The Wedding Chapel (16 page)

“A chapel. A
wedding
chapel.”

Peg’s gaze narrowed, darkened. “You didn’t! For Colette? Did she know about this place?”

He nodded once. “I brought her here.”

“And she still ran off? Really, Colette can be the most selfish . . . Now, you’re not mad at me for telling you, are you? Because I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take it.” She stepped around the boy as he gathered tiny fists of dirt, and reached for Jimmy’s arm, a pleading look in her eyes. “I-I’m just going to say it. You know how I felt about you, don’t you? How I still feel.”

Her confession washed him with uneasiness and he freed himself from her grasp, stepping back. “Don’t say such things. You’re married. I’m not mad at you, Peg. You did right by telling me. But don’t—”

“I’m glad.” She exhaled, smiling, pressing her hand to her chest. “I couldn’t bear it if you were angry with me. But, Jimmy, you never saw it in her . . . how selfish she was, caring only about herself. She ran off with Spice the first chance she got.”

“What do you care? You ran off with Drummond Branson. Had a kid.” Jimmy nodded at the boy now tossing dry dirt into the air. “Don’t come in here telling me how you feel about me. It’s not right.”

“But I still care about you, Jimmy. Colette had no business treating you the way she did. I’m sure our mamá is turning over in her grave.”

“She can turn all she wants. Won’t change a thing. I just want to get on with my business.” Jimmy reached for the sledgehammer. He needed to hit something, knock out a few walls, then light his fire.

“Well, wait, you haven’t met DJ yet.” She swung the kid up in her arms, which made him none too happy. He screamed, kicked and squirmed, soiled Peg’s pretty dress with his dirty hands. “DJ, meet Uncle Jimmy.” She grabbed his hand and waved it at Jimmy, then kissed his smudged cheek. “Isn’t he divine? Just the cutest thing ever?”

Jimmy gave the kid a good solid look. Not being around little ones all that much, he wasn’t quite sure how to gauge their cuteness.
But this guy was right handsome with his thick blond hair, rosy cheeks, and bright blue eyes.

“You sure this is Drummond Branson’s kid? He’s mighty fine looking.”

A few years ahead of Jimmy in school, Drummond missed Korea because he was in college. Now he had his own appliance store, a pretty wife, and a fine son.

Peg laughed. “Oh, Jimmy. I see Korea didn’t kill your sense of humor.” She stepped closer, angling the boy in Jimmy’s direction. “So what do you think?”

“I said he was fine, didn’t I?”

“I just love him. Just
love
him.”

She shoved the boy toward him again. Peg could be pushy. So Jimmy shook the tyke’s hand, surprised at how buttery his skin felt against his calluses. When he looked up, Peg was watching him. A tad too close.

“You’re a good man, Jimmy Westbrook.”

“So’s Drummond, Peg.” He raised the hammer to his shoulder.

“Jimmy, you know I’d do anything for you, don’t you?
Anything
.”

He regarded her for a moment, hearing something between her words. Something sharp and shaded. “Anything?”

She gripped his arm, her warm breath brushing his cheek. “Anything, anything.”

“Will you talk to Colette—”

Peg released him with a slight push. “Colette, Colette, Colette. I declare, you’ve a one-track mind. Forget about her. Colette, indeed. You build her this chapel and how does she thank you? By spitting in your face and running off.”

“But I’m home now.” The desperation in his voice set him a bit off kilter, but he wasn’t above begging. “She was afraid. Afraid something might happen to me. I don’t blame her after what she
went through in the last war, losing your parents and all. I just sense if we could talk, we’d clear up this whole thing.”

“No, Jimmy,
no
.” Peg’s insistence drove through him. “She left because she loved another man. Have some pride. You fought for your country. She doesn’t deserve you. She never did. Spoiled child.”

“Don’t speak about her that way, Peg. I mean it.” Defending Colette came easy.

“Look at you, taking up for her when you’re about to set this place on fire.” Peg snatched up the gas can, waving it around. “Do it!” The raw tension in her voice and frantic passion pressed against him. Scared him. “Let the symbol of your love go up in smoke. You didn’t know her. You only knew what you wanted to know. She doesn’t deserve your devotion.”

“She was kind and decent. Beautiful. Perhaps it was you who didn’t know her.”

“I knew her, better than anyone.” Peg stepped back, her intense expression suddenly softening into a smile. “You can do better, Jimmy. Find a woman who loves you.” The traces of her English accent bent the vowels of her otherwise Southern charm.

“Who would that be? You?”

“You just have to ask.”

“Go on home, Peg. Consider your son.” Jimmy adjusted the weight of the hammer on his shoulder. “Think of Drummond.”

“I’d leave him—”

“Go on, Peg. Get home to your husband. Be a good wife and mama. Don’t let DJ here grow up without his mama. Trust me, it ain’t no fun.”

“Now you’re angry with me.” She stamped her foot, stirring a small puff of dust.

He sighed, sweeping his gaze upward to the fading fall day. The short breeze whistling through the pines cooled the heat rising on
his cheeks. “I’m not angry, Peg. Just don’t want to ever be a party to a woman leaving her man, leaving her kid. Besides, I don’t feel for you—”

“All right.” Her tone was too sweet, her smile forced and unnatural. “I’ll go. But you burn this place down. To the ground. Hear me? Don’t waste your life pining for her, Jimmy.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Peg.”

“Don’t be a stranger. Come around, we’ll talk about old times. Drummond would love to see you.” Just like that, she flipped the switch from jealous sister to sweet Southern housewife. “We can remember Clem. Dear Clem. We all miss him.”

“How’s your Aunt Jean doing?” He’d been meaning to go around to the Clemsons’ place, sit a spell, and remember Clem. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The hurt was too raw. The memories too dear.

“She’s hanging in there. Little DJ here seems to help. Brightens her up. What a blessing he is to us all.”

“Give her my love. And your Uncle Fred too.”

Jimmy watched her go, an echo rising in the hollow in his chest. When he heard her engine fire up, he picked up the sledgehammer and with every ounce of muscle, sorrow, anger, and fear, he swung at the wall.

For Clem. Killed in action after one month in Korea.

The steel head pinged against the stubborn stone, the pressure vibrating through Jimmy’s grip and up his arms.

For Colette.

Another resounding ping sending a vibration through Jimmy. He swung again.

For Colette.

For Clem.

For Colette, Colette, Colette.

Sweat beaded on his brow and cheeks as each hammer blow
knocked a small piece of rock from the wall. He swung again, plumbing his emotions, tears seeping to the surface.

A blow for
lame
war.

For his dad, living alone, pining away over a worthless woman who weren’t never coming back.

Jimmy paused long enough to fill his lungs and strip away his shirt. Then he swung again, crashing the hammer into the unyielding wall.

“Oh, Jimmy, one more thing—”

He whipped around to see that Peg had returned with DJ in tow. “What? I thought you’d gone.” What was she doing here?

“I-I just remembered . . . Are you all right?” Her eyes roamed Jimmy’s face, down to his bare chest and the hammer in his hand.

“What do you want, Peg?”

She jerked her hand toward him, holding a small box. “Drummond . . . he, well . . . purchased this Argus camera for me.” She held up the black device. “You know, to take pictures of DJ. I’m having a dickens of a time finding things to take pictures of so I can practice. Then it occurred to me to get a snapshot of DJ with his Uncle Jimmy.”

“I’m not his uncle.” What was her angle? Rubbing in that he’d lost Colette?

“For Clem. Be his uncle in place of Clem. You know how he would want that, Jimmy.”

He faced the wall and brought down the hammer. “You were his cousin, Peg.”

“You know Clem was more like a brother than a cousin to me. Now, what do you say?”

The last thing he wanted to do right now was pose for a picture.

“Jimmy?”

He dropped the hammer and swooped up his shirt. “Make it quick.”

“Thank you, thank you . . . DJ, here, go to Uncle Jimmy.”

He reached for the kid, anchoring him in the crook of his arm. “What’re you feeding him? He weighs a ton.”

“He’s a good eater, my boy. Takes after his daddy. Now . . .” Peg raised the camera to her eye. “Jimmy, just plop him on your hip . . . yeah, like that . . . Why’re you holding him like a sack of manure? He don’t stink, and he won’t bite.”

Peg could be exasperating, and her timing needed work. But now that he’d calmed down, Jimmy understood that Peg was the closest he’d come to Colette in a long time.

The kid fussed and squirmed while Peg figured out her new apparatus. “Hold on, DJ. Mamá wants a picture.”

Jimmy adjusted the boy for a better grip. There. He glanced down to see the boy peering at him with wide curiosity.

“How’re you doing, kid?”

He grinned, reached up, and beeped his nose.
“Beep!”

And Jimmy laughed.

“Perfect.” Peg’s skirts swirled as she walked around to take another picture. “I snapped that one just right. DJ, you
are
the cutest thing. Jims, you should see him dance. He’s a savant, I tell you. DJ, look at Mamá.”

“How old is he?”

“Th-three,” Peg said, clicking away, circling like a beast on the hunt. “Well, he will be in a few weeks.”

Peg continued to take pictures, trying different angles and light, even using a flash. But then Jimmy had enough. “Here you go, DJ. Back to your mama.”

“All right, I suppose we’re done.” Peg kissed her boy, letting the camera dangle from a wrist strap. “I guess I’ll go.”

“Peg, I’d appreciate if you’d not flash those pictures around.
Kind of embarrassed to have built a wedding chapel when there was never going to be a wedding.”

She hesitated, then turned to go, glancing back from the door. “You could’ve had me, Jimmy.”

“Listen to yourself, Peg. Your mama is rolling over in her grave.”

“Yes, I suppose she is—”

“Go on home. Let’s forget this conversation.” He wanted to like her because she was Colette’s sister. But if she spoke one more word about leaving Drummond, he’d despise her, sure as he was standing here.

“You know I loved you.” Her words hung in the silent space between the barren chapel walls.

Realization dawned. He stepped toward her, swinging the hammer over the dirt. “Peg, is that why she left?” His adrenaline rushed, leaving him winded, out of strength. “Did you do it, Peg?” He stepped toward her. “Make her leave? Tell her some lie?”

“No, no. Is that what you think?” She started out of the chapel. “I might have spoken my heart just now, but my sister made her
own
choices. I tried to warn her, talk her into waking up, but she made up her own mind. She chose Spice and fame over you, Jimmy. And she’s never coming back.”

Jimmy followed her to her car. “Sisters fight, Peg. Say things they don’t mean. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe you said something that made her think she had to go. Let you have me instead.”

“No, never.”

“Then talk to her. ’Cause I never felt for you that way.”

Peg slipped DJ through the open passenger window onto the seat, then walked around to the driver’s door, angry and pouting. “What was I thinking? If I lived with you I’d be haunted by Colette’s ghost. With that fairy-tale notion you have of her stuck in your head.”

Dropping behind the wheel, Peg fired up the engine and reversed down the road with such force that little DJ fell backward in the seat, his little hand grasping at the top of the door.

Darn that Peg. What was she thinking coming round, spouting of love, making indecent propositions? Jimmy glanced back at the chapel. But she got one thing right. He was living with a fairy tale.

Striding toward the chapel, he figured he had just enough light to do what he came to do.

He snatched up the gas can and was about to pour when he heard it. The push-thump, a syncopated
whoosh-thump
,
whoosh-thump
.

He faded to pale. “Peg?”

He scanned the perimeter, raising his gaze skyward from the ground, searching for the source.

“Peg, is that you?”

He waited. When he didn’t hear the sound again, he took up the gasoline. But when he was about to pour, he heard it again. A thrumming, whooshing, throbbing that went clean through him.

Jimmy scurried to the door. “Who’s here?”

But the torn-up yard, littered with chipped limestone and wood shavings, was empty save for the song of the evening birds.

Though the army doc gave him a clean bill of health, and he’d not had a nightmare in months, this had to be shell shock, kicking in a bit late. What else could it be?

Back to the gasoline, Jimmy tipped it to pour when the
whoosh
echoed over the chapel, raising gooseflesh down his neck and arms, clean to his toes.

He tipped his face to the patch of blue exposed between the trees. “I’m burning her down. To the ground. You can’t stop me.”

The hollow, haunting
whoosh
settled on and over him with an even
whoosh-thump
,
whoosh-thump
. He knew that sound. A beating heart.

Jimmy stretched to his full height, squaring up his shoulders and hanging on to the gas can. He had fought in a war, but this moment carried more power than guns and ammo. It settled over him with its own brand of fear. Of reverence.

The rhythm beat strong and clear, all around him. In him. Through him. Soon his senses lost all bearings. Where did the sound begin and Jimmy end? He had no gauge.

Moment by moment he lost all strength and slowly sank to the hard, red dirt ground.

Chapter Twelve