The Promise of Palm Grove (9 page)

“You needn't worry about me informing my parents.”

He sounded as bitter as she felt. Without a doubt, he would tell his parents that she'd strayed.

He would no doubt tell everyone in their church district that he was the innocent party.

“Goodbye,” she said before hanging up.

Then, still feeling the sting of that conversation, and before she chickened out, Leona picked up the phone. Intending to call her parents and her sisters, Rosanna and Naomi, too.

It was better to disappoint her fiancé, her fiancé's sister, her cousin, her parents, and her sisters all at one time. Then, hopefully, she would be able to find a quiet place to go cry. And then cry some more.

W
ho do you think is going to show today?” Danny asked Zack as they walked to the SCAT—Sarasota County Area Transit—bus stop.

Zack shrugged. “I don't have any idea. I thought that for sure both of her girlfriends would want to come, but from the way they were glaring at us last night, I started to get the feeling that they were unhappy about Leona talking to me.”

Danny grunted. “Those girls must have been taking lessons from my sisters. They're always unhappy about something.”

“True,” he said, enjoying the opportunity to give Danny grief about his sisters, who everyone far and wide knew were his constant source of pain. “They're unhappy with you pretty much all the time.”

“Like I said, they're mighty trying on a man's patience.”

“Not at all. They seem to get along great with everyone else,” Zack said around a grin.

Danny grimaced. “I irritate them as much as they irritate me. We can't seem to help ourselves.”

Zack grinned but didn't say anything more on the subject. Danny had the misfortune of having four sisters. Somehow, the Lord had seen fit for him to be born smack in the middle, too. That meant that he had two who bossed him around and another two who tried their best to boss him around.

To make matters worse, his mother—although a mighty nice lady, to be sure—adored her girls and never would hear of anything critical about them. Their household was always abuzz with talk about cooking, diets, boys, and all sorts of other things girls liked to talk about. “It's no wonder that you're such a good fisherman. If I were you, I'd be fishing all the time.”

“Daed says we are truly blessed to live in Florida. The plentiful fish in the Gulf are his saving grace.” His smile broadened. “Not that he'd ever tell Mamm or my sisters that!”

They were almost at the bus stop. The bus came every hour, and it was pretty obvious that they weren't the only people planning to spend the day at Siesta Key. All around them were men and women about their age holding canvas tote bags likely filled with sandwiches, towels, drinks, and sunscreen.

As they approached, he scanned the crowd for Leona.

“See her yet?”

“Nope.”

Danny pulled out his cell phone to check the time. His parents and the bishop had allowed him to have it since he needed one for his job, but he'd told Zack more than once that he used it as his watch as much as he did to make phone calls. “We've got less than ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes is a pretty long time. I bet she doesn't want to get here too early.”

“Maybe not.” Danny slipped his phone back in a pocket,
then smiled at a couple of their friends. “I'm gonna go say hi to Adam.”

Zack nodded, then retreated to lean against the fence that divided the stop from some private property. It was getting so crowded that he wanted to stay out of the way but still be able to see Leona when she approached.

Unfortunately, as the minutes passed, he didn't see the slightest glimpse of her. He was beginning to get worried.

Maybe she was standing him up. Part of him wouldn't be surprised if she did. After all, she was only in town for a vacation. Maybe she started having second thoughts about spending the day with a man she didn't know all that well and would likely never see again after she left.

He'd be disappointed about that, but, he supposed, he could understand. Just thinking about his little sister contemplating spending the whole day with a man no one in her family knew made him grind his teeth.

Besides, if Leona's girlfriends didn't think it was a
gut
idea for her to be with him, Zack felt pretty certain it would be another mark against him. Girls seemed to only want to do things in groups. She might think that keeping them happy was far more important than keeping a date with him.

Looking right and left, Zack scanned the crowd yet again, searching for the wholesome-looking girl with the striking brown eyes and golden hair.

He still didn't see her.

He swallowed back a lump of regret. He wasn't going to be devastated if she didn't show up, but, boy, was he going to be disappointed.

“Any luck?” Danny asked when he returned to his side.

“Nope.”

“If she don't show, do you still want to go to the beach?”

Part of him didn't. He had plenty to do, and he usually never went to the beach with just one friend. It was a lot better to go in a group.

But he'd already roped Danny into it. “If you want to go, we can. We can hang out with Adam and his friends.” Trying to warm up to the idea, he added, “We can go for a few hours, then head back early, no worse for wear.”

“Just with better tans,” Danny quipped.

“Exactly,” he said with a smile, then resumed his scan of the crowd.

Still no luck. And to make matters worse, their bus was looming in the distance, no less than four stoplights away. He needed to resign himself to the idea that she had changed her mind. Well, he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up.

Danny stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Should I tell those guys that we're still going?”

Zack scanned a group of girls who were walking up the sidewalk. They were all about Leona's age, and one even had golden hair like she did. But as they got closer, he noticed that they wore pleats in their skirts. They were from Indiana, not Holmes County.

She wasn't here.

Turning to Danny, he nodded. “Yeah, tell them that we'll hang out with them. Maybe we can play volleyball or something.” They weren't his close friends, but they were nice guys.

But just as Danny was about to turn back, he elbowed Zack in the ribs. “Ha! Looks like we won't be hanging out with Adam and his buddies after all.” With a smirk, Danny pointed to their left. “Look who is walking up the sidewalk.”

Zack turned, then stared. There was Leona, wearing a
pretty turquoise-colored short-sleeved dress. Her eyes were glowing, and a smile played on her lips. Next to her was one of her friends, the girl with the auburn hair and freckles.

“What do you know?” Danny murmured. “Mattie came, too.”

“Were you hoping she'd come?”

Danny didn't meet his gaze. “I didn't say that.”

Instead of questioning his buddy, Zack pushed off from the fence and wound his way through the maze of people. “Hey, Leona,” he said when he got close. “You made it.”

She turned to him instantly with a bright, eager smile, which made him really happy. “
Jah
. Are we late?”

“Nope. You're just on time.” And as she smiled again, looking even more pleased, he finally relaxed. She'd shown up and she was obviously happy to see him.

Already things were off to a really good start.

L
EONA SMILED AT
Zack. For the first time in almost twenty-four hours, she felt like she was able to breathe freely.

And now she knew that all the pain and tears she'd been going through had been worth it. Something special was brewing between the two of them. It was obvious in the way he looked at her.

And more obvious was the way she felt drawn to him. Why, even in Mattie's company, she could hardly bring herself to look away from him.

She didn't know if it was merely infatuation or the beginnings of a real relationship, but at the moment, she was so disheartened with how everything had ended with Edmund, she didn't care. All she did know was that she'd done the right thing.

If she'd really been in love with Edmund, no other boy
could have struck her interest. She had a feeling that if she'd been as in love with him as she'd hoped to be, she never would have even wanted to leave him to go to Pinecraft.

And since she was feeling only relief that she'd told him everything, she knew she'd made the right decision.

After she'd called Edmund, she'd called her parents. From the very first second that her mother had heard the worry in Leona's voice, she asked what was wrong.

That concern had been like a dam bursting in Leona's soul. After taking a deep, shaky breath, Leona had told her mom everything. Told her about Zack and his sister Effie, about the cat. And how disappointed Sara and Mattie were with her. Finally, she had relayed how her conversation with Edmund had gone.

“He was ready to end it right there and then?” Her mother sounded surprised. Mighty surprised.

“
Jah
. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew Edmund might be upset with me, but I thought he'd want to try to work things out.”

“Leona, you did tell him that you were going to go to the beach with Zack,” she pointed out in her matter-of-fact way.

“I told him I was going to take Zack up on his offer to accompany Mattie, Sara, and me to Siesta Key. I didn't say I was prepared to run away with him. There's a difference, I think.”

“Mind your tongue, daughter.”

“I'm sorry.” And after double-checking about Leona's state of mind, her mother asked what she wanted to do.

Leona knew the cautious thing to do would be to bide her time until she returned to Walnut Creek and spoke to Edmund in person. And maybe that was the right thing to do, too. But she simply couldn't bring herself to do that. At last, she needed
to be honest with herself—and her parents. “The wedding is off.”

After a barely muffled sigh, her mother replied. “All right, then. I'll start contacting everyone.”

Leona closed her eyes. “I'm sorry. I'll pay you and Daed back. I know you had to put lots of deposits down on everything.”

“We'll talk about money when you get home.”

“Is Daed gonna be mad at me?”

“You're our youngest daughter, dear. We want you to be happy.”

That wasn't an answer. Which, of course, was an answer in itself. “Are you mad, Mamm?”

“
Nee,
” she said after a pause. “I wish you would have made this decision a few months ago, but I'm not mad. If you don't feel in your heart that marrying Edmund is the right thing to do, then you shouldn't marry him. Marriage is forever, you know.”

Her
mamm
was so wise. Leona knew she was so blessed to have a mother who cared more about love and happiness than plans and money. “I am really sorry. I know I'm causing you a lot of trouble.”

Her mother chuckled. “
Jah,
you are. But we still love you. This is a hard moment, but things will work out. They always do,
jah
?”

That had been music to her ears, and exactly what she'd needed to hear in order to feel some of the pressure in her chest start to lift. “
Danke, Mamm,
” she'd murmured. “I love you, too.”

After she hung up, Leona had forced herself to go upstairs and tell Mattie and Sara what had happened.

When she opened the door, she'd half expected to have found all of her things already packed. Instead, both Sara and Mattie were sitting on their beds, their eyes red with tears.

“What happened?” Sara asked.

“Edmund said we were finished if I went to the beach.”

Sara's eyes turned to saucers. “What do you mean by ‘finished'?”

“Our whole relationship would be done. That he would end our engagement.”

Mattie leaned forward. “How did you respond?”

“I said I was still going to go the beach.” Looking at her two best friends' sad expressions, Leona felt lower than a starfish clinging to the ocean floor. “I'm sorry. I know you both are disappointed in me, and I don't blame you.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, attempting to make some sense of what she was doing. “All I can say is that marriage is forever, and that forever is a long time. And when I thought about being married to someone who always had to be right and expected me to always blindly obey, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't.”

Standing in front of them, she braced herself for the worst. Would they kick her out of the room? Start yelling at her?

But instead of making her feel even more guilty, both girls burst into tears and ran to her side. Next thing she knew, they were in their own small huddle, all three of them with arms around each other. All three of them sobbing.

“We've been feeling so bad for being mean to you, Leona,” Mattie said.

“What?”

“I've never been in love. I don't know what I would do in your shoes,” Mattie continued. “All I do know is that while I love my brother, he would drive me to drink.”

Leona had been so shocked, her tears had momentarily stopped. “I can't believe you said that!”

Mattie shook her head. “I love him dearly, but he's more than a bit controlling. He always has been.” Lowering her voice, she added, “I was secretly hoping you would be a good influence on him.”

Sara grinned. “I feel bad, too. You've been my best friend forever. Friends don't treat friends the way I treated you this evening. Who you want to marry is your business, not mine. And it sure isn't my place to tell you what to do. No matter what you decide, I'll support you.”

And that, of course, made Leona burst into tears.

This morning, Sara had bowed out of the beach, saying she was eager to visit the library and have a quiet day to herself. Since Sara was kind of a loner by nature, Leona understood that.

Mattie, on the other hand, was eager to go to the beach. They'd mutually decided not to speak about Edmund or marriage, to simply concentrate on having a good day.

And now they were almost to Siesta Key. Zack and his friend Danny kept glancing their way.

And they were going to spend the day at the beach.

God had given her a new day, and she was so very grateful for that.