Assault and Batter(8)

Emily touched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m sure that he’ll turn up soon.”

“I hope so,” Max said. “I’d hate for anything to ruin our wedding.”

She put her arms on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. “It won’t. Nothing will. Everything is going to be perfect.”

Max appeared to take great comfort in that, and I was amazed by the changes that had taken place in him over the past six months. He’d grown up a great deal, and he and Emily were clearly in love.

I just hoped that Emily was right, and that nothing would ruin the start of their new life together.

After Max and Emily took off in search of Peter, I decided that I had time to go home and take a shower before Jake showed up. His tone of voice when we’d spoken earlier on the phone had been dire, but I couldn’t let it get to me yet. If the news were indeed bad, I’d deal with it when I heard it, but I was going to do my best not to borrow trouble in the meantime. If I was lucky, Momma would be out taking care of one of her many businesses and I wouldn’t have to tell her what had happened. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy talking to her, but a part of me felt that if I put my fears into words, they had a better chance of happening. I knew that was ridiculous on the face of it, but that still didn’t make it any easier.

“Hello, Suzanne,” Momma said as I walked into the living room of the small cottage we shared on the edge of the park.

“Where’s your car?” I asked her as I shut the door behind me. When I’d driven up in my Jeep, I had felt a wave of relief sweep over me to find the driveway empty.

And yet here she was.

“It’s in the shop,” she said. “The tow truck driver was kind enough to run me home when I had troubles with it. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

“He must be a real doll,” I said. “Aren’t you going to need your car, though?”

“I’ll have it back in an hour. I’ve been promised,” she said. After carefully studying me, Momma asked softly, “Suzanne, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? Emily and Max are getting married in three days, and I’m their maid of honor.” I didn’t want to talk about Jake, so what better way to distract my mother than by bringing up the other jarring news about my life?

“You actually agreed to that?” Momma asked. “What were you thinking?”

“That I couldn’t refuse a friend’s request,” I said simply enough. “I honestly believe that Max has changed, and it was important to Emily that I do this, so I agreed.”

Momma nodded, and then she added a slight grin. “Suzanne, you have to admit, it is a bit unconventional.”

“When have we ever been conventional?” I asked, matching her smile with one of my own.

“That’s a fair point. I just can’t believe you’d take this on.”

“Hold on. It gets better. I’m also making a donut display for the wedding. They’ve decided to have my treats instead of a wedding cake.”

“I can’t disagree with that,” she said. Though she was a diminutive woman in size, my mother more than made up for it with the sheer size of her personality. “Are her little stuffed friends going to be in the wedding party?”

“I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t get married without them,” I said. “She’s going to make tuxedos for all three of them.”

Momma’s grin got even bigger. “I can’t wait to see that. It’s almost worth the cost of admission in and of itself. I wonder what Max will think about that?”

“He loves Emily, and that means that he’s bought into the idea from the start that Cow, Spots, and Moose are as real and as animated as we are.”

“It sounds as though he really has changed,” Momma said.

“I never would have pled his case to Emily in the first place if I hadn’t believed it,” I said.

“So, once again, no good deed goes unpunished. As a reward for your kindness, you’ll have the privilege of walking down the aisle just ahead of Emily, and Max will see your face just before he sees his betrothed. What does Jake think about all of this?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t told him yet,” I said, averting my gaze.

“Don’t you think it’s something that he’ll want to know?” she asked. I knew that slightly scolding tone of voice too well.

“This all just happened,” I said. “Jake’s on his way here, and if I get the opportunity to bring it up, I will, but I have a hunch that he’s got something more serious on his mind. He told me that we needed to talk.” As soon as I said the last bit, I wanted to clamp my jaws shut, but it was too late. I’d let my frustration with Jake’s mystery cloud my ability to watch what I said around my mother.