Small Town Girl (4 page)

“Oh hush, Kate.” Evie flashed a look toward Kate. “You wouldn’t go if you didn’t want to. You’d probably just elope to begin with.”

“Maybe so,” Kate agreed. “But I wouldn’t have had everybody baking for days for a party I claimed I had to have and then not show up.”

“Girls, girls! No fighting on my wedding day.” Mike laughed and took his eyes off Evie long enough to glance toward Kate. “Go on ahead and let them know we’ll be there soon as I pray over the car and get it started. Nobody will expect the bride to walk.” He smiled back down at Evie. “That way we can make a quick getaway.”

“After we cut the cake. We have to cut the cake.” Evie was smiling again too. “Kate, make sure Uncle Wyatt has his camera ready so he can take pictures of us getting there. I told him to get extra film.”

Kate bit her lip to keep from saying anything as she turned
away from the happy couple. She reminded herself yet again that it was Evie’s day. Next week would be soon enough to tell her sister she wasn’t boss of the world. Or even of Rosey Corner. She hiked up her skirt a little and started off up the road as though she were the one who was late.

She’d almost forgotten Jay Tanner until he hurried after her. “Wait up. You want me to get my car?”

“No need. It’s not far.” She didn’t slow down and she didn’t look over her shoulder to see if Evie and Mike had headed toward his car. If they didn’t show up, they didn’t show up.

Jay fell in beside her, matching her stride. “So you and lucky Carl are planning to elope. Not tonight, I hope.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Kate slowed a little to stare over at him. He was nice looking. She couldn’t deny that.

“You and Carl. Eloping.”

Kate let out a sigh. “I’m not eloping with anybody. And especially not Carl.”

“That’s probably good. He didn’t look like the eloping type.” He was pretending to be serious, but his eyes were full of teasing.

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows at him. He was acting like he’d known her for years. There was something that easy about him. Something that was making her like him in spite of herself. “What or who is the eloping type?”

“You.” His smile came back full. “Me.” Now he was the one raising his eyebrows at her. Not just raising them, but waggling them. “What do you say? I’ve got a nearly full tank of gas.”

She couldn’t keep from laughing. “You’re out of your mind.”

“No doubt about that,” he agreed. “But we might have some fun.”

She shook her head at him. “The only place I’m going with you is to Grandfather Merritt’s house to eat wedding cake. Evie’s wedding cake.”

“Oh well.” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “You can’t fault a guy for trying when he meets an angel.”

“You’ve been talking to Lorena.” Kate laughed again. “She’s a sweetheart, but I can assure you that she’s the only one who has ever imagined me anything like an angel. Just ask Evie.”

“Or Mike?”

She heard the underlying tone of his question, but she ignored it. “Or Mike. He’s been preaching at me since I was fourteen.”

“Fourteen, huh? He’s been preaching at me since I was eleven. So see, we have something in common already.” He grinned over at her. “We’ve both heard plenty of Mike’s sermons and we love him anyway. You do love him, don’t you?”

“Of course. He’s my brother-in-law.”

“Right, he is. And just think. After we elope, he’ll be my brother-in-law too.”

“You’re dreaming, Mr. Tanner. Completely dreaming.”

“But what a dream.” His grin turned into a laugh. “Eloping with an angel.”

His laugh was infectious and Kate couldn’t keep from smiling back at him. “Everybody needs a dream. But dreams don’t always come true.”

“I can’t argue with that.” His smile faded as he studied her. “Then again, sometimes if a man finds the rhythm that speaks to his heart and if he can dance the right steps, if he can find a way to pull hope out of thin air and not let doubt steal his dream or cause him to whittle it down too small, maybe he can grab hold of that dream and hang on for dear life. That kind of dream can make the sunrise brighter every morning.”

Kate stopped walking and stared over at him. “That sounds like something out of a book.”

“Could be. It’s hard to separate the words you read from the ones you think up all on your own sometimes. Either way, it’s no less true.” The corners of Jay’s lips twitched up. “How about you, Kate Merritt? What makes you welcome the sunrise in the morning? What’s your dream?”

K
ate!”

The little sister running down the road toward them saved the girl beside Jay from having to give him an answer. She was a dreamer. He was sure of that. Someone like him who was forever reaching for the biggest apple on the tree no matter how impossibly out of reach it was. He’d seen her looking at Mike, but that apple wasn’t even on the tree anymore.

A girl like Kate would be wasted on Mike anyway. He needed a woman who would lean on him and be the good little pastor’s wife. Someone who would wear the right clothes and say the right words whether she meant them or not. A girl like the one he fell in love with. Unless Jay missed his guess, Evangeline was the kind of girl who would have no trouble putting on her hat and painting on a lipstick smile every Sunday morning to play the role. The old gray-haired ladies, the backbone of every church Jay had ever spent any time in, would love her.

The sister beside him, well, Jay figured she’d be better at improving the old ladies’ prayer lives. He didn’t really know her, but he’d learned to read people fast a long time ago. Helped him know when to throw the first punch or when
to duck his head. He didn’t know which he was doing with Kate—punching or ducking—when he threw out that crazy eloping idea. Sometimes he opened his mouth and let words fly out without thinking. For sure, he would have had to do some serious backpedaling if she’d called his bluff. He had zero plans to elope or stand at an altar with any girl. Even one as appealing as the girl beside him.

She wasn’t pretty-pretty like her sister who had just tied the knot with Mike. He studied her face as she turned her attention to the little sister, the one he’d called Birdie. She was telling her to slow down before she fell and messed up her new dress. It did look like a crash waiting to happen. The little sister was all legs and arms at that age when a kid could trip over air from growing so fast. The kid was cute, with all the earmarks of growing up to break the heart of every boy in the neighborhood someday with those big brown eyes. Eyes more the color of his than any of her sisters. But then she wasn’t really a sister. Not in the kinfolk, look-alike way.

Actually he’d noted that none of the three sisters looked that much alike. Mike’s new bride was a blue-eyed redhead with fair skin that pinked up easy. Very pretty, and Mike was certainly entranced. The teenage sister, Victoria, had hair almost as dark as the curly-headed little sister in front of him, but her eyes were a green that made a person look twice. By the time she got all the way grown up, that one was going to hit the mark a good ways above merely pretty. She was already there in the eyes of the gangly boy hanging around her. O beautiful is love. More words out of a book.

Nothing wrong with borrowing words from a book. Jay liked books. Books took him to other worlds when the real world was closing in on him. The girl beside him liked books too, if what he saw at her house last night was any indication. Books had been everywhere. Shelves of them behind the father’s chair in the sitting room, and more place-marked
with torn bits of newspaper on the tables around the room. Jay had talked poetry with the mother. That along with her brown sugar pie and all the pretty daughters had him wondering if he’d stepped up into heaven.

Kate had been the only one not to take to him friendly. Except for the bride, who’d been in such a dither about the wedding that friendly was the farthest thing from her mind. She’d given him the once-over and asked if he had a suit. When he assured her he did, she’d nodded slightly as if he’d passed the best-man test and she could mark him off her worry list. One that appeared to be long as she began fretting over the wedding cake, her mother’s dress, the flowers, whatever came to mind about the big event. Jay hadn’t paid much attention.

He had paid Kate plenty of attention. Something about her grabbed him. She had brown hair that fell straight down around her shoulders. Her eyes flashed between green and the blue of water with the sun hitting it. Nothing really remarkable about her looks, but at the same time she was remarkable. Very remarkable. So very remarkable that he wasn’t absolutely positive he would have backpedaled if she’d taken him up on that eloping idea. Even now he might be in the car headed out toward Louisville or wherever to find an accommodating Justice of the Peace.

He’d never been one to turn down an adventure, and he had a feeling he was looking at a girl anxious to chase after a little adventure of her own. They might have both been saved from their own foolishness by the kid sister who was leaning against Kate, catching her breath.

“Mama sent me to see what was taking you so long. Everybody’s waiting.”

“Not for us. For Evie and Mike.” Kate took the kid’s hand. “But come on. We’ll go sample Mama’s applesauce cake while we’re waiting for the slowpoke newlyweds.”

The little sister peered around Kate. “Is Mike having trouble getting the car started? They could have walked like you.”

“Not Evie. She aims to arrive in style,” Kate said.

Jay laughed. “Not much chance of that in Mike’s old heap.”

The kid slipped her eyes over toward Jay and smiled shyly. “Hello, Tanner.”

“Hi there, Birdie. Tell me that your mama made some lemonade to go with that cake and I’ll be one happy man.” Jay shrugged off his coat, hooked his finger in the collar, and pitched it over his left shoulder. Black coats should be outlawed for everybody but undertakers.

“Birdie?” Kate looked at Jay and then back at the little sister. “Tanner? Don’t you mean Mr. Tanner?”

“He told me nobody calls him mister.” The child hunched her shoulders and peeked up at her sister. “And you ought to call people what they want to be called, oughtn’t you?”

“So you want to be called Birdie?” Kate said.

“Not by everybody. Just by Tanner.” She shot a grin over toward Jay.

“Give the kid a break, Miss Merritt. Tell you what. You can call me Tanner too. And how about we call you Katie?”

“Ooh, that won’t work.” The kid’s eyes popped open wide as she looked from Jay to her sister. “Nobody calls Kate Katie.”

“Nobody?” Kate was giving him such a cool stare that he couldn’t keep from poking her a little more. “Not even lucky Carl?”

“What my friends do or do not call me is none of your concern, Mr. Tanner.” She emphasized the mister.

“But I want to be one of those friends, Katie.” She shot him another look and he backed up a step. “Excuse me, I meant to say Miss Merritt. It’s just that if I say Miss Merritt, I could have four girls looking my way. Which wouldn’t be too bad. Lovely misses, every one.”

“Only three now,” Kate said. “Actually only two.” She looked like she might be biting the inside of her lip to keep from grinning. That was good. He wouldn’t want to be thinking about eloping with a girl who stayed in a snit all the time.

“But aren’t there three sisters still unmarried?” he said. “Three Miss Merritts.”

“Just Kate and Tori,” the little sister spoke up. “Remember, I told you my name.”

“That’s right. It was Bird something,” Jay said. “Birdwhistle or Birdbrain. Birdhopper maybe.”

The little sister giggled, and the big sister couldn’t keep her smile hidden any longer as she said, “Tell him your name, Lorena.”

“My name is Lorena Birdsong.” Her voice had a lilt as she almost sang her name.

“And my name is Katherine Reece Merritt.” Kate grabbed the kid’s hands and danced a little circle with her.

It was obviously some kind of game they played. They both looked at him, almost laughing, as Birdie pulled a hand loose from Kate’s and reached for his. “You have to say your name too, Tanner.”

The two of them seemed to be holding their breath to see if he would join in. So, like a kid on a playground, he grabbed the little sister’s hand and, not one to pass up a great opportunity, captured the big sister’s hand too. She didn’t try to pull away but just kept looking at him with a kind of assessing smile to see if he was going to pass this playground test.

“My name is Mr. Jay Tanner.” He squeezed Kate’s hand a tiny bit as he said the mister. She laughed out loud. The sound touched something inside him, and he had to keep himself from holding on tighter when she began easing her hand free.

With a quick look over her shoulder back down the road toward the church, she said, “Well, Mr. Tanner and Miss
Birdsong, now that we’ve got all the names straight, we’d better get moving or we’ll let the new Mrs. Champion beat us to Grandfather Merritt’s house. That wouldn’t do.”

The sound of a car starting up back at the church seemed to prove her words. The little sister kept hold of both of their hands and started back the way she’d come, tugging them after her. “Hurry.”

Jay let the little girl pull him along. He liked the family feeling radiating off the two of them, reaching out welcoming fingers toward him. Of course, he was on the outside and couldn’t really step into it. He was always on the outside. Ever since his mother died. Even those months he’d lived with Mike and his family, he’d not belonged. Not really. But it was better that way. No sense wanting to belong somewhere he didn’t. It was better to stay a little apart where a man could keep a cool eye on what was going on around him and be ready to run if he needed to.

They did run the last few feet to the big white house beside the road to beat the bride and groom there. The two sisters laughed every step, and when the kid stumbled, he and Kate grabbed her up into the air without even exchanging a look and swung her back to her feet. Like a dance they both already knew, even though no one had ever shown them any steps.

They slipped through the picket fence gate and joined the people waiting in the yard to welcome the newlyweds. He let go of the kid’s hand and stepped back to lean against the fence and watch Mike help his bride out of the car. Mike had his preacher face on again. A good thing too. These people probably didn’t think a preacher ought to be in a hurry to get to his honeymoon night.

Jay let his eyes flash from the flushed pink face of the bride back to Kate. She was surrounded by friends vying for her attention. It had been crazy for him to think she was anything like him. She belonged. She was part of these people. A few
more months and she’d probably be the bride on the arm of that lucky Carl. He was right there in the crowd beside her. The two of them would eat their wedding cake, drink their lemonade punch, and settle down in a house here in Rosey Corner. Five years from now, Kate would be chasing after a couple of kids and Jay would still be chasing a dream of belonging somewhere.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

The man who moved up beside Jay wasn’t young, but it was hard to say his age. His face had deep lines that spoke of hours outside. A farmer, no doubt. The same as a good number of the other men scattered around the yard with their hair slicked down and wearing their Sunday best. But if this man had made any attempts to slick down his hair, it hadn’t worked. He didn’t appear to be a man worried all that much about outward appearances. At the same time, there was something piercing about his gaze, as though he intended to see past a person’s slicked-down hair and smooth veneer to whatever might be making him tick.

Jay smiled over at him, wondering what the man might be thinking about him. “Most brides are pretty on their wedding day.”

“It can bring out the best in a woman, right enough.” One corner of the man’s mouth turned up and a smile filled his eyes as if Jay had said something funny. “But I wasn’t talking about Evangeline. I was talking about our Kate over there.” Now his eyes were practically laughing. “It appeared your eyes were turned more her direction than the bride’s.”

“Could be they were,” Jay admitted. “I haven’t seen this many good-looking girls all in the same place since I don’t know when.”

“Enough to give a young feller like you wedding fever.”

“Not likely.” Jay laughed. “I just sweated through a wedding. I’m not planning on doing a repeat of wearing this suit
anytime soon.” He swung his jacket down off his shoulder and draped it over a picket on the fence.

“There’s some here that are a mite more eager than you.” The man’s eyes went back to the group around Kate. “Poor Carl, for one.”

“Poor Carl?” Jay looked at the man beside him. “I’d think you’d be calling him lucky Carl with a girl like Kate.”

“If he had a girl like Kate, maybe so, but Carl ain’t got nothing but a wish that ain’t coming true.” The man turned and stuck out his hand toward Jay. “By the way, I’m Graham Lindell. Not right of me to keep you talking, knowing who you are and you with no idea what Rosey Corner yokel is bending your ear.”

The man’s fingers were long, a little bony, but his grip was strong. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Lindell.”

“Ain’t no need being so formal and all. Graham will do,” the man said.

“All right, Graham. You related to the bride?”

“Nope. Got no blood kin left living in this whole world ’cepting my sister, Fern, over there.” He gestured toward a woman sitting on the edge of the porch looking off toward the fields without seeming to pay any mind to the commotion in the yard. “But we been neighbors so long I feel the same as kin. Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for those girls. We been through some times together. The Merritts and me. Some good like today. Some hard like them that may be coming at us.”