Love Remains (39 page)

Kiki hugged her neck, her broad smile once again in place. “I’m so happy it’s not something more serious than that. Pops and I will pray continually for a quick solution to Bobby’s case.”

“Kiki, have you and Lindy actively been trying to push Bobby and me together? It seems like you’ve taken a bit too much interest in our relationship. Before the DC trip, you were always asking me about him, mentioning his name, or telling me something Lindy said about him.”

“I told you before I just want to see you happy. And I could see that you’d be happy with Bobby Patterson.” She kissed Zarah’s cheek. “Now, go back and enjoy the young folks’ company.”

When Zarah returned to the screened porch, Flannery and Caylor pounced. “What was that all about?”

She told them. “I knew my grandmother had been a little too interested in the progress of my relationship with Bobby ever since he came back to town.”

Caylor narrowed her eyes. “And my grandmother has been a little too anxious to mention her friends’
unmarried
sons and grandsons to me. She told me she’d given a friend of hers permission to pass along my Web and e-mail addresses to this woman’s son—who’s in his late fifties! Can you imagine?”

Flannery shuddered. “Sounds like you two have a problem.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Caylor asked.

“Grandmothers who fancy themselves your very own Cupids. Imagine—back in the old days, they would have just hired a matchmaker and been done with it.”

Caylor cocked her head as if giving the idea serious thought. “You know, a matchmaker isn’t that bad of an idea.”

“Uh…remember Mr. Science Guy inside?” Flannery tapped her knuckles against Caylor’s head as if knocking on a block of wood.

Caylor pulled the corners of her mouth down in a grimace. “Oh yeah. Sassy does suffer from extremely bad eyesight. Seems like her judgment is going, too.” Caylor looked toward the sky again. “I know, God. I’m sorry. I’m a horrible, awful, judgmental person.”

Zarah couldn’t hold back any longer. She threw her arms around her friends’ necks and drew them close for a hug.

Caylor gasped; Flannery laughed.

“What brought this on?” Flannery asked in her right ear.

“I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last fourteen years without the two of you. You’re closer than best friends—Bobby was right. You’re my sisters.”

Bobby turned from the sight of Zarah’s sudden three-way hug with Flannery and Caylor, a sense of contentment merging with sadness. He wanted to be the one she hugged so tightly and publicly.

Seeing her here with her grandparents and best friends made him ache to be able to be at her side, to experience everything with her, not just observe her interactions.

“Robert, right?”

Oh no. The advertising guy. “Bobby.”

Jamie O’Connor—short, too groomed, and overdressed for this casual family function in slacks and a button-down oxford shirt—set his cup on the porch railing. “They said you know that blond chick—Fanny, I think they said her name is.”

Bobby barely kept himself from spewing his tea through his
nose. He swallowed it and coughed to clear the little bit he’d inhaled.
“Flannery
, not Fanny.”

That was rich. Fanny. He couldn’t wait to tell Zarah…he could probably do it at church tomorrow.

“Oh, I guess I didn’t hear it right when we were introduced. Anyway, what can you tell me about her?”

Some embarrassing stories from junior high school, which she wouldn’t appreciate. Her penchant for protecting her best friend.

He glanced down the porch. Zarah, Flannery, and Caylor now sat at the table in the screened-in, gazebolike area of the porch behind the kitchen. What would Flannery want him to share with a stranger—one she’d watched with mild distaste in her eyes not an hour ago?

“She’s an editor at one of the book publishers in town. She grew up here.” He shrugged, hoping to give the impression he didn’t know much more than that.

“An editor? Do you know what authors she works with?”

A question he could answer honestly. “No clue.”

“Hmm…” Jamie leaned against the porch railing, eyes narrowed with speculation as he looked toward the other end of the porch.

“Robert! James!” Mamm’s voice carried from the kitchen door.

“Guess we’re needed.”

“Food’s almost ready,” Zarah’s grandfather said over his shoulder. “They probably want you to help set up the tables out here.”

Bobby nodded and went inside—through the living room so he didn’t have to walk past Zarah.

With the help of Jamie, the gangly scientist, and Gerald Bradley—the scientist’s grandfather—end-to-end folding tables lined the stretch of porch between the grill and the screened-in portion.

Somehow without looking at each other, Zarah and Bobby managed to find seats at opposite ends of the long table. Mamm eyed him with concern, but thankfully, she didn’t say anything.

Greedad and Victor Breitinger carried the sheet pans of steaks and chicken over from the grill and served each person individually before
placing the pans, with plenty of meat remaining, on the table. Other dishes were passed around—from left to right, as they’d always done at Mamm and Greedad’s house.

Talk and laughter continued long after everyone finished eating—until Greedad remarked upon the time and that the football game would kick off in a couple minutes.

Everyone filed through the kitchen, scraping off their plates into the garbage before setting them into the large, farmhouse-style sink.

“Now—everyone
out of the kitchen
. I refuse to have anyone in here working while there’s fun and fellowship to be had elsewhere in the house.” Mamm blocked the sink and shooed everyone from the room.

Bobby followed his grandfather into the family room where the University of Tennessee game appeared on the supersized television.

“Ladies, if you aren’t interested in the game, I’d love for you to join me in the sitting room.” Mamm carried one of the large pitchers of iced tea with her into the other room.

Zarah cast a glance in Bobby’s direction before following their grandmothers from the room. He tried his best to get lost in the game, but the radar in his brain tuned to Zarah wouldn’t let him. When he heard her offer to refill the tea pitcher, he pushed himself up off the sofa and carried his cup toward the kitchen as if getting more to drink.

“I thought you came in here to refill the tea pitcher.” He kept his voice low, trying to avoid any prying ears.

Zarah turned from the sink where she held a plate under a trickle of water. “I just can’t help myself. I see a sink full of dishes, and it’s like there’s this little switch in my brain that needs to see them washed before I can walk out of the kitchen.”

He pushed up the sleeves of his favorite waffle-weave thermal sweatshirt. “I’ll help.”

She turned and held the scrub brush in front of her like a sword. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Zarah, it’s just us. We already know as soon as this…whole thing is over, we’re going to be together. Besides, no one can see us.”

“God can. Bobby, we promised we’d only see each other in group settings, only around other people, and not in a way that would lead to the appearance that we’re dating. I’m not breaking that promise again. I know that unlike my fa—unlike the general, God will forgive me if I screw up and break a promise. But if I purposely flirt with temptation, if I don’t avoid being alone with you, how can I live with myself?”

An image of a young man in a bowler hat and spats danced through Bobby’s memory. “I’m just like him.”

Zarah lowered the scrub brush. “Like who?”

“That con man from the musical Caylor was in. The traveling salesman who went from town to town and manipulated people into doing something against their nature for his benefit. That’s what I was just trying to do to you. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than what I wanted. I didn’t think about how it would affect you—or even what God would want me to do. Just about my own gratification.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. We all slip up occasionally. That’s why it’s good to have others around us to keep us accountable.”

“Why do you always have to be right?” He backed toward the door. “I’m sorry. Maybe this time apart will be good for us. It’ll allow me time to grow up and start acting like the man you deserve instead of the boy who deserted you.”

“Whether you feel like you deserve me or not, you have me—or you will. Eventually. Just hurry up, okay?”

He blew her a kiss and bowed. “Yes, ma’am. Oh…and will you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Put the dish brush down and go back and be social with everyone else. Do you really want your grandmother—or mine—coming in here and seeing what you’re doing?”

Zarah laughed. “Okay. Just let me finish this one—”

He started back toward her.

“All right!” She turned the water off and reached for a towel to dry her hands. “I’ll be right behind you as soon as I refill the tea pitcher.”

Exiting through the dining room to go see what the other women were doing before calling it an early night, he ran into someone in the dark dining room.

She grabbed his arm for stability. “Robert?”

“Mamm?” He reached out and clutched her elbows to keep her from falling over.

“What is going on? I thought you and Zarah worked things out. Why aren’t you talking to each other?”

He explained in as few details as he could, swore her to secrecy, then kissed her forehead. “So you have nothing to fear. You and Katrina have been successful with your matchmaking.”

Mamm made an appalled sound in the back of her throat. “I’m certain I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“And I’m certain you do.” He gave her a squeeze, then moved toward the front hall to retrieve his leather jacket. “My grandmother, the matchmaker.”

Chapter 29

Z
arah jumped when her desk phone rang. Over the past four weeks, her patience had worn thin, she hadn’t slept well, and every little noise startled her.

She picked up the receiver. “Yes, Dennis?”

“I need to see you in my office, please.”

“Coming.” She hung up, glanced in the mirror hanging on the side of her file cabinet, and walked away with the vision of dark circles, tired eyes, and pale cheeks indelibly imprinted in her mind. It was only Tuesday, and she already found herself wishing for the weekend. If she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t figure out a way to get a few restful nights’ sleep soon, she’d probably get sick again.

No matter how strong her conviction had been a month ago when she told Bobby she could wait however long it took him to finish his investigation, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out. Not only was she suspicious of everyone she came in contact with outside of the commission, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Bobby and dreaming of their future together.

That brought a slight smile. The future she dreamed for them now was quite different from the future she’d dreamed for them at seventeen.

She knocked on Dennis’s door before opening it.

“Come in, Dr. Mitchell.”

Formal title? He had someone in there with him. She straightened her shoulders and pinched her cheeks to try to raise a little color in them before opening the door.

“Dr. Mitchell, I believe you know Special Agent Patterson of the Tennessee Criminal Investigations Unit.”

Zarah’s heart soared, and she drank in the sight of Bobby dressed in a charcoal gray suit and looking more deliciously handsome than she remembered.

But as quickly as her elation came, it vanished. Bobby was
here—
in Dennis’s office. That meant…

She didn’t want to speculate, so she cut off that train of thought as she sank into the spare chair. Dennis and Bobby both regained their seats.

“Agent Patterson asked me to have you join us to let you know I’ve recalled Glenn Vaughan from the field so he can question Mr. Vaughan about the riverfront property.”

Zarah looked from one to the other. Since Bobby had informed Dennis of the investigation into possible fraud connected with the commission, Dennis had been nearly beside himself trying to help Bobby in any way he could to find the culprits.