Restless in Carolina (37 page)

I come back to applause and turn with Maggie and Devyn as the newly married couple step from beneath the gazebo and start down the aisle. The guests are on their feet, and as we near the front row, I step to the side and touch my uncle’s shoulder. “He’s here, Uncle Obe,” I say, loud enough for Daisy to hear. “Antonio’s here.”

The smile he wears for Piper and Axel slips into blankness, out of which confusion rises. “Who?”

“Your son, Daddy,” Daisy says.

He blinks. “An-Antonio?”

“Yes, he is.”

As I hurry to catch up with Maggie and Devyn, I congratulate myself on the relative ease with which I do so. Of course, it helps that the heels I’m wearing are of a sensible height—well, as heels go.

The reception that follows is different from Bart and Trinity’s in that I don’t feel suffocated. And neither do I feel the need to escape, though even if I wanted to steal away with Birdie and Miles for a “happily ever after” reading in the library, I doubt they’d be willing accomplices. Nor would Bonnie or Claude let me. They’ve been glued to their children since their return. In fact, Claude even budged from my parents’ back
porch this morning to join Miles and me in a game of touch football. Admittedly he was all thumbs—make that
toes
—but he tried.

“So …” A cake-faced Birdie in tow, Bonnie sidles up to me where I lean against a Bradford pear tree that still sports a scattering of brilliant leaves. “… another cousin.”

I’ve been keeping an eye on him too, and so far things appear to be going well—with help from Daisy, who sits between her brother and father at a table on the edge of the gathering. “Antonio,” I say.

“Pretty good-looking if you discount the nose—hawkish, don’t you think?”

“Like Uncle Obe’s.”

“I’m tired.” Birdie reaches to her mother. “Pick me up.”

“Magic word,” I say. Oops. It’s no longer my place.

Birdie sighs. “Please.”

“Why, isn’t that polite.” Raising her eyebrows at me, Bonnie lifts her daughter and kisses her forehead. Once Birdie settles on her shoulder, my sister returns her attention to Uncle Obe. “I’m happy his prayers were answered.”

They certainly were. As were my prayers for their reconciliation.
Thank You, Lord
.

Bonnie sighs. “His dementia is getting bad, isn’t it?”

“Good days, bad days, though the bad ones are on the rise.”

“Sad. But at least Mama’s lookin’ good.” She points her chin at where our parents lean toward each other over a small table.

“She’s doin’ well with her diet. More, I think, Daddy’s doing well with her.”

“He needed the scare.”

God turning bad into good.

“You look well too, Bridget—better than I’ve seen you in years.”

“Her heart’s not constipated anymore.” Birdie peers at her mother from beneath her lashes. “And I taught her how to say happily … ever … after weal good.”

“Did you?” Bonnie fights a smile. “Hmm.” Her gaze slides to me. “It sounds like you fixed your aunt Bridge right up.”

“She’s gonna miss us.”

My sister looks doubtful, but I nod. “I hope you’ll get out this way more often, Birdie. I’ll be sore lonely without you.”

“I know.” She closes her eyes.

“Speaking of lonely …” Bonnie whispers. “Who’s this J.C. character with whom you were sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g?”

Miles has been talking, but now is not the time to tell the story, though maybe when Bonnie and her family return for Maggie’s wedding at the end of the month. “He’s not here anymore.”

“Okay?”

I shrug. “He might come back, but I don’t know.” My nose tingles. “What I do know is … I’d like him to come back.”

She beams. “Then you really are ready.”

“I’m gettin’ there, and I have you to thank for putting me on the hook when I made Birdie cry.”

She wrinkles her pert nose. “That’s what little sisters are for.”

I open my eyes wide. “Really? And what are big sisters for?”

She pats her daughter’s back. “Being great aunts.”

I hug her over Birdie, and I know everything will work out. One way or another.

He did
not
do that. Oh yes, he did—flew right past me, though it’s not as if I’m slowpoking it on Pickwick Pike. Doesn’t the fool know how dangerous these curves can be?

I glare at the back of his head, though little is visible beyond the headrest. He—or
she
, if she likes very short hair—needs a talking-to. And I just might do it, bridesmaid dress and all, if I didn’t have to put the pedal to the metal to overtake him. Even if Ford were up to the task, it isn’t worth the risk to life and limb.

“Go on, then,” I mutter as the car disappears around a curve ahead. “And consider yourself lucky.”

But that’s not the last I see of the car. When I hit the straightaway a minute later, there it is, straddling the two lanes, brake lights lit. What is he doing? Trying to pull what I pulled on that Wesley woman and …

“Jesse.” As I brake twenty feet back from the car, the driver’s door swings open, and a man steps out. I’d know him anywhere, even with the sunglasses he removes as he walks toward me, even without the jangling.

The autumn breeze goes in one window and out the other, freeing more of my hair from the soft upsweep Maggie pinned this morning.

J.C. sets his forearms on the ledge beneath my rolled-down window and looks from my face to the soft green dress. “Reverse déjà vu.” His gaze returns to my face with a smile.

I drop my hands from the big steering wheel. “Why?”

“To ask if you still want to get there with me—where we both need to go.”

I doubt I could ever count the number of hairs that stand up all over my body. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Even though I’m a Pickwick to your Calhoun?”

His face turns serious. “I made it matter, but it doesn’t. What matters is you, Bridget. I want to know you beyond the mess I made of us.” He reaches through and gently tugs at one of many loose hanks of hair.

I moisten my lips. “What about the estate?”

He inclines his head. “Your proposal is good, and we want to go forward with the purchase. But that’s separate from what’s between us.”

My heart has the thuds again. “All right—as long as you don’t turn it into an industrial park.”

“I think you’ll approve.”

When his hand grazes my jaw, I turn my mouth into it and say against his palm, “I’m glad you came, Jesse.”

“I hoped you would be.” He pulls his hand back, and when he opens the door, his gaze goes to my feet. “Barefoot too.”

I wiggle my toes. “Wonderfully so.” Then I slide into his arms, and we kiss right there on Pickwick Pike. And it feels … right.

When J.C. lifts his head, I know my out-of-practice lips will evidence where he’s been. Not that I care. “It wasn’t coincidence that you found me on the pike, was it?”

“No, I stopped by the nursery, and Taggart told me about your cousin’s wedding. I sat in the car for two hours, waiting for your truck to pull out of the estate.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Obviously, I had plenty of time to get creative about how to approach you.”

“Reenactment.”

He grins. “More like redo.”

I laugh. “So how are we goin’ to do this, you living in Atlanta and me here?”

“That’s where Parker comes in. I’m taking time off to get where I need to be, and I thought I’d do it here.”

Where I am. “And when you get where you need to be?”

“If where I need to be and want to be are the same, there will be commuting involved. Of course, it will help that I’ll have a development to oversee right here in Pickwick. And that could take years.”

Years … I settle my head beneath his chin and listen to his heart beat near mine. So
this
is what happens
after
ever after. “I like you, Jesse Emerson Dirk. I really like you—maybe more than like you.”

“I feel the same.” He holds me tighter, and I can’t imagine being anywhere but here.

“Gol!”

Well, not
here
, in the middle of Pickwick Pike. And certainly not in front of my brother and sister-in-law.

J.C. and I turn to face the car that has pulled up behind my truck, and I wince as Bart grins at me from behind the windshield and Trinity pops her head out the window.

“Look-it there, your sister has herself a beau, Bart. Can you believe it? ’Bout time.” She waves. “Don’t let us interrupt.”

J.C. looks down at me. “I think we’d better. Dinner?”

I nod. “This time I won’t cancel.”

“Promise?”

I lift my hands, lay my ringless, bandage-less fingers on either side of his face, and touch my lips to his. “Promise.”