The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club (8 page)

“Sure thing.”

Kathryn turned to her. “Nice to see you again, Flynn.”

“Mrs. Trainer.” Flynn nodded.

“Why, don’t you look nice in green. That dress is just as pretty on you this year as it was last.”

Zing!
Kathryn had noticed.

You’re marrying into this family, play nice
. Flynn bit down on the inside of her cheek.

“How is your father?” Kathryn took the tumbler Beau handed her and sat down in the Queen Anne chair across from where Flynn sat. Beau eased down beside her.

“Fine, great.”

“Beau told me your brothers are at basketball camp for the summer.”

“They are,” she said proudly. “They have a good chance of winning college scholarships based on their basketball skills.”

“And that quaint little restaurant with that adorably kitschy name…”

“Froggy’s.” As if the place hadn’t been in business for twenty years.

“How are things there?”

“Things are just as kitschy as ever. If things get any kitschier we’ll have to break out the gig to keep it from leaping off the lily pad.”

Kathryn looked at Beau, clearly confused by Flynn’s joke. Beau took Flynn’s left hand and squeezed it, reminding her that not everyone was a sarcasm aficionado.

“Did you know Tony Romo ate at Froggy’s when he and his girlfriend spent a weekend in Twilight?” Beau asked.

“Tony Romo?”

“Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys,” Flynn supplied.

“Oh, tell that to Clinton, it’ll impress
him
.”

“Where is Dad?” Beau asked. “There’s something Flynn and I would like to tell you both.”

“Augustina is bringing him down.”

“Who’s Augustina?” Flynn asked.

“His nurse.”

“I thought her name was Amelia.”

Kathryn frowned, or at least she would have if she hadn’t been so shot up with Botox. “Is it?” She shrugged, took a sip of her drink. “I could have sworn she said Augustina.”

“She’s been working for you since Dad had his stroke last year and you still don’t know her name?” Beau asked.

“I can’t learn the name of everyone in our employ, Beauregard.”

Flynn forced herself not to roll her eyes. Later, she would giggle with Carrie over this, but right now she was feeling a wee bit like someone who’d been buried alive.

“Look, here he is.” Kathryn got to her feet as the nurse wheeled Clinton Trainer into the sitting room. The former sheriff wore a white Western shirt with a bolo tie, gray suit pants, and a matching gray Stetson. He looked not unlike J.R. from the old television show
Dallas
. He was of that same wealthy, Big Daddy ilk.

Before his stroke, Clinton was known for his booming voice, exuberant glad-handing, and larger-than-life persona. But the stroke had compromised his speaking abilities, reducing him to grunts and monosyllables. Beau said it was the first
time in his life he was able to get a word in edgewise. But the old man’s mind was still sharp. It was impossible to miss the frustration and anger burning in the depths of his whiskey-colored eyes.

“Hi, Amelia,” Flynn said to the nurse.

“You remembered my name.” Amelia looked both puzzled and pleased.

“Yes, yes.” Kathryn waved her away. “You may go now.”

Once the nurse had left the room, Beau took Flynn’s hand. “Mother, Father…” He nodded. “Flynn and I have something to tell you.”

Kathryn smoothed down her skirt, set her drink on the coffee table. “Yes.”

He held out Flynn’s hand so his parents could see the ring. “We’re officially engaged.”

“Finally!” The uptight matriarch dissolved into a smile just like most any other mother would. “Did you hear that, Clinton? Oh, this is good news.”

Flynn softened toward her. Kathryn wasn’t an awful person. Just different from the way Flynn’s own warm, welcoming, accepting mother had been. She’d often wondered if part of what Beau liked most about her was her family. Lynn had treated him as if he was one of her kids. Floyd joked with him. Noah and Joel played basketball with him. Even Carrie liked him, and she was a hard nut to crack.

“Should I give you a hug?” Kathryn stood. “Would it be all right if I hugged you?”

“Sure,” Flynn said and met her halfway.

The hug was stiff and uncertain, but by golly it was a hug, and it was the first time ever that Kathryn had made such a gesture toward her. Her body
felt so thin in Flynn’s arms, she didn’t really know to hug her back. Hugging Kathryn was a bit like hugging a sack full of rosebush clippings, bony and sharp. She ended up just sort of patting her jutting shoulder blades.

Sheesh, you could slice bread with those things
.

“Son.” Kathryn turned to Beau. “You’ve made me so happy.”

“As Flynn made me when she finally said yes.” Beau beamed at her.

Okay, stop with the “finally,” people, we get it. I’ve been dragging my feet
.

“So when’s the wedding?”

Beau glanced at Flynn. “We’re waiting until Flynn has the Yarn Barn going before we set a date.”

“Oh?” One of her perfectly arched eyebrows rose up on her forehead as far as the Botox would let it, and her voice took a frosty north turn. “What’s that?”

“The Yarn Barn was her mother’s dying wish,” Beau said. “More than anything in the world, Flynn wants to honor her mother’s memory with this endeavor. She fears…we fear…” he corrected. “If we get married before she gets the business started her dream will get lost in the shuffle of wedding plans, setting up housekeeping, and then having a family.”

“So this wedding might not come off for two or three years?”

“That’s a possibility, yes.” Beau exchanged a look with his mother.

“Could you fellas give us a few minutes alone?” Kathryn asked. “Maybe you could take your father
onto the patio for a cigar. I’d like to speak to my new daughter-in-law-to-be in private.”

Oops, what was this?
Flynn darted a please-don’t-leave-me-alone-with-your-mother look at him, but Beau was bending down undoing the locks on his father’s wheelchair and didn’t catch her eye.

“Sit,” Kathryn invited as she returned to her chair. Beau wheeled Clinton out the French doors to the patio beyond the sitting room.

Flynn perched on the edge of the settee.
Ulp
. What was this little private chat all about?

“Now then.” Kathryn smiled when the French doors shut after the men.

“Now then,” Flynn echoed, not knowing what else to say.
Just don’t make some smart-ass quip. Now is not the time
.

“Beau has waited over a decade for you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He could have any woman he wanted.”

“He’s quite the catch.”

“Yes he is.” There was that north wind again, chilling as it rolled over Kathryn’s scrawny shoulder blades and blasted Arctic ice Flynn’s way.

“However, my son never wanted any other woman but you…” Kathryn paused. “Well…there was that awful Jodi Christopher.”

“Jodi Christopher?” Who was that?

“Beau never mentioned her to you?”

“No.”

Kathryn slid a glance toward the patio, and Flynn had the strongest sense she was being manipulated. “Jodi was Beau’s first love.”

“Huh?”
She
was Beau’s first love.

Kathryn’s smile was smug. “You thought you were the only one, didn’t you.”

Well, yeah
. “When’d he meet her? How come I didn’t know about this? I mean Twilight is a small town.”

“Beau is three years older than you, darling, and it was the summer before he turned seventeen.”

That was the same summer her mother had been diagnosed with ALS. Flynn had known Beau then, of course, but she was too young for dating and her life had tumbled in on her at her mother’s diagnosis. That summer was a blur of doctors’ visits and balancing the twins on her hips as she cooked dinner and cleaned the house and generally took over all her mother’s duties. No wonder she didn’t remember that Beau had dated this Jodi person.

“That summer Jodi was out of control and her parents sent her to live with her grandmother here in Twilight, hoping it would straighten her out.” Kathryn pursed her lips. “She was wild as a March hare and Beau was drawn to her like a magnet. You know how he is. That boy simply can’t resist a damsel in distress.”

Meaning
she
was a damsel in distress?
Don’t be snarky, don’t crack wise
.

“Of course Jodi broke his heart. Shattered it right to pieces.”

“What happened to her?”

Kathryn shrugged. “She ran off with some low-life and ending up getting killed on the back of his motorcycle.”

“How awful.”

“You reap what you sow.”

Flynn sat there absorbing the information. This
news cast Beau in a whole new light, and she didn’t know what to make of it. On the one hand, she sort of liked the notion that he’d had a bit of a past, a smudge on his knightly armor. On the other hand, it bothered her that he’d never mentioned Jodi, not once in the ten years they’d been dating on and off.

Hypocrite. You never mentioned Jesse to him.

No, but she had the feeling he always knew. This Jodi thing came completely out of left field.

“And then Beau started dating you and the light came back into his eyes. I have to admit you weren’t my top choice for him, but he loves you. And unlike Jodi Christopher, you’re hardworking and trustworthy and I know you have a good heart, Flynn. You won’t hurt my boy.” The last sentence was a command. Kathryn’s eyes were flint. “Because if you do, so help me God, I will—”

The front doorbell rang, breaking off Kathryn’s heartfelt threat.

“Well, now,” her future mother-in-law said, plastering a smile on her face and going from menacing to jovial faster than a Maserati could shoot from zero to sixty. Immediately Flynn thought of ol’ Two-Face Harvey Dent from the Batman movie her brothers had dragged her to see. “I think my party is the perfect place to officially announce your engagement to all of Twilight.”

By nine
P.M
. the outdoor party was in full swing. The five-piece band played “Cotton-Eyed Joe” while the town’s upper crust two-stepped across the pavilion strung with Japanese lanterns. The smell of barbecue filled the air—pork ribs, chicken
halves, beef brisket, the whole nine yards. Two tables, covered in linen tablecloths, overflowed with platters of corn on the cob, yeast rolls, cornbread, potato and macaroni salad, and cowboy beans served buffet-style on bone china.

Another table held the desserts—banana pudding, chocolate cake, pineapple upside-down cake, apple fritters, peach pie, and cream cheese popovers. To one side, a half-dozen machines labored over various flavors of homemade ice cream.

A full bar was set up on the pathway leading down to the lake dock. Several people had already drifted toward the water, enjoying the breeze as the sun slipped below the horizon. When the song finished, Kathryn stepped to the microphone at the gazebo where the band was set up. “May I have everyone’s attention please?”

That was all it took. Heads turned and necks craned.

Kathryn motioned to Beau, who put his hand around Flynn’s waist and guided her up the gazebo steps. “You all know my son, Beau—”

Applause broke out.

“—and his girlfriend, Flynn.”

The applause ratcheted up a notch; someone whistled. Flynn’s cheeks heated. She felt self-conscious. She wasn’t a limelight kind of woman.

“They’ve just given me some news that has made me the proudest mother on this side of the Brazos.” Kathryn stepped back from the microphone. “Beau, I’ll let you do the honors.”

Beau’s hand shifted to Flynn’s shoulder and he drew her against his side. “Friends, neighbors.” He
turned to look at her, love shining in his eyes. A lump clotted her throat. “Flynn has consented to be my bride.”

A chorus of cheers erupted and several people hollered, “Finally!”

“The waiters are passing out champagne,” Beau said. “We want you all to share a toast with us.”

He kept talking, telling everyone how happy he was, how special Flynn was to him, giving a little speech she could tell he’d rehearsed in front of the mirror, until all the champagne had been distributed. Someone handed Flynn a champagne flute, and she curled her fingers around the stem.

“To my bride-to-be.” Beau raised his glass.

Flynn blushed again. She
really
didn’t like this overblown center-of-attention thing. She smiled.

“To Flynn!” the crowd called out, and then it was a simultaneous down-the-hatch.

Flynn took a small sip.

“My turn,” Kathryn said, maneuvering her way back to the microphone. “To the happy couple.”

Everyone was happy to take another drink.

“Anyone else like to offer a toast?” Beau asked, his words slurring slightly.

That’s when Flynn realized he was tipsy and looking at her like she was supposed to say something. How could he expect her to say something? He knew she hated public speaking and she wasn’t like him. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she’d need to prepare a speech.

“Anybody?” Beau shifted his gaze to the crowd.

“I do,” said a deep masculine voice from the bottom of the gazebo steps.

The second she heard it, Flynn’s gut clenched. It couldn’t be. Not here, not at the Trainer enclave. Cringing, she dared to turn her head.

Yep, greatest fear confirmed. It was Jesse. Decked out all in black. Black jeans, black cowboy boots, black T-shirt, with the skull tattoo on his arm peeking out from under the sleeve.

Every gaze in the place was welded on him as he sauntered up the steps. Flynn felt Beau tense beside her, but she didn’t dare look at him.

You coward
.

A murmur ran through the crowd.

Jesse sauntered straight over to Beau and audaciously plucked the glass of champagne from his hand.

The crowd gasped.

Flynn stopped breathing and darted a fearful glance at Beau. He looked stunned and…
scared?

Of Jesse?

Beau was a good five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Jesse. But Jesse was fast and wiry and he’d been to prison. A fistfight between them was bound to be bloody and protracted.