by Arlene James
The service proved somewhat troubling merely because Tate had some difficulty with concentration. Perhaps he was out of practice, or perhaps the problem was Lily sitting just an arm’s length away there on the other side of Isabella, looking pretty in a straight sleeveless dress of peach-colored lace with a big square collar that overlapped her slender shoulders. Whatever the reason, he found his thoughts wandering after the Scripture reading, which came from the third chapter of Second Timothy.
His mind snagged on the sixteenth and seventeenth verses: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
That word complete jumped out at him. He hadn’t felt complete since Eve’s death. Or maybe the truth was that he’d felt even less complete after Eve had died. She’d always said that he’d seemed to have something to prove because everyone thought they’d married too young, and maybe that had been true. At times he’d felt that she was the only one on his side, and then suddenly she’d been gone, leaving him a single father. Maybe that was why he’d pored over his Bible in those dark days that had followed her passing. He’d needed answers for her death, so he’d dug through books like Lamentations and Psalms, Ecclesiastes, James and even Revelation. He hadn’t found the answers that he’d sought, and he’d refused to come to church until he had. He realized now, in the back of his mind, he’d felt that he was punishing God by staying at home on Sunday mornings, but he’d really been hurting himself. And his daughter.
The joy on Isabella’s face this morning had been eclipsed only by her sobs when she’d leaped into his arms and wept upon realizing why he’d shown up wearing a suit. That had humbled him as nothing else could have done, so he would make a concerted effort to leave the past behind and go forward. He wanted completion, and God knew that he hadn’t found it on his own.
After the service, which seemed surprisingly short, people seemed torn between knocking him senseless by pounding his back in welcome and playing it cool, as if they saw him there every Sunday. Tate felt happy with either reaction. He just felt happy, period. It was weird. His insides quivered like the proverbial bowlful of jelly, but the sun seemed to shine a little brighter—on what was turning out to be an overcast day—and he found himself grinning like an idiot when no reason could be found for it, except…well, maybe returning to church had been easier than he’d expected, after all. He’d thought he’d have moments of unease, at least, but he really hadn’t.
It had been a lot like walking back into the school the day when he’d enrolled Isabella for preschool or that day Coraline had called everyone to the principal’s office to start the SOS Committee. In each case years had passed since he’d last walked through those specific doors, but he’d felt just as at home as ever.
“So,” Lily asked, as soon as they had a moment to themselves, Isabella having run off to speak to her grandparents, “was it as difficult as you expected?”
Tate couldn’t help himself; he burst out laughing. “No,” he managed. “It wasn’t. Not at all.” He sobered to a grin. “In fact, it was quite enjoyable.”
“Then what was so funny?” she asked, chuckling uncertainly, her wary gaze casting about them in little jerks of concern.
“Well, lightning didn’t strike, for one thing.”
Her blue eyes zipped to his face. “Tate!”
“I’m joking. I’m joking. It’s just that I had it built up in my mind as this earth-shattering event and, well, it turns out to be pretty much like the last time I was here.”
“I guess that’s good,” she said hopefully, rocking from heel to toe and toe to heel.
“I think so.”
He wasn’t the least surprised when his mother approached then to invite Lily to come over for Sunday dinner. “It being Isabella’s actual birthday, and especially after all the help you gave us at the party yesterday.”
Tate had no doubt that the matchmaking little miss had instigated the whole thing, not that he minded really, though he would have to be careful not to inflame his daughter’s all-too-active imagination. He wasn’t sure where all this was going. Lily was, first and foremost, Isabella’s friend, and he didn’t know that she would ever be more than that. Yes, he had finally said goodbye to Eve, and he was finally back in church and glad to be talking to God again. Plus, he liked Lily. In truth, he more than liked Lily. Still, he’d learned some hard lessons in life, and he wasn’t about to forget them.
Lily ducked her head, delicate color rising to her cheeks. Her eyes skittered behind the lenses of her glasses, her innate shyness reasserting itself. He thought for a moment that she would refuse his mother’s invitation, but then she lifted her chin, smiled and nodded her head.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That would be lovely.”
“Let everyone get changed,” his mother instructed Tate smartly, “then bring Lily and Isabella along. Your father wants to eat before the baseball game starts.”
“Not much hope of that,” Tate warned.
“That’s what I told him.”
“We’ll be as quick as we can.”
“That’s all I ask.” His mom went off to join her impatiently gesturing husband.
Tate looked to Lily then. “So how do you want to do this?”
“Just drop me at the apartment and give me three minutes.”
He chuckled. Eve used to say three minutes when she meant thirty. With Lily three minutes probably meant ten. He’d give her the ten happily. Then they’d head out to his place so he and Isabella could swap their Sunday best for family comfortable before going over to his parents’ house.
Lily excused herself briefly to apprise Coraline and Miss Mars of the situation. By the time she rejoined them, Tate had belted his daughter into her seat in the truck, warned her to be on her best behavior, and held an open door for Lily.
She smiled at him as he handed her up into the cab of the truck, and he instantly remembered kissing her. Suddenly he wondered if having her over for the afternoon was such a good idea. He seemed to lose his head with Lily. She’d wormed her way into his heart with surprising speed. In her own quiet, unassuming way, Lily Farnsworth was a dangerous woman.
Still, what was he going to do? Tell her that he’d changed his mind and was rescinding his mother’s dinner invitation? He was surely man enough to behave with good sense and some measure of discipline.
He dropped her at the apartment as suggested and waited in the truck at the curb. Lily proved that she could tell time while changing her clothes better than the average woman of his acquaintance. She skipped back down the stairs in under five minutes, wearing hay-colored cotton capris and a matching top embroidered with turquoise-blue hummingbirds. On her feet were turquoise-blue sandals with enough sparkle to make Isabella sit up and take notice.
She jabbered delightedly about getting a pair for herself all the way out to the ranch. Once there she had to be bullied up to her room, and only Lily could coax her into suitable clothing for a casual afternoon at her grandparents’ house. She wanted to dress up as she had for the tea party the previous day, but Lily convinced her, before Tate could lose his temper, that was not a good idea. Tate put his foot down about bringing Spunky along with them, however, pointing out that Grandpa’s dog and Grandma’s cat would not appreciate Spunky’s presence.
“Besides,” as he told Lily, “I know it’s her birthday, but she can’t have everything she wants.”
“I didn’t say she should.”
“Uh-huh, but I know that look.”
He wondered if that look could mean that Isabella was enough for her, then chastised himself for wondering.
By the time they finally piled into the truck and sped off to his parents’ place, Tate knew that his dad was going to have to interrupt his ball game to eat, but Tate did his best, as promised, throwing up dust getting over there. As he pushed through the screen door into his m
other’s kitchen, he could hear the TV in the other room.
“Ball game’s on, huh?”
“He’s waiting for you to set the DVR so he won’t miss anything.”
“I better get in there.” His dad had a way of messing up the DVR settings, but Tate couldn’t help feeling that he was abandoning Lily. Still, she wasn’t his guest. He hadn’t invited her. He was just the transportation.
Besides, if she was Eve, he wouldn’t think twice about leaving her with his mom. Nevertheless, walking out of that room required a surprising amount of steel. Staying out of it proved to be one of the most difficult things he’d ever done.
Chapter Thirteen
Ginny had a way of drawing Lily into the work of meal preparation without making her feel awkward about it. Isabella sat at the kitchen table and colored in a stack of well-used coloring books. This was apparently a favorite activity at her grandmother’s house, but Lily didn’t believe for a moment that her little ears weren’t pricked for every sound and nuance of what passed between the two women as they moved about the small, dated kitchen.
The elder Bronsons’ house had little in common with that of their son. Though two-story and wrapped-in porches, it was much smaller, older and had been sided entirely in clapboard, which could use a good wash and a coat of white paint. Yet it exuded an aura of home and warmth. The older appliances, olive green in color, gleamed with cleanliness, as did the white tile floor and countertops. The yellow walls behind the olive green cabinets showed off decades’ worth of handprints in clay disks, Bible verses printed on cardboard and decorated with colored macaroni, bird feathers shellacked to bits of wood and designs glued to strips of felt. These were the keepsakes of childhood, the sort of things Lily’s own mother had displayed on her desk for a prescribed period of time and then relegated to a special box until the end of each school year, when two special keepsakes would be chosen. Lily liked that Ginny Bronson still kept the offerings of her own children as decorations in the heart of her home.
She saw framed colorings of Isabella’s, too. The old-fashioned refrigerator was plastered with them. Lily couldn’t help wondering where Tate kept Isabella’s bits of artwork. She’d seen some things on his nice big stainless steel fridge but only a few. Maybe Isabella was prone to gifting her grandmother with her artwork. Then again, she’d given Lily quite a number of her colorings. Lily put the matter out of mind to help carry food to the table in the other room as Ginny dished up the meal.
Because the dining room was in one end of the long narrow living area, Ginny had an iron-clad rule about the television not being on during mealtime, so Peter and Tate dutifully shut off the set and came to the maple table. Peter took the chair at one end of the long oval. Tate chose a chair in the center, leaving the seat at the other end for Ginny. Isabella sat across from her father, and Ginny had laid an extra place beside her for Lily.
The china, Ginny had told Lily, had once belonged to Peter’s grandmother. Many of the serving pieces were as cobwebbed and darkened as the ivy-latticed dinnerware, but that seemed appropriate when piled high with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and cream gravy—all Isabella’s favorites, which she mentioned while giving thanks for the food.
“Not that her grandmother spoils her or anything,” Tate said pointedly, following the prayer.
“And not that you don’t benefit significantly from that,” Lily observed as he loaded his plate.
“Hey, I won’t get fed like this again until my own birthday,” he objected.
“Which isn’t so far away,” Lily remarked unthinkingly. “September, isn’t it?”
“The sixth,” Isabella confirmed, reaching for a buttered roll.
Lily pushed the bread basket a little closer to her, but she still caught the look that passed between Ginny and Peter, as if they found significance in her knowing the month of Tate’s birth. She bit her lip, trying to think of a way to explain that Isabella had told her both her father’s birth date and his age within the first hour of their meeting. Abandoning the effort, she asked Tate what he would choose for his own birthday dinner.
Ginny and Peter both laughed.
“Catfish,” Isabella supplied. “Fried catfish.”
“With corn bread, cole slaw, and potatoes cooked up with onions, celery and peppers,” Tate said, shaking his fork at his mother.
“As if I’m likely to forget,” she said to Lily. “He’s been eating the same birthday dinner since he was twelve.”
“Remember the year Eve tried to bake the catfish?” Peter asked with a chortle.
Everyone at the table froze.
A trio of heartbeats later, Tate finished chewing and swallowed then looked at Lily, a half smile curling one corner of his lips. “Nearly put me off catfish for good,” he said easily before switching his attention back to his plate. He forked up a bite of potatoes and gravy. “She was just trying to ‘healthy things up,’ as Dad puts it.” He smiled to himself, adding, “But the good Lord intended catfish to be fried. Period.” He ate the potatoes, following them with green beans, and said no more.
“Sadly, too many of our favorite things are fried,” Ginny put in, obviously trying to change the subject.
“That’s why we only eat them on special occasions,” Peter added, biting into a chicken leg.
“We’ve still got birthday cake!” Isabella reminded everyone brightly.
“Which you don’t get unless you eat every green bean on your plate,” Tate reminded her.
Everyone laughed as she started scooping in the green veggies.
The mood once again normalized, Lily relaxed and let herself soak up the warm family atmosphere. She loved her family, but she was glad not to have to discuss torts and dialectics at the dinner table, let alone politics and jurisprudence. She had never fared well in those discourses, for she didn’t care to raise her voice or approach every conversation as a debate. It was nice to sit down to dinner with people who simply enjoyed each other’s company rather than felt they had to pick sides in an argument. She’d relaxed at dinner with her friends, of course, but this felt different, almost like dining with her own family, which was a very dangerous thought, indeed, as dangerous as Tate Bronson himself.
She tried to focus on Isabella. She was here because of Isabella, after all.
Now, if only she could manage not to fall in love with Isabella’s father.
She had promised herself that she would be satisfied with getting him back into church, after all, and she meant to stick to that. This time she wasn’t going to play the fool. This time she was going to guard her heart and be very wise—if it wasn’t already too late.
* * *
“Thanks, Mom,” Tate said, rising from the table with both belly and heart feeling that they were about to burst. “Great meal. As always.”
Normally he and his father would help clear the table before going back to the game, but with Lily there already gathering up dishes, he didn’t dare offer to help. He’d eaten far too much just to stay at the table with her. The last thing he ought to do was follow her into the kitchen where she’d be within easy reach, especially with his eagle-eyed mother there, pretending not to notice their every move while cataloging each nuance of their interaction. Instead he pointed at Isabella.
“The birthday celebrations are officially at an end, young lady. Now you are on dish detail.”
“Da-a-ad.”
“I mean it.”
“But what about my cake?”
“Later.”
Isabella sighed and climbed down off her chair. “Oh, all right.” She couldn’t possibly be hungry anyway. Like him, she’d eaten far more than her fair share.
Lily shot him an amused glance as Isabella grabbed the empty bread basket and started toward the kitchen.
“You’re trailing bread crumbs,” her grandmother admonished mildly, following along after her with a stack of plates.
“I’ll get the sweeper!” Isabella cried, breaking into a run.
For some reason she loved the old manual sweeper that his mother kept in the pantry. She’d run the thing back and forth over the floor for hours. At least it didn’t make enough racket to interfere with the television. Shaking his head, Tate made his way to the sofa and collapsed. Peter came right behind him, taking his usual place in the recliner, and picked up the remote.
Tate soon had to take over. Try as he might, Peter could not seem to get the hang of the DVR system. Left to his own devices, he’d miss half the game or, at best, manage to pick up where they’d left off, only to settle for watching the rest of the program along with all of the commercials, breaks and replays. Tate soon had them caught up to the game in real time without missing any of the actual action. All the while he was aware of the hum of conversation and activity coming from the kitchen, especially the laughter. Especially Lily’s laughter.
Like everything else about Lily, her laughter had an ethereal quality to it, an airy, delicate lilt. He analyzed the sound in his mind: husky and whispery, yet tinkling, as if a gossamer veil overlay a crystal chime.
His father whooped as the Royals batted in a double play, calling Tate’s attention back to the game. Tate sat up straight and rubbed a hand over his face. The woman would reduce him to poetry if he wasn’t careful. He forced himself to concentrate.
After a while, his mother, daughter and Lily came in to join the men. His mother took her usual place in the easy chair. Isabella went to her knees in front of the coffee table to color and work through picture mazes, leaving Lily to squeeze into the corner of the sofa opposite him. She needn’t have squeezed, of course. The sofa was quite long enough for him to stretch out full-length, but she seemed to feel that she needed to get as far away from him as humanly possible while still occupying the same piece of furniture.
