A Wedding at the Orange Blossom Inn(24)

“I grew up with Evelyn, too. From the time I was twelve or thirteen, everyone assumed that we’d marry.”

“That happened with Sanford and me, too.” Looking back out at the front porch, she said, “We had a big wedding. Practically our whole church community was there.”

“The same thing happened with Evelyn and me.”

“It was nice.” Her voice had turned wistful. A little melancholy.

He was feeling the same way. “Jah, it was,” he agreed, though, “nice” didn’t really cover the many emotions that had been running through him on their wedding day. He’d been glad to finally stop planning and worrying about everything going all right during the ceremony. He’d been eager to have Evelyn as his wife.

If he was being honest, he’d also been struggling with his emotions. Jay had begun to wonder if he and Evelyn had made the right decision, if their long friendship had really melded into a romance, or if they’d simply been too comfortable to want to shake up their lives.

Before he brought up any other topic that made him doubt how things had been between him and Evelyn, he got to his feet. “Well, I’d better collect William and get him home. Ben is no doubt waiting to ask me what time he can go see Tricia.”

“They sure seemed smitten when I saw them together,” she said as she walked to his side.

“I thought the same thing,” he said as he stepped outside into her backyard. What he saw there made him smile. William was playing tag with Lena, and Frankie was barking at their heels. It was obvious that the beagle knew he was an important part of the family and loved “his” girls very much. William bent down and ruffled his velvety-soft ears. Frankie had just closed his eyes in what looked like extreme happiness when Annie’s squeal lit the air.

“There’s Serena!” she called out, pointing to a slim gray cat reclining on a tree branch just on the other side of the fence in the front yard. The cat was staring down into Emma’s yard like she’d just discovered a very plump canary.

Emma tensed as she stared at the cat, as if she feared it was about to turn into a crazed mountain lion. “Oh, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Jay thought the cat looked rather harmless, and he really couldn’t understand why Annie had taken off running.

“So many things,” she muttered. More loudly, she said, “Serena is a roving cat. She doesn’t seem to ever want to stay home. And Mrs. Sadler, her owner, bless her, never seems to keep track of her.”

He shrugged as Frankie ran to the fence and let out a howl. “That little cat will be okay. We always had a couple of barn cats back in Ohio. They’re smart creatures.”

“Oh, Jay. That is not what I’m concerned about,” she said as she gazed at Frankie worriedly. “Girls, one of you grab Frankie’s collar, wouldja?”

Jay chuckled. “Dogs and cats don’t always fight, Emma. Why, we had a shepherd once who was practically best friends with one of our barn cats.”

“That ain’t the case here.” She looked around at the girls who were still playing. “Oh, those girls never listen when I need them to. Excuse me, Jay.”

“Emma, can I help you?”

Before she could answer, somehow, some way, Frankie shoved himself under a very small gap under the fence, leaving only a cloud of dust. And Emma’s groan.

“Uh-oh!” Annie cried. “Mommy, Frankie has found Serena!”

“He certainly has,” Emma said under her breath.

As soon as Emma opened the gate, she and her three little girls scampered through, William on their heels. Jay followed as well. He was happy to help, though he wasn’t sure how good he was going to be capturing a wayward cat or an excited beagle.

By the time he’d gotten through the gate, around the side of the house, and reached the middle of Emma’s front yard, he didn’t know whether to laugh or take charge of the situation.

Serena was about halfway up the tree and hissing angrily. Frankie had his front paws on the trunk, howling his displeasure. The girls were all calling for Frankie and Serena. And his boy? William was swinging from the bottom limb of the tree, on his way up.

“I’m gonna go save Serena, Daed!” he yelled. “I can climb trees real good, right?”

William also happened to be mighty good at falling out of trees. But before Jay could stop him, his son was on the next limb.

“Serena, come here!” his boy yelled again.

As William climbed, Frankie barked and howled. Serena taunted Frankie from her tree limb with a haughty flick of her tail, and Emma’s little girls squealed, called for Serena, and egged William on—somehow all at the same time. Emma was standing a bit off to the side. Her arms were folded and she looked as if she’d been part of this scenario more than once or twice.