The Secret Wedding Dress. Roz Denny Fox
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tossed steaks on a built-in barbecue. “She gave their names. You already know her dad’s Joel. I believe she called her mother Lynn. I only saw him briefly, hauling luggage from his vehicle. I never caught sight of the wife.”
“Maybe she stayed behind to tidy up the house they sold in Atlanta.” Carline helped herself to a small cluster of grapes even as Sylvie tried to lift the plate out of her reach.
Stopping at the door, Sylvie turned. “That’s something else the girl mentioned. She said her cat’s only ever lived in an apartment.” Sylvie was again reminded of her tumble from the neighbor’s tree as she nudged open the screen with her hip.
“Gosh,” Carline exclaimed, pausing with a grape raised to her mouth. “Maybe there is no Mrs. Mercer. I mean, if they lived in a city high-rise…”
Sylvie recognized the expression that passed between her sisters. Their dedication in matching her up with some—any—unattached male always shone like a thousand-watt lightbulb. “Stop right there! It’s not too likely that a divorced guy with one kid would buy a home the size of the Whitakers’. Especially not in a backwater like Briarwood. Where’s the future for him?”
Dory pounced immediately. “Who said Mercer’s divorced? Did his daughter say that?”
Sylvie noticed the look again, and rolled her eyes. “Get this straight once and for all, you two. Capital N, capital O in foot-high letters. Whether he’s divorced, widowed, never married or openly gay, you will not shove me in his direction, is that patently clear?”
“Openly gay?” the sisters chorused with laughter that was cut off when Sylvie banged the screen door.
Her neighbor’s name didn’t surface again during the meal, for which Sylvie was thankful. But as she and Chet prepared to leave, Nan Shea set a big plate of chocolate chip cookies on the pan Sylvie had brought a molded Jell-O salad in. “What are the cookies for?” Sylvie turned in surprise.
“Do you mind running them over to your new neighbors? I can’t because tomorrow and the next are my days to volunteer at the library. Chocolate chip cookies are so much better eaten fresh.”
A refusal rose to the tip of Sylvie’s tongue. Knowing her mom, she’d rearrange her entire day to deliver the cookies herself if Sylvie didn’t. Besides, Sylvie recalled Rianne Mercer’s tear-streaked face. If anything would lift a homesick kid’s spirits, it’d be chocolate chip cookies. “Okay, Mom…if Mercer’s still up unpacking boxes when Chet drops me off, I’ll bring the cookies over tonight.”
Dory tried unsuccessfully to pull the plate from Sylvie’s hands as she signaled her mom with an eyebrow. “I’ll take them to Mr. Mercer in the morning, and add something from Grant and me. Mother, I’m sure Sylvie was planning to offer Chet a nightcap, weren’t you, Sylvie?”
“Actually, no,” she shot back, bestowing her most practiced smile on her escort. “I heard Chet tell Daddy he wanted to get an early start tomorrow for his drive back to Asheville. I wouldn’t dream of keeping him up late. Maybe next time he’s in town…” She let the suggestion linger, hoping against hope that she’d also heard Chet say he’d completed his company’s project in Briarwood.
To the man’s credit, he seemed to catch on to the fact that he hadn’t elevated Sylvie’s heart rate.
“Sylvie’s right, Dory,” Chet said quickly. “I intend to be on the road by 6:00 a.m.”
“One drink, you two. How long would that take? Unless…” Dory pouted prettily, her meaning made plenty clear.
Sylvie opened the door and hurried out, but not before murmuring tightly, “Dory, honestly! Give me a break.” Sylvie knew that few could pout like Dory. She had it down to a science. So much so, her husband, Grant, bless his heart, chuckled and playfully clapped a hand over her mouth.
Pausing at the gate, Sylvie thought of something she’d forgotten to mention. “Carline,” she called, “Ted Moore’s mom was taken to the hospital today. He and Anita went to Tennessee. They have no idea how long they’ll be gone. I’m boarding Oscar. Did Anita get hold of you about sending their wedding gift directly to Kay and Dave?”
“She left a garbled message on my store phone. She must’ve been on her cell somewhere in the Smokies. Half the message was cut off. That’s too bad about Mrs. Moore. I hope she recovers.”
“A small stroke, Anita told me.”
Nan Shea stepped off the porch. “No stroke is small when you’re eighty, as Ted’s mother is. If they left suddenly, they probably forgot details like watering the plants or having someone collect the mail. I’ll call around tomorrow and see if anyone’s doing it. If not, I’ll get a volunteer from the community club.”
“Mom, you’re the best,” Sylvie said from the car. “Your organizational ability puts us all to shame. I had Anita standing right in front of me and it never occurred to me to offer that kind of help.”
Rob slid an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I recall Nan making a similar comment to her mom forty years ago. I’ll tell you girls what your grandmother said, and I hope you remember, because it left an impression me. Lou said that what makes Briarwood so livable has to do with each resident practicing what she called ‘good neighbor policies.’”
Sylvie and her sisters nodded, but Sylvie felt that her dad’s eyes rested the longest on her. As Chet shut her into his coupe, she pondered her reluctance to extend any kind of neighborliness to Joel Mercer. Her father’s admonition left her feeling guilty, and she hated the feeling.
“Do you get bombarded like that all the time?” Chet asked as he backed out of the drive.
Sylvie’s still-guilty gaze flashed to her companion. “Pardon?” Could this man read her mind?
A sheepish expression crept over his face. “Dory simply would not let me wiggle out of coming to dinner tonight. She was even more persistent that I pick you up. I have to admit I expected you to be an ugly duckling.” He flexed his fingers on the wheel. “You’re so…not that…I can’t imagine why she’s selling you so hard. Are you the town’s scarlet woman or something?”
Sylvie’s jaw dropped, then laughter bubbled up. “To my knowledge, that’s not a label anyone’s attached to me. But if I thought it’d discourage my well-meaning family and friends from setting me up with any Tom, Dick or Harry who still happens to be breathing, I’d start the rumor myself. Oh, sorry.” She covered her mouth. “I didn’t mean to imply that you fell into the geriatric singles group. Some have, though.”
“No offense taken. I have a mother and four sisters who can’t abide the notion of anyone walking through life except as a couple. Change that to read a male and female couple. I heard your comment earlier. The one about a man being divorced, widowed or openly gay. I am. Gay, but not openly. My family would never accept that, so it’s easier to sidestep their efforts to hook me up with some nice woman. I sort of wondered if you and I were in a similar boat.”
Sylvie was awfully afraid she probably resembled the large-mouth bass often pulled from Whitaker Lake. “I, ah, no. I’m arrow-straight, really.” She felt her ears burn and studied the pan and the plate of cookies resting unsteadily on her lap.
He winced. “Too bad from my perspective. I fancied I glimpsed a kindred spirit back there at your parents’. Forgive me for speaking out of turn,” he said stiffly. “No disrespect meant, but I sort of hoped maybe we could do a long-distance appearance-of-romance thing. Maybe string my folks and yours along.”
Thinking Chet had gone out on a narrow limb, baring his soul to a virtual stranger, Sylvie relented and gave him something in return. “I was badly hurt by a man in New York, whom I loved and trusted, Chet. My family doesn’t understand why I can’t embrace what they want for me, which is marriage. You and I probably do share a similar angst when we’re placed in our families’ crosshairs.”
Chet swung down her lane. He left his seat to open her door, but didn’t turn