by Jessie Evans
“She’s fine,” Aria said, rocking the baby as she rubbed Felicity’s back in soothing circles. “Just dropped a hymnal on her toe, I think.”
A hymnal on her toe.
Could have been much worse, Gretchen thought to herself.
And it was probably going to get worse. Her granddaughters were as bad as that baby, running around completely unsupervised, slapping together a wedding all willy-nilly, like it was some Saturday night BBQ. Gretchen had no idea what her daughter-in-law was thinking, letting the girls take charge like this, but then Sue had always been inclined to let her daughters get away with murder.
First, she let Aria fly off to Europe to live with hippies and perverts when she was practically still a child, then Lark dropped out of college, and then Melody skipped college completely, giving up a full scholarship to go to cooking school, which she wouldn’t have needed if Sue had taught her girls how to cook the way a Southern woman should. Now, Aria was a remarried divorcee, Lark was living with her fiancé before they were married, and Melody spent far too much time over at her felon boyfriend’s apartment, unchaperoned.
If she didn’t know better, Gretchen would have thought her youngest granddaughter was living with the boy, but not even Sue would tolerate that kind of behavior. Melody and Nick weren’t even engaged. It would be a scandal worse than the time Bob went streaking down Main Street. The family would never live it down.
If Stephen were still alive, he would have whipped the entire lot of them into shape, but her husband of fifty-four years had been dead for almost a year. Now it was up to Gretchen to keep this family on the straight and narrow.
“I don’t know!” Lark suddenly shouted at Melody, drawing all eyes to the front of the church. “I can’t decide and I’m so tired and puffy and my dress is never going to fit and everything is ruined!”
She burst into tears louder than Felicity’s and ran from the room, disappearing through the door leading to the choir loft.
“Monkeyshine,” Gretchen mumbled beneath her breath, rising to go after her granddaughter.
But before she could make her way out of her pew, Mason came sprinting down the aisle like they were on a football field instead of inside a church, and raced after his fiancée. If Gretchen had reached the end of the pew a little faster, she had no doubt she would have been run over.
“This is a church, not a track meet!” she called after Mason, not surprised when her future grandson-in-law ignored her completely.
“These kids,” came a deep voice from the pew behind her.
Gretchen turned to see Harris Nelson, one of the church deacons, standing with his arms crossed at his chest, a teasing twinkle in his blue eyes.
“What are you doing here, Harris Nelson? Did they cancel Bingo at the Elk’s lodge?” Gretchen asked, lifting her chin and patting her fiercely hair-sprayed white curls.
“I’m helping Pastor Daniels at the wedding tomorrow,” Harris said. “I told him I’d lock up after y’all are through. He had some shut-ins to check on this afternoon.”
“That’s Christian of you,” Gretchen said. “But does Pastor Daniels know he’s working with a deacon who’s got a gambling problem?”
“Is it gambling if you always win?” Harris winked as he propped his hands on the back of her pew, leaning closer.
Gretchen couldn’t help but notice what nice hands he had, big and tan and strong-looking despite his thinning skin.
She lifted her eyes to his, refusing to be flustered by a man almost young enough to be her son. Harris was ten years younger—sixty-eight to her seventy-eight—and had always been trouble, even back when his wife was still alive.
Since Regina had passed three years ago, the man spent more time at the Elk’s lodge than any church deacon should. He clearly needed a woman to take him in hand. Gretchen made a mental note to send one of her younger girlfriends in his direction. Maybe Shirley. She wouldn’t be seventy until next summer and was almost fully recovered from her hip replacement.
“You’re a mess, Harris Nelson,” Gretchen said, clucking her tongue. “And that’s the truth.”
“I like how you always say my full name,” he said, chuckling. “Makes me feel like I’m back in elementary school, getting in trouble with the teacher. Remember the old school, back when all the grades were together?”
Gretchen huffed. “Of course I do, I’m not senile.”
“I remember the first time I saw you,” Harris said, with a grin. “You’d walk past the playground before school with your friends, that blond ponytail bobbing. I swear I thought you looked like a movie star.”
“This isn’t the place to swear anything.” Gretchen fought a smile, not wanting to let the compliment please her for some reason. “And besides, you were just a baby back then. What were you, five years old?”
“Eight,” he said. “Plenty old enough to know a beautiful girl when I see one.”
“Saw one,” Gretchen corrected automatically, the former English teacher in her unable to resist.
“Nope. See one. Present tense,” Harris said, winking again.
Gretchen blinked in confusion for a moment before his meaning hit and a giggle bubbled out of her without her conscious permission.
“Harris Nelson,” she said after a moment, shaking her head. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I guess I’m not doing a very good job if you have to ask,” he said, with a rather adorably shy grin. “So…what are you doing after the rehearsal? Want to go have a decaf coffee and talk old times? My treat?”
Gretchen looked into his kind blue eyes—still as clever and full of mischief as they’d been when he was a little boy—and for the first time since Stephen had died, she began to think about new beginnings.
***
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
