The Wedding Garden (11 page)

“You might be surprised.”

He doubted it. “He’s helping restore the garden. He can take pride in that. Even if no one else knows the truth, Justin will know this is his heritage. The Hawkins name used to matter—Lydia and her parents and grandparents helped build this town. That’s all I can give him.”

Annie gave him a long, searching look. “Maybe it is.”

And he wondered what she meant.

She stepped away from the rail and settled in the rocker. A hummingbird hovered like a tiny helicopter over the vacated space before zooming toward the rose arbor.

“I remember your mother, Sloan. She was a good person, too. Don’t forget that part of who you are. When I was small, Daddy would take me into the diner for pie. Joni knew my favorite was banana cream and always served it with a free piece of bubblegum on the side. I’m sure she paid for that herself. And she’d talk to me as if I was somebody important, not just a little girl tagging along with her daddy. She was a lot like Lydia in that respect.”

Sloan had never made the comparison. “I guess she was.
She’s been gone so long sometimes I forget the details of the time we had together. But I know she loved me.” He chuckled softly and held his arms out to the side. “Hey, what’s not to love?”

Annie didn’t go there. “Don’t you wonder where she went and what became of her?”

“Sure. I wonder where she’s living—
if
she’s still living—if she married and had other kids. If she’s happy. Mostly, I wonder why. I could never accept that she would abandon me the way she did.”

“But there’s no other explanation. Her clothes were gone and so was she.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “She could have left a note.” The memory of that last night surfaced, familiar because he’d relived it hundreds of times. “She promised to take me fishing. Up until that night, Mama had always kept her promises.”

Annie stopped rocking. “I agree. That part is odd.”

“I think so, too.”

“Maybe she forgot. Or maybe she was caught up in the moment.”

“Maybe,” he said, a tad morosely. “If she forgot, it was the only time.”

“Tell me again what you remember. I’ve heard a mix of stories over the years until I can’t sort fact from fiction.”

“That’s Redemption,” Sloan said, surprised not to feel bitter. God must really be working on him. Or maybe he was too mentally exhausted from the funeral to muster up the resentment. “The night she left, there was a man in the living room with her. She knew I worried when she let people come to the house late at night and crash on the couch. I know what other people thought, but Mama wasn’t…what they said. She had a big heart. Her family had died in a car accident and she said she’d never forgive herself if she let a drunk drive and
somebody else was killed the way her parents were. So she’d take a guy’s keys and let him sleep it off on the couch.”

“The man you saw was drunk?”

“That’s the weird thing. He wasn’t. And he wasn’t the usual type Mama brought home.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was fancier.” He shrugged. “I told your dad all this the next day but he didn’t find anyone fitting my description. I was a kid. My observations were too vague.” The diner had called Chief Dooley when the dependable Joni didn’t report for work. The chief had picked Sloan up from school and told him his mother had apparently left town during the night. Sloan, accustomed to getting himself off to school, had assumed his mother had gone in at six for her usual shift. “The man wore a blue dress shirt and dark slacks. Most of Mama’s visitors were regular guys, truckers, laborers. They didn’t dress up. This guy wore a fancy turquoise bracelet. I remember distinctly thinking it was a sissy piece of jewelry for a man, and that Mama was safe with a sissy.”

“Maybe he was rich and promised her a better life.”

“And he didn’t want an eleven-year-old kid tagging along.” With her husband in prison, Joni was a lonely woman struggling to make ends meet in a small, judgmental town. Life could not have been easy for her. Still, the idea that his mother could forget him stung. Perhaps that was why he’d never quite believed it.

“Oh, Sloan, I’m sorry, but that’s the way it looked then and the way it looks now.”

“I know.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his tired eye sockets. He’d not slept much in the past few days. “But I’m still puzzled by something else that didn’t fit. Everyone said she left with a trucker she met at the diner.”

“But no one remembered his name.”

“Right. No one could pinpoint a specific trucker who’d been in the diner that night. And no one had seen Mama leave with anyone. She was a good mother. Why did she go without a word to anyone, especially her only child?”

“Back then, I never thought about it, but now her actions seem out of character to me, too.”

“I’ve tried to figure it out for years and come up empty every time. I suppose the puzzle will never be resolved. And Redemption will never forget.”

They sat in thoughtful silence for a while, the heat fading with the day.

At one point, Tara came to the porch to announce the trio was going for pizza. Annie had laughed. The house was filled with food and the Virginians wanted pizza. After his friends departed, Sloan and Annie talked about the funeral, about Lydia, about life in general.

With Annie sitting next to him, rocking slowly back and forth in Lydia’s chair, Sloan’s imagination went crazy. There were so many unanswered questions between them—questions that, like his mother’s disappearance, would never be answered—but he couldn’t help wishing he could freeze the moment. Being with Annie felt right. It always had.

He wanted so much to tell her everything.

Love warred with truth. Would telling her the truth about that long ago night hurt her more? Or make things right between them?

“Annie.” His shirtsleeve whispered against wicker as he reached across the short space and twined his fingers with hers.

She turned toward him, green eyes serene and curious. In the garden, bees buzzed and a gentle, hopeful breeze coaxed fragrance from the blossoms.

Annie’s cell phone rang, vibrating against the metal patio table. She withdrew her hand from his to answer. “Hello?
Dad?” She slanted a glance toward Sloan. “Yes, I am. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Her shoulders drooped in annoyance and she rolled her eyes but got up from the chair and turned her back to Sloan. Her voice was low and intense. “Today was the funeral, Daddy. Don’t you have any compassion?”

Compassion. Right. Sloan didn’t have to be a genius to decipher the content of their conversation. He got the message. Chief Dooley didn’t want his daughter hanging out at the Hawkins’ house even on the day of a funeral.

The call ended and Annie snapped the phone shut with a little too much force. She came back to the wicker rocker but didn’t sit. The call had clearly agitated her. “What were you about to say?”

Jaw tight, Sloan shook his head. Some things were better kept inside. “Nothing important.”

“W
ho was that gorgeous redhead?”

Annie and her friend, Jilly Fairmont, a redhead herself, browsed the racks at Zinnia’s, the only clothing store in Redemption. They’d been rehashing the week’s events, including Lydia’s funeral and the restoration of the Wedding Garden. Justin was working with Sloan as usual, and Delaney skipped around Zinnia’s, talking to everyone in the place.

“Her name is Tara. She works for Sloan’s security company.”

“Works for him?” Jilly looked doubtful. “Are you jealous?”

Annie pretended interest in an orange tank top. “Of course not. Why would I be?”

Then why had her stomach clenched the moment she’d seen the petite Tara clinging to Sloan’s elbow?

“Oh, please, Annie, spare me the pretense. This is your BFF you’re talking to. I know all your secrets.”

Well, not all of them. “Sloan and I are old news. I wish everyone would understand that and stop trying to push us together.”

“Then why are you still hanging around the Hawkins’
place? And why do your cheeks flush and your eyes light up whenever I mention his name?”

She was asking herself the same questions. The answer was simple. Annie Markham was an idiot. “Lydia worried about how Sloan would handle her death. She asked me to be there for him. I’m a friend helping a friend through a difficult time. As a nurse, that’s my job.”

“As simple as that?”

“Yes.” There was nothing simple about her confused mass of feelings about and for Sloan Hawkins. Using Lydia’s request was her best excuse. She
had
promised, though being with Sloan every day was harder and better than she’d imagined. His learning about Justin further complicated the issue. She definitely felt something for him. With all her heart, she prayed it was only friendship.

“Very nice of you to be so compassionate. I’m sure Sloan appreciates having his old flame at his beck and call.” Annie whacked her with a hanger, and Jilly’s freckled nose wrinkled in laughter. “I think it’s kind of romantic. Mr. Tall, Dark and Dangerously Handsome comes back to town after all these years to find his first love divorced and lonely, just waiting for him to sweep her off her feet.”

“You watch too many Hallmark movies.” Annie yanked a skirt from the rack and held the beige cotton against her body. “I am not lonely. I have two active kids, a busy church, a demanding career, plenty of friends.”

“And no boyfriend. Not one date since Joey the Jerk hit the trail.” Jilly yanked the skirt from her hands and jammed it back on the rack. “Too frumpy.”

“I’m
not
lonely,” Annie insisted, riffling through the skirts some more. “I don’t have time for dates. My life is full.”

“Why don’t you ask Sloan out? I dare you.”

“Jilly! I’m going home if you don’t stop. Besides, my father would have a fit.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Annie. You’re a grown woman.”

“Tell my dad that.”

Jilly laughed. “I’ll pass.”

“That’s what I figured.” Annie took a white blouse from the rack. “What do you think of this one?”

“Too frumpy.”

“Would you stop saying that? I’m a nurse and a Christian. I dress modestly.”

“Dressing modestly is not the same as living in scrubs and wearing your grandma’s cast-offs.” Jilly extracted a satiny turquoise button-up. “Try this. It’ll look great with your eyes and show off that curvy figure.”

“Ooh, that is pretty.”

With her usual exuberance, Jilly wiggled her eyebrows and said, “I’m sure Sloan would agree.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “He’s going back to Virginia soon.”

“After the house sells and the garden is completed,” Jilly shot back. “Which could take months.”

“Jilly, seriously. I don’t need the grief. Sloan will leave. That’s the whole point. I can’t take another loss. Let it go, okay?”

Jilly’s bow mouth dropped open. “Oh, wow.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was just kidding around, but—” Jilly cocked her head to one side, a hand to her hip “—oh, Annie. Girl, girl, girl. You’re in love with Sloan Hawkins.”

The next afternoon Annie cleaned and sorted the medical equipment inside Lydia’s old bedroom. The medical supply company was coming to pick up the oxygen bottles and other reusable objects in a while.

From here she could see outside. She thought about how
much Lydia had enjoyed watching the progress in the garden and ached with missing her patient and friend. The old Victorian seemed quiet and sad without her.

She went to the window. Delaney had ingratiated herself with Sloan to the point that he’d hired her, too. Annie figured the child was in the way, but Sloan claimed she added an element of cheer and was a terrific gofer. Delaney had giggled, thinking he meant a small, furry rodent. At the moment, the nine-year-old dangled by her knees from a maple branch, singing at the top of her lungs, her long, pale ponytail pointing toward the ground.

Meanwhile, Justin did the real work. He lugged a large pot of something toward the far end of the garden. She was proud of her son. After he’d paid restitution for the broken windows, he kept working for Sloan by choice.

She sighed.
Sloan.
Every other thought was of him.

Jilly was right. She’d fallen in love with him despite her best intentions not to. But he hated this town and he would leave again. He’d told her as much.

Early this morning his guests had returned to Virginia, but not before Annie had noticed an undercurrent between Sloan and the beautiful Tara.

Well, who was she kidding? Sloan was an attractive man. Naturally, he’d have girlfriends.

She wondered why he’d never married.

He came into sight around a flowering shrub. T-shirt plastered to his body, face glistening with sweat and smudges of dirt, he tossed an arm over Justin’s shoulders. Annie’s heart fluttered like the butterfly feasting on the magenta blooms.

Father and son.

Part of her was glad for the attention Sloan had given their child. Justin had desperately needed a strong male in his life. Another part worried about what would happen once Sloan
returned to Virginia. She’d tried to broach the subject with both of them and gotten nowhere.

Joey had already wounded Justin, and Annie’s father hadn’t helped with his tough cop mentality. Would another rejection shatter her child completely?

She’d have to try talking to Sloan again.

The hair on the back of Sloan’s neck tingled. He dropped his arm from Justin’s shoulders and glanced at the veranda. She wasn’t there.

He scanned the side of the house, coming to a stop at Lydia’s window. The quick stab of sorrow snagged his breath. Lydia wasn’t there, either.

“She wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

Sloan pivoted toward his son. Like him, Justin was a sweaty, dirty mess. “When did you become a mind reader?”

“Miss Lydia told me.” His shoulder hitched. “Sometimes she’d make me read to her and she’d tell me stuff.”

“Make you?”

“You know. She liked to hear me. Said I reminded her of you.”

The idea of his aunt patiently nurturing his son squeezed Sloan’s heart. “She knew about you even before I did.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Sloan stood in silence taking in the house the Hawkins family had called home for over a century. There were a lot of secrets in that old house, a lot of love and laughter and living, too. If only walls could talk.

“Mom was standing at the window a minute ago.”

Sloan removed a glove and whacked the dirt against his thigh. Was he that obvious? “She’s been a good friend helping me out.”

Balancing on his toes, Justin crouched next to a perennial bed and pinched the dead head of a coneflower. “You could take her out for pizza or steak or something. Pay her back.”

“Better not.”

Justin tossed the wilted flower aside and stood, dusting his already filthy hands on his jeans shorts. “Why?”

He knew the question went deeper than a steak dinner. “I can’t stay in Redemption, Justin.”

“Why not?”

“Life is complicated. I’ll explain it to you someday.”
When I figure it out for myself.

“Don’t you like my mom?”

Sloan sighed. The kid was killing him. “Your mom’s great. I’ll expect you to take care of her and Delaney after I leave.”

The belligerent expression, gone most of the time of late, returned. “I’m just a dumb kid.”

“A kid, yes. Dumb, no way. Chip off the old block, remember?” He clapped a hand on Justin’s back. “You gonna be okay when I return to Virginia?”

The boy looked down, kicked a dirt clod. “Will you come back?”

Now there was a sticky question. “Maybe.”

“So if you’re leaving anyway, what could it hurt to take my mom out for pizza? I mean, as a thank-you gift, sort of?”

Sloan laughed. “See? I told you you’re not dumb. Come on, let’s finish planting those butterfly bushes before you get us both in hot water.”

The old-fashioned Redemption Hardware and Tack Store smelled exactly as Sloan remembered. He stopped in the doorway as nostalgia overwhelmed him. Axle grease, burned coffee and power tools—a man’s paradise. As a boy, he’d hung around the back waiting for a chance to help load a stove or other heavy item for a few cents’ tip. On especially hot days the owner, Simmy-John Case, descendent of the town’s founder, bought him a bottle of pop.

A head poked around the jumbled end cap of one aisle. Except for a few lines and a few extra pounds, Simmy-John hadn’t changed much. His hair was still black as ink and he still limped from a war wound. “Be with you in a minute, Sloan.”

A man didn’t get that kind of personal attention in the new megastores. Until now, he’d resented the notoriety but lately—well, lately the town seemed different. Death made people kind.

Expecting to find the lawnmower blades on his own, he waved the man away, though Simmy-John’s lined face had already disappeared. “No hurry.”

As though his subconscious remembered the store’s layout, Sloan headed toward the west side of the building past a bin overflowing with a hodgepodge of red bike reflectors, mismatched drawer knobs, and silver mailbox stencils. Green bread-loaf shaped mailboxes lined up next to oscillating fans and electric screwdrivers. He found the mower blades and carried them to the check-out counter near the back of the store, where three men leaned on their elbows, talking to the proprietor. One was an older farmer in jean overalls—Orville Warp. Another was Jace Carter, the quiet local contractor. The last was G.I. Jack, though Popbottle Jones was nowhere in sight.

“How you been, Sloan?” Simmy-John asked, making no move to check him out. Being “neighborly” was part of small-town etiquette. Rushing in and out without a real good excuse was considered rude.

“Doing pretty good. Yourselves?” Sloan’s greeting took in the group. Except for Jace, they were men he remembered from childhood.

“Fine as frog hair,” Simmy-John answered. “Sure was sorry about your Aunt Lydia. A finer woman never drew breath.”

“Funeral service was nice,” G.I. interjected. He was sorting through a pile of bolts and screws.

“How is Mr. Jones?” Sloan asked.

If G.I. was surprised at the question, he didn’t show it. “He’s all right. A little down.”

Sloan understood too well. “Tell him I asked about him.”

“Drop in anytime and tell him yourself.”

“I just might do that.”

Orville threaded thick fingers through his suspenders. “Heard you were opening the Weddin’ Garden again.”

A little taken aback at the rumor, Sloan fiddled with the shrink-wrap packaging. “No, just doing some upkeep.”

“Is that a fact? Well, that’s not what we heard,” Simmy-John said, taking the mower blades from Sloan. “I was just going to ask if you’re booking weddings yet. My daughter—I don’t know if you remember Sunny—she has her heart set on having a wedding in the garden just like me and her mama.”

Sloan remembered Sunny Case, but he couldn’t imagine the popular former cheerleader remaining single this long. She was close to his age.

“We still have a lot of work left to do, though I’m trying. Lydia wanted the garden restored and I’m determined to see it through before the place sells.”

“Pretty big task by yourself.”

“You’re right. It is. I’ve thought about hiring more, but I have a good helper.” Though, the garden was slow in coming and the work needed to be finished soon or left undone, the fact remained Sloan liked spending one-on-one time with Justin this way. He’d learned a lot about the boy, the town and even Annie. Having Justin around kept Annie close, as well.

How pathetic an admission was that?

Simmy-John pointed a scanning device at the back of the mower blades and a beep sounded. “Heard that, too. Annie
Markham’s boy. He’s a pistol, ain’t he? Always into one thing or the other. Needs his britches fanned, I’m thinking, but Chief Dooley covers up for him since his daddy run off.”

Sloan took offense at the remark. “Justin’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s a good kid. And he works hard. If I had ten more like him, the garden would be open by fall.”

Orville sipped coffee from a disposable cup before tossing it in a trash can. “Did you say you were selling the Hawkins estate?”

“That’s the plan.” He figured on having a sale to liquidate the furniture, but first he had to go through everything, remove personal items, photos, papers, and make decisions on what to keep. The thought of the task ahead depressed him enough that he’d been putting it off to work on the garden instead.

“A Hawkins has owned that land since the Run,” Simmy-John said. “Won’t seem right with new owners. Sure you won’t change your mind and stay on?”

The question bewildered Sloan. He never expected anyone in Redemption to actually want him to live in the house again. “My business is in Virginia.”

“Exactly what kind of business are you in, Sloan? We’ve heard different things.”

Sloan laughed and told them, mulling the fact that he wasn’t offended by the nosiness. According to the gossip from Annie, he was evil on a motorcycle, selling drugs to babies or gambling away his inheritance like his daddy.

G.I. scooped a handful of black screws and dumped them into a paper cup. “I coulda told you that, Orville. Sloan is a security expert. If you want someone to guard your backside, he’s the man. Heard he was mighty good at it, too. Saved a senator from an assassin a while back.”