Linda Goodnight - The Wedding Garden

“I’ll take that,” Sloan said and swallowed the last of his coffee. The fresh-ground brew went down smooth and warm.

“Thanks.” She smiled. And that simple little action made his belly flip-flop. He wanted to blame the caffeine, but he was a realist. Annie was getting to him big time.

He reached for the tray. Their hands touched. He grunted and made his escape.

Frankly, after a week he needed something better to do than to stare at Annie and relive memories of a painful past. A man of action, he was accustomed to fourteen-hour days and frequent trips all over the globe. Here in Redemption his smart phone kept him busy but not busy enough to keep his eyes and mind off Annie. Not being a man who particularly enjoyed suffering, he didn’t want to notice her. She obviously didn’t want to be around him, either.

He spent as much time with Lydia as her health allowed, but his sick aunt slept more than she was awake. When she felt up to it, he carried her to the veranda for some fresh air. Yesterday, he’d found the weed-whacker and gone to work on the fast-growing weeds around the porches. Today he’d find a lawnmower if he had to buy a new one. Anything to stay clear of Annie and those troubling memories.

Annie watched Sloan all the way down the hallway, walking in a loose-limbed strut exactly like Justin’s. She’d been terrified when he’d roared in on his Harley and intruded on her safe world. People in town were already talking, speculating on where he’d been and what he’d been doing. Most remembered him with sympathy as that poor little Hawkins boy whose mother ran off and whose father died in prison. But not everyone had been as kind. Some said he was a drug dealer. She’d done her best to squelch that rumor. Not that she had a clue what his life was like, but the Sloan she remembered was scared of anything addictive. He’d said his life was out of control enough. He wasn’t about to let drugs take over.

“Mom, can I go to Brett’s and play video games?”

She turned to find her son at her elbow. “Maybe later. I’ll have to call his mother.”

Justin’s gaze followed Sloan down the hallway. “You like that guy?”

The question came out of nowhere. Annie turned to study her son’s expression. “I don’t even know him.”

“That’s not what Ronnie says.”

Ah. So that was it. She should have known someone like Roberta Prine would resurrect the past relationship between her and Sloan. “What exactly did he say to you?”

“Nothing. Just stuff. He’s a loser.”

“Was that why the two of you got in a fight?”

Avoiding her eyes, he hitched a shoulder. “Maybe.”

Lord, forgive me for not believing in him.

She hooked an elbow around his neck and bumped his head with hers. He was nearly as tall as her now. By summer’s end, he would likely surpass her. Someday he’d be as tall as his father.

“Rumors hurt people, Justin. You have to learn to ignore them. Okay?”

One bony shoulder hitched. “I guess.”

Being a single mother was the most difficult job she’d ever tried to do. Justin had never been an easy child, but pre-adolescence was doing a number on him—and her.

“Mom?” He stared at his sneakers. The strings were untied, but she knew better than to get into an argument over that. She was learning to choose her battles.

“What, son?”

He fidgeted another moment. “I love you.”

Annie’s throat thickened with emotion. “Oh, baby, I love you, too. You’re my heart, my life.”

She kissed his cheek, something he rarely allowed these days and was gratified when he grinned and didn’t yank away.

Delaney bounced into the room, her usual sunshiny self, with the handheld video game she’d gotten last Christmas. “Justin, will you play Pretty Miss Dress-Up with me?”

Annie could see how much her son did not want to play the girly game, but he stepped away from her and said, “Sure.”

From the time Delaney had been born, Justin had doted on his baby sister. Regardless of his attitude in other areas, he was a gentle, loving brother. The knowledge gave her hope that beneath the sometimes sullen boy was a good man waiting to bloom. At least, that was what she prayed for.

She left her children side by side on the couch, heads bent over the electronic game, and headed to Lydia’s room to begin their morning routine. When she reached the doorway, Sloan was standing next to the bed, his side angled away from Annie so he didn’t know she was watching him. Lydia was propped up on a mile-high stack of pillows with the hospital table alongside, her oxygen cannula making its monotone hiss. Sloan’s big, manly hands held a hairbrush which he was gently drawing through Lydia’s white hair, over and over again.

Annie’s chest constricted.

She didn’t want to think of Sloan as tender. She wanted to think of him as a user, a troublemaker, a jerk of the highest magnitude.

But he wasn’t always, a voice whispered.

She batted away the thought like a pesky fly and hurried back to the kitchen.

Company arrived at ten.

Sloan was behind the push-style lawnmower, sweating buckets, his T-shirt soaked when Annie stepped outside and asked him to help Lydia to the veranda.

“She prefers you to the wheelchair.” Annie seemed irked to involve him, as if she could have done the job just fine alone. She likely could have.

Wiping sweat, he went into the kitchen, stuck his over-heated head under the faucet for a long, refreshing minute. When he came up, water sluicing, Annie stood next to him, a towel in hand. “Don’t drip everywhere.”

She sounded like a mother. Or a wife.

He clenched his teeth. Why did she have to be underfoot every day? Why couldn’t someone besides Annie serve as Lydia’s nurse? He would have taken a room at Redemption Motel, but what good was coming home if he didn’t spend every spare moment with Lydia?

With an annoyed grunt, he grabbed the towel and scrubbed his face and head with more vigor than was needed, then went to do his aunt’s bidding. With Annie handling the portable oxygen bottle, Sloan scooped Lydia into his arms. She felt frail and fragile, skin over bones, and Sloan’s chest ached with sorrow. Before his very eyes, his aunt was fading away.

Out on the long, shady porch, Sloan encountered the man who’d telephoned him two weeks ago with the news that Lydia was unwell. Over the phone, Ulysses Jones sounded educated and well-to-do, but as Sloan recollected, Popbottle Jones didn’t look a thing like his voice.

“Sit with us, Mr. Hawkins. I doubt you remember me, but I recall your mother very well.”

Sloan stiffened. Lots of men had known his mother. “Yes, I remember you.”

Who could forget the local Dumpster divers, Popbottle Jones and his quirky partner, G.I. Jack? They were notorious for their “recycling business” as well as for knowing pretty much everything in town.

“Your mother was a kind and generous heart.”

Sloan relaxed onto a metal chair opposite his aunt, pathetically grateful to hear the compliment. “Yes, she was.”

His mother had been a soft touch for anyone down on his luck or needing a place to crash for the night. After she’d left, Redemption seemed to have forgotten her good qualities. Sloan never had, though he’d been scared and angered by her abandonment. Sometimes he still couldn’t believe she had driven away and left him.

Annie came through the French doors carrying a tray of lemonade. She slid the flowered tray onto the round patio table. Fresh lemons bobbed in a clear pitcher. “Lydia’s recipe, though not as good as hers, I’m sure.”

Lydia’s lemonade was legend, as were the garden parties and weddings held here in the garden where lemonade had been the drink of choice.