by Fran Baker
“I looked like a clown!” Sueanne remembered with a shudder. “Even if my daddy hadn’t grounded me, I wouldn’t have left the house.” She lifted a glass baking dish of macaroni swimming in cream sauce and cheddar cheese. “If my daughter Vicki ever does anything that dumb—”
“There you are,” Darlene scolded with mock severity as she entered the kitchen. “I should have known, I suppose.” With her skirt hoisted up about her knees and her feet bare, she resembled a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. She grabbed Bonnie’s hand and gave it a hearty yank. “Come on, Tom wants to take pictures of the four of us while we’re still fairly presentable.”
Faces and voices were a blur as her sister practically dragged her into the living room. Tom posed them first in front of the fireplace where they’d held the ceremony. Then he took only the bride and groom, their arms tightly linked and their eyes sparkling with love and laughter.
When Luke moved away from the mantel, he was immediately surrounded by a happy horde eager to have a word with him and share the latest local gossip. Bonnie waited quietly on the fringe of the noisy reunion, feeling like an outsider looking in and wondering whether she could ever truly belong again. Self-consciously, she dropped her gaze to the floor and stepped backwards a few feet. It wouldn’t do to act pushy or—
“Now take Bonnie and Luke together,” Darlene directed with Dave’s full approval.
“Come on, you two.” Tom waved them into place.
Bonnie glanced at Luke. His jawline hardened as he noticed that she was standing apart from everyone else. Although her spirits plunged, she raised her chin in challenge. What hurt most was that he hadn’t even tried to include her.
Luckily, their brief visual deadlock appeared to go unnoticed by the others. Somebody pulled her forward and positioned her beside him while the crowd melted out of the picture.
“Bonnie, you look like you just lost your best friend,” Tom chided, peering through the lens.
Maybe I have, she answered silently as she pasted on a false smile for posterity’s sake.
“Luke, would it kill you to relax a little?” Tom asked, his patience clearly wearing thin.
Luke shrugged his broad shoulders, loosening up a bit, then eyed her with a frown. “Do you realize that you’re the only woman in the house who’s still wearing shoes?”
Bonnie breathed a short laugh of disbelief. She didn’t want to argue with him, not now, yet she heard herself issue a challenge. “Does that fact insult your keep-them-barefoot-and-pregnant mentality?”
“One picture,” Tom implored.
Luke chuckled, throwing her off-guard, then crouched down so abruptly that she didn’t have a chance to consider escape. His strong fingers captured her slender ankle and raised her foot off the floor. She reached down, groping for support but grabbing a handful of his hair by mistake.
He yelped, startling her, and she jerked backward. They both lost their balance and sat down, hard. When it was obvious that pride was the only casualty of their fall, the crowd they’d attracted began applauding.
“Perfect!” Tom took aim and snapped. A blinding flash confirmed that he had frozen their sprawling figures on film.
More applause. Luke grinned wickedly as he reached down and methodically removed her shoes, then tossed them over his shoulder. A boxing-crowd roar—decidedly male, she noted—greeted his action.
Not to be outdone, Bonnie slid her index finger into the knot of his tie and tugged. When the four-in-hand gave, she slipped the silk tie from under his collar and threw it into the air. A soprano ovation rewarded her effort.
They gazed at each other and, of one accord, broke into hearty laughter to the utter delight of the wedding guests.
“Come and get it!” Mrs. Painter yelled from the dining room.
The battle between the sexes ended in a draw. Luke scrambled lithely to his feet, then extended a hand and assisted Bonnie. The hard pressure of his grip shot an exquisite thrill along her arm, and his breath felt warm as summer rain on her face when she stood, two inches shorter than before, in front of him.
For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what had started their latest and surely their silliest tiff. She puzzled the matter through from beginning to end and realized that a small miracle had just occurred. They’d smoothed over an area of potential hostility with humor, defusing a conflict before they wounded each other with harmful words and actions. Had they also paved a way for dealing with touchy areas in the future? They couldn’t laugh off everything, of course, but—
Luke straightened to his full height and looked down just as Bonnie glanced up. She was unaware of what an entrancing portrait she made with her hair floating like honey around her face and her cheeks blooming a wild-berry red. She opened her mouth to tell him how much she loved him, that she would marry him tomorrow if it was so all-fired important to him, and he pressed a silencing finger to her lips.
“Hey, Luke!” Dave shouted. “Get a load of this, will you?”
“Bonnie!” Darlene beckoned. “Quick, come see this.”
Duty called and they answered reluctantly. Everyone had crowded around the dining room table, a veritable groaning board of homemade dishes. Mrs. Painter and Sueanne stood near the swinging doors, holding out the friendship quilt that the local sewing bee had pieced and sewn together as a wedding present for Darlene and Dave.
A lump swelled in Bonnie’s throat when she closely inspected the colorful scraps, each embroidered with the name of a woman who’d worked on the keepsake. Fancy-stitched, then bordered and backed with navy blue, the quilt was a visual ballad of sharing that fairly shouted of love.
Looking around the circle of faces, some wrinkled and some smooth, Bonnie knew there were no words that could adequately express her emotions. She also realized that none were necessary. These were her people. They understood. And whether or not Luke found it in his heart to wait for her, she was coming home with a fresh supply of self-esteem in the fall and setting up shop in Atlanta.
“Reverend,” Mrs. Painter said as she and Sueanne folded the quilt, “would you say the blessing?”
All afternoon, it seemed there was a conspiracy of sorts on the part of the guests to keep Bonnie and Luke at opposite ends of the house. Luke filled his plate and was immediately hustled out to the front porch where the men whiled away the hours swapping tall tales. The women included her in an equally lengthy kitchen klatch, inquiring politely about New York but obviously content on southern soil.
Darlene and Dave lingered far longer than expected, personally thanking everyone, before announcing that they were leaving on their honeymoon. A round of good-byes followed before they finally made their way outside.
“We’re stopping by our house in Atlanta to change clothes and pick up our other luggage,” Darlene explained when someone questioned the fact that the two of them had only one suitcase. Pure as her wedding gown of white, she hugged her handmade treasure tightly in her arms. “Besides, we want to put the quilt on our bed before we leave, so it’ll be there to greet us when we come home.”
“Where’s Luke?” Dave’s freckled face wore a baffled expression. “We’ve turned the house and the outbuildings upside down searching for him so we could tell him good-bye.”
Bonnie thought she knew, but she wasn’t saying any more than was absolutely necessary. She leaned over and whispered in Darlene’s ear that she’d go fetch him, then slipped through the house and out the back door. Hiking up her skirt, she raced across the meadow. If she were wrong—no, she couldn’t think that way. Not today.
At the bottom of the wooded hill, she paused and drew a calming breath. Twilight lay like a gray velvet mantle over the land while she climbed the slight incline.
Bonnie found Luke leaning against a hickory trunk. The red glow of his cigarette tip guided her through the heavy limbs and bending boughs, into the circle she still considered sacred. Halfway across the clearing, she hesitated and prayed that her voice wouldn’t crack
when she spoke.
“What are you doing?” she asked softly.
“Practicing my waiting,” he answered simply.
Bonnie stood speechless with joy. Those three words told her what she needed to know, and then some. Luke flicked his cigarette to the ground, crushing it with the toe of his leather shoe. Pinecones scuttled underfoot as he met her in the middle.
“I love you.” They spoke as one when they embraced, keeping their evergreen commitment at long last. His mouth sought hers and their kiss renewed a trust that was stronger for having been tested.
She tipped her head in curiosity when they drew slightly apart “Why were you angry with me during the picture-taking session?”
He smiled ruefully, his gaze roaming over her upturned face. “I thought you were mad because the formal reception that you’d planned had suddenly turned into a family reunion. And a rather noisy one at that.”
“I was sad,” she confessed in a throbbing whisper. The memory of the moment still hurt. “Everyone was having fun without me. Laughing. Talking. Even gossiping. I felt so excluded. So... unnecessary.”
“I need you—now and forever.” His hold lightened, reassuring her that if he could help it she would never feel lonely again.
She sighed and rested her head in the warm hollow of his shoulder. “Luke, do you suppose we’ll always fight?”
“Probably,” he murmured into her hair. “But for people with our temperaments, learning how to fight is just as important as learning how to love.”
“Do you think we could count this afternoon, with my shoes and your tie, as our first lesson?” she asked hopefully.
“I suppose.” His chuckle reverberated in her ear. “I can hardly wait to get busy on my homework tonight.”
Bonnie smiled and relaxed as he enfolded her more lovingly against his hard frame. In one way, they were back where they’d started. In another, they were light years ahead. Both of them had taken a long and painful route home, but she knew now that it was a circle with a purpose.
“I almost forgot!” She broke away and grabbed his hand. “I’m supposed to bring you home to say good-bye to Darlene and Dave. And you still have to give them the new chairs you made for them.”
“One more kiss,” he insisted, pulling her back into his strong arms, “and then we’ll leave.”
She laughed. “I think I’m hearing a seven-year-old echo.”
“It worked once,” he growled playfully before claiming her softly parted lips. “What’s to keep it from working a second time?”
“Nothing,” she whispered, kissing him twice for good measure.
It was time to go home. They linked arms and left the circle, walking side by side. Halfway across the meadow, a thistle stabbed the tender sole of her bare foot, and she yelped in pain.
He dropped to his knee and ran his thumb over the sore spot She winced, then sighed in relief on hearing it was nothing more serious than ruined hose.
“Where are your shoes?” he demanded with a sigh of exasperation.
“Right where you threw them,” she said sweetly.
They looked at each other and their laughter sounded in the twilight. Luke stood and scooped her into his arms.
“What am I going to do with you, ma?”
Bonnie gazed into his twinkling eyes. “Are you open for suggestions, pa?”
They debated their options all the way home. Later, when they were finally alone, they settled the argument.
On love’s own terms.
Copyright © 1984 by Cathlyn McCoy (Fran Baker)
Originally published by Silhouette Desire
Electronically published in 2005 by Belgrave House
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
