A Wedding at the Orange Blossom Inn(12)
“I have two younger brothers. Of course I’ve done and said stupid stuff.” He smiled. “My mother used to say that kinner make mistakes all the time and that’s why they live with their parents for years and years.”
“My stupid notes caught the attention of a couple of mean girls who made things worse. No matter where I went I was teased.” Her voice cracked. “A lot. It happened for a long time. Months.” She winced, hating to remember all the unkind words her girlfriends had said to her and how one of her friends had completely lied about the things she’d done.
He blinked as he finally understood. “You were bullied.”
She nodded. “Most people think bullying only happens between boys with their fists, but it happens between girls, too, with rumors and gossip. It was horrible.” Swiping her cheek, she continued to pour out her heart. “I got depressed. Really depressed. I knew I had to get away.”
“And so you came down here.”
“Yep. I took all the money I’d saved, even borrowed some of my mother’s grocery money, and got on a Pioneer Trails bus without telling anyone.” She blew out a ragged sigh. “Well, now you know my secret. Aren’t you glad you asked?”
He got to his feet. “I am.”
“You are?” She didn’t even try to hide her surprise.
He reached down, grasped her hand, and pulled her to her feet. “Uh-huh.” When she was standing, he reached for her other hand, then linked their fingers together.
“What should we do now?”
“Well, I have an idea. But it’s a little scary,” he teased. “You can always say no if you want.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “What do you want to do?”
He tugged on her hands, pulling her closer. “Give you a hug.”
“What?”
“I want to hold you for a minute, Tricia. Is that okay with you?”
They were standing so close to each other that her dress was brushing against his shirt and trousers. Close enough that Tricia knew Ben could lean down and brush his lips against hers. If he wanted.
So close that she could see the small flecks of brown dotting the blue of his eyes. Saw the faint scar on the corner of his lip.
“You can hold me, Ben. I you want to.”
He didn’t delay another second. Ben wrapped his arms around Tricia and held her close.
After a few seconds, she relaxed against him. After surviving so many very dark days over the last year, God, at last, had given her a blindingly bright one.
It was the best day ever.
Chapter 5
Moving was far more taxing than Jay remembered.
The moving van had been late—five hours late. Then, the exact moment the truck parked in the driveway of his new home, the heavens burst open. Luckily, that didn’t prevent the movers from doing their jobs. They simply ignored the downpour, carefully unloaded all of Jay’s worldly goods, carried them up the house’s front porch, and at last placed everything inside their new, sprawling, two-story farmhouse. They worked without a bit of complaint . . . but without any urgency, either: cardboard boxes got completely soaked, shoes brought in mud, and tabletops arrived dripping.
By the time the men closed the truck and pulled away, Jay’s money deep in their pockets, his new home smelled like rain and grass and wet cardboard. As he and the boys moved and rearranged furniture—finding out belatedly that some rooms were smaller than the ones back in Ohio, while others were far more spacious—Jay realized he had never missed Evelyn more.
She’d had a true sense about what went where. He had none of that. Neither did his boys. Therefore, they unpacked and rearranged in a hit-and-miss kind of way. It was time-consuming and frustrating, and his back was starting to hurt a bit, too.
“Mark, watch the corners,” he warned for at least the fourth time. “You are going to scratch the table.”
“I’m being careful,” he grunted. “And the table was already scratched.” Setting the small table down and wiping his hands on the front of his pants, he added, “And wet.”
“How scratched is it?” Jay really needed to begin a list of damages that the movers were responsible for.
“It ain’t from the movers, Daed. The mark is from William, when he was three.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t remember hurting that table,” William groused. “Or making the stain on the coffee table, neither.”
“That’s because Mamm let you get away with everything,” Mark announced with a glare. “You always got away with everything.”
“That’s not true.”
Knowing from experience that the blame game could go on for hours, Jay redirected things. “Mark, go back to work on your room. Ben, go find my toolbox and help me put together William’s bed.”