Runaway Bridesmaid (17 page)

See, some fish won't bite if the bait is waving in front of them. It's too obviously a trap. No, sir. Some fish, you have to just let the hook lie real still in the water, and then Mr. Fish will come up and not suspect anything and
chomp!

Trouble was, he'd been trying too hard with Sarah. Using the wrong bait for the wrong fish, as it were. Obviously, the “in your face” approach wasn't working. At least, not well enough. So maybe he should try a different approach.

God, he hated game-playing. But he was desperate.

They'd be back at her house in a few minutes; like as not, half the county'd be there waiting for them. He glanced over at her, saw her eyes were open; she seemed to have calmed down some, though the groove was still there.

“You okay?”

She nodded, then sighed. “Sorry I blew up earlier.”

“Forget it.” He paused, then they both said at once, “Listen—”

His heart jumped. “What?”

“No,” she said, her smile forced. “You first.”

He could tell there'd be no changing her mind, so he nodded. “Well…”

Oh, Lord, please let this be the right bait.

“I've been thinking a lot about this forgiveness business,” he began. “Expecting you to forgive me for how I treated you and all? So I asked myself what I would do if someone had done something like that to me.” He allowed a quick peek at the side of her face. “You know, like lying to me? Making up a story like that?” He shook his head. “And I came to the conclusion that I'd probably feel just like you do.”

“Dean—”

“No, hear me out. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I could forgive anyone who did something like that to me, either. So…I just want you to know that it's okay.”

“What's…okay?”

“If you can't forgive me. I understand, I really do. Finally got it through my thick head, I guess. Some things just can't be forgiven, I guess, not something that hurts that badly. I suppose I can't blame you for not trusting me.” They'd pulled into her driveway; Dean cut the engine, leaning his arm across the back of the seat, not watching her. “What could I possibly say that would change the way you feel about what I did?”

When she spoke, her words trembled. “So…what are you saying?”

He opened his door but didn't move right away. “That you're off the hook. I'm backing off, leaving you alone, getting
out of your life. If that's what you want. After the wedding, I'm gone. And up until then, I promise I won't bug you.”

“I see,” she said stiffly. “What about setting up your factory here?”

He shrugged. “It was just a thought, you know? Nothin' definite. All I know is, seems my return has made you one miserable woman. And I can't stand seeing you like this. So, if I can't make you happy by being around, maybe I can make you happy by leaving—”

“They're back! Mama, come on!”

Their eyes met for less than a second before the truck was surrounded by a barrage of relatives and friends and neighbors. Wordlessly, Sarah pushed open her door and lowered herself out of the truck, Dean following suit.

Her expression was branded on his mind, and it wasn't what he'd expected. He'd hoped she'd be surprised. Maybe even worried.

Not
terrified.

Oh, Lordy,
he thought as he pulled Katey out of the back seat, Sarah standing in ominous silence beside him. What had he done now?

 

Sarah was barely aware of what anyone said to her as she walked up the steps and into the house behind Dean, who held a sleepy Katey securely in his arms. All she heard were Dean's words, playing themselves over and over in her head like Jennifer used to play the same CD until Sarah was ready to throw both the album and her sister out the window.

Some things just can't be forgiven, not something that hurts that badly…

She felt her sister's arm slip around her shoulders.

“Lordy, you look awful,” Jen said with a little hug, not even seeming to care about the state of Sarah's clothes. “Everyone's so busy catering to Katey, and I bet you're the one who could use some TLC right now.”

“I'd prefer a Harvey Wallbanger.”

“Oh, right. This from the woman who gets woozy from white wine.”

“Woozy would be good,” Sarah said, sighing. “Actually, though,
fed
would be better.” She lifted her face like a hound dog. “Fried fish?”

“Enough for half of Opelika,” Jennifer said on a laugh. They'd made it as far as the living room, where Sarah sank into the sofa. In front of the roses.

She looked elsewhere.

“Lance retrieved all the stuff from the creek,” Jennifer was prattling, “and Mama and Ethel've been frying to beat the band for the past hour. And there's hush puppies and slaw and tomatoes and potato salad and God knows what-all out there.”

Sarah tried to laugh, but she was too tired and hungry and upset to manage. “Please, stop tormenting me and just haul me to the food.”

Now Jennifer eyed her with one side of her mouth quirked up. “Not in those clothes, I'm not.”

Sarah glanced down. “I see your point. Guess I'll change first.”

Which she did in record time, into a clean shirt and shorts. When she came down to the kitchen, the large room was crawling with folks like bees around a honeysuckle vine, Katey being the main flower. All the women clucked and oohed and aahed and said “My, isn't she just the
bravest
little thing?” a thousand times, while Vivian clucked the loudest of all. And Katey, who was no fool, immediately seized the moment and said in a small,
small
voice that really, all she felt like was some ice cream, please, and was now reaping the reward of the wounded and shoveling in mouthfuls of Rocky Road like there was no tomorrow.

Jennifer settled Sarah at the kitchen table and told her to stay put and let herself be waited on, for once. So Sarah stayed put, wondering whose full plate that was next to her and if he or she'd mind if she took just one of those hush puppies.

Dean, somehow now respectably outfitted in a deep green
T-shirt, slid down into the seat. She let the hush puppy drop as if it had bitten her.

“Go ahead,” he said coolly. “I can get more.”

She shook her head and folded her hands in her lap, gripping them to keep from crying. Part of her wanted to plead with him, to tell him it wasn't true, that she could forgive him, that she
had
forgiven him, which she hadn't even realized until just that moment. Another part of her wanted to bolt. For the umpteenth time in six days.

Lord above—what
was
it about this man that tore her in two like this? It was like a little kid's fascination with fire—it'd burn you if you got too close, but oh, it was
so
pretty.

Jennifer placed a mounded plate of food and a glass of iced tea in front of her, then disappeared.

“Try the fish,” Dean encouraged, no more personally than a stranger in a restaurant. “It'll melt in your mouth.”

Sarah took one look at her supper and suddenly her ravenousness of moments before vanished. She couldn't stand this. The past few days Dean had been variously contrite, pleading, cocky, arrogant, loving, and just plain friendly.

But never distant.

Her eyes stung, and the noise and events of the day had given her a rotten headache. She needed to eat, but that wasn't going to happen next to Dean. She stood up, picking up her glass first, then awkwardly balanced her plate on top of it and wended her way out of the kitchen, seeking solace and solitude on the side porch. A few minutes later, she heard the floorboards groan under her mother's approaching footsteps.

“Katey throw up from all that ice cream yet?” Sarah asked in the gray light, licking her fingers. The food was beginning to make her feel a little better. Sorta.

“You kidding? Since when does a kid get sick when they get what they want?” One hand went to her hip. “Guess you had quite a scare.”

“Scare?” Sarah took a swallow of tea and sighed. A soft breeze suddenly pushed through the screen, rearranging her
hair. “I thought I was going to lose it. I didn't know such a small head could have that much blood in it.”

The peacock-backed wicker rocker creaked as Vivian settled her ample frame into it. “That's pretty much what I thought, that day you took a tumble down the front stairs.”

Sarah frowned. “When was that?”

“Oh, goodness—must've been right after we moved into this house. So you were maybe three, four? Anyway, you suddenly decided you were a big girl and didn't need to hold on to the banister anymore. The next thing I knew, you were rolling down the stairs like a rubber ball. Cracked your head open and I thought I'd die.” She chuckled. “Screamed so loud Daddy thought
I
was dying, and he came running from his office on the double. I'm here to tell you I never saw a man turn so white in all my days. And him a doctor, no less. It's just so different when it's your own.” She crossed one foot over her knee. “Wanna tell me why you're out here and Dean's in the kitchen?”

Sarah had wondered how long it would take. She clattered her empty plate onto a little table beside the chair and drooped back into the chair, one foot up on the rattan footstool in front of her, watching the fronds of a ceiling-high palm swaying overhead. “Oh, you're gonna love this. Seems good old Dean has decided I was right.”

“About what?”

“About my not being able to forgive him.” She folded her hands in her lap. “He said that, in my shoes, he probably wouldn't be able to forgive me, either. That it would be asking too much. So, out of deference to my feelings, he's going to leave me alone. Back off. Hightail it out of here as soon as the wedding's over.” She angled her head toward her mother. “Just like I asked.”

“Oh. Hmm.”

Sarah laughed, a harsh sound that hurt her throat. “Yeah.
Oh.
Here I was,” she said, flinging her hand outward, “trying to figure out how to tell him about Katey,
ready
to tell him
about Katey. And now…” She gestured helplessly, then pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes swimming.

Vivian reached over, stroked her arm. “Trust, baby. You've got to trust how you feel about each other.”

Sarah raised her face, sniffling. God, she hated to sniffle. Angrily swiping at her nose with the back of her hand, she bit out, “Uh-huh. And trusting my feelings worked so well the last time, didn't it?”

“But this isn't then, don't you see that?” Her mother seemed unperturbed either by her daughter's outburst or what had caused it. She stayed quiet for a minute, apparently thinking things through, then said, “I sure don't know, though, what this sudden change in tactic is all about.”

Sarah was blowing her nose in her napkin. She stopped in mid-snort and stared at her mother. “Tactic?” The napkin lowered. “What do you mean,
tactic?
”

Vivian ignored her, blankly surveying the darkness on the other side of the screen. “But I
do
know the man's nuts about you.” Settling against the back of the chair, she folded her hands across her middle and said, “This time, love's gonna win out. You'll see, baby. You'll see.” With a last little pat, Vivian stood up and took Sarah's empty plate, then went back into the house.

Sarah gulped in a breath and let it back out on a sob, wondering how to break it to her mother that she was in serious need of a reality check.

Then, through the open French doors leading to the living room, she heard Katey's laughter. Followed by Dean's. She bit her lip as her heart twisted like a wrung-out washcloth.

In spite of Dean's precipitously changing the rules, the basic game plan hadn't changed: she still had to tell him the truth. So she got up, took in a deep breath and started toward the living room.

Just in time to see Dean walk out the front door.

D
ean winced as he straightened out his abused back, glowering at the burgundy-and-tan floral wallpaper in his parents' bedroom. The stuff must've been put on with superglue, he decided as he wiped his forehead and sweaty chest with an old towel his aunt had given him to use as a rag. He'd spent all day Thursday whacking at it, and now, the next morning, he'd still only managed to strip two walls. He'd hoped the physical activity would relieve some of his tension; instead, he was ready to use a blowtorch on the damn walls and be done with it.

His aunt had reacted with little surprise when he said he wasn't going to sell the house after all, but was instead going to fix it up and live in it. And she'd been downright jubilant about his plan to locate the factory in the area.

“It'll be good to have you home” was all she'd said, but her eyes had glittered and she'd smiled widely enough for Dean to actually glimpse teeth.

He checked his watch; he had an appointment with a Realtor in Opelika at eleven to look at possible sites, so he had to get
cleaned up. Jennifer had called last night, too, requesting an audience. That, he wasn't looking forward to.

He threw the scraper onto the floor with a satisfying clatter, then ran down the stairs, checking to see how Franklin was getting on with stripping the kitchen cabinets. The young man had been extremely relieved to discover he wouldn't have to move to Atlanta, after all. He was also more than happy to get on the payroll early by helping Dean with the house.

“How's it going?” Dean asked, pulling his T-shirt back on over his head.

“Counted twelve coats of paint, so far.” The young man lifted an arm to swipe a ribbon of sweat from his face. “Heck—kitchen'll be twice as big when we're done.”

Dean took a deep breath, then choked on the paint remover fumes. “You be sure to take off the doors and strip them outside, you hear? I don't want to come back to find you keeled over like a dead bug in the middle of my house.”

“Don't you worry, Mr. Parrish,” Franklin said on a deep laugh. “It'd take a lot more'n a few fumes to do me in.” But he began unscrewing one of the doors, anyway. “Now, you're not coming back to the house today, is that right?”

“Not for a week. After the wedding, I've got to go back to Atlanta, get things squared away there before I can return. But I don't think you'll be hurting for things to do while I'm gone.”

“You can say that again.”

“Hey—how's that cow?”

“Fat and sassy. If she don't have that calf soon, either she's gonna explode or Mama is. And I don't want to be around in either case, believe you me.”

Dean laughed, then left, zipping back to his aunt's to change into khakis and a knit shirt before his appointment. By the time he met Jennifer for lunch at a little diner in town two hours later, he was feeling almost mellow. The agent had shown him several properties, and the rents were downright cheap by Atlanta standards. He could be ready to start production in less than a month if necessary, which should appease his client.

His sense of well-being evaporated, however, the instant he caught Jennifer's expression as he approached her booth. Blazing away in a bright red sleeveless top, she'd already ordered and was stuffing in French fries as if she hadn't eaten in a week.

“Uh-oh?” Dean said as he slid into seat opposite her.

She glared at him. “What the
hell
are you doing to my sister?”

Several patrons turned their heads; Dean lowered his own as he unfolded his paper napkin and spread it across his knees. “Nothing,” he whispered.

“Which would be my point,” Jennifer parried in typical Jennifer logic. She lugged a hamburger the size of a small planet up to her mouth, chomped into it. “I thought I told you to keep a high profile,” she managed to say, quite clearly, from around the bite in her mouth, sounding like a mother scolding a recalcitrant child.

“I tried that, Jen,” Dean said, keeping his voice even. “It worked about as well as trying to spread cold butter on fresh bread—”

“What can I get you today, good-lookin'?” interrupted a salmon-haired waitress with a figure that had gone a lot farther south than Alabama.

Dean nodded toward Jennifer's rapidly disappearing lunch. “What she's having.”

“And could you bring me another glass of milk?” Jennifer added, watching the woman bumble off to the counter with their order, before renewing her attack. “Look, buster, the last thing I need to be doing today is trying to patch up my sister's sorry excuse for a love life. In case it escaped your attention, I'm getting married tomorrow, and I'd really appreciate it if my maid of honor wasn't blubbering her eyes out during the ceremony—”

“Sarah's been crying…?”

The waitress plunked an oval earthenware plate piled with food in front of Dean, let her gaze linger a little longer than necessary, then merrily trundled over to another table.

“Like Niagara Falls.” Jennifer stuffed the last bite of hamburger into her mouth. Clearly, her concern for her sister had not affected her appetite. “You've got to do something.”

Dean took a double bite of the overdone hamburger. “And what,” he finally said, “do you expect me to do, exactly?”

“Throw her down somewhere and have your way with her, maybe?”

“Oh,
that
would go over well.”

Her own fries long since dispatched, Jen was now blatantly snitching his. “Why
haven't
you been around, anyway?”

“I've been too busy,” he said around another mouthful, pushing his plate over so she wouldn't have to reach so far. “Jen…listen to me. It's just not up to me anymore, whether or not Sarah and I work this out.”

“And how do you figure that—is that chocolate cream pie over in the case, do you think?”

He twisted around and caught the waitress's eye, ordering two pieces of pie when she came over. Since he'd lost out on his fries, the pie wouldn't hurt. “I don't know what else to tell you,” he said around the last bite of his burger. “I've tried pleading, groveling, chasing, charming and something damn near to seducing. Nothing's worked.”

“Then you have to try harder.”

The waitress set down the pie in front of them. Dean picked up his fork, fiddled with it for several seconds, then dared to meet the determined gaze in front of him. “Jen, I've tried as hard as I can. I think we're all agreed that there's something else going on here, but until Sarah or
somebody
gives me a clue as to what that something is—” he guillotined the end of the pie, shoved it into his mouth “—I'm fresh out of ideas, I'm afraid.”

Jennifer forked in her pie in uncharacteristic silence.

“Shoot, Jen—are you
that
used to always getting your own way?”

He was surprised to see tears glittering in those turquoise eyes when she looked up. “In case you haven't figured it out, this has nothing to do with me. Well, okay, I'd like to not have
my wedding ruined, it's true. But I'm much more concerned that my sister's
life
isn't ruined, you know?”

He handed her a paper napkin, and she loudly blew her nose. “Not nearly as concerned as I am, Jen,” he said softly. “But I can't make her happy unless she lets me. And so far, she just doesn't seem interested in doing that.”

“I just wish I understood
why,
” Jennifer said on a huff.

“So do I, honey. So do I.” Still chewing, he picked up the guest check that the waitress had let flutter onto his side of the table, glanced at it, then rose from the table. “You done?”

“With lunch? Yeah, I guess.” Jennifer downed the last of her milk, then slid out of her seat, slinging the thin strap of a dainty red purse over her shoulder. She poked his arm as he started toward the cashier. “With you? Uh-uh.”

As they stepped out into lung-searing midday heat, she asked, leading him toward Lance's office, “So what are you going to do tonight?”

Tonight. The rehearsal dinner. Dean squinted through a scrim of heat at some kids crossing the street, draggling a half-grown, gangly pup along with them, and his heart cramped at the pure, unbridled joy radiating from the little group. He shifted his gaze back to Jennifer's tight-lipped expression. “Jen—give it up, okay? If Sarah doesn't meet me halfway, there's not a whole helluva lot I can do.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on top of her curls, which were beginning to frizz in the humidity. “See you at the church at four, right?”

“Yeah,” she said on a rush of air as they reached the renovated Victorian in which Lance rented a little office for his accounting business. “I guess.” With a despondent little wave, she disappeared inside the building.

Dean walked back to his truck in slow motion, mulling over the conversation. The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he got. All that revelation about fish and bait was all well and good, but it all still boiled down to the fact, at some point, the fish still had to take the bait.

But maybe that was the problem, he thought as he headed back to his aunt's house. Maybe Sarah'd taken the bait
too
well. Maybe now she was afraid he'd really changed his mind, and she didn't know how to change it back.

Good Lord. This was enough to make him forget he'd ever learned the word
woman.
Now he'd blown it—
again.
Why couldn't he have just left well enough alone? He'd at least been making some progress, and then he had to go get some hare-brained idea about fish and bait.

Think. He had to think. He had one more day.

For twenty minutes, until he pulled into his aunt's driveway, he kept drawing blanks. He'd already tried everything, just like he'd told Jennifer.

When in doubt,
his mother had always told him whenever he complained about things getting screwed up,
try praying about it.

Huh.

But what to pray for? Asking God to deliver Sarah up to him didn't sound quite right. Even he knew you can't pray for something just because you want it, because that's selfish. So, it had to be an unselfish asking.

But how about…just asking God to bring Sarah a sense of peace about whatever it was that was tormenting her so much? And if somehow, Dean could be a part of that, well then, he was willing to do what he could.

Satisfied, and more settled about all of it than he'd been since he'd come home, he went into the house, startled his aunt with a big hug, then called Forrest in Atlanta and told him about his meeting with the Realtor.

 

“You're going to wear
that?
”

Sarah glanced down at the simple black silk sheath and frowned. “What's wrong with this?”

Jennifer—who was poured into a white linen sundress splashed with red Georgia O'Keeffe-esque poppies—heaved a dramatic sigh as she swept into the room. “Hello? It's
black?
” She flapped her hands at her. “Take it off.”

“And replace it with…?”

“You mean, that's
it?
”

“Jen, you've lived with me all your life. You know what I wear.”

“Well, I obviously don't expect you to wear stockings and heels to go mucking around in a barn. But you mean, there's really nothing else?”

“Not unless something miraculously self-generated in my closet since the last time I looked, no.”

“Then you'll just have to wear something of mine.”

“Oooh, no. I'm five inches taller than you are. Your stuff'll come up to my fanny.”

“And this is a bad thing?”

“Oh, Jen—get serious.”

“Oh, I'm serious. Trust me. Hey—I gave in about your wearing lavender. But there is no
way
you're wearing black to my rehearsal dinner.”

“Black's sophisticated.”

“Black's
funereal.
”

Sarah sank onto the edge of her bed, emitting a particularly loud sigh of her own. “Considering how I feel, I'd say it was entirely appropriate.”

Since Jennifer was busy flicking through the paltry selection in her closet, Sarah couldn't hear what she assumed was a snide reply. Suddenly, her sister twirled around with a peach crepe shirtwaist clutched triumphantly in her hands.

“What's wrong with this?”

“I'd look like Aunt Ida.”

“Like you don't in
that?
”

She had a point.

“Humor me.” Jennifer thrust out the dress. “Try it on.”

Sarah had acquired the dress under protest, right after Katey's birth. Aunt Ida had insisted she needed to buy something with a waist in it to make her feel skinny again. To shut the garrulous woman up, she'd bought the first thing her aunt hadn't made a face at, worn it once, then ignored its presence in her closet ever since. It was the last thing she felt like wearing tonight, but, once again to shut someone up, she put it on.

“Now,
this
has promise,” Jennifer said. “Look…blouse it
a little, like this…” She poufed out the bodice over the belt. “That brings the skirt up a little higher and makes the slit sexier….”

“I'm not doing sexy, Jen.”

“Yes, you are. Be quiet. Okay, now…” She undid the top three buttons and hitched up the collar so that it framed the back of Sarah's neck. Jennifer twisted around and looked in the mirror at Sarah's reflection, then pulled her mouth into an appreciative smirk. “So, what do you think? And negative answers are not acceptable.”

“It's…not bad,” Sarah admitted, studying her reflection.

“Are you kidding? You
rock.
Oh—hold on…I'll be back in a sec.”

She dashed out, returned with a set of plain oversized pearl earrings.

“I've never seen you wear these,” Sarah said, clipping them on.