Where Azaleas Bloom (24 page)

“I see,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Lynn. You’ll never know how sorry I am for using
you like this. I think one reason I’ve lashed out at Mitch the way I have is
because he’s the man I wish I could have been for you. I saw the way he looked
at you and knew that never, not even once, had I been able to look at you with
that much passion.”

Lynn had never felt so emotionally exhausted in her life. “I
need time, Ed. I need to think about all this.”

“Can we work something out?” he asked. “I know I have no right
to ask, but I’d like to keep this quiet. It’s not something I want the kids to
know. I don’t want to shatter whatever shred of respect they might still have
for me.”

Lynn gave him a pitying look. “Ed, don’t you know by now that
your kids won’t love you any less for being gay? The only way you’d lose them is
by treating them and me badly.”

“There’s that Pollyanna side of you,” he teased, though his
tone was more weary than amused. “You’re living in a dream world, if you believe
that, Lynn. If all this comes out, I will lose them.”

“Don’t you think it’s going to come out if you take off with
Jimmy Bob?” she asked incredulously. “You’re not going to be able to have it
both ways, Ed. You can continue trying to live a lie, or you can tell the world
and live with the consequences. I don’t think you’ll ever be truly happy unless
you choose the latter.”

“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “I’m just not sure I’m that
courageous. This is going to kill my mother. And Dad’s not going to be all that
happy when he figures out how I’ve damaged the business, what I’ve stolen from
it and from you.”

“They’re your parents, Ed. They love you. Once they get over
the shock, they’ll be in your corner. Tell them now, before they find out some
other way.”

“How?” he asked. “How do you tell your parents something like
this?”

“You told me, didn’t you?”

“Only because you had my back to the wall,” he said. He studied
her. “Will you use what I’ve told you?”

She heard the real fear in his voice. The skepticism she’d been
developing about him recently made her wonder if all this hadn’t been a huge
ploy on his part. If he’d been capable of such a depth of duplicity all these
years, why not one more grand act now, one designed to have her call off
Helen?

“Do you plan to change your tactics and drop that ridiculous
custody suit?” she asked.

“Done,” he said at once.

“Then I’ll speak to Helen. I think she’ll want to have all of
us sit down and mediate this before our next scheduled court date.”

“Whatever you need,” he said at once.

“How do you intend to resolve the blackmail, Ed? You can’t live
with that hanging over your head. And if you go to the police, it will all come
out, anyway,” she said, almost feeling sorry for the dilemma he’d found himself
in. Sure, it was of his own making, but on some level she could understand the
choices he’d made. She might not be ready to forgive him for them, but she could
understand them. He’d always craved the respect that the town had bestowed on
his father. In marrying her, he’d simply been living up to expectations, or
trying to.

He gave her a sad look. “Thus the Cayman Islands,” he said
ruefully. “Once again, I was planning to take the easy way out.”

“Let me ask you one thing, then. If you’d won this custody
suit, would you have tried to take Lexie and Jeremy with you?”

“I honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he said. “Jimmy Bob
thought it was a tactic that might scare you into doing whatever it took to put
an end to your demands and just cut me loose.”

She regarded him sorrowfully. “That’s a real pattern with you
these days, isn’t it? Not thinking things through, letting someone else
influence the choices you make.”

“Yeah, that’s one of those life lessons I’m going to be
spending a lot of time working on,” he said.

He stood up then, took a step toward her, then seemed to think
better of it and stepped back. “I’m sorry, Lynn, not just for what I’ve put you
through lately, but all of it. You’ll never know how sorry. You’re a wonderful
woman, and you didn’t deserve any of this.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said.

Not for anything she’d done, but for not understanding sooner,
for not seeing how much pain her husband was in, living a lie. She’d loved him
blindly for so very, very long. She’d never thought there could be such a thing
as too much love, but maybe she’d been wrong. Over the years she’d written off
too many things, made too many excuses for him, accepted too much of the blame
for the flaws in their marriage.

As he approached the door, he turned back and asked, “How are
the kids?”

“Unhappy,” she said. “Scared. They miss their father, or at
least they miss believing that you might actually care about them.”

“I’ve made such a mess of this,” he said, his voice filled with
regret. “I will find a way to make things right, I promise.” He hesitated, took
a step back into the room. “I was going to take off, let you think about all
this, but I wonder, would you mind if I stick around till the kids get home from
school?”

Lynn thought about the request. She knew it wasn’t too much to
ask. “You’ll keep what we’ve talked about to yourself?”

“Of course,” he said at once. “If we decide to tell them any of
this, we’ll do it together.”

She nodded then. “Okay, then, stay. In fact, why don’t you
spend the evening with them, too? I have somewhere I need to be, someone I need
to see.”

He gave her an oddly sad look. “Mitch?”

She regarded him with surprise. “Why would you assume I’d go
running to him?”

“Oh, please, Lynn, you’ve been wearing your heart on your
sleeve for a while now. Why do you think I attacked him in court? It’s the
hottest topic at Wharton’s these days. Everybody loves a story about a guy who
once never stood a chance finally getting the girl.”

She smiled at the description. “Believe me, I’m the one who’s
finally gotten lucky.”

There were probably a thousand things yet to be resolved, and
more difficult moments ahead than she could possibly imagine. Even so, she left
the house without a backward glance, her heart lighter than it had been for
months.

* * *

Lynn made a brief stop at Helen’s to fill her in on Ed’s
stunning revelations. “He says he wants to mediate an immediate settlement, that
he’ll drop the whole custody suit,” she told her. “Can we still do that?”

“If that’s what you want to do, absolutely,” Helen said.

“This is what you were trying so hard not to tell me, isn’t
it?” she asked.

Helen nodded. “I just hadn’t gotten the kind of proof I wanted
before saying anything.”

“I appreciate your caution. I’m not sure I would have believed
it without hearing it straight from Ed. I’m still shocked that I could have gone
so long thinking we had a halfway decent marriage.”

Helen smiled. “Halfway decent isn’t expecting a lot. You
deserve more.”

Lynn thought of Mitch and smiled back at her. “I think I’m
finally figuring that out. I need to find Mitch.”

“Will you tell him?” Helen asked.

“Only that it finally looks as if this will be over soon. The
rest…” She shrugged. “It’s up to Ed to tell people, or not. Personally, I hope
he’ll get it all out in the open. I think he’ll be surprised by how many people
might stand by him. I think this town has a generosity of spirit he’s
underestimated.”

Helen looked doubtful. “Maybe, if he’d been honest from the
beginning,” she cautioned. “But now, after all he’s put you through? I just
don’t know, Lynn. It could be too late. It’s not about him being gay. It’s about
all the rest—what he’s done to cover it up, the pain he’s caused you and his
children.”

“I still believe people will find a way to forgive him,
especially if I show them the way.”

“You can do that, even now?” Helen asked, clearly
surprised.

Lynn gave it some thought before answering, then nodded. “I
want him to be here for Lexie and Jeremy. And I want them to learn about
forgiveness and letting go of anger, not for Ed’s sake, but for theirs. It’s
funny how I held on to my anger toward my parents for so long, and only now can
see that the only one I’ve been hurting all these years is myself. I don’t want
that for them. We all need to move forward.”

“Okay, then. I’ll schedule that mediation session for tomorrow.
There’s no time to waste. I imagine that for once in his life, Jimmy Bob will be
wholeheartedly cooperative.”

Lynn’s laugh was only a little strained. “You’d think so,
wouldn’t you?”

“You look as if the weight of the world has been lifted from
your shoulders,” Helen observed.

“That’s exactly how I feel. You have no idea what a relief it
is to know finally that none of this was my fault, that I didn’t somehow fail as
a wife. I couldn’t have saved my marriage no matter how hard I tried.”

Helen waved her toward the door. “Go. You look as if you’re
going to burst if you don’t see Mitch soon.”

“I just might,” Lynn agreed, grinning.

The paperwork might not be final, the details of the settlement
might not be nailed down, but it was over, and she was free to move on,
emotionally if not quite legally.

And this time, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she’d
found a man trustworthy enough to treat the love she had to give with the
tenderness and respect she deserved.

23

F
lo stood outside the assisted-living
facility where Frances had finally been settled just this morning, tears
streaming down her face. Donnie immediately wrapped his arms around her.

“She’ll be okay,” he murmured soothingly. “You know she will.
This is where she needs to be, and it’s a real nice place. You were lucky to
find it right off, and even luckier that they had an opening.”

“But she looks so sad and lost,” Flo said. “I think she’s
gotten worse just since she moved in.”

“I imagine she’ll be a little disoriented at first, but she’ll
find her way around. You and Liz can come over here every day to visit, take her
over to the senior center, play cards with her, go out to lunch. You can even
take her to those Sweet Magnolias margarita nights, if she’s feeling up to it.
Isn’t that the advantage of finding a good place so close by?”

Flo gave him a sad smile. “Donnie Leighton, do you know how
much I love you for trying to make me feel better about this?”

“I’m always going to be around to try to cheer you up,” he
promised.

“Thank you for coming with me tonight. When Liz said she didn’t
feel up to it, I was dreading coming by myself. I knew I’d spend the whole time
imagining that day when I’d have to make the same decision Frances and her
family just made.”

“You’re a long way from needing a place like this,” Donnie
scoffed. “Besides, you have me. I’ll take care of you.”

She smiled at the way he said it without hesitation. “I’ve been
thinking about that lately,” she admitted.

“My taking care of you?” He frowned. “You’re not going to start
carrying on about me being younger, are you?”

“No.” She put her hands on his arms and looked him in the eye.
“What I was going to say is that I’ve been reconsidering something.”

Unmistakable hope flared in his eyes. “Such as?” he
prodded.

“The whole marriage thing,” she said, then quickly added, “Now,
personally, I don’t need it. I’m happy enough just the way things are, but I’m
wondering if maybe I’ve been a little too stubborn for my own good and maybe
even thinking too much about myself and not even a tiny bit about you.”

“You stubborn? Imagine that!” he said, a glint of amusement in
his eyes.

She scowled at him. “Are you going to let me get this out, or
do you intend to mock me?”

“Since it’s starting to sound as if listening might be in my
own best interest, I’ll be quiet as a church mouse from here on out,” he
promised.

Flo gave a little huff. “Then, as I was saying, I’ve been
thinking maybe I should reconsider, possibly even say yes to your proposal.” A
smidgen of uncertainty crept into her voice, which ticked her off. “That is, if
the offer’s still on the table.”

The smile that spread across Donnie’s face was answer enough.
“How soon?” he demanded, grinning.

“I imagine we could go down to the courthouse tomorrow, get
this done pretty quickly.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, Flo Decatur. You marry me, we’re going to
make a fuss about it. We don’t have to get married at church, but we will have a
fancy ceremony and a reception with all our friends. I imagine Helen’s going to
want to make sure the knot is tied nice and tight.”

Flo laughed and threw herself into his arms. “Yes, I imagine
she will.”

“Of course, that said, I don’t want to take any chances you’ll
think it over and change your mind again, so let’s say a week from Saturday.
Would that suit you?”

Flo’s heart skipped a beat or two, but she figured it was a
good thing under the circumstances. “A week from Saturday would suit me just
fine.”

He kissed her to seal the deal, then looked into her eyes.
“Want to go back inside and share the news with Frances?”

And that, she thought, was why she’d finally said yes, because
this man knew her as no one else ever had.

“You read my mind,” she said, holding his hand as they walked
back inside to share the news with one of her very best friends.

* * *

Lynn had to search all over town before she finally
found Mitch working in one of the downtown buildings he and Raylene were
renovating for new businesses. After spotting his truck at the curb, she parked
next to it, walked through the door and grabbed a hard hat. She could hear
hammering coming from the back room.

When she saw him, she took a minute to drink in the sight of
this man who’d been so kind, so patient, so loving, without asking for a thing
in return. Thank heavens he was alone, because what she had in mind didn’t need
witnesses.

He finished driving nails into a piece of drywall, then leaned
over a table to study some plans, giving her an excellent view of that
denim-clad backside of his. When he finally looked up and turned her way, a
smile broke across his face.

“This is a surprise,” he said, just as she reached him, stood
on tiptoe and sealed her lips over his. When she finally broke away, his smile
widened. “And
that
was an even better surprise.
What’s going on, Lynn? We agreed—”

“I’ve come to my senses,” she said, interrupting him.

“I didn’t know there was ever any question that you weren’t in
full possession of them,” he said.

“I’ve allowed you to back off, haven’t I?”

She started to reach for him again, but he put his hands on her
waist and held her carefully in place while he searched her face. “Not that I’m
not thrilled to pieces if you’ve had a change of heart about the game plan, but
do you mind filling me in on why? All the reasons I walked away are still valid,
aren’t they?”

“Not so much.”

“I’m going to need more than that.”

“I just had a long conversation with Ed,” she said, as if that
were explanation enough.

“And I look fantastic by comparison?” he inquired, his tone
wry.

“You do, but that’s not it,” she said, grinning because he was
so darn good at making her smile. “I realized that thanks mostly to you, I’ve
let it all go—all the anger, all the bitterness, all the self-derision for
allowing my marriage to fail. It’s gone. All I felt when he was there baring his
soul to me was relief. We’re going to mediate a settlement, probably tomorrow.
The fighting is over, Mitch. It’s really and truly over. In a few days or
whatever it takes to get it filed and approved by the court, I can truly put my
marriage behind me and look toward the future.”

There was relief in Mitch’s eyes, but an unmistakable hint of
caution in his voice. “You sound awfully sure for a woman who’s been put through
the wringer for months now.”

“It’s over,” she said emphatically. “You’ll just have to trust
me on that for now.” She looked into his eyes. “Can you do that?”

“Trusting you has always come easy to me,” he said. He led her
to a sawhorse in the middle of the room. He sat down on that and pulled her onto
his lap. “Tell me how I fit in.”

“Any way you want to,” she said. “But I was thinking we could
start by getting out of here and going to your place or the Serenity Inn or
wherever else you’d like to go for some privacy.”

His eyes lit up at the suggestion. “And the kids?”

“Ed’s with them.” She gave him a hopeful look. “I could
probably persuade him to take them home with him for the night, if you think
it’s a good idea.”

“I think it’s an outstanding idea, if you’re sure.”

“I haven’t been sure of a lot for a very long time, but I am a
hundred percent sure about this.”

“And after?” he asked. “What do you envision happening
next?”

She hesitated. “I haven’t thought any further than what I want
tonight, to be in your arms.”

“Well, I have.” He drew in a deep breath. “I need to say this
first. I want you to know that I loved my wife. Amy was my world.”

“I know that,” she said, scared of where this might be going.
Was he going to say this was it, an affair and no more?

“Then you also need to know that a tiny part of my heart must
have been held in reserve for you all that time, because when this thing started
between us, it felt right from the very beginning. It felt as if we were
destined to find each other at just this time in our lives. So for me, this
won’t be some one-night stand or a fling. If that’s what you have in mind, Lynn,
count me out. I want the real deal.”

Breathless, she looked into his eyes. “The real deal?”

“Marriage, forever, all of it. I want you to marry me. I want
to be a stepdad to your kids. I want to be there when Lexie gets her heart
broken so I can help you wipe away her tears.” He shrugged. “Or make the life of
the kid who hurt her miserable.”

She smiled through a few tears of her own. “She’d like
that.”

“And I want to keep teaching Jeremy what I know about
construction. Maybe it’ll be his calling. Maybe not, but I like the idea of
passing it along. My own boys weren’t interested.” His gaze held hers. “And I
want to make you happy. I want to make sure you spend the rest of your life with
no cares in the world.”

“I doubt you can ensure that,” she said, “but I love you for
wanting to try.”

“So?” he asked. “What do you say? What do
you
want?”

She drew in a deep breath. Just coming after him this afternoon
had been a risk. The next step seemed astonishingly risk-free. “I want to spend
the rest of my life with you,” she said softly. “I don’t think I realized how
much I wanted that until just this minute.”

Mitch stood up, still holding her tight, and spun her around
until she was a little dizzy. Then he studied her intently. “That was a yes,
right?”

She laughed. “It was definitely, absolutely yes.”

“It’ll be sunset soon,” he pointed out. “Should we toast our
future at my place with a glass of lemonade?”

“Isn’t Luke around?”

Mitch muttered a frustrated curse under his breath that had her
smiling.

“You know there’s a big tradition in this town for romances
getting started at the Serenity Inn,” she told him. She touched a hand to his
cheek, felt the heat rise. “From what I’ve seen those romances tend to
last.”

Mitch shook his head. “Darlin’, I want more for us.”

“And we’ll have it,” she promised. “We’ll have a whole lifetime
of more and better and the very best, but for now I just want you to love
me.”

“Would a fancy dinner after be in order?” he teased.

She smiled. “Let’s see how it goes,” she said. “We might not be
out of bed by dinnertime.”

His booming laugh filled the room…and her heart.

* * *

Mitch leaned on an elbow and studied the woman stretched
out beside him. They were in this forever now. Even if making love to Lynnie
hadn’t cinched the deal for him, the gossip that was bound to be making its way
straight to Wharton’s by now would demand it. The Serenity Inn might have
sheltered many a romantic tryst over the years, but Maybelle wasn’t known for
keeping the word of those trysts to herself.

Lynn sighed next to him, then stretched, showing off that
gorgeous body of hers and distracting him from his best intentions to take her
out to celebrate.

“You’re awake,” she murmured in surprise. “Why didn’t you wake
me up?”

“I was content just looking at you,” he said. “This has been a
long time coming. I wanted to savor every second.”

She smiled at him. “In case I haven’t mentioned it, you’ve made
me feel like a new woman.” She paused then added, “
Your
woman. And this may not make a lot of sense to you, so you’ll
have to trust me, but I have never been loved like this, Mitch. Never.”

Mitch smiled. “That was the goal. I love you, Lynnie.” He
studied her, his expression sobering. There was something he needed to know.
“What brought this on? I mean I know we were destined to get here, but today?
What happened?”

“You seduced me,” she said, her tone a little too flip.

“I think I could make a strong case that this was on your mind
when you found me working on those renovations downtown.”

“Yeah, it kinda was,” she said. “I thought we’d waited way too
long.”

“You’re not going to tell me what Ed said or did that brought
on your change of heart, are you?”

She shook her head. “I can’t, Mitch. Can you accept that I
might never be able to tell you everything?”

Mitch thought about that. Secrets were no way to start a
relationship, but something told him this would be an exception he’d have to
learn to live with. “Because you made a promise?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Then I’ll have to honor that,” he said. “But no more secrets,
okay? They’re death to a marriage.”

Her lips curved into a smile filled with irony. “No one knows
that better than I do,” she said. “Believe me.”

He reached over, stroked a hand along the curve of her hip,
felt her skin blaze beneath his touch. “So, do you want to go out for
dinner?”

She shook her head. “I want to stay here and talk about the
future.”

“Our future?”

“Yes. Is that presumptuous of me?”

“Hardly. As Helen would say, I think that question’s been asked
and answered. We will get married.”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure I recall a proposal,” she
teased.

“Really? Well, let me correct that right now. Will you do me
the honor of marrying me, Lynnie? I promise to love and cherish you all the days
of our lives. I’ll support whatever you decide you want to do, though personally
I’m really counting on your moving forward with that bakery idea.”

“Even though you could have me as your own personal baker all
the time?”

“Even then,” he said. “I want you to do whatever will fulfill
you. I want you to be your own woman, so you’ll never be scared again. Doesn’t
matter if it’s the bakery or something else. Your choice.”

“I think I really, really want to open the bakery,” she finally
dared to admit.

He chuckled. “Good thing, because I’ve been looking at fancy
professional ovens and have a few things on hold.”