Karen Templeton – Meant-to-Be Mum (страница 8)
“Visiting, apparently. Because the rest of her family is still here.”
“So I suppose she’ll be there. At the wedding?”
“I...imagine so.”
“Then I’ll get to see her. She still cute?”
Cole laughed in spite of himself. “She’s the same age as me, Lizzie. Thirty-five.”
“And I’m ninety-one next birthday. And still cute as a damn button. Although why buttons are supposed to be cute, I have no idea. Okay, gotta go scope out a good spot for the movie before all the good chairs are taken, I’ll see you on Saturday. The wedding’s at two, but pick me up at one-fifteen, I want to get a good seat in the church. And dress nice, for God’s sake, I got an image to keep up!”
“Dad? What was that all about?”
His phone pocketed, Cole turned to his daughter. “Your grandmother’s aunt Lizzie asked me to take her to a wedding on Saturday. Meaning you guys get to go, too.” He frowned. “Do you even have a dress?”
A look of utter horror flashed in his daughter’s eyes. “I have to wear a
Just shoot him now.
As Cole drove through the retirement community gates to pick up his aunt, the kids merrily bickering behind him, he grumpily acknowledged that it was a perfect day for a wedding: bright blue sky, puffy clouds, the barest breath of a breeze set at exactly the right temperature.
Unlike his own wedding day, which had been marked by miserably cold, torrential rains, the tail end of some far-reaching hurricane. Not that it would have mattered, the ceremony being a justice-of-the-peace affair with only their immediate families in attendance. Because neither he nor Erin had wanted a fuss. As if getting married was no big deal. Like buying a couch.
Except, looking back, they’d probably discussed the pros and cons of Ikea over Pottery Barn far more than they had whether or not to make things legal between them.
He still had the couch. Ikea. Erin’s choice, and Cole pretty much hated it, but she hadn’t wanted it when they broke up, and the thought of buying another one made Cole’s brain hurt. So there it was, along with the rest of the crap from his apartment, in storage. Although even he had to admit, after more than a dozen years of food spills, ground-in city dirt and more than a few unidentifiable stains, he supposed he should really think about buying a new one. Couldn’t be any worse than dress shopping with his daughter, right?
Mercifully, the kids called a cease-fire as he drove around to Lizzie’s apartment, a ground-floor unit with a courtyard view.
“I’ll go get her,” Wes said, bounding out of the car and up the short walk before Cole could ask, the beginnings of a swagger evident even though the kid’s legs hadn’t yet acclimated to his growth spurt. Of course, that might have had something to do with his “cool” outfit, all of the kid’s choosing—khakis, designer sneakers, untucked dress shirt with preppy tie. Cole released a sigh, relieved that the boy seemed to be getting his mental feet under him again, at least, even if not his virtual ones.
Lizzie popped through her apartment door the instant Wes knocked, all dolled up in something flowery and floaty Cole vaguely remembered from his sister’s wedding twenty years before. But with a floppy yellow hat and gold ballet slippers to complete the look. And jewelry. Lots and lots of jewelry, dangling and jangling as she made remarkably fast tracks toward the car, jabbing her cane into the sidewalk so hard he half expected to see sparks.
Wes scurried up from behind to open the car door for her, earning him a squeal of delight and a pat on the cheek. Even if she had to reach up a foot to do it.
“Such a good boy!” she said, carefully arranging sticklike limbs as she lowered herself inside, giving off enough mothball scent to fell a horse. “So rare to see good manners these days. Thank you, honey,” she said to Wes when he climbed back into his seat. Then, as Cole backed out of the parking space, she twisted around to smile for Brooke, letting out a little gasp of delight. “And don’t you look pretty, sweetheart! Is that a new dress?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
Chuckling, Lizzie turned back around. “Tough customer,” she muttered over the soft whirr of the car’s airconditioning, and Cole thought, with a smile,
Brooke could do a lot worse than to take after the old gal.
“What an absolutely gorgeous day,” she said as they headed toward the church on the other side of town, closer to his old neighborhood. Behind them, both kids plugged into their phones, probably playing games. Cole couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or relieved. “It’s funny,” Lizzie went on, “how as you grow older you learn to appreciate all the crap you took for granted when you were younger. Like pretty days.” She poked his arm. “And weddings.”
Cole grunted. Weddings. Yeah. Not his favorite thing. Especially weddings where Sabrina Noble would be present—
“So what are you up to these days?” Lizzie said. “Still messing around with all that computer stuff?”
“Same old, same old,” Cole said, grateful for the subject switch, even as he mentally shook his head at his aunt’s take on his work. Although he supposed “messing around with all that computer stuff” was how it appeared to most people. Hell, there were plenty of times it seemed pretty trivial to him, too...until he opened his monthly statement from his investment broker.
“I’ve seen some of the people here playing that game on their whaddyacallits, those little flat TV screens you carry around?”
“Tablets?”
“Right. Those things. Or their phones. Your mother tried to convince me I needed one, but really, where do I go that I need to carry a phone around with me?” She let out a cackle. “The laundry room?”
Fortunately, she easily kept up both their sides of the conversation for the rest of the way to the church—a lovely, nineteenth century stone relic, built in a time when most of the then-predominately Catholic community went to mass every Sunday. To someone whose only church experience had been the occasional visit to the Quaker meeting house downtown, All Saints felt ridiculously overdone. Until he got inside, where a syrupy light filtered through jewel-toned stained glass windows, and giant ceiling fans gently hustled air pleasantly thick with the scent of flowers and ancient, much-polished wood.
Both kids were suitably awestruck. “It’s really pretty in here,” Brooke whispered, taking Cole’s hand. Ahead of them, Lizzie clung to Wes’s elbow, chattering a mile a minute, her voice ricocheting off the rafters. Amazingly, his son didn’t seem to mind. Brooke giggled, then gave Cole a sheepish smile.
“I’m glad I’m wearing a dress.”
Smiling, Cole squeezed her hand. “So’m I. Even though it’s scary.”
Pale blond brows scrunched at him. “Why?”
“Because you look way too grown-up in it.” He shuddered, which got another giggle. Because she was still his little girl. At least for the next five minutes.
They slid into a pew, the wood smooth as glass. “I forget,” Lizzie said around the kids, sitting between them, “how peaceful old churches are.”
Then, because he was clearly a masochist, his gaze drifted back to Sabrina. Damn, she was gorgeous, her dark hair loosely piled on top of her head, a pair of dangly silver earrings grazing easily the most beautiful neck in the world—
“Dad? You okay?”
Cole smiled for his son, even as he thought,
“Aren’t the flowers pretty?” Lizzie said, nodding in obvious approval at the simple floral displays on the altar, large cut-glass vases overflowing with branches of mock orange blossoms. “That’s her grandmother’s doing, I’ll bet my life on it. We have a million of those bushes on the property. She probably got them from there. Absolutely gorgeous. Oh! Isn’t that Sabrina? Sitting down there with the family? My goodness—she hasn’t changed a bit, has she?”
Physically? Maybe not. He doubted she’d gained five pounds since he’d last seen her. But the pretty teenager he remembered had nothing on the fully ripened woman sitting twenty feet away, her smile—as she kept up a conversation with the babbling baby on her lap—twisting his heart even more than it had the other night.
A heart he didn’t dare let be twisted. Not now, not by anyone...but especially not by Bree.