Head Over Heels (The Bridesmaids Club Book 3) (26 page)

He tried hard to remember their faces, the feel of their skin, the touch of their hands. But all he could see were the images stamped into his brain from the family photos they’d taken. Images that were as still as the bodies buried in the ground.

He stopped in front of their graves and pulled a handful of tissues out of his pocket. He wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and tried to find some good in all the grief choking his heart.

Emma Jane Randall and Joshua Neil Randall had changed his life. After their brutal murder, he’d almost given up believing in a higher purpose, a reason why everyone was born. But maybe, if he looked deep enough, he’d say their purpose had been to make the world a better place. They’d touched more lives than they knew, loved unconditionally and with such joy that it took his breath away.

At the end of the row of graves a brown post rose out of the ground. A faucet had been bolted to the top, and someone had left a bucket and an old cloth beneath it. Todd walked across to the faucet and wrapped Max’s leash around the post.

Max sat down. His eyes followed Todd as he went through the same ritual that generations of people had done before him.

Todd held the bucket under the faucet, watched the cold water gush into the plastic container. He went back to his family’s graves and wiped the dirt and dust away. His mom would have called it Spring cleaning. He could only call it sad.

He filled the flower containers either side of their headstones with water. With clumsy fingers, he pushed the stems of the roses he’d brought with him into the round holes. Emma would be laughing at his feeble attempts to make the flowers look pretty. They didn’t look as good as she would have done, but she wouldn’t have minded.

He kept two small bunches of roses to one side. His grandparents and great-grandparents were buried here, too. He’d visit them next, pay his respects to people he’d never known, but had shaped the person he was.

He untied Max and led him back to Emma and Josh’s graves. They sat on the grass and Todd took a deep breath. He started to tell Max stories about his family. Things he thought he’d forgotten spilled out of his heart, brought tears to his eyes, and made him cry.

Max leaned his head on Todd’s knees, soaking up the sunshine and Todd’s tears with quiet acceptance.

When his tears had gone and the stories had finished, Todd sat quietly with Max. The empty spaces inside of him were filling with something he never thought he’d feel. His heart swelled with love, with acceptance, and with gratitude for what he’d shared with his family.

Emma would understand what he had to do next. As hard as it was, he needed to move on with his life.

Max whined and Todd stroked his back. “Not long now, boy.” He took his wedding ring off and held it in the palm of his hand. The gold shimmered in the afternoon sun, made him smile as he remembered Emma trying hard to push it over his knuckle on their wedding day.

He held the ring tight and closed his eyes. He could feel Emma’s arms around him, holding him, telling him it was okay to let go. The tightness in his chest eased and a weight fell from his shoulders.

He took his pocket knife out of his jacket and kneeled between Emma and Josh’s graves. With careful strokes, he cut a small square of grass from in front of Emma’s headstone. He placed the ring in the soil and thought about their lives together.

When everything he needed to say had been said, he covered the ring and put his hands on top of his wife and son’s graves. “I’ll always love you,” he whispered.

He stood up and Max leaned against him. “Come on boy, we’ve got some more people to visit.” Todd picked up the extra roses and walked away from his family.

But this time he knew he’d be back.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Are you sure this is the right color?” Sally looked inside the paint bucket and grimaced. The animal shelter was this year’s recipient of their elementary school’s fundraising play. Sally was on prop-painting duties, but the green grass she was supposed to be painting didn’t look very green. “It doesn’t look like grass. It looks like brown soil.”

Rachel stood beside her and groaned. “That’s the color we’re painting the toadstool stalks.” She looked at the wooden platform Sally had started painting. “We can make it work. I’ll find the right color and we’ll…” she waved her hands in front of Sally’s face.

“Blend the paint?” Sally asked.

“Exactly,” Rachel said. “Next week’s spelling bee is going to my head. I can’t remember basic words, but ask me how to spell Pre-Raphaelite and I’m an expert.”

Sally patted Rachel’s shoulder. “Hang in there. When the school play is over this will all be a dim and distant memory. You can do this.”

Rachel nodded across the room at her arch nemesis. “Bill seems to be enjoying himself.”

Sally watched as he climbed a ladder, adjusted a light, then waved to someone at the back of the auditorium. If he wasn’t such a stickler for following the correct procedures, he would have been an all right kind of guy.

“Don’t worry about him,” Sally said confidently. “He’s not going to win the Teacher of the Year Award.”

“You don’t know that.” Rachel flicked her gaze back to Sally. “Or do you? Spill the beans, Gray. What do you know that I don’t?”

A teenage boy, all gangly legs and freckles, put another bucket of paint in front of Sally. “Mr. Hedges said to bring this to you.”

Sally looked at the outside of the bucket and smiled. With a name like
leafy green
it couldn’t be anything other than grass colored paint. “Thank Mr. Hedges very much.”

The young boy nodded and ran back across the room.

Rachel frowned. “Tell me what you know about the Teacher of the Year Award?”

“I’ve heard Bill hasn’t entered.”

Rachel gasped. “Not true. He always puts his name forward. He’s been first runner-up for the last three years.”

Sally shrugged her shoulders. “It’s what I heard. My source is impeccable.”

Rachel put the lid on the brown paint and looked at the label on the other bucket. “I’m not even considering the possibility. I’ll pour the green paint into the tray for you.”

Sally moved her brush and roller out of the way. “What do you want me to do after I’ve finished the platform?”

“Sean and Matthew should have finished making the trees by then. Find them and you can paint the leaves.”

Sally started rolling the new paint onto the platform, blending the two colors before it was too late. “I still can’t believe you got Sean and Matthew to help.”

Rachel grinned. “It was all of the free food that changed their minds. Your brothers have a soft spot for muffins.”

Sally knew that was part of it. The other part was the fact that their little sister was there. Since Alastair had left, they’d practically stuck like glue to her at the weekends.

“Oh, no,” Rachel groaned. “Tiffany’s brought all of the costumes in here. They’re going to get ruined.”

Sally smiled as Rachel sprinted toward the main doors. They only had this weekend to get everything ready for next week’s play. Children from each class were bringing the poems of A.A. Milne to life under the glare of the spotlights.

“Do you want a hand, or is this a Gray family production?”

Sally dropped her roller on the drop cloth and said a very unladylike word.

Todd arched his eyebrow. “You’ve expanded your vocabulary since I left. Did Rachel teach you that word?”

“Rachel knows you’re here?”

“She saw me when I came in.” He held a clean roller in the air. “She said you might need a hand to paint the grass.”

Sally looked at her paint splattered coveralls and then at Todd’s clean jeans. “It’s not a job for the fainthearted or improperly dressed.”

Rachel rushed past them, throwing a pair of coveralls at Todd. “Can’t stop. Emergency in progress.”

Todd caught the parcel before it hit him in the face. “I believe that’s called service.”

Sally picked up her roller and started painting the wood in front of her. “When did you get back to Bozeman?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

She blended the two paint colors with absolutely no idea of what she was doing. Her heart rate had shot into the stratosphere and her hands were trembling. She gripped the handle of the roller tight in case it fell out of her hand. “Did you have a good drive back?”

Todd ripped open the plastic bag containing his coveralls and started pulling them on. “It was okay. We only needed to stop three times for Max.”

Sally felt bad. She hadn’t thought about Max. Her number one concern had been the man getting dressed in front of her.

“Everything okay over here?” Matthew looked between Sally and Todd, a ferocious glare gathering in his over-protective eyes.

“We’re fine,” Sally said. “Have you put the trees together?”

Matthew blinked at her, as if constructing a giant oak tree and baby saplings hadn’t occurred to him. “It’s under control.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked patiently.

Matthew pointed toward the back of the stage. “Sean’s putting the branches…” He stared hard at his brother. “He’s made coconut leaves. I can’t believe he thought the Thousand Acre Wood is full of coconut trees.”

Matthew walked to the front of the stage. “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “They’re supposed to be oak trees.”

Sean yelled back. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Matthew threw his hands in the air and vaulted onto the stage.

“I guess they’ve got some changes to make,” Todd said.

“I guess so,” Sally muttered. She felt prickles of awareness skitter along her nerves. Todd was looking at her, watching every move she made. It was enough to make her run for cover.

He cleared his throat. “Do you mind if we share the same paint tray?”

“Um…no, that’s fine. Just blend the icky brown color with the new one.” Sally moved half a step sideways so they weren’t standing too close. They worked in silence, painting the platform in no time at all. Or so it seemed to Sally.

Todd stood back and admired their handiwork. “Not bad for novices.”

Sally rolled over a dribble of paint, then stood beside Todd. “I agree. The front rows are going to get a spectacular view of green grass.” She smiled without thinking. Then she looked at Todd and the smile dropped off her face. “I’d better find my brothers.”

“Sally, I…”

Sean skidded to a halt in front of them. “Matthew and I need you. We couldn’t completely salvage the trees. You’re going to have to work your magic with the paint.”

Sally frowned. “What part of the tree couldn’t you salvage?”

“The top.” Sean glanced at the painted grass. He looked doubtfully at the back of the stage. “I think we’re doomed.”

Sally stuck her hands on her hips. “Are you inferring something about our painting abilities?”

Sean plastered a fake smile on his face. “Of course not. We’re desperate. We’ll take anyone with a bucket of green paint in their hands.”

Todd picked up the drop cloth and the bucket of paint Sean had been admiring. “It looks as though you’ve got two experts coming your way.”

Sean didn’t bother with the caveman tactics his brother used around Todd. “Over this way. I’ll bring the tray. You take the rollers, Sally.”

Sally should have been annoyed with Sean, but she was still slightly shell-shocked that Todd was here.

Todd pointed to the steps on the edge of the stage. “After you.”

She started to say something, ask him what he was doing here. But instead of using words in one syllable, her brain went into shut-down mode. She walked past him with a heavy heart.

“Can we talk later?” Todd asked. “I could take you out to dinner?”

Sally tripped on the edge of a step. The paint rollers tipped toward the floor, splashing a few drops of paint on the wood.

“Are you okay,” Todd asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

“And dinner?”

Sally didn’t know if that was a good idea. She’d missed Todd so much that she was worried she’d make an idiot of herself. But she wanted to spend time with him, even if he told her he was leaving Bozeman permanently.

“Dinner would be okay, too,” she said softly.

“Good. That’s great.”

If Sally didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Todd blushed.

“Hurry up,” Sean yelled. “We’ve got one hour to create a forest out of these…” He pointed to the massacred shapes beside him.

Sally had a good look at the trees and shook her head. “Wow. I’ve never seen trees like those ones before.”

“We were being creative,” Matthew said. “What can you do?”

“Throw them out?” Sally offered.

Todd walked around the trees, contemplating the odd shapes in front of him. “If you turned the top of the trees upside down, they might look better.”

Sally, Sean, and Matthew tilted their heads to the side.

“I can’t see it,” Sally said.

“I can,” Matthew said. The relief in his voice was almost touching. Until she found out why. “I’ve got a date tonight and I don’t want to be late. Let’s do what Todd said and make these oak trees rock.”