”
She saw tears bunch in the corners of Mel’s eyes. “No. It sure as hell isn’t. Even so—” those eyes narrowed
“—Blythe and I aren’t ‘other people.’ And keeping secrets is for the birds. It’s kind of hard to get your back if you don’t let us see it. Am I right?” she said to Blythe, who muttered something that sounded like “Sure thing,” as the second piece of pie came.
They all picked up their forks again and dived in, munching for several seconds before Blythe said to April, “And you really, truly never found anyone before you met Clayton you wanted to get naked with?”
“Good Lord, Blythe,” Mel said, “give it a rest.”
“No, it’s okay.” April looked Blythe in the eye. “I was hardly the only twenty-one-year-old virgin out there.”
“One of the few. If not proud,” Blythe said, and Mel smacked her again.
April shrugged. “First off, that’s none of anybody’s business, either. Secondly, this chick does not cast her pearls before swine, thank you very much,” which led Mel to mumble something about wishing somebody had said that to her, back in the day. Although, Blythe then pointed out, at least Mel’s pearls-before-swine experience had resulted in the smartest, most awesome ten-year-old girl, ever, so it all worked out, before swinging her gaze bac
k to April.
“Only now you’re twenty-six. And I take it Patrick’s not swine.”
April stuffed another bite of pie into her mouth. Thought about how he interacted with Lili. His crew. His lame attempt at scaring her. “No,” she said, very softly.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get out there and cast those pearls, girl!”
“Except you forget I have no idea how to go about that,” April said, right about the same time Mel poked Blythe again, this time nodding toward the restaurant’s entrance. Which April couldn’t see because she had her back to it.
“Tell me he just walked in.”
“Yep.” Mel thrust out her hand. “Rings off. Now. Before he spots us.”
“What? I can’t—”
“You can. And you will. Can’t cast the pearls while you’re still wearing the diamonds.” She waggled her fingers. “They’ll be perfectly safe, I promise. And you can have ’em back when...” Her eyes crinkled in thought. “When you score your first date.”
“With Patrick?”
“With anybody. His brother’s with him and he ain’t half bad, either.” She shrugged. “Options.”
“This is very true,” Blythe said. “They clearly breed them well, those Shaughnessys—”
“April!” Mel said under her breath. “Now.”
“Okay, okay...” She twisted off the rings and handed them over, thinking, There, done, as April slipped them into a zippered compartment in her wallet, then her wallet back inside her purse.
Strange that anticipation should feel so much like panic. Especially when she heard voices coming closer, Patrick’s brother’s and the waitress’s, mostly. Luke was a notorious flirt, if the stories were to be believed. The kind of man known to make women go all fluttery and stupid. Then, as she rubbed where her rings had been, she heard Patrick’s rumbly voice, she shut her eyes, thinking, Yeah. Like that.
A Gift for All Seasons Page 6
