The Lilac Bouquet Read online

  “What better be worth what?” he asked. “Do I need to come rescue you? Did you hear chains rattling in the attic?”

  “Don’t tease me,” she quipped. “I was talking to myself. I’m getting my things up two flights of stairs to my room while Seth has his nap. I just wanted to check in with you because I knew you’d be worried.”

  “You are so right. I’ve thought about you all morning,” he said. “So how is it going?”

  His drawl made her whole body hum with desire. “I want you so bad right now that I’d almost throw all my stuff back down the stairs and leave for one long, hot kiss.”

  “I can promise more than that if you’ll do it,” he said.

  She shut her eyes and visualized him behind his desk at the bank. He wore dark dress slacks, a pin-striped shirt, and a little tie tack with his engraved initials holding down his tie. She’d given him the tiny piece of jewelry for his high school graduation gift. He’d smother her with kisses and they’d go to the courthouse and get married.

  And no one in town would believe that you were really married, because they didn’t see the ceremony. They’d all say that you were just shacking up with him.

  Her eyes popped wide open. “Darlin’, it’s only two months. Eight short weeks and then we’ll be married properly. Mr. Grumpy takes his afternoon nap at this time every day, so we can talk if you’ll manage to take your break right after two,” she said.

  “Mr. Grumpy?” He chuckled.

  “That’s his nickname. He’s worse than Tandy when she loses at bingo. And I have a whole new appreciation for old country music.” She went on to give him a play-by-play of her day.

  “So is this going to be the daily routine?” Logan asked.

  “I really think he’s trying to make me leave by way of boredom. But I’m as stubborn as he is. I’d better not keep you any longer. I’ve got to get my moving-in done by three so I can take his afternoon snack to him. I’m responsible for the cooking only Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Oma Lynn does it all the rest of the time,” she answered.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “If I shut my eyes, I can imagine you in my arms.”

  “Oh, Logan!” She groaned. “It’s going to be a long two months, but we will live.”

  “I hope so, because I’m planning an amazing honeymoon,” he said. “Got to go, sweetheart. Talk to you tomorrow at this same time.”

  She brought up the rest of her things and pushed the heavy door the rest of the way open. Twice or maybe even three times the size of her bedroom in the trailer, the room had a queen-size four-poster bed, nightstands with crystal lamps, a six-drawer chest, and a ten-drawer dresser with a mirror above it. All of the drawers were empty except for two in the chest—one held extra sheets and the other a quilt. An overstuffed rocking chair sat in front of french doors that opened out onto a balcony that overlooked the patio. From there, she could see the church steeple even better as it rose up out of the trees. A door to her left led into a walk-in closet and one to the right into a private bathroom with a huge claw-foot tub and a mirror half the size of Texas hanging above a pretty vanity.

  She plopped down into the rocking chair and blinked several times, but nothing changed. It could be a fancy vacation or a prison. It was up to her to decide whether the whole experience would be positive or not.

  Her phone rang, and she smiled when she saw that it was Tandy. “Hey, Granny. Did you win last night?”

  “A little,” Tandy answered. “Have you proved your point? Are you ready to come on home?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m sticking it out until the end. I’ve got a lovely room with a balcony.”

  “Bullshit! You’re just telling me that so you will win this fight.”

  Emmy Jo chuckled. “Nope, Granny, it’s the God’s honest truth. Why don’t you come on up here and see for yourself? Just tell Oma Lynn you are here to see me.”

  “Humph.” Tandy snorted. “It ain’t got that cold in hell. I don’t reckon it will any time soon. I imagine you’ll be home in a week at the most.”

  “Want to bet?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “Wouldn’t want to take your money. Got to go now. My program is on television.”

  “See you on Tuesday? That’s my day off,” Emmy Jo said.

  “I might still be mad at you,” she said tersely.

  “And I might still be mad at you, but we can visit. I wanted to talk to you about borrowing your pearls for the wedding.”

  “Not if you marry that boy, you ain’t. You’re not wearing my pearls,” Tandy said. “We’ll talk before Tuesday and see if I’m over my spell enough to talk to you.”

  “Granny, you are talking to me now,” Emmy Jo said.

  “Yeah, but I can fix that,” she said and hung up.

  Emmy Jo shoved the phone back into her pocket. “I’ll show you! Before this is all done, you’ll be sorry you are being so stubborn. I’m not backing down.”

  She’d glanced at the clock and saw that it was past two thirty. Unpacking would have to wait. It was time to get the snack ready and then start supper. Thankful for something to do other than read papers or listen to music, she made her way down to the kitchen and fixed peanut butter sandwiches and apples. After she’d poured two glasses of milk, she put it all on the tray and started for the office. Seth was already pushing his walker down the length of the foyer and out onto the patio, so she turned and headed that way.

  Hardwood floors so shiny that she could see the reflection of her red scrubs in them, rich paneling halfway up on the walls, and above that a soft winter-white paint without a scratch or smudge on it—everything to suggest warmth and love, and yet there was none of that in the big house.

  When she was a little girl, she’d fantasized about living in a big house with a staircase and double doors opening out onto a patio. A prince would ride up on a pretty white horse and call out her name, and she’d ride away with him just like in the storybooks. But in real life, things didn’t work that way at all. She wasn’t the princess but an old man’s assistant, and she was being very careful not to fall on the slick floors as she carried the tray outside. And Logan might be her prince, but he’d never be an actual prince, because they’d have to work hard for everything they ever got out of life. Besides he didn’t even own a white horse.

  “Did you have a good nap?” she asked as she backed out the door and held it for him.

  “I did until I woke up and found you still here,” he grouched.

  “You can bitch and moan every waking hour, but that won’t change. What do you usually do after your nap?” It wasn’t disrespectful—not when he started it.

  “I have my snack and read until supper time.”

  “What do you read?” She put the tray on the table between his lounge and her chair and dreaded reading through more newspapers.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “If I say you have to read Moby-Dick to me each evening, will that scare you off?”

  “If you can stand to listen to that boring crap, I will read every single word of it to you,” she answered. “I’ll even read all those whale details twice.”

  Seth picked up his sandwich and bit into it. “I hate to be read to. It makes me sleepy. Did you move your car to the garage and get your stuff to your room?”

  “I did.” She said a silent prayer of thankfulness that he’d turned down her offer. She hated to read out loud.

  “Did Oma Lynn show you where the elevator is?” he asked.

  “She did not!” Emmy Jo gasped.

  Seth smiled for the first time. “Well, bully for her.”

  “Paybacks are a bitch, Mr. Thomas,” she said.

  “Tell that to my sister. Her birthday is the month after mine, which means I’ve got a whole month to figure out what I’m going to do to get her back for this stunt. And if you are going to stay here, you can call me Seth.”

  “Okay, then, Seth it is. Are you the oldest or is Nora?” Emmy Jo asked.

  “I am by thirteen months, but we graduated h
igh school the same year. She was one of those smart kids who finished a year early,” he said.

  “How did she wind up in Amarillo?” Emmy Jo asked, just to keep him talking more than out of actual interest.

  “Married a man from there.”

  “You aren’t much of a conversationalist, are you?” she asked.

  “You ask too damn many questions,” he answered.

  He finished his sandwich and apple, drank his milk, and picked up a book. She was glad to see that it was a Louis L’Amour. She gathered up the dirty dishes and carried them to the kitchen. Supper at five after a snack like that was pushing it for her, but she’d adjust. From now on she’d eat less at mealtimes if she was going to have snacks twice a day, or else she’d have to buy a wedding dress four sizes bigger. How Seth Thomas stayed so slim was a mystery for sure.

  So his sister, Nora, graduated at the same time as Seth and probably Tandy and Jesse. How much more could she discover in two whole months? So many questions with no answers, but the fact that she’d gotten him to talk even a little bit that first day put a smile on her face.

  The house lapsed into eerie stillness that evening after she’d washed the supper dishes and put a chicken into the slow cooker to stew all night. By tomorrow morning the meat would fall off the bones and the broth would make wonderful dumplings. She unpacked the rest of her things and took a long soaking bath in the tub, and yet it was still only eight o’clock.

  She would love to call Diana and talk for a couple of hours, but Saturday night was her and Jack Ramsey’s date night. No way would Emmy Jo intrude on their time together. She stepped out onto the balcony and inhaled the clean night air. From the patio below her, she heard voices, but when she peeked over the edge of the railing, it was only Seth listening to the Grand Ole Opry on his radio. He must have one powerful radio or a connection with the angels to get that station to come in all the way from Nashville. She soon found herself tapping her foot to the tunes. When her phone rang, she rushed back into the room, saw Logan’s picture, and hit the button to answer.

  “I’m so glad you called. The only thing going on up here is country music on Seth’s radio. I’m tired of listening to music and my new romance novel isn’t holding my attention, so talk to me,” she said all in a breath before she stopped to inhale.

  “You could watch reruns of something on television,” Logan said.

  “No television,” she said.

  “You are kiddin’ me. Gramps told me that Seth was strange, but no television? Good Lord!”

  “Eccentric, not strange. And maybe just a little bit OCD. He likes things done on time. But let’s talk about us, not Seth.”

  “I’m sitting at the foot of the hill on the tailgate of my truck. I can see one little light shining up there in the dark house. Is that where you are?” he asked.

  “I’m sure it is.” She walked out on the balcony. The moon was bright and the stars twinkled, but they didn’t provide enough light to see a pickup parked half a mile away on a country road. “I can’t see you, but knowing you’re there makes me happy. This isn’t a bad job, darlin’. It’s easier than any of the others that I’ve had; the only downside is that we’re apart every night.”

  “That’s a pretty big downside, isn’t it?”

  His sexy voice made it easy to imagine him right next to her. A delicious little shiver chased down her spine.

  She squinted, but she still could not see even the glitter of moonlight flashing off his truck. “Tomorrow afternoon I will be in the cemetery about one thirty. If you should happen to be in the vicinity, I might catch a glimpse of you. That would hold me until Tuesday.”

  “If you are going to be there, I’ll be parked a little ways down from Mary Thomas’s grave. That is where he goes, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “It sure is, and if he doesn’t want me to stick around, I might even get to steal a kiss or two from you,” Emmy Jo said.

  The music stopping interrupted her call. She looked out over the balcony, and there Seth was, pushing his walker toward the doors, going inside and wobbling his head from side to side as he hummed a country tune.

  “He’s not all bad,” she said.

  She smiled at his bravado, even if ninety percent of it was bluff. At a time in his life when giving up and going to bed would have been easy, she respected his determination to work through the pain and get well. Any octogenarian who had Seth Thomas’s wit and willpower simply had to have some good hiding down in his heart.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Logan said. “Good night, darlin’. I wish you were in my arms.”

  “Me, too. ’Night.”

  She left the balcony doors open so the night air could continue to flow through the room and set the alarm for six thirty so she’d have plenty of time to get breakfast ready by seven. The menu said that on Sunday morning he ate one hard-boiled egg and one thick slice of toast browned in an iron skillet, strawberry jam, and a cup of black coffee. His ten o’clock snack was to be a bowl of fresh fruit—which Oma Lynn had left in a covered container—a cup of coffee, and a bottle of water. The noon meal was chicken and dumplings with slices of homemade bread or rolls and a salad. They would have chocolate cake for dessert. Supper was to be leftovers of the same thing.

  “I’m declaring a mission,” she whispered into the darkness. “I’m going to make him like me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Seth pushed his walker to one side of the elevator and pushed the button. “I told you that I hate red.”

  “Well, red scrubs are what I work in,” she answered.

  “Wear something else.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “You are my assistant, not my nurse. From now on wear plain clothes, not that ugly thing,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. No red of any kind, or just not this shade?” Why would he despise an uplifting color so much? It didn’t make a bit of sense, but then she’d never liked orange. Although she did have a good reason—in elementary school a little girl had told her that she looked horrid in an orange shirt she was wearing that day. “You look like what I puked up after I ate too many oranges,” the kid had said. Emmy Jo had blacked her eye and had to pick up trash from the playground for two days, but it was worth it. She wondered if something similar had happened to Seth.

  “Anything is fine as long as it isn’t red,” he answered. “And pick up one of those boxes over there in the corner that has my name on it. Put it in the trunk with my walker. And don’t sir me. I tell you to do something, just do it.”

  “Jeans all right?” she asked.

  “If that’s what you want,” he said.

  Curiosity almost got the best of her, but before she could peek inside, he’d gotten situated in the passenger seat and left his walker to be folded and put into the trunk with a lawn chair and a tattered old quilt.

  When she got into the driver’s seat, he handed her the keys. “We’re going to the cemetery. Go through the side gate, not the front one. The grave is the second one on the left. Park beside the road, and then you can go do whatever you want and come back in one hour.”

  “You are going to trust me to drive this car for an hour?” she asked.

  “I am not,” he said. “You can walk to wherever you want, or call your fiancé to come and get you as long as you are back in one hour. I just don’t want you sitting beside me or smothering me to death.”

  Nora had said she wasn’t to let him out of her sight. Emmy Jo understood the reasoning, because he could fall or need help, but how far did that go? Not so far that she couldn’t visually see him. He sure wasn’t going to get away from her traveling at a snail’s pace with that walker.

  She decided that if Logan wasn’t parked close enough that she could see Seth, then she’d ask him to move the truck closer. Just thinking about being close to Logan made her want to floor the gas pedal so they could get there faster. But there was no way she was driving recklessly with Seth in the car. That would give Nora a really good reason to fir
e her. She stayed a mile below the speed limit and hummed one of those old country tunes he’d been listening to the day before. Something called “My Everything,” with a slow beat that used up every love phrase in the universe but said it all when it came to how she felt about Logan.

  “What makes you so happy?” Seth asked. “That’s an old Eddy Arnold tune you are humming. I didn’t know you smarty-pants kids even listened to his music.”

  “Never heard of him until yesterday, but it reminds me of Logan. I get to see him today.”

  “You really love that boy, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. I wouldn’t be marrying him if I didn’t,” she answered.

  “Humph!” Seth snorted and looked out the side window.

  From house to cemetery meant driving down a winding road to the bottom of the hill, through Hickory’s two blocks of Main Street, turning right at the traffic light, and going a mile to the side gate. It took all of seven minutes. By the time Seth eased out of the car, she had his walker unfolded and was standing in front of him.

  “Do you want the quilt or just the box?”

  “Both,” he said. “The box and then the chair and the quilt, in that order.”

  She carried the cardboard box and followed behind him. When he reached the grave site, he nodded toward her. “Open it for me.”

  She carefully pulled the tape from the top and slid out a beautiful purple silk lilac bouquet exactly like the faded one in the vase beside the tombstone. He reached out, and she put it in his hands. Although he flinched with the pain of bending, he removed the old blooms, handed them to her, and put the new ones in the vase. “I’m sorry that your flowers faded, Mama. I couldn’t get here for the past two weeks.” He straightened up and turned to Emmy Jo. “Now I need the chair and the quilt. And I see a black truck parked down there.” He pointed. “If that’s your feller, then that’s a good distance.”

  She tossed the old flowers into the empty box and put it into the trunk. After she’d set the chair up and he’d gotten as comfortable as possible in it, she handed him the quilt. He laid it on his lap and waved her away.