Barefoot Brides (17 page)

“I knew,” Dodie said softly, placing her hand over her heart. “Heaven help me I never forgot it, not even for a day.”

“But
I
didn't know. I had no idea I had any blood relatives.” She turned to her father still looking pale and weak lying on the hospital bed. “Not that my foster family didn't give me—”

“A whale of a time?” Billy J joked, followed with a wheezing laugh.

“All the love in the world,” she said. She laid the back of her hand over his flushed cheek. “Then that world fell apart.”

Billy J's usually jovial face went somber.

“And I learned to cope with things on my own.” She glanced at Dodie, wanting to assert her independence. She turned to her father, wanting to make sure she didn't come off haughty and ungrateful. “I never doubted how much you loved me, Daddy, but when the going got tough—”

“I went fishing.”

Moxie could only nod at that.

“And I stayed out of your life far too long,” he admitted, his eyes downcast.

“I managed. Thrived even.” She touched the brim of his hat then gave the parrot feather a flick to lighten the mood and help illustrate her own resilience. “It wasn't an ideal situation but it made me who I am.”

“Just like losing you made us who we are.” Kate stepped into the doorway, putting her hand on Dodie's shoulder. “You aren't the only one questioning how to cope with these new relationships, Moxie.”

“I know that. Don't you think I know that?” Moxie snapped at her sister's intrusion. “It's just harder for me because of my past.”

Kate glared at Moxie.

Moxie glared right back.

“Mom always emphasized to Jo and me that sisterhood is not a competition. That we should be ourselves but never to forget to be sweet. I always thought she oversimplified things, but now I get it.” Kate limped around her mother, her eyes never leaving Moxie's as she moved fully into the room. “Mom wanted us to always remember that no matter what we think we know about each other, underneath it all is a person who may be hurting to her very core. Who may feel lost, or scared, or so angry that it could affect the most significant choices she makes.”

Some of the tension left Moxie's body as she considered that.

“She wanted us to love and cherish others because she understood better than anyone how quickly everything can change.”

“I didn't have the benefit of that guidance, though, did I?” Moxie shifted her focus from Katie's defiant gaze to Dodie's tentative one. “I didn't have you.”

“You have me now, baby.” Her hand fluttered forward for only a second before she withdrew it again. “If you want me in your life, you have me now.”

“And if I
don't
want you?”

“Moxie!” Billy J spoke with such force it set off a coughing fit.

Moxie went to him to pat his back. “Daddy, I'm not saying that to be cruel. I sincerely want to know. Not every situation like this comes with its own fairy-tale ending.”

He shook his head, his gaze empathetic.

She turned to Dodie and Kate and asked the real question that had gnawed at her heart all this time. “What if I can't find a way to accept a new mom and sisters?”

Moxie did not know what she wanted Dodie to say, but she knew on a deeper level that it could well set the tone for everything that happened between them from now on.

“I can only speak for myself.” Dodie stepped forward. She did not let her gaze waver from her youngest daughter, even when her footsteps faltered slightly and her voice trembled with emotion. “If you can't find room in your heart to accept me as your mom then…”

Then I'll leave.

Moxie braced herself. Everyone's always left. Her birth father, her foster mother. She lived in a town based on people coming into your life for a very short time then leaving again. When she had finally found a man who she thought she could fall in love with, he did not plan to stay.

“Go on,” she urged. “Say it.”

“Then I will respect your feelings.”

She knew it! Moxie exhaled and started for the door, needing to get some fresh air.

When she came shoulder to shoulder with Dodie, the older woman turned, only slightly, and with her eyes still fixed on Moxie said almost inaudibly, “But it won't change mine.”

“What?” Moxie came to a halt beside Dodie.

“Molly Christina…Molly…my sweet, sweet baby girl. I could no sooner stop loving you than I could stop loving Kate or Jo. You are my child. You always have been and you always will be.”

Moxie was moved but it had only hinted at the answer she knew was coming. “I'm not a child. What if I can't deal with all this as an adult?”

She was pushing. She knew it but she couldn't stop herself. She had to push. She had to know if Dodie would do what her birth father and foster mom had done—leave.

“If you'd come back when I was a kid, maybe I could have made the adjustment more easily but you didn't. And I don't know if I can. If only…”

“That's enough of that.” Dodie held her hand up to cut Moxie off. “I love you too much to stand here and let you drag yourself down with that kind of talk.”

“I just said…”

Kate held up a finger and warned, with quiet compassion, “For once maybe you should listen instead of shooting off your mouth about what you want or what you think. This is one thing Mom knows a little something about.”

Moxie pressed her lips together and glowered at Kate.

“You may not have grown up with me advising you about sisterhood or understanding anyone you meet might harbor a hurting heart, but I can share this with you now. ‘If only' isn't going to help you, make you a better person or change a thing about the past.” Dodie took Moxie's hand lightly. “I learned not long after you were taken that those are some of the heaviest words in the English language. Some people use them like an anchor to keep their lives always in the past.”

If only my birth family had found me sooner. If only my foster mother had cared more about her family than herself. If only…

Moxie felt the pull of the words instantly, weighing her down, triggering unproductive emotions as she thought of her own list of grievances.

“I could not afford to do that,” Dodie went on. “I could not move forward and do what I had to do—be a mother to Jo and Kate and never stop searching for you—I couldn't do any of that dragging ‘if only' along with me.”

Just as, moments earlier, she had seen her father—her daddy, her hero—not in those terms but in all his humanity, she now saw Dodie. Not as just another vulnerable, sometimes daffy older woman trying to push her own needs onto her newly found daughter, but as a single mom who put her own pain aside in order to do what had to be done. Not larger than life but bigger than the heartache life had dealt her.

“What does that mean? I'm not sure how to—”

“It means I only know how to live in the now.” Dodie gripped Moxie's hand more tightly now. “If you tell me that you can't accept me as your mother then I will deal with that.”

“And leave?” If Dodie wasn't going to say it, Moxie would.

“Leave?” Dodie scoffed. “Oh, no, sweetheart, I would never leave.”

“Even if I didn't want to be a daughter to you?”

“Even if you didn't want to speak to me. Or see me. Even if you told everyone in town to shun me. I would stay right here.”

“Stay?” Moxie didn't know how to react to that. “And do what?”

“I wouldn't try to force you to change your mind, if that's what you're asking.” The older woman's eyes were damp. “I guess I would just wait and hope and pray that time and love would change your heart.”

“You'd…stay?” Moxie couldn't get over it. Nobody stayed. Nobody just waited and prayed for her. They ran off. They went fishing. They did not…“Stay. But why?”

“I lost you once.” Dodie raised her free hand to caress Moxie's cheek. “I will
never
lose you again.”

Moxie tried not to break out crying like a baby, tried to play it cool. But the second her lower lip quivered and Dodie brushed a tear off her cheek, she fell into her mother's arms at long last and lost herself in a deep hug. “Oh, Mom!”

“Molly Chris—”

“No, that's okay. I kind of like it when you call me that.”

“Molly.” Tears flooded Dodie's eyes. “My Molly Christina. After all these years, you are finally really a part of our family again at last.”

When Moxie pulled away she had one more question she had to ask. “Why? Why if I didn't want anything to do with you, would you have stayed?”

“Because that's what families do,” Kate whispered as she joined her mother and sister in their hug.

Moxie shook her head. “So families go
and
families stay?”

“Families do what needs to be done,” Dodie said.

“I think I'm going to like being a part of the family.” Moxie sniffled. “Now we just have one more issue to resolve.”

“What's that?” Kate wanted to know.

“Now that we've worked out what being in this family means, how do we keep this family together? Mom, how will we stay close to Jo and Kate if they leave Santa Sofia?”

“I'm not going anywhere.” Kate raised her hand as if giving her pledge.

Dodie reached for her older daughter to hug her, too. “Oh, Katie, you don't have to do that, not when you finally—”

She shook her head. “No more Scat-Kat Katie.”

“But Vince?” Moxie asked.

“If Vince chases after Gentry then that's where his heart is, that's who his family is, and it won't include me. I understand that. As long as he puts his grown child ahead of his own future and moving on, there won't be any room for me.”

Moxie reached out and put her arm around Kate. “I've known Vince a long time. Don't give up on him too soon.”

“I won't. Not this time. But I won't run away again—I have obligations to Mom and you and Lionel and my work and myself. I plan to stay here.”

“So Mom is staying. You are staying. I am…” What if Hunt asked her to go away with him when he leaves? Moxie shook her head. Getting a little ahead of herself, wasn't she? “I am staying.”

“If only Jo…” Kate murmured.

“Uh-uh,” Dodie warned.

Moxie laughed. “I wouldn't worry too much about Jo.”

“But she seems to have fallen so easily back into her old life in Atlanta. Why would she come back to Santa Sofia?”

“Because Santa Sofia has one thing Atlanta never will.”

“Us?” Dodie asked.

“The Bait Shack!” Billy J proclaimed.

Kate folded her arms. “Are you thinking—”

“The one thing Santa Sofia has that Atlanta never will is Travis Brandt,” Moxie concluded. “And I think it's about time Travis did a little outreach for the chapel, don't y'all?”

“I
've been thinking a lot about what we talked about Friday night.” Vince found Kate in what had become their usual Sunday-morning pew in the Traveler's Wayside Chapel.

“And?” She tipped her head back, her pulse picking up in anticipation that he would say he'd hashed out his issues and wanted to stay in Santa Sofia. Preferably with her as his wife.

He paused, looked around the chapel, which had just opened its doors and wouldn't start services for almost twenty minutes, then gave a half hearted shrug. “I don't know what to say.”

“And yet your lips are moving.” She rolled her eyes, finding it hard to believe he had stopped to speak to her just to say nothing.

She flounced her full cotton skirt in an attempt to get it to lift perfectly over her cast and to let him know her interest in his uncertainty had waned.

“I just…Can I sit?” He edged forward.

She gave him a look but what could she do? They were in church after all. She tucked her injured foot out of the way as best she could and wedged herself into the corner created by the end of the pew to allow Vince to get by her.

“I'm glad you're here early,” he told her. “I was afraid by the time I got Fabbie settled in the nursery I'd have to take a seat in the back by myself.”

He dropped down so close and so hard that the lace trim on the hem of her white, frilly skirt flipped up. She smoothed it down not because it had revealed even an inch of leg but because…because she
wanted
to. It sent a message. She wasn't sure what message and she had no illusion that Vince picked up on it anyway, so it wasn't really a clear or effective message. But then that seemed to be exactly the kind of message best suited for their relationship.

Pseudo relationship? Nonpermanent, nonrelationship? She didn't even know how to think of them anymore. All she knew was that after she had left his home Friday night he had stayed on her mind and their situation weighed on her heart every minute.

He hadn't even called.

“Sorry,” he said as he fiddled with his bulletin, adjusted his tie then took a quick look around them. Even though nobody seemed to be looking at them and not even the musical prelude had begun to tell the congregation to quiet down, he employed the classic shoulder to shoulder, whispering out of the side of his mouth as he spoke to her. “I missed you yesterday. Thought you'd come by after helping out with Billy J.”

“I guess that took longer than I anticipated.” All too true.

She had opted to go to help get Billy J at the hospital instead of pitching in with Fabbie on Saturday to give herself some time and perspective. Of course, the way that turned out, she was glad she went along, but even so, she had not counted on the simple errand being an all-day task.

Waiting for the doctor to show up to sign the order took until early afternoon. The prolonged and often comedic effort to get all the flowers and plants, sent by Santa Sofians and regulars from the Bait Shack, into Dodie's car so that they and the human cargo could all survive the trip home without coming uprooted ate up another hour. Getting Billy J situated and comfy at Moxie's place was no small accomplishment, either.

“If you'd have called and asked me, I'd have come over after we got him home. Though, it took all three of us to keep the old boy from throwing on a Hawaiian shirt, some khaki shorts and tennis shoes and heading down to the Bait Shack to make sure everything was all right.”

Vince laughed. “You should have called for backup.”

She gave him a sidelong glance, realizing he had a good point. She'd been so fixated on him not calling her that she hadn't even considered calling him, even when they all could have benefited from it. He'd have done a much better job at keeping the boisterous old boy in line than three doting ladies who waffled between scolding and babying him. “I didn't think of that.”

“And after that big speech we all gave Moxie at the clinic about dropping everything to come help when it's needed?”

About
family
dropping everything and coming. She tried not to read more into his leaving that out. “You had your own hands full with Fabbie. We certainly wouldn't want you to have dropped her.”

“Especially just for such a losing proposition as talking sense into Billy J Weatherby.” Moxie turned around from the pew in front of them.

“It's not polite to eavesdrop,” Kate reminded her.

“Who's eavesdropping? I'm family, remember? I'm just including myself in the conversation.” She smiled broadly.

“It's not so much a conversation as an explanation,” Vince volunteered. “Kate was just letting me know why she left me high and dry taking care of Fabbie yesterday after she promised to—”

“Oh, no.” Kate twisted in the pew to face him. “You are not laying that at my doorstep.”

“Huh?” Moxie crooked her arm over the back to the pew so she could not only join the conversation but actually insinuate herself into it physically.

“What are you trying to say, Kate?” Vince asked quietly.

“I'm saying that I've said goodbye to Scat-Kat Katie. Goodbye to the girl who runs at the first hint of genuine commitment. That's not me anymore. I thought I made that clear when I left Friday, Vince. I said I would come by to honor my promise to take care of Fabbie,
if
you needed me to. You didn't call. I got the message.
You don't need me.
”

“Kate, I never said—”

“Just don't try to make my not helping you out yesterday about me. It was you, Vince. From this point forward whatever happens to our relationship is your call.” Kate pushed up from her seat and used a combination of lunging and lurching to get herself into the pew next to Moxie.

“It's not me, Kate. If only it were just me and you, I'd be on one knee right now.”

Kate thought that should have excited, or at least comforted, her more.
If only…

She jerked her shoulders taut. “This is neither the time nor the place for this, Vince.”

“Are you kidding? This is Wayside Chapel, Kate, not some fancy ‘everybody hush up and sit still' kind of church,” Moxie whispered. “This is the kind of place where people come to be fed spiritually and physically. If you can't speak honestly and openly here, then you two don't stand a chance of ever working this out.”

Kate looked up at the large driftwood cross hanging above the simple candlelit altar. “Who says we stand a chance of working this out?”

“The man just said he would get down on his knee for you.” Moxie punched Kate lightly in the arm then jerked her head toward Vince.

He had, hadn't he? The full impact of that hit her at last. Kate whipped her own head around to look directly at him.

“But it's not just you and me, Kate. I can't make any kind of plans much less proposals until Gentry makes up his mind whether to take that job in Miami or not.”

“See?” Kate glared at Moxie, too humiliated to even look in Vince's direction. “You should stay out of other people's business.”

“Sounds like Moxie isn't the only one who feels cramped by having your family always so close at hand,” Vince mumbled.

“No kidding. Apparently Gentry does, too,” Moxie snapped.

Kate raised her hand to quiet her sister but Vince scooted to the edge of his pew and demanded, “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, let's see. Gentry has only just begun managing his life without your intervention, financially or otherwise, for a couple of months now, right?”

Vince kept his lips pressed tightly together and gave a curt nod.

“And already he's job hunting in another city?” Moxie made a motion with her hand which indicated he should draw his own conclusion from that.

“You think he's doing that to run away from me?”

“No, sweetie.” Kate touched his arm. “He's not running. Take it from an expert on that subject. He's just…He's trying…He needs…”

“He needs to create a little space to build a life for himself. You're suffocating him and that messes with his relationship with Pera and Fabbie. He'd never want to hurt you, but he has to put his wife and child first.”

“I was getting to that part,” Kate told her sister. “I just wanted to word it a bit more diplomatically.”

“You can thank me for my bluntness later.” Moxie crinkled her nose.

“Is this true?” Vince asked.

“Yes, she's quite blunt.” Kate gave Moxie a one-eyed squint.

“About Gentry,” Vince said softly.

“Vince.” She slid her hand down his arm and gripped his hand in hers. “You know the answer to that.”

He had to know it. If he didn't know it, if he didn't have just a deep-down inkling about it, then no one could ever convince him of it. “If you don't already have the answer to that question then you can't change. Even if you try to change, you'd always have that niggling feeling that you had been forced into a hasty decision.”

He lifted his head at that. “Is that how you felt?”

“I don't—”

“When you took off and broke our engagement? Did you feel that I had pressured you based on my assumptions about what was best for us rather than letting you find your answers?”

“I suppose it was.”

“You were pretty wise for a kid just out of college, Kate.”

“Just out of college, yes, but a kid? I was never a kid, Vince. Not since the night…” Her gaze shifted to Moxie.

The younger sister put her hand on the older one's. “I'm just now understanding that living with what our birth father did closed in around you and Jo and Dodie far more than finding an instant family is cramping my lifestyle.”

“Thank you for that,” Kate said softly.

“Like I said, thank me later.” Moxie scooted over to nudge Kate over. “Right now, you have work to do.”

“Work?”

Moxie moved closer still.

Kate thought of pushing back against the younger sister. Or at least planting her cane solidly to hold her ground. But just then the music that told everyone to find a place and prepare themselves to worship the Lord started up. Kate put out her hand to protect her personal space as best she could. “Hey, get back over where you belong. You're crowding me here.”

Kate gripped her cane and glowered at her younger sister.

“There is a man sitting one row back who said that if it were just you and him, he'd get down on one knee. And just about now he's probably realizing it is just you and him, because his son is a grown man with a wife and child, who doesn't need him tagging along when he goes out to make his way in life.” Moxie gestured toward Vince. “So why don't you get back there where it will be just you and him?”

“Because he…I…” Kate glanced over her shoulder.

Vince tipped his head to encourage her to join him.

“I'll move,” Kate said to Moxie then added to Vince, “But it's not because I can't commit.”

“That's too bad because I was thinking about how much I'd like you to do just that.”

“Move?”

He smiled, stood to help her work her way around to sit beside him, leaned in and whispered, “Commit.”

Her knees almost buckled.

He held her up then helped her sit.

“Vince, are you…?”

He sat beside her. “This is the place where people speak the truth and work through their issues, Kate. I may not have all our issues worked out—”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” he concurred. “But the truth is that I love you. I don't think I ever stopped loving you.”

“I feel the same way. I love you, Vince.”

The music came to an end and everyone stood. Vince got up from the pew first, then turned and held out his hand.

Kate put her fingers in his and reached for her cane, but before she could get it, Vince moved it aside.

“I need—”

Vince dropped to one knee in front of her.

She held her breath.

The music swelled but when the time came for everyone to begin singing not a single voice rose in song.

“Kate Cromwell…” Vince took her hand, not seeming to care that everyone in the place started gaping at them.

The music stopped.

Travis, who had come out to stand by the informal altar, held his hands up to tell everyone to stay as they were, in essence giving them license to gape and ogle all they wanted.

Vince gave a nod to Travis then to the congregation before turning back to Kate. He looked up at her, his eyes hopeful and a huge smile on his face. “Kate Cromwell…”

“You said that part already,” someone called from the group.

“Thanks.” He gave them a wave then fixed his eyes on her again. “Will you marry me?”