The Wedding Chapel

by Rachel Hauck

  “So that’s why she wanted to meet with FRESH.” Jack glanced at Ford. “She wanted, needed, an excuse to see Coach.”

  “Jack, get your things,” Ford said. “We need to find her and you’re my ride. If it weren’t for you and your wild ideas, we’d not be in this mess.”

  Jack went stony. “We’ll find her.” He checked with Taylor. “Did Colette say where she was going?”

  “Her hotel. Said she’d meet Ford there.”

  “Then let’s go.” Ford popped open the door.

  Jack hesitated with a glance at Taylor. “I need to go.”

  “I know, go.” She shooed him off, flicking her hands. “We’ll talk later.”

  “Okay.” He started out, but returned and kissed her softly. “You okay? You look tired.”

  “She’s been sick.” Emma, the bullhorn. Just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  Taylor made a face. “Was he talking to you?”

  “Sick? What kind of sick?” Jack’s furrowed expression of concern warmed her.

  “Nothing. Just tired.”

  “Jack,” Ford bellowed from the porch. “Daylight’s burning.”

  Jack hesitated, like he wanted to say something. “I’d better go.”

  “Let us know if you find her.” And, I’m pregnant, Jack.

  Trying on the confession helped Taylor come to grips with her new reality. As mom.

  “Burning daylight, Jack.” Ford, loud and demanding.

  Jack left without another word.

  “New Yorkers,” Emma said, shaking her head.

  “Hey, I’m a New Yorker.” Taylor gathered her camera and started for the stairs, bracing for Emma’s commentary.

  “No, you’re not.” Emma trailed after her. “It’s why you’re waffling on selling this house. You are a Heart’s Bend girl through and through. You’re stuck more to this place than Lorelai Gilmore is to Stars Hollow.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “So, you and Jack? What was that cordial exchange? Are you sure you’re married?”

  “You should really see a doctor, Emma,” said Taylor, heading for the bum room.

  “How you figure?”

  “Get meds for the ‘I-say-everything-that-comes-into-my-head’ disease.”

  “As opposed to ‘I-never-say-anything-that’s-on-my-heart’ disease.” Emma plopped down to the bum room sofa as Taylor set her camera on the makeshift computer table. “You two act like friends-with-benefits, but I see some love and tenderness lurking beneath the surface.”

  Taylor plunked down, exhausted, into her favorite chair. “We can’t seem to get on the same page at the same time. Eloping was a stupid idea. Maybe I should invoke the no muss, no fuss clause.”

  “Well, you can’t until you tell him about—”

  “Ahem. Excuse me.” Jack’s bass broke up the conversation.

  Seeing him in the doorway, Taylor jumped to her feet. How long had he been standing there? What did he hear?

  “Hey, Jack.” Oh, too sweet and forced.

  “Taylor, you need to move the Lincoln. You parked behind us.” His parting glance was cold and quick.

  “Jack—” She ran around Emma and the sofa, patting her pockets. Yep, that’s where she’d tucked the car keys. “Wait.”

  But he didn’t wait. He kept striding. “Just move the car, Taylor.”

  She pushed through the front door after him. “We were just talking, you know, sister talk.”

  He stopped in the middle of the yard. “No, I don’t know.”

  “You know, random, just woo”—she whirled her hands in the air—“whatever comes to mind.”

  “Good to know.” He turned to the rental. “Move the car.”

  Taylor fumed after him. “Jack, wait, please . . . Hey, you never wanted us to work anyway. I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

  He whipped around, his eyes dark. “I never wanted us to work? Wh-where did you get that malarkey? Is that what you tell yourself so you don’t feel bad for slowly drifting out of our relationship?”

  “Me? You’re the one who said, ‘If it doesn’t work out we can walk away, no fuss, no muss.’ Sound familiar?”

  The rental car horn blasted, startling Taylor, pushing her back.

  “Jack,” Ford said from the open passenger door. “Colette could be in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Taylor, I’ve got to go.” Jack backed away. “And I’m not the one who said that—you did.”

  “Me? No way. Don’t blame me for your lack of commitment. You said it, I remember, Jack.”

  “Just move the car, Tay. I don’t have time for this.” Jack slipped behind the rental wheel.

  Taylor flashed with anger, hot tears pooling as she climbed into Granny’s car and reversed out of the driveway. She whipped the Lincoln alongside the curb.

  She did not say, “No fuss, no muss.” She only repeated him.

  Jack drove off, the beam of his red brake lights burning into her heart.

  Stop!

  She dropped her head against the Lincoln’s headrest. If this he-said, she-said miscommunication foreshadowed their relationship, how was the news going to go down when she told him she was pregnant?

  They had to either bail out of this boatload of misunderstandings or get determined about maneuvering and steering this tiny canoe that was their relationship.

  COLETTE

  She remembered the way to his house like she’d driven over yesterday. Still, she circled for a half hour before she gathered the courage to turn down Dunbar Street.

  The house looked the same, but the neighborhood had changed, houses springing up and down the lane. Back in 1951, the Westbrooks were the only ones here. Spying the redbrick foursquare-style home with white porch columns, Colette turned in, tapping the brake as she eased the car alongside Jimmy’s truck.

  Cutting the engine, she checked her mascara and lipstick in the rearview mirror. Her youthful eyes were the result of a surgeon’s blade. Nevertheless, she peered at a woman who was tired, sad, and approaching the last years of her life.

  She’d intended on driving to Nashville, stopping only when she landed at the hotel. But when she turned off Chelsea, she knew she had to see Jimmy again. The notion pulsed through every part of her.

  With a breath of courage, she stepped out of the car and into the laughter of the neighborhood children as they tussled and played. Colette watched them for a moment, listening to a sound that should’ve been from their children, hers and Jimmy’s. Their grandchildren.

  She started for the house, then stopped, her adrenaline surging so forcefully that she felt positively weak.

  Deep breath. All she had to do was channel a little Vivica Spenser.

  At the side kitchen door, gripping her wristlet and car keys, she knocked. But, mercy, was she prepared to face him?

  She had no lines. No script. What would she say to him? He’d proposed marriage, for heaven’s sake! And she’d walked out on him. After a second, she knocked again.

  But from one breath to the next, she lost her nerve. Just go. Then the door swung open and Jimmy stood there as tall, square-shouldered, and handsome as ever.

  “I don’t know what came over me back there. I just—”

  “What do you want, Colette?” He remained on the other side of the door.

  “I don’t know. I was heading back to Nashville, then I realized I had to see you.”

  “Well, you’ve seen me.” He started to shut the door. Stubborn ole coot.

  “You took me by surprise, Jimmy. What did you expect me to do? Throw my arms around you like a schoolgirl, giggle and say yes?” Her legs betrayed her and slowly she sank down to the concrete stoop. “When I heard you were selling the chapel, something snapped inside of me. I had to come. I had to come.”

  One heartbeat, two . . .

  The creak of the screen door opening caused her to raise her head and look at him. “You don’t have to let me in. I can go. I just want to say I’m sorry.”

  “For w
hat?”

  She glanced up at him. “Well, if that isn’t the million-dollar question. Everything, I suppose.”

  “Colette,” he said with a sigh. “Just come in.”

  She hesitated, but when he tipped his head toward the kitchen with a “Please,” she stepped up.

  Taking her hand, Jimmy led her inside and back in time. The place was lovely, remodeled and up-to-date, but so much the same.

  “The fragrance . . . Jimmy—” She squeezed his hand. “It still smells of pine.”

  “Pine?” He laughed, lightly holding her elbow and escorting her to the kitchen table. “Been here so long I don’t even notice.”

  “The place is lovely. You’ve kept it up.”

  “Kept me busy.” He held out a chair for her at the table. “W-would you like some coffee?”

  “That would be nice.”

  She watched him move efficiently about his bright kitchen, moving through the golden light falling through the window as he retrieved fine china cups from a top shelf.

  She would’ve exchanged her Park Avenue penthouse for this place. In a moment.

  “Are you well, Jimmy?”

  He set a cup and spoon in front of her. “My doc says I’ll live to be a hundred.”

  But he had closed the door he’d opened so wide to her at the chapel. Colette felt it. Saw it in his movements.

  “I had a meeting in Nashville with FRESH Water.” She shifted into actress and spokeswoman mode. Confident, settled, and centered. “I’m their new spokeswoman.”

  Jimmy settled a china sugar bowl with a matching pitcher of cream on the table, then pulled out a chair for himself while the coffee brewed. “That what brought you back to these parts?”

  “Yes . . . No.” She held his gaze, framed with the lines and wisdom of time. “I used them as an excuse, really. I owe Jack an apology I suppose, but I wanted to see you. And the chapel.”

  “You didn’t need an excuse to see me. Or that chapel.”

  “Sure I did. After all, you left me for no reason.” There. She’d said it. Jimmy wasn’t the only one with boldness in his old bones. And so she’d left him—

  Jimmy reared back. “Come again, woman?”

  “Last I knew you were going to boot camp and coming back to me. But—”

  “And you were going to wait for me.”

  “I waited.”

  “You left. If anyone left anyone, it was you leaving me, Lettie.”

  “Well, that part is true, but only after you left me.” Plus, she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t . . . stay.

  “Where you get that?”

  “Listen to us. Can’t even figure what went wrong between us and you’ve made a marriage proposal.”

  He shoved back from the table, returning with the carafe, filling their cups. In silence, they each sweetened and creamed their coffee, their spoons clattering against the sides of the cups.

  “Well . . . acting. That had to be an exciting life.” Jimmy sat forward, his big hands cupped around the tiny, delicate cup.

  “What about you? Football hall of fame I hear.” For decades she received copies of the Heart’s Bend Hometown News.

  He might have rejected her, but she felt she must watch over him, even from the concrete and glass of New York.

  “Yeah, it was an honor to be named.” He nodded, sipped his coffee, and stared across the room, then at her. Without wavering, he reached for her hand. “Guess I was a fool proposing back there today.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have walked out. I’ve been doing that a lot today.”

  He shifted in his chair, long lines fanning from the corners of his eyes, deepening. “I never thought I’d see you again, Colette. Then Keith came around wanting to sell the chapel for me and I figured, ‘Why not?’ It was nothing but a symbol of something that weren’t never going to happen. But then you walked in, right through the morning light like an angel sent from heaven. I lost my head there for a moment. And you’re right”—he hoisted his coffee cup to her—“it is your chapel. I built it for you.”

  “I did leave you, Jimmy.” Colette stared into her cream-colored coffee, grateful to have found her courage. “But only after I got your letter.”

  “Letter? I wrote you hundreds. Especially that first year.”

  She furrowed her brow. “I only got one.” But what did it matter? She had a grand secret that would be worthy of him leaving her. “No. If you knew the whole story—”

  “Colette, whatever you came to say, say it. I’m eighty-three years old, and if the good Lord allows, I’ll live a long life. I don’t care what you done, past or present, or why you left me. I want to be with you. I want the truth. The time for confusion is over.”

  “We’re not kids anymore. I’ve a home, a life, in New York.”

  Jimmy waved her off. “No matter. I feel like a kid, and you look like one.”

  Now he was being silly. But she laughed anyway.

  “I’ll move,” he said. “Put this place, the chapel, all the land on the market and move. I’ve nothing without you. No kin, no one to inherit. I’ve rattled around this old place all my life, moved in when I was two and never left. I still put up the Christmas tree in the same spot Dad did. I take the same road I took to work for forty-five years. I’ve got some money put by. Never had a mother and now I don’t have a wife, and forgive me, Lettie, but this old dog wants to learn a new trick. I want to try living with a woman. You.” He released her hand and sat back. “That night in the chapel? When we said our own vows and we—”

  Mercy, he was making her blush. “Yes, I remember.”

  “I ain’t been with another woman since.”

  Heavy tears washed her eyes. “No one?”

  “Why? I was married to you . . . in my heart. But you ran off with Spice Keating.”

  “Because of your letter.” The nail in the coffin. “That you’d changed your mind.”

  Jimmy laughed. “You’re joking. Why would I write such a letter? Why would you even believe it?”

  “It was in an envelope addressed to me. On the table by the door. The day you left for boot camp. I thought you left me a final love letter.”

  “I was going to, but after our last night together, I couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye again.”

  They had not made love again but sat for hours in the Clemsons’ living room promising to wait for each other, to write daily.

  “What did I say in this letter again?”

  “That you’d reconsidered. You didn’t feel it was fair to make me wait. That I should move on. In fact, I still have it,” Colette said.

  Jimmy pushed away from the table. “Why would I write such a thing? And you received no other letters?”

  “None.”

  “Did you write me? Telling me we were a mistake, that ‘our night’ should’ve never happened. That you were too young to settle for one man. The world was changing and the new decade offered women all kinds of possibilities.”

  “I never wrote such a letter, Jimmy.” Colette felt punched. Mocked. And jerked about.

  “Then we have a conundrum.” He tugged open a kitchen drawer and retrieved a yellowish envelope. He slid the letter across the table. “If you didn’t write this, who did?”

  With a trembling hand, Colette slipped the single sheet with her smooth, angled handwriting, faded with time, across the page.

  . . . was all a mistake. I realize that now, Jimmy. Please forgive me. Move on . . . I’m too young . . . Going away . . .

  Colette stopped on the last line. The lettering changed, the pen slipping off the edge of the paper. When she was younger, she hated writing to the end of the page. It messed up her neat penmanship.

  Colette whirled up out of her chair with a ping of understanding. “No, she wouldn’t . . . she couldn’t.”

  “She? Who, Colette? Do what?”

  Thinking, pacing, Colette tried to unwind the last sixty-four years. “She couldn’t have been that evil, that cruel.” But s
he was so bitter and so skilled at . . . Colette regarded the letter, turning it over to see her signature. Peg! Oh, that Peg!

  “Jimmy, I did not write this.” She shoved the letter at him. “Look at the signature. I always signed with a curly C. This is a straight C. And I never wrote to the edge of the page.”

  Colette sank back into her chair, hand to her middle, regret and sadness brewing there. How could she have been so blind? So ruled by fear? “Peg did this.”

  “Peg?” Jimmy said.

  “Yes, Peg. Now she’s dead and I can’t confront her.” A thin, sharp pang started around the back of Colette’s head. The one she had since she was a girl on the Morleys’ farm. “Remember? She was very proud of her copying skills. Used them to entertain the kids when we first moved here. Even tricked the girls into thinking she’d had tea with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.”

  Jimmy made a face. “Seems I remember her copying homework for someone or another, but why would she do this?” He waved the fake letter, then dropped it to the table. “I can’t think of anything more cruel.”

  Colette met his gaze. “Exactly. Peg was that cruel. She wanted what she wanted and didn’t care who she hurt. She wanted you, Jimmy.”

  “But she was seeing Drummond Branson when I left for boot.”

  “And married him a few months later, but if you’d have whistled, she’d have come running.”

  Jimmy ran his hand over his silver hair. “Well, now, that makes sense. She wrote me a few times, after I heard you’d took off with Spice, saying she’d wait for me, but I told her to find her a nice man in Heart’s Bend. It was too painful to hear from her, so I stopped writing back. Might have told her I met a Korean gal, just to get her to stand down.”

  “Peg was a liar and manipulator.” Colette shook her head. But was she really any better? She’d been lying to folks for over sixty years.

  “Then she came to the chapel once after I got back from the war, saying she’d run off with me if I wanted. And with Drummond’s child on her hip, no less. I steered clear for a long time. Though she was the closest thing in town to you, Lettie.”

  “I never knew she was so twisted inside.” But secrets had a way of deforming a girl’s heart. Darkening and shadowing her view of the world.