Barry whimpered and lowered his hand from his eyes. Allie slipped her fingers around his, looked into his confused gaze, and said, “I’ll take him home.”
The boy’s face relaxed. He closed his eyes.
“Aunt Allie will make you a comfortable spot on the couch,” Allie crooned. “We’ll find you a good movie on TV, and I’ll give you some ice chips. Okay?” She stroked his clammy forehead.
The child nodded.
“So it looks like it’s all settled, then,” Martha said from the end of the couch, her tone laced with disapproval.
“Yes.” Allie looked up at her and nodded, only to realize Martha’s attention was on her son and daughter-in-law. “I just need to get my purse from the deck.” Allie stood and adjusted her belt.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay without me?” Macy asked and moved near her son’s head.
“Oh brother,” Charlie mumbled.
Allie nearly shot him a look as sour as his mother’s but stopped herself. Neither Charlie nor Macy had room to criticize the other. If they had been excellent parents, both would have put their own wishes aside and taken their son home. But neither of them could think past themselves long enough to put anyone’s needs first, even those of their children. Allie wondered how Charlie and Macy had stayed married, and prayed that if she ever married, it would never deteriorate into such a mess.
Seventeen
Brent Everson settled into a theater chair in the north section of Macon Community Church. He gazed across the mammoth sanctuary filled with seats that wrapped around the auditorium. The building offered the latest in design and high-tech equipment—right down to the overactive air conditioner that left the tips of his ears and nose feeling frostbitten. Brent was glad for the wool blazer he almost didn’t wear due to the spring’s increasing heat.
He’d been thrilled several weeks ago when he tracked Allie and her family to this large congregation. The huge crowd gave Brent the cover that a small country church would have never offered. Bumping into Allie was by far more “coincidental” at a church with five thousand members than one with fifty. And Brent desperately needed to bump into Allie. After weeks of following and studying her, he was ready to make his move. Or at least, he’d better be. The little bit of money he had left was dwindling, despite the fact that he’d slowed the gambling. He or Penny Clayton needed to marry an Elton within six months. Penny wasn’t having much luck currently, so he must make a move.
He spotted Allie entering the south door with one nephew at her side. Wow! he thought, and couldn’t quite believe the change in her appearance. But then, Brent was always a little mystified by what he called the bathroom miracle. He often saw Penny go into the bathroom looking like a flat-haired, pale-faced rat, but when she emerged an hour later, she could almost run for Miss America. Apparently Allie had learned the tricks of the bathroom miracle. She looked ten times better today than she had the last time Brent spied on her.
He slowly grinned and decided that pretending an attraction for Allie might not be as big a chore as he’d originally thought. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that she was a Bible-thumping prude—but a pretty Bible-thumping prude was way easier to live with than a bland one.
She meandered down the aisle with the thin kid at her side. He was as tall as Allie and favored her more than he did his own mother. The best Brent could tell, Allie was a better mother to him and his twin than was Macy Grove. Macy and her husband, Charlie, walked behind Allie and looked about as happy as two bad-tempered tigers with their tails tied together.
Brent snickered under his breath. So much for marital bliss, he sneered and wondered why Charlie Grove didn’t direct his interests elsewhere. The best Brent could tell, neither Charlie nor Macy were having an affair or even an occasional fling.
Probably because of the church thing, he thought and abhorred the thought of living such a life.
He scanned the recessed lights that cast an ethereal glow upon the striking sanctuary and wondered what anybody saw in obeying a long list of do’s and don’ts. No matter how pretty you packaged the rules, they still were nothing more than a jail cell. Nevertheless, Brent would do whatever he had to do to get money. If it meant feigning a holy life and attending church until he was ninety, then so be it. But he would never truly embrace the church or its long list of boneheaded rules.
Brent’s attention rested upon Allie once more. She and the Grove clan were claiming an empty row near the back that offered a perfect spy point from Brent’s position. And now they were being joined by another group. Brent placed his elbow on the armrest and leaned forward. His legs tensed.
The chiseled-faced outdoorsman was back. After Brent had seen him with Allie at that Christian school, he’d noticed the dude prowling around her more than once. So Brent had clued Penny in to the guy’s presence. She found out his name was Frederick Wently, and he once worked at the Elton Mansion years ago. Now Frederick was bringing friends with him.
The redheaded lady and her husband didn’t bother Brent. They interested him. . . . Rather, their obvious wealth, as evidenced by their fashionable clothing and the golfball-sized diamonds the woman wore, interested him.
Then there was a sad-faced, moping man who settled beside Allie. Immediately the guy struck up a conversation with Allie. Her relaxed response and receptive expression clanged Brent’s alarm system. He’d been worried about the outdoorsman. Perhaps his concerns had been misplaced.
Louise Grove, who research had proven was Macy Grove’s sister-in-law, plopped next to Frederick in the seat nearest the aisle. The femme fatale briefly laid her head on Frederick’s shoulder and grinned up at him like a cat eyeing gourmet fish.
Brent’s eyes widened at such blatant display in church. Hey, hey, hey, he thought and decided that a relationship with Allie might have its perks. Louise Grove looked like his kind of woman.
But Frederick Wently ignored Louise and leaned across the sad-faced guy to say something to Allie. Her distracted smile suggested she was more interested in the man sitting next to her than anything Frederick might say.
Checking his watch, Brent noted that church wouldn’t start for fifteen minutes. He had originally planned his “chance” meeting with Allie for after the service, but decided even an hour was too long to wait. The way things were going, if Brent didn’t move swiftly Allie might no longer be available.
Frederick had never been so frustrated in his life. Every plan he laid was backfiring. The very man he’d hoped would catch Louise’s attention hadn’t. Instead, Jim had totally snared Allie. When she left the party early last night to take care of her nephew, Frederick actually thought Jim was going to go home with her. And the way Allie acted, she would have been glad of it. But when she drove off, the only man with her was her nephew. Frederick had been left to baby-sit Louise and Helena and watch poor Jim pine.
For the first time since Jim’s fiancée’s death, Frederick was tired of having to deal with it. He’d been there for Jim through the whole ordeal, held him up during the funeral, even went to grief therapy with the guy. And Frederick had given him all sorts of grace. After all, Jim had kissed his fiancée goodnight on Tuesday, only to find her dead of a brain aneurysm on Wednesday.
While Frederick hadn’t lost his fiancée to death, he had lost her. Looking back, he’d grieved the loss of Allie nearly as hard as if she had died. Now she was back in his life—sort of—and that was part of his problem with Jim. Allie appeared to be finding a secure place in Jim’s life, as well.
The two of them were now softly laughing over some joke Jim had cracked and Frederick missed. Whatever it was, he was certain depressed people weren’t supposed to be funny. If those two were this cozy after only a couple of meetings, Frederick was sure they’d be engaged by next month. And all because of “poor Jim’s” depression stirring Allie’s caring spirit.
Despite Frederick’s compassion for Jim, he was sorely tempted to tell Jim to get over it. He stared straight ahead at the platform full o
f choir chairs and grudgingly admitted that his exasperation really had nothing to do with Jim’s mourning within itself. The problem lay in Allie’s response to him. Frederick cut her a glance and was once again taken with how good she looked.
Today she wore a yellow dress with fuchsia flowers emblazoned on it. Her lipstick matched the color of the flowers. Her hair was styled to perfection. And her skin possessed a luminescent quality that made Frederick want to stroke her cheek. He rubbed his thumb against his fingers and imagined how her skin might feel beneath his touch. His gut tightening, Frederick pinched his bottom lip and glared toward the pulpit.
“You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying!” Louise’s whiny words crashed into Frederick’s misery before she slapped at his arm.
“Excuse me?” Frederick turned his attention toward the blonde. As usual, she was dressed in a skirt that slid up to “here,” and Frederick was tempted to remove his blazer and cover her legs.
“I was asking how long you’re staying in Macon,” she said through a pout.
“Oh.” Frederick gazed past her and noticed a sandy-haired man in a dark sport coat gazing toward them. The guy casually looked away and then stood. Frederick dismissed him and tried to remember Louise’s question. “I guess a few more days. Like I said last night, I was just trying to get Jim out of Atlanta—to give him something to do. So we rented a suite here in Macon. Sophia and Darren decided to join us for a night or two, but they have to be back in Atlanta tomorrow.”
“So why don’t I go back to Atlanta with you, and you can give me a ride in your airplane?”
“The plane’s in Charlotte right now. I drove down in my truck.”
“Why couldn’t you catch a shuttle flight and go get it?” she challenged. “Maybe I could even visit your place in Charlotte.” Louise twined her fingers around his arm and winked at him.
Frederick decided the time had come for his big brother lecture. Today. It had to be today. Before Louise got any more ideas.
“Uh . . .” he hedged and decided to just be honest. “Really, Louise, I normally don’t make a habit of having women at my place . . . um . . . alone.” He emphasized alone and hoped she would drop the topic. Years ago Frederick had drawn some lines to protect his personal integrity. As the years rocked by and he found no wife, those lines had been harder and harder to respect. But by the grace of God he had lived a life above reproach and held no plans to change.
Her lips drooping, Louise looked away. Finally she said, “Well, okay. Maybe you’d just go get the plane and take me for a ride, then.”
“Now that I might be able to do, especially if everyone else wants to go, as well.” Frederick glanced toward the long line of friends and family before his gaze landed on Jim and Allie. For once the two weren’t locked in deep conversation. Jim was absently staring across the sanctuary while Allie focused on Frederick.
The mixture of respect and astonishment in her big brown eyes suggested all manner of possibilities. Furthermore, the wall that had been between them all these weeks had vanished. And Frederick couldn’t have looked away even if he wanted to. His heart jumped to his throat and began a fierce patter that took his breath. And he knew for a fact that all those tiny clues of her interest had indeed been clues and not his imagination. To further confuse matters, Allie’s eyes began to fill with tears.
With no warning, she jumped up, bumped across Bart and his parents, and nearly landed in Sophia and Darren’s laps before stumbling into the church aisle and hurrying toward the exit door.
Sophia looked at her brother with a silent What did you do to her?
Frederick shrugged and swiveled to watch Allie hit the door and dart into the foyer. Before the swinging door stilled, the man Frederick had seen watching them exited behind Allie. An uneasy instinct sent Frederick to his feet.
“Felicity would have loved this sanctuary,” Jim said and looked up at Frederick.
Wrinkling his brow, Frederick peered down at his friend and realized the guy had been so out of it he’d missed Allie’s departure.
“Hey, where are you going?” Jim’s question confirmed Frederick’s assumption.
“I just need to go,” Frederick asserted and squeezed past Louise.
“That’s not it!” Louise exploded. “You’re following her. What’s the deal with her, anyway?” Louise’s shrill question pierced the gathering congregation’s low hum. A suspenseful silence settled upon their corner of the sanctuary, and Frederick didn’t have to imagine what people must be thinking. Their speculative glances said enough.
While he was tempted to crawl under the carpet, Frederick ignored the curious glances and headed for the exit door Allie had just passed through.
Eighteen
Allie burst into the foyer and blindly raced toward the ladies’ room. The warm tears that had blurred her vision trickled to the corners of her mouth and left their salty trace upon her tongue.
When Frederick turned down Louise’s blatant invitation, Allie had been stricken anew with the gross misjudgment she’d dealt him. She had lined up a few pieces of incriminating evidence and assumed the worst of Frederick without even giving him a chance. And this morning, she clearly recognized his body language. More than once, he had attempted to put some healthy boundaries between himself and Louise, but she kept ignoring his hints.
After negotiating around a young couple, Allie hit the restroom’s door and plunged into the posh lounge. The smell of rose potpourri struck her as strongly as the new rush of emotions. Realizing she’d left her purse and the packet of tissue therein, Allie hurried to the countertop box of tissue. She grabbed a handful, wheeled toward a stall, and nearly plowed over an old lady and her walker.
“I’m sooooo soooooorrrry!” Allie wailed.
“That’s okay, sugar,” the matron soothed, and looked at Allie like she was bananas. “You don’t have to cry about it. You didn’t even touch me.”
“Oh, it’s not you I’m upset about!” Allie fretted while the woman stared at her. “It’s . . . it’s . . .” She waved her hand. “Never mind,” Allie mumbled and scurried into a stall.
No sooner had the stall door slammed than the old lady grumbled, “These young women and their problems.”
Allie bit her lips together, blotted at the tears, and tried to regain her composure. In the height of emotion, her left leg complained against the new spike heels she’d bought to match her outfit. The building’s cold temperature had finally gotten to her old break. Allie examined the tile floor on which she stood. The best she could tell through the tears, the floor was clean. She slipped out of the heels and wiggled her toes against the cool tile. The pain in her leg subsided to a dull twinge.
As always, the pain brought back memories of how the injury occurred. Allie hiccoughed over her tears and remembered the infinite respect and integrity in Frederick’s eyes the day he proposed. The respect and integrity were still there. He could have taken Louise up on her offer. Instead, he’d told her he didn’t entertain women in his house alone. He hasn’t changed, Allie thought with a surge of new tears. He hasn’t changed at all.
She relived that day Louise had jumped from the picnic table into his arms, knocked him down, and kissed him. At the time, Allie had interpreted the incident as something Frederick must have enjoyed. But in the light of her discoveries from last night and Frederick’s rejection of Louise’s invitation, Allie realized Frederick had very likely been a victim of Louise’s tornado tendencies.
Her heart swelled with more love than she thought possible. Allie placed her arm against the stall, rested her forehead on her arm, closed her eyes, and recalled his open admiration from last night. That same blatant attraction had been present only minutes ago, like a force from the past that simply would not go away. And mingled with the attraction was a tinge of pain and a question.
“Oh, God,” Allie whispered through a sniffle, “have you put Frederick back into my life for a reason?”
The answer to her prayer came with the
memory of her decision from last night—that if Frederick were interested then she would reawaken their relationship, regardless of what her family thought.
“I should have married him ten years ago,” she affirmed as a slow anger began to burn against herself and Aunt Landon.
“God, help me,” Allie whispered. “Oh, God, help me. Help us.”
She lifted her head, lowered her arm, and dabbed at the tears. Allie hadn’t been seriously interested in a man since Frederick Wently. And she knew she never would be. He was the standard by which she judged all men; and in her eyes, they all came up lacking. After several seconds of deep breathing, her trembling subsided. Her legs strengthened as did her resolve. She decided that perhaps she could face the world again. Allie stepped back into the fuchsia heels, opened the stall, and nearly bumped into the same lady with her walker.
The woman gawked straight at Allie, then whipped her walker around and scooted toward the exit. Allie watched her go and realized she’d just been eavesdropping. Shaking her head, Allie moved to the mirror.
“Some people need to get a life,” she muttered at her reflection, then giggled. No telling what that poor woman thought, she mused and assessed the makeup damage her cry had created. Fortunately, her eye makeup was waterproof, so the only evidence of her tears was a few streaks to her blusher. Allie gently smoothed a tissue over the problem areas and dabbed at her eyes again. Other than slight puffiness tinged with red, there was no evidence she’d been crying. She hoped by the service’s end even the redness would subside—and certainly by the time she got home. Even if no one else noticed the evidence of her emotion, Mrs. Grove would. That eagle-eyed matron missed little.
She certainly hadn’t missed Allie’s desire to go to services this morning. Allie had reluctantly offered to stay home with Barry, still in the throes of a stomach virus. But Mrs. Grove had taken one look at Allie and insisted that she and her husband would tend him. Of course, Macy and Charlie never argued with the Groves or offered to stay with their son themselves. They were too hyped about trying the new steakhouse after church. Now Allie was so glad the Groves were stubborn in their insistence to stay behind. If she hadn’t been here, she would have missed one of the most important moments of her life.
Possibilities: A Contemporary Retelling of Persuasion Page 13
