Flower Girl Bride (12 page)

So much for the day I had dreaded for years and then looked forward to for the last few weeks. I'd imagined balloons and maybe a cake. None of my fantasies had included a dinner I couldn't eat and a dressing-down I didn't deserve.

As we stood to leave the restaurant, I leaned over and blew out the globed candle on the table. It was the only candle I would be blowing out tonight.

 

When I used to have problems at night, Mom would tell me to sleep on them. “Everything will be clearer in the morning,” she would say.

But as I sat in the middle of my bed the next morning, my blankets tangled around me from an all-night wrestling match, I decided that clear had to be overrated since I wasn't any closer to seeing it. Maybe it was just better if we saw our mistakes through a foggy film than through sparkling glass.

First light filtered in through my partially open blinds. Sunshine and blue skies were in the forecast for today's Fourth of July celebrations, but it wasn't as if I had any place to go.

I expected to see Princess in the doorway, ready to start meowing for her breakfast, but I was alone. Just how early was it? The bedside clock said six forty-five. The least I could do on my vacation was to sleep in until eight.

Still, since I wouldn't be getting any more sleep this morning, I threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. I was still smoothing out the sheets when the doorbell rang. Could this morning get any stranger?

I slipped a summer-weight robe over my pajamas, and then hurried down the steps. At the front door, I patted my hair down and then hesitated. Serial killers didn't usually show up before seven o'clock, did they? And if they did, would they bother to ring doorbells to announce themselves?

“The early bird gets the worm,” I whispered, the side of my mouth lifting as I thought of myself wiggling as the worm.

Pausing for one last yawn, I pulled open the door.

“Happy Fourth of July, Miss Cassie.” Sam stood there holding a big bouquet of balloons, but they were pink and purple rather than the holiday's traditional red, white and blue.

Instead of waiting for an invitation that I was in no way ready to give, the little boy pushed past me into the house, first pummeling me with the balloons and then pulling them like a parachute after him.

Slowly, I turned back to the doorway, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't ready to see Luke again so soon, but I couldn't leave him out there on the porch either.

Luke stood in front of me with a white bakery box in his arms. He lowered his gaze to the box, and when he looked up again, he smiled.

“Happy birthday, Cassie.”

I had no time to be shocked or happy or any of the other feelings that were mingling inside of me, each vying for a leadership role, because Luke leaned in and touched his lips to mine.

And I was lost. No matter how unclear my thoughts were when it came to last night and to the series of events leading up to it, my thoughts about Luke were filled with pinpoint precision. I was in love with him. So different from the way I'd felt about my former husband—admiring certain things about him—I loved Luke, all of him. I loved his strengths, I loved his flaws, and the truth in that unnerved me.

Being that vulnerable to another human being
seemed downright suicidal. Could I handle the pain when I lost him?

Luke pulled back slightly and pressed the box into my hands. I lifted the lid to find a birthday cake with pink roses all over it. A birthday greeting and my name were written in lavender script across the top.

“Sorry it's late.”

“Don't you mean early?” I indicated with my hand toward the sun that was still low in the eastern sky.

He shrugged, grinning. “It's never too early to make things right, right?”

Because he posed it as a question and looked about as sheepish as a guy could, I smiled back. “Thank you. That was sweet.” We couldn't continue standing there on the porch, especially me in my nighttime getup, so I stepped back to let him inside.

“I wanted to apologize about last night,” he told me. “The things I said.”

“You've already apologized.”

“Last night I didn't even know everything I'd done wrong. Now I do.” He shook his head. “No wonder you were so mad at me. I can't believe I forgot your birthday. It's just with everything going on— No. There's no excuse.”

“I could have reminded you.” I could also tell him that he'd missed the point for at least part of my frustration with him, but I still hadn't worked out in my mind if I'd had any right to those feelings.

“You shouldn't have had to.”

“Why aren't you at work?” I glanced away as I asked the loaded question. What was I fishing for, a fight?

“Haven't you heard, it's Independence Day? Even poor schmucks like me get the day off today. Besides, I couldn't talk a single subcontractor into working today.” He shot a glance past me. “We'd better go see what's he's up to.”

I led him deeper into the house and set the cake on the kitchen counter. Sam was running around the family room in a circle, the balloons trailing behind him. Princess yawned in the recliner, looking unimpressed by the performance.

“Hey Sam, those balloons are for Miss Cassie, remember?” Luke called out to him.

Sam slowed long enough to yell “Happy birthday” and kept right on running.

“Oh, let him have fun for a few minutes. I'll have to get dressed before I run around the family room with my balloons, anyway.”

Luke grinned at my attempt at humor and crossed back to the counter. Lifting the lid off the box again, he glanced down at the cake. “I didn't figure you'd want it to say ‘thirty' on it or anything.”

“Thirty's not so bad. Better than the alternative.”

“Three decades looks great on you.”

I couldn't help chuckling at that. “You could have picked a better time to say that to me.” Reflexively, I patted my hair again, wondering just how much of it was sticking out in all directions.

He reached up and brushed back my hair himself. “You couldn't look bad if you tried. Not to me.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

“Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have suggested that. I know what an overachiever you can be.”

I smiled. We were back to our easy banter, but it felt forced today. Just as I started to excuse myself to my room to change, Sam came roaring toward us, a trail of colors behind him.

“Did you tell her, Daddy?”

“You mean ask her. No, I didn't ask her yet.”

I looked back and forth between them, before crouching in front of Sam. “What did you want to ask me?”

“There's a bicycle parade.”

“Parade?” I turned to Luke for clarification.

“We thought it would be fun if the three of us went to the Mantua Fourth of July Parade. It's about the biggest thing around here until Santa shows up in the Christmas parade. You'll have to wait until November for that.”

I tried to ignore his last comment and the squeezing feeling it produced inside my heart. November was a long time away, and I'd never be around to greet old Saint Nick.

“It begins this early?”

“No. Ten o'clock.”

Ten o'clock? Above the stove, I glanced at the microwave clock. Because the numbers read only 6:57, I turned back to him and raised an eyebrow.

“We need to get there ahead of time,” Luke explained.

“Tough to get a seat on the parade route?”

“We won't be sitting.”

“We're riding bikes in the parade.” Sam was springing up and down as he made his announcement.

I shook my head. It was way too early in the morning for any of this. I needed to crawl back into bed and pull
the sheet over my head. Maybe when I awoke again, everything would be back to normal, if there was such a thing. “No, I don't think—”

“Come on. It'll be an adventure.”

Adventure? It sounded like holiday torture to me.

Luke continued as if I was already on board. “Sam and I did this last year. This time he gets to ride his own bike.”

“With training wheels,” Sam chimed in.

“I don't even have a bike.” I would have said I'd left mine at home, but I didn't have one there, either. By choice.

“I borrowed my mom's this morning.” Luke told me. “All we have to do is decorate it.”

“Great.”

That my response wasn't exactly infused with enthusiasm only made Luke laugh.

“I haven't ridden a bike in over ten years, Luke.”

“You knew how to ride one before that, right?” He waited for my nod before he continued. “Then you haven't forgotten how. Come on. You'll have fun.”

“Yeah, Miss Cassie, please. We have streamers and balloons and everything.” Sam's eyes shone as he described it, and he looked so hopeful. It was going to be hard saying no to a face like that.

“Not those balloons,” Luke corrected, pointing at the bundle dancing above his son's head. “Those are for Miss Cassie's birthday.”

“It was yesterday,” Sam pointed out needlessly.

Luke frowned at his son. “Don't keep reminding me.”

“You forgot.”

“Yeah.”

The sadness on Luke's face as he glanced back at me brought me to a decision. “Okay, let's go be in a parade.” A thought crossed my mind then. “Did you say you picked up the bike from your mom earlier
this morning?
I hope you gave her a big present on Mother's Day.”

“I didn't wake her. I just used my key to the garage.”

“Lucky her.”

His gaze narrowed. “You weren't in bed, were you?”

I shook my head.

His grin returned. “You see then, it's all good.”

“Yeah, it's all good.”

Luke rounded the counter and came up behind me, propelling me toward the stairs. “Now that that's settled, why don't you go get ready? By the time you get back, Sam and I will have breakfast à la Sheridan waiting. We'll make sure Princess gets her breakfast, too.”

“You don't have to do all that.”

“We do if we're going to get you out of this house before the parade goes rolling through downtown.” He pointed to the stairs. “Now hurry.”

I followed his instructions and returned to my room, showering and putting on a holiday-appropriate red T-shirt and navy shorts. This wasn't the outing I would have planned, but it still was time with Luke and Sam. Each hour was becoming more precious, and each minute felt like sand through the hourglass with nothing to stop the spray.

How was I going to leave here on Sunday? I had to; I knew that. I had a whole life back in Toledo and students that needed me. But I didn't have to kid myself: a part of me would stay behind in Mantua.

T
he parade was a tiny but festive event, with plenty of flag waving and fanfare. Firefighters in their full uniforms tossed out candy from their shiny yellow trucks and flipped their sirens on and off for the crowd. A senior women's choir belted out patriotic selections. The county fair queen and her court waved from their perches atop the backs of convertibles.

In the middle of all that, eighty-some bicycles, tri-cycles and bike trailers rolled along in full regalia down the four square blocks that constituted downtown and to the neighborhoods beyond. We couldn't compete with the rose-covered floats in the Rose Parade, and our balloons didn't have the impact of the flying creatures in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but our event had its own charm.

In fact, the whole thing was such a slice of Americana that I half expected somebody to show up with a sack full of baseballs, someone else with hot dogs and a third person with a steaming apple pie.

At Sam's insistence, Luke, Sam and I were right near the front, breathing diesel fumes from the fire engine and gripping the handlebars with one hand while waving to our fans with the other. Our bikes were works of art, masterpieces of balloons, streamers and rolls of colored tape. We'd even attached streamers to our helmets to complete the effect.

To my credit, I managed to keep the bike upright and didn't once run into that back bumper of the fire engine. I could guess who would end up on the losing end of that collision. Luke was right, anyway: I hadn't forgotten my bicycle riding skills.

Though I would pay for today's outing tomorrow, with all the pain decidedly
behind
me, I enjoyed the burn in my muscles and the exhilaration in my chest.

Marcus and Yvonne were waiting for us when we reached the end of the parade route at the entrance to Lakeside Park.

“You look great on my bike,” Yvonne told me.

She was just being kind. If anything, I looked exhausted and windburned, but I thanked her anyway.

“Feel free to use it any time you like. I'm not clocking enough miles on the bike, and the old girl could probably use the exercise.”

I nodded, though I wouldn't get the chance to ride again before I left, and we both knew it.

“That's right, Mom. She could use some exercise.” Luke grinned at the dirty look his mother gave him over his referring to a different
she.

“Well, I know someone who isn't getting any lunch today. Are the rest of you ready for the picnic?”
Yvonne held out the picnic basket she had draped over her arm.

“Picnic?” I asked blankly, noticing for the first time that everyone around us had similar baskets and were carrying blankets and coolers like those Marcus had at his feet.

Luke climbed off his bike and flipped down the kick-stand. “Oh, we didn't tell you about that? The parade ends at the park, where the whole town meets for a picnic.”

I turned back to him. “You didn't mention any of that earlier. Why not?”

“You were half-asleep when we came over. I didn't want to overload your mind with too much information at once.”

Yvonne looked at me with that warm, welcoming smile I was coming to know well. “We're hoping you'll join us, Cassie. We have plenty.”

I had the sense that these arrangements had been made long before Luke and Sam had shown up at the beach house that morning, but I decided to be a good sport. “I hate to come empty-handed. The least I could have done was bring my birthday cake.”

The side of Yvonne's mouth lifted. “Where exactly would you have carried it?”

I glanced where I was standing on the ground and straddling the bar of the bicycle. She had a point.

“It's the thought that counts, Cassie.” Luke reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “Now let's go eat. I'm starving.”

“Me, too, Daddy.”

Sam rolled ahead on his bike, straight into the crowd entering through the park's black-iron gate. Marcus
grabbed his load and hobbled after Sam, preventing a catastrophe at least for the moment. With Luke and I walking our bikes and Yvonne carrying the basket, we eventually reached Sam and his grandfather and continued with them toward a spot that Sam chose, not far from the edge of a narrow stream. We parked our three bikes a few feet from the picnic site.

“How long do you think it will be before this one ends up in the water?” Marcus indicated with his head toward his grandson as we spread the heavy quilt on the ground.

“Better not happen at all.” Luke turned a warning look on his son. “I don't have another set of clothes with me.”

“You? Unprepared?” Marcus looked incredulous as he set his cooler next to one of the park's grills and pulled a small bag of charcoal briquettes, grilling supplies, a package of hot dogs and some tinfoil from the cooler.

“I've had other things on my mind.”

His job, I figured. What else?

Marcus nodded and winked. It seemed like a strange reaction to me. Didn't he care how many hours Luke had left Sam in their care lately? If it didn't bother them, it was never going to become an issue for Luke.

Yvonne set the basket on the blanket and started pulling small plastic containers from the basket. After the first five, I began to wonder if she was performing an illusion, setting a basket with a trap door above a stocked refrigerator or something.

She looked embarrassed when she caught me watching. “Just a little of everything.”

Yvonne was right. She did have everything in there: coleslaw, veggies, deviled eggs, potato salad, five-cup salad and a bag of slightly smashed hot dog buns, plus condiments, plates and napkins.

I helped her put serving spoons in all the dishes, covering them with their lids to keep bugs out of them. “Everything looks great,” I told her.

“You outdid yourself, as always, Mom,” Luke called from where he and his father were standing by the grill.

If Yvonne pulled out an apple pie next I was going to pass out right there on the spot. Already around us it looked like a Norman Rockwell summer scene—all about families and warmth and caring.

This was a real community, where people brought casseroles to sick neighbors, met for coffee and remembered birthdays. I might have found that kind of community in Toledo, as well, but I'd never slowed down enough to realize I wanted it. And I did want it, so much it hurt.

As I scanned the crowd, my gaze landed on Luke, who was laughing with his father. He had none of the strain I'd seen around his eyes lately, and his mouth had lost its hard line. He caught me watching him and winked at me before turning away to pour lighter fluid over the charcoal so Marcus could light the fire. Sam was nearby, crouched down on the ground and poking something with a stick.

Yes, I longed for community, but I longed for family even more. This family. This man and this child. The idea of driving away from them was tearing me apart.

“I forgot to tell you happy birthday.”

Quickly turning back toward the voice, I found Yvonne watching me. Her smile was a knowing one.

“Oh, thanks.”

“Luke told me he feels lousy for forgetting,” she said in a low voice. “You make sure he keeps feeling lousy for a while. You'll be able to hold that over his head for a long time.”

I shrugged and started messing with the plates for something to do with my hands. “It was no big deal.” I kept my voice low. I didn't have a long time to hold his forgetting my birthday over his head, anyway, not with only five days until I packed up for home.

Five days and holding.

“No big deal? I would hang Marcus up by his toenails if he forgot my birthday, and he knows it. I'd also make sure he didn't forget his mistake anytime soon.”

“I thought we learned in church to forgive each other?” I gave her my best censuring frown, but it quickly transformed into a smile. I had seen the way Marcus and Yvonne looked at each other, much the same as Uncle Jack and Aunt Eleanor did, even after all of these years. Marcus was probably safe, even if he did mess up a time or two.

“We wives forgive, but it's a long time before we forget. Marcus says wives have memories like elephants, whatever that means.”

“I'm not sure.” But maybe Marcus was on to something, even if he was comparing women to humongous animals without good table manners or fashion sense. I'd been a wife, and I still hadn't forgotten. I'd like to say I'd forgiven, but the jury was still out on that, too.

“What are you two beautiful ladies whispering about over here?” Marcus asked as he carried a plate of hot dogs over to us. “Do you need me to flex so you can get a better look at the old physique?”

Yvonne laughed out loud at that. “No, we're fine. We wouldn't want you to strain yourself or anything.”

He made a mean face at his wife and then dropped a kiss on her head.

“Hey, Sam, lunch is ready,” Luke called out. “Come over here and eat.”

The boy looked up from his newest demolition project, this time an ant hill, a stick his instrument of doom. He popped up and scampered back, leaving the ants to repair the destruction.

Once we were all seated, Marcus reached out his hands, and we all joined in a circle.

“Father, thank You for this fine holiday and the blessing of all this food. Thank You for our friends and neighbors, who share this time and space with us. And a special thanks, Lord, for sending Cassie our way. In the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Luke squeezed my hand before he let it go. “Boy, I thought the food was going to get cold before you got around to finishing that one, Dad.”

“You really know how to hurt a guy,” Marcus said, but he was laughing.

I wondered if Luke's joke was for my benefit. His father had thanked God for sending me to them. It seemed like such a strange prayer of thanksgiving when I was on borrowed time here.

We made quick work of all the food, sharing stories
and laughter along with the potato salad. When we were clearing away the empty containers, Yvonne produced yet another box from her basket of surprises. Chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies were stacked inside.

“Now you're just spoiling me,” I said, taking one of each.

“We're doing our best.” Luke reached over and laid his hand across the one I was resting on the blanket. “Me, especially.”

My breath hitched, which wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't just taken a big bite of the chocolate chip cookie. The sweet treat took a wrong turn, straight down my windpipe. I started an immediate round of spasmodic coughing into my napkin. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop.

“She's choking. Smack her on the back,” Marcus called out.

“No, don't do that,” Yvonne insisted. “If she's coughing, she's still getting oxygen.”

“Son, do you know the Heimlich?” Marcus piped again.

“It's not necessary.” Instead, Luke reached over and rubbed my back for support more than assistance.

By the time I caught my breath again, tears trailed down my cheeks.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Yvonne asked.

Seeing her concern, I nodded.

Luke brushed my tears away with his thumb. “I was hoping to change your life. I wasn't expecting to have to save it.”

The others laughed at Luke's comment—even Sam
who thought it was the best thing since a knock-knock joke—but I couldn't join in. Change my life? What was he saying?

Luke turned back to me and took both of my hands in his. Strange, until now we'd been in the middle of a crowd of enthusiastic picnickers. At this moment we weren't even alone on this quilt that Marcus, Yvonne and Sam shared. Yet, somehow as I sat staring into those startling blue eyes, there didn't seem to be anyone else in the park—in the world—besides the two of us.

“Cassie, I know we haven't known each other for very long—”

“Only most of our lives,” I added before I could stop myself.

Luke gave me a tense grin. “You know what I mean. Anyway, what I was trying to say was that I—”

“Oh!”

We both turned toward the sound of the interruption. Luke and I weren't alone after all, and his dad sat across from us, wearing a grimace. “Sorry, I forgot the…thing…in the cooler.”

Marcus crouched next to it and opened the lid, withdrawing a sealed plastic container from beneath the ice. I put up my hand to stop another onslaught of food. Why was everyone force-feeding me? Didn't they realize I was already back to my fighting weight? If they didn't stop soon, I was going to be as plump as the Thanksgiving turkey, four months early and without the corn bread stuffing.

Instead of me, though, Marcus handed the container to his son, who thanked him for it and set it next
to him. Before pulling open the lid, Luke glanced across the blanket to the others, who apparently had been there all along.

“Does anyone else have a comment to make, or are you going to let me finish?”

Yvonne shook her head as she stuffed another cookie in Sam's mouth so he didn't get the chance, either. “No, you go right ahead.”

I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I would have told him to spit it out already if I thought it would get the answers to me any sooner.

Luke turned back to me and tilted his head to the side. “Third time's a charm. As I was saying—” he paused to frown at the list of candidates who might interrupt yet again “—I love you, Cassie.”

I blinked. My gaze lowered to my clenched hands. Had I heard him right? I'd imagined him saying it out loud someday and talked myself out of believing it was possible, but here it was, and I couldn't find the words to answer him.

When I glanced up at him, Luke studied me cautiously as he gripped the container in his hands. “Now would be the time to say something. Uh…if you want.”

Snapped out of my daze, I shook my head to clear it. Could he actually believe I didn't— No. How could he ever think such a thing when I wanted to be with him more than anything I'd ever wanted?