Love in Bloom (21 page)

“Sadly, too many of our favorite things are fried,” Ginny put in, obviously trying to change the subject.

“That’s why we only eat them on special occasions,” Peter added, biting into a chicken leg.

“We’ve still got birthday cake!” Isabella reminded everyone brightly.

“Which you don’t get unless you eat every green bean on your plate,” Tate reminded her.

Everyone laughed as she started scooping in the green veggies.

The mood once again normalized, Lily relaxed and let herself soak up the warm family atmosphere. She loved her family, but she was glad not to have to discuss torts and dialectics at the dinner table, let alone politics and jurisprudence. She had never fared well in those discourses, for she didn’t care to raise her voice or approach every conversation as a debate. It was nice to sit down to dinner with people who simply enjoyed each other’s company rather than felt they had to pick sides in an argument. She’d relaxed at dinner with her friends, of course, but this felt different, almost like dining with her own family, which was a very dangerous thought, indeed, as dangerous as Tate Bronson himself.

She tried to focus on Isabella. She was here because of Isabella, after all.

Now, if only she could manage not to fall in love with Isabella’s father.

She had promised herself that she would be satisfied with getting him back into church, after all, and she meant to stick to that. This time she wasn’t going to play the fool. This time she was going to guard her heart and be very wise—if it wasn’t already too late.

* * *

“Thanks, Mom,” Tate said, rising from the table with both belly and heart feeling that they were about to burst. “Great meal. As always.”

Normally he and his father would help clear the table before going back to the game, but with Lily there already gathering up dishes, he didn’t dare offer to help. He’d eaten far too much just to stay at the table with her. The last thing he ought to do was follow her into the kitchen where she’d be within easy reach, especially with his eagle-eyed mother there, pretending not to notice their every move while cataloging each nuance of their interaction. Instead he pointed at Isabella.

“The birthday celebrations are officially at an end, young lady. Now you are on dish detail.”

“Da-a-ad.”

“I mean it.”

“But what about my cake?”

“Later.”

Isabella sighed and climbed down off her chair. “Oh, all right.” She couldn’t possibly be hungry anyway. Like him, she’d eaten far more than her fair share.

Lily shot him an amused glance as Isabella grabbed the empty bread basket and started toward the kitchen.

“You’re trailing bread crumbs,” her grandmother admonished mildly, following along after her with a stack of plates.

“I’ll get the sweeper!” Isabella cried, breaking into a run.

For some reason she loved the old manual sweeper that his mother kept in the pantry. She’d run the thing back and forth over the floor for hours. At least it didn’t make enough racket to interfere with the television. Shaking his head, Tate made his way to the sofa and collapsed. Peter came right behind him, taking his usual place in the recliner, and picked up the remote.

Tate soon had to take over. Try as he might, Peter could not seem to get the hang of the DVR system. Left to his own devices, he’d miss half the game or, at best, manage to pick up where they’d left off, only to settle for watching the rest of the program along with all of the commercials, breaks and replays. Tate soon had them caught up to the game in real time without missing any of the actual action. All the while he was aware of the hum of conversation and activity coming from the kitchen, especially the laughter. Especially Lily’s laughter.

Like everything else about Lily, her laughter had an ethereal quality to it, an airy, delicate lilt. He analyzed the sound in his mind: husky and whispery, yet tinkling, as if a gossamer veil overlay a crystal chime.

His father whooped as the Royals batted in a double play, calling Tate’s attention back to the game. Tate sat up straight and rubbed a hand over his face. The woman would reduce him to poetry if he wasn’t careful. He forced himself to concentrate.

After a while, his mother, daughter and Lily came in to join the men. His mother took her usual place in the easy chair. Isabella went to her knees in front of the coffee table to color and work through picture mazes, leaving Lily to squeeze into the corner of the sofa opposite him. She needn’t have
squeezed,
of course. The sofa was quite long enough for him to stretch out full-length, but she seemed to feel that she needed to get as far away from him as humanly possible while still occupying the same piece of furniture.

For some reason that irritated Tate. He found himself sprawling all over the place, trying to close the distance, which just caused her to draw up tighter. Disgusted with himself, he got up to get a glass of iced tea.

“Anyone else want a drink?”

He hoped that everyone would want something so Lily would have to help him or that Lily would want her own and follow him into the kitchen to get it. Unfortunately he seemed to be the only one thirsty. Taking himself off to the kitchen, he slammed around getting ice into a glass and tea poured over it. Carrying the tumbler back into the living room, he sat himself down again—in the corner opposite Lily.

Before long Isabella crawled up onto the sofa between them. She put her head in Lily’s lap and her feet in Tate’s and proceeded to sing quietly to herself. Lily, who didn’t seem to have much interest in baseball, bowed her head over Isabella’s, her long pale hair creating a wavy curtain around them, and just as quietly sang along. The two of them giggled, and Lily playfully shushed Isabella before they started in on a second song.

Tate couldn’t help smiling at them. When he looked up, he caught his mother watching him watch Lily and Isabella. She quickly looked down at the magazine she had opened on her lap, but her small, knowing smile stayed in place. He mentally recalled some of the things he’d said to his mother about this woman.

Lily? Oh, Isabella is particularly taken with her, and since I’m her SOS Committee contact, she’s naturally going to be around at times.

I kind of feel sorry for that Lily Farnsworth. She’s shy, doesn’t make friends easily, and since I’m her official SOS host I feel we ought to include her in what we can.

The town owes a lot to the newcomers, you know, especially that Lily Farnsworth, and she’s been so patient with Isabella that I feel sort of responsible for her.

He wondered if his mom understood his interest in Lily, then mentally snorted. She’d probably seen it before he had. Ginny had always been clear-eyed about things. She’d seen that him and Eve marrying so young had been as much about Eve’s living situation as about their feelings for each other. His parents had wanted him to go to college after high school like his older sister, but Eve hadn’t had that option. The friend with whose family Eve had lived after her grandmother’s death had been all set to go off to college herself, which meant that Eve needed a new situation, but she couldn’t support herself working part-time at the grocery store, and she didn’t want to leave Bygones and any chance of being with him. The only solution had been to marry and make a home together. Ginny had supported his decision. She hadn’t liked it, but she’d understood it. He’d gone to college online and long distance, making the drive to and from Manhattan twice weekly while working full-time on the farm, building his own house and doing his best to prove that the decision to marry had been right.

Eve had felt neglected, and he hadn’t even seen it until his mother had pointed it out to him. That was when they’d decided to have a baby. Eve had been talking about it for a while, but he’d been focused on other things. Suddenly it had seemed like a good idea. Eve would have a baby upon whom to focus her attention, and he could take care of his business without worrying that she felt lonely, and he’d liked the idea of being a dad.

The amazing thing was how blind he’d continued to be after Eve’s death. He’d refused to see that staying out of church was hurting everyone around him but God, himself included, while all along God had been patiently waiting for him to wise up and come home. He’d focused on his own pain and loss, to the exclusion of everything and everyone outside his own immediate family, until the whole town had been threatened with extinction. Even then, it had taken a little girl’s second birthday wish and a shy, sweet woman with a pink rosebush to make him see what he needed to do and where he needed to be. The question was, where did he go from here?

It was a question he’d tried to avoid, but it suddenly gnawed at him, wouldn’t leave him alone. He could barely keep from squirming.

His dad erupted with a cheer, throwing himself forward in his chair and howling at the TV. “Run, run! Slide in there. Safe! Yahoo!”

“Your father’s whole day is made,” Ginny quipped, waving a hand at Tate. “The Royals go into the ninth inning four runs ahead.”

“That’s enough of a breather for me,” Tate declared, on the edge of his seat. “How about you, Lily?”

Her head came up. “I beg your pardon?”

“You interested in watching the rest of this game?”

She glanced around, blinking as if just becoming aware of her surroundings. “Uh, I’m not much of a baseball aficionado.”

“So you don’t mind missing the rest of the game?”

“No.”

“Great. Let’s go then.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Lily helped Isabella sit up then rose to her feet. Isabella bounced onto her feet, too.

“Not you,” Tate instructed, waving Isabella back. “You’re staying here.”

“Why can’t I come?”

“Because I said so.”

“But—”

“You want your cake, don’t you?” her grandmother asked quickly.

Isabella’s eyes lit up. “Yum.” She dropped back down onto the sofa.

Tate grabbed Lily’s hand and hauled her out of there before he could think better of what he was doing. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to analyze it. He was taking a chance, but so be it. Things would either work out or they wouldn’t.

“Thank you for dinner,” she called to his parents as he dragged her from the room. “I enjoyed myself.”

“You’re welcome,” Ginny called after her.

“Come anytime!” Peter yelled.

“Bye, Lily!”

“Bye, Isabella. See you soon.”

Tate pushed through the kitchen door and out onto the porch. They were halfway to the truck when Lily asked, “What’s the hurry?”

He stopped where he was and turned to face her. “No hurry. No hurry at all. I just thought we’d go for a drive before the sun sets.”

“Oh. That sounds like fun.”

“Yeah,” he said, surprised, given that the idea had just occurred to him. “You haven’t had a chance to see much around here, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Good. Then I’ll show you around.”

“Great.”

They loaded up and set out. For almost two hours they drove around the countryside, first around the Bronson acreage, all two thousand of them—or as many as could be reached by vehicle. Then they set out to explore the remaining compass points. He showed her the Happy Havens Animal Shelter, various farms and ranches, the little country chapel tucked into a pretty dale, the lovely old bridge built over a babbling creek, everything he could think of that might interest her.

“This land isn’t as flat and featureless as I first thought it was,” Lily said after a while. That surprised Tate. He wasn’t sure why, really. The plains of Kansas had long been stereotyped exactly as she’d described them. Having lived here his whole life, however, he’d always known their intricacies. Some part of him had assumed that Lily recognized their subtle beauty, too. And perhaps she did.

As they drove, the sky darkened to solider blue, the clouds at last scudding away, their underbellies painted with fiery reds and oranges as the sun sank below the horizon. The blue gradually gave way completely to gray and gray to black liberally sprinkled with diamond-bright stars and a three-quarter moon that hung so low he could almost reach out and touch it.

“We don’t have stars like this in Boston,” she said dreamily when he turned the truck at last for town.

He chuckled. “I expect you do, but the city lights probably hide them.”

“No doubt you’re right. Even in Bygones, the stars don’t shine as brightly as they do out here.”

“I’d like to see Boston one of these days,” he said casually.

She smiled as if remembering all her favorite places. “There’s a lot to see.”

“Do you miss it?”

She sat up very straight. “Not really, no. I did at first. Everything was so convenient there, and I’ll always love certain things about Boston, not to mention my family and friends. But I don’t miss it. The city seems terribly busy now. This…this is home.”

Tate nodded. It was what he’d hoped, what he’d wanted to hear.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked after a time.

“Anything,” he answered, and he meant it.

“Will you be attending church regularly now?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I was foolish to stay away so long.”

“Coraline says it was because you were angry with God.”

“It was. At first. I just couldn’t understand how He could allow Eve to die like that. I still can’t.”

“But you got over being angry?”

“Yes, I suppose I did. Somewhere along the way, I realized that, though God may have let Eve be taken from me, He had also given me Isabella.”

“But you stayed away from church anyway.”

“Out of pride, I suppose, and habit. And sheer idiocy.” He sighed and added, “But that’s all behind me now. I got it straight between me and God last night. I’m not saying I have everything figured out, but I know where I need to be from now on.”

“I’m so glad,” Lily told him softly, her eyes glistening behind her glasses.

Tate answered her smile with one of his own. “Say, you know what? I’m going to need some new clothes. That suit I wore this morning felt like it was strangling me.”

“Yes, I noticed that it was a bit tight across the shoulders.”