The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek (23 page)

“Hi, Mrs. Thomas,” Bree said. “We thought the boys might not want to eat with the old folks.”

Birdie glared at her granddaughter.

“With the adults,” Bree corrected herself. “We thought we’d grab a hamburger, then go to the carnival at the middle school.”

“Carnval,” Missy added with a big smile.

“How nice,” Willow said.

The boys looked disappointed, glancing at Sam with adoration. Then their eyes turned toward Sam’s father and the three Widows and glazed over as if they realized what the evening with all these adults might be like.

“Okay,” the older one said as the other nodded.

“Is that all right with you?” Bree asked Willow.

“Of course. I’m sure they’ll enjoy that. Thank you.” Willow waved at the boys as they ran out the door.

“Bye-bye.” Missy followed the others outside.

As the door slammed shut, Birdie looked at the six still left. What in the world would they do with Sam’s father?

“Dad, I want you to meet these nice ladies from the church.” Sam introduced each. “Ladies, this is my father, General Mitchell Peterson.”

“We met at the door,” Birdie said. “And I remember you. Everyone called you Petey back then, when you were a kid.”

“Back when you visited Effie, years ago,” Mercedes added. “Before you were a marine.”

“Of course, ladies. Good to see you again.” His gaze returned to Winnie, who didn’t say a word.

“We call ourselves the Widows. We like to serve people in the church, and”—she raised her voice to speak loudly and clearly—“none of us is married.” She glanced at the general, then moved her gaze to Winnie. “No, we’re all single ladies, all three of us.

“Ladies, let’s go to the kitchen and put this meal together.” With that, her chest held as high and proud as a woman as thin as she could manage, Birdie led the Widows through the swinging door and into the kitchen.

“What are we going to do with him?” Winnie whispered.

“It’s what
you
are going to do, Winnie,” Birdie said. “Not us.”

Winnie frowned as she placed her dishes on the counter. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re going to take the general off our hands,” Mercedes said.

Winnie whirled around. “What do you mean?”

“You’re going to have to lure him away,” Birdie attempted to clarify.

With a gasp, Winnie said, “I can’t… what do you mean? I don’t have any experience in luring.”

“Did you see how Sam’s father watched you?” Birdie took a step closer when Winnie shook her head vigorously. “Did you?”

“You’re going to have to flirt with him,” Mercedes said.

“I’m a single woman, an old maid. I don’t know how to flirt,” Winnie protested. “I never learned.”

“You’re going to have to do it,” Birdie commanded. “For the cause.”

“You’re going to get him to take you out to dinner so Sam and Willow can be alone.” Mercedes spoke very slowly and clearly to get her point across.

Still Winnie shook her head.

“Okay, listen.” Birdie pulled a chair out from the table and guided Winnie toward it. Once she shoved Winnie into the seat, she sat across from her and glared. “Do you remember the plan?
Your
plan? We get rid of the children, we serve Sam and Willow, then we leave them alone. Right?”

Winnie gulped, then nodded.

“What should we do with the general?” Mercedes asked.

“I don’t know.” Winnie shrugged.

Birdie stood and leaned over the newest Widow, who didn’t look a bit happy to be part of the group at this precise moment. “The general’s interested in you.”

“He can’t be. Men have never been interested in me.”

“Well, the general is,” Mercedes stated.

“As I said, I don’t know how to flirt. I haven’t tried since I was twenty and was not notably successful back then.” Winnie glared at the others. “You may have noticed I’m not married. I’m not good or comfortable with single men.” She paused. “Is he single?”

“Yes, his wife died years ago.”

“Why doesn’t one of you do it?”

“Because Mercedes is keeping company with Bill Jones down at the bank.”

“Okay, but what about you?” Winnie glared at Birdie.

“I’m an old skinny woman who looks like a strip of beef jerky. He didn’t even notice me, but you’re pretty and feminine.”

Winnie opened her mouth to object.

“And he likes you,” Birdie added before the other woman could say a word. “He thinks you’re attractive.”

With a frown, Winnie considered this. “He does?” She looked from Mercedes to Birdie. “Do you really think he finds me attractive?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Birdie tugged the reluctant seductress to her feet and pulled her toward the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room. “Go get him.” She shoved Winnie out.

For a moment, Winnie froze as the other Widows stared through the little glass slit on the door a few inches below eye level. When the general looked up and smiled, Winnie started forward, walking in a bent-leg style, her hips swinging.

“She was right.” Mercedes groaned. “She has no idea how to seduce a man.”

“She’s going to break something,” Birdie whispered. “Her hip or her ankle.”

When the three in the living room saw Winnie’s posture, three mouths dropped open and six eyes opened wide.

“She’s going to ruin our plan,” Birdie whispered.

Fortunately, the general stood, approached Winnie, and gallantly held out his arm. She placed her hand on it. Actually, she grabbed it as if she were drowning and his arm were a life preserver swiftly floating past. He didn’t seem to mind.

As Winnie turned coyly away from the general, Mercedes and Birdie could see her working very hard to flirt. Birdie wished she couldn’t. It was too painful. Winnie batted her eyelashes as if they were butterflies preparing for flight, screwed up her mouth into an imitation of a Renée Zellweger pout—attractive on neither woman—and tilted her head as if her neck were broken. The final effort was a breathless, “Hello there,” accompanied by a Groucho Marx twitching of her eyebrows.

All of which seemed to delight the general. Thank goodness.

“Why don’t we leave these young folks alone and go out for a bite,” he said. “Just the two of us.”

Winnie looked terrified. Her eyes sought out the kitchen door. With the hand the general hadn’t captured, she gave a wavering thumbs-up.

“We’ll see you later,” the general said. “You two have a good time.” With that, he turned toward the front door with Winnie on his arm and hustled her outside.

“That was easy.” Mercedes straightened. “And you don’t look a bit like beef jerky.” She grinned. “Well, only a little bit,” she added with that infernal honesty. “You’re attractive in sort of a dried-up way.”

“Oh, just stop talking and fix the food,” Birdie said.

Once the Widows served dinner, Sam stared at Willow across the table. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He refused to talk about the weather or his prosthesis or the boys, which left little else.

“You know, we’ve never talked about Butternut Creek.” Good topic. “I used to visit during the summer and you grew up here. Maybe we have mutual friends.”

But after a few minutes, they discovered they didn’t. Oh, she knew Mitzi Harris, whose younger brother had played baseball with Sam. She’d dated Matthew Morgan, older brother of Annie, Sam’s make-out buddy, not that he mentioned
how
he knew Annie.

“Do you think we ever met back then?” Willow asked.

Neither could remember. After all, the last summer he’d spent here, he’d been a skinny fifteen-year-old and she’d been a sophisticated college student. They hardly ran in the same circles.

“Probably not,” she said. “You visited in the summer and I spent most of my summers working at camp or picking up extra hours at college.”

After exhausting that subject, they still didn’t have anything to talk about, at least not as long as the Widows wandered in and out to clear the table and pour coffee.

“As much as I like it, I didn’t have a thing to do with this,” he murmured as the women disappeared into the kitchen. “With our being alone.”

Willow smiled at him. Good. That was a start.

“I didn’t think you did. You looked as if you didn’t know we’d been invited.”

“Miss Birdie is a devious and determined woman,” Sam said as he noticed a pair of eyes peeking through the narrow slit in the kitchen door.

“She certainly is. And you looked as startled as I felt when Miss Jenkins hunted your father down.”

“She did, didn’t she.” He grinned at the memory. “Sort of stalked him.”

“I don’t think he minded,” she added.

“Guess their plan to get us alone hadn’t taken the general’s early arrival into consideration.” The entire situation struck him as so funny, he started laughing. She joined but, when she stopped, he glanced at her. Her gaze wandered across his face, almost in surprise but also with interest and attraction.

She blinked—a little dazed, maybe? “I haven’t seen you laugh before.”

He bet she hadn’t. Her reaction seemed like a good sign except she sat at the table on a chair and he sat across from her on another chair.

And that nice sofa stood empty in the living room.

Who was still in the house? He glanced at the slit again to see two pairs of eyes staring back. Not the time to make a move. He preferred to do his courting—if that was a viable option in this situation—without an audience.

Before he could say a word, the eyes disappeared. The sound of hushing and movement came from the kitchen followed by a loud “Good-bye,” spoken in unison. The door from the kitchen to the carport slammed loudly.

With all the stuff they were carrying, he hoped the remaining Widows could get out that way. The general had brought Sam’s car down, the classic Mustang. Before his injury, when he was home on leave he’d spent every free hour rebuilding it. With the Mustang there, the narrow carport was a tight fit. Still, the Widows either managed it or were going to spend the night there, because they didn’t come back in.

Now he and Willow were alone. To make sure, he stood, walked to the swinging door, and pushed it open. “Miss Birdie?” he said. No one answered, but on the counter was a CD player with several discs. Who had left that?

“They’re gone.” He allowed the door to swing back.

Willow leaped to her feet. “Then I’d better go, too.”

“What about your sons?” He walked toward her. “When Nick and Leo come back and you’re not here, they’ll worry.”

“Nice try, Captain. You can tell them I went home.”

“How will they get home? Do you want them walking in the dark, alone?”

“You make it sound as if danger lurks around every corner.” She paused to consider that for a few seconds.

He wondered if she was trying to think of an excuse to leave and a time when she should come back for the boys. He waited.

“You’re right,” she said after a deep sigh. “I don’t.”

He took her hand. “Why don’t we sit and talk? Get to know each other?” He attempted to make his voice sound casual and nonchalant, as if they were friends who wanted to chat and enjoy each other’s company.

Didn’t work. She tugged away and took a few steps to sit in one of the chairs, her hands folded primly on her lap.

But Willow Thomas could never look prim. Oh, she’d tried, pulling her hair back, but the soft brilliance of her red curls made him want to wrap a strand around his finger and… actually, everything about her made him want to touch her.

Sadly, she didn’t look as if she felt the same way. But she might. He wouldn’t know if he didn’t try. “I thought maybe on the sofa?”

“I thought maybe facing each other.” She pointed from her toward the sofa. “So we can see each other as we…​um…​chat.”

Her eyes showed a note of panic. He grinned, inside.

“Do you think I’m going to attack you?” He colored his voice with a note of wounded sincerity.

Her eyes flew open and she glanced up at him, worried she’d hurt his feelings, he guessed. She was a very nice woman.

“Of course not.”

Before she could figure out what he had in mind, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet, using the end table for balance and leverage. Ignoring her protest, he dropped her into the middle of the sofa and sat down next to her, his arm across her shoulders in case she tried to escape.

That didn’t work, either. She slid away from his arm and to the other end of the sofa. “I went to the University of Texas,” she said. “Finished my degree and got a master’s in physical therapy. Married. Moved to Chicago where the boys were born,” she concluded. “And you?”

“All over Europe and Asia with my parents. A&M, so I guess we’re rivals. Marines,” he said, matching her staccato delivery. “Iraq, then Afghanistan. Walter Reed. Here.” He wanted to slide closer but he didn’t have the smooth moves he used to. Lack of balance and lack of practice. Instead, he reached out to pick up her hand and used his thumb to rub circles on her soft palm.

At least he did until she pulled her hand away, stood, and sprinted to the other side of the room. Once there, she crossed her arms and glowered at him.

He’d blown it again. How many times did he have to remind himself that Willow didn’t react like the women he’d flirted with before?