A Wedding in Apple Grove (16 page)

He got up and pulled out her chair so she could sit back down. “He wasn't angry to start out, but once he got going, he worked up a full head of steam.”

His aunt tut-tutted, shook her head, and gave him another telling look, so he added fuel to the gossip he'd just fed her. “When Cindy mentioned her sister's biological clock ticking, the sheriff stormed into his office and slammed the door.”

His aunt got up, put her hands on either side of his face, and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek. “That is the best news I've heard all day. I've got to call Amelia.”

“What about Honey B.?”

“Oh, I'm sure her sister already called her by now.” She paused with the phone in her hand. “What else did the sheriff have to say?”

“Something about psychos, wackos, and weirdos.” If anyone asked what he thought, Dan would have told him that the sheriff had more than a passing interest in Honey B.'s welfare—and dating status.

“It's about time that man showed some interest in that poor girl. She's been in love with him for years.”

Dan was halfway to the door when his aunt added, “Which reminds me of Megan.” When he turned around, she was standing there with the cordless phone in her hand and a frown on her face. “You're going to want to sit down for this conversation, Daniel Patrick Eagan.”

Jeez! All three names—a sure sign that he was in trouble. But how had she found out what he'd been doing… and then it hit him. She didn't know—she was guessing, and as long as he didn't act guilty, she had nothing to go on.
Did
she?

He smiled and slowly walked over to the chair she'd pulled out for him. “Are you sure you should be talking to me about Meg? Isn't that the same as gossiping?”

She stood in front of him and shook her pointer finger at him. “Now you just sit and listen up, Daniel.”

Her frown was fierce, so he swallowed the laughter building inside of him. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Hmmpfh. That's better. Meg's a good girl,” she said slowly. “She's a hard worker, has a kind heart and a gentle soul.”

“All redeeming qualities, I'm sure, but weren't you going to call Mrs. Winter?”

She poked him in the shoulder. “Be still,” she said, placing the phone on the counter. “And don't change the subject.”

He nodded.

“Meg's had a lot on her plate for the last twelve years or so; she could use someone steady in her life.”

“She's got a good job from what I hear, working for her family.”

His aunt agreed. “But she's been carrying the burden as the oldest sister for too long since their poor mother died.”

Curiosity got the better of him. “How long?”

“Ten long years. She's a half a dozen years older than the middle girl, Caitlin, and seven years older than the baby, Grace.”

“What about their father?”

“Joseph is a hard-working man,” his aunt confided. “But he just about fell apart when Maureen died. Megan was nineteen at the time and just stepped into the role of mom for her younger sisters. She'd been working with her father full-time since the year before when she graduated from high school.”

“So she's been shouldering quite a burden. It couldn't have been easy helping to raise two younger sisters who probably resented the fact that she was trying to step in for their mom.”

His aunt nodded. “I knew you'd understand. You're a good man, Daniel, and I know you wouldn't try to break Meg's heart intentionally.”

He needed to ask the next question, but it wasn't easy to get the words out. Finally, he asked, “Were they engaged?”

She laid her hand on his shoulder. “Daniel, I know what that girl did to you, and I think it's a sin. I'm just sorry I didn't live closer, or else I'd have taken care of her and that poor excuse for an ex–best friend of yours.”

“Thanks, Aunt Trudi.”

“And I'm sure your grandfather will come around soon. He can't stay mad at you forever, especially since he knows the whole story—and since you gave him that Murder's Row signed baseball your great-grandfather gave to you.”

He grinned.

“That went a long way toward making up for that nasty argument your grandfather had with his father. You just give it some more time and he'll come around. You'll see.”

Feeling better about some things but worse about the rest, he asked, “What would you do if you discovered you have feelings for someone that you'd only just met and you'd… acted on those feelings… but then realized that you might have acted too quickly?”

“Depends on your definition of acting on those feelings, Daniel.”

Busted.
“You might be my only relative in Apple Grove, but there are certain things that I'm not willing to discuss.” That certainly sounded prudish to him and from the look on his aunt's face, she thought so too.

“Fine, then. But it's your funeral if you dallied with Meg and have no intention of making an honest woman out of her.”

“I just met her. Why would I want to jump into marriage with her?”

His aunt's gaze turned positively lethal. He didn't know she had it in her. “You obviously jumped into bed with her. Is she only good enough for the sex?”

“Jeez, Aunt Trudi!” He covered his face with his hands.

“I knew it!” She danced gleefully around her kitchen and for a moment he thought he'd gone over the edge into madness and he was in alternate universe where fairy tales were the reality and he was watching one of the little people dancing around a fire.

“I thought you knew!” he ground out, getting to his feet.

She stopped long enough to put her hands on her hips and glare up at him. “I figured you had. She's a beautiful woman, passionate—and you're an Eagan.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“The men in the Eagan family are known to be fabulous lovers.”

He put his pointer fingers in his ears and started saying, “La la la la la… I don't want to hear anymore, Aunt Trudi.”

She frowned and shook her finger in his face. “You're going to listen anyway.”

He dropped his hands to his sides and sighed.

“If you do anything to hurt that girl, there will be a long line of people just waiting to beat the ever-living tar out of you.”

He nodded.

“So whatever happened this morning to change your mind from last night, you go fix it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And start courting that girl!”

He sighed and got to his feet. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Oh, Daniel?”

“Yeah?”

“I've got a lovely bunch of late-season day lilies in the fridge in my shop. She'd love them.”

How could he refuse? “Anything else?”

“Now that you mention it, Amelia Winter has a fresh-baked cherry pie for Meg. Be a dear and pick it up and deliver it to Meg when you give her the flowers.”

He followed her back to her shop, moved the planters she needed taken care of, and swallowed his pride and walked to the back where she was holding up a huge bouquet of day lilies. “How much is this going to cost me?”

She beamed up at him. “Only your heart, Daniel.”

He didn't want to admit that his aunt was right, that he'd overreacted this morning. Maybe he could make things right. He'd been acting out of fear—fear of the unknown as far as those two boys were concerned, tangled up with his past.

Meg had to understand.

“You are one in a million,” he told his aunt, taking the flowers from her and bending down to wrap her in his arms.

She sighed and patted him on the back. “You're a good man, Daniel. Now go show that side to Meg and make her fall in love with what's inside of you. She's worth it.”

He nodded, swallowing to ease the tightness in his throat. “Thanks.”

He had already opened the driver's side door when he heard her calling his name. He looked over his shoulder.

She was smiling when she told him, “You are too.”

He grinned. It was good to be in a new place, a new town, but it was even better to have family there. “I owe you, Aunt Trudi.”

“Don't worry, I'll think of something you can do for me.”

He was afraid she'd say that.

Dan was exhausted by the time he parked his car in the driveway. Walking through the doorway, he flicked the light switch and stood on the threshold and stared. His kitchen pretty much summed up how the morning had gone, with the dried-up remnants of the breakfast he'd prepared, hoping to show Meg that she was more than just one night to him. He couldn't quite figure out where he'd gone wrong and when he'd put his foot—up to his kneecap—in his mouth.

If he had to do it over again, he wondered if he'd screw it up again. Given his history—“Yeah,” he rasped. “I probably would because there was no way I could keep my hands off of her.”

He put the flowers in water and began to straighten his kitchen and put it to rights. He'd give them to Meg the next time he saw her. When the last of the ruined breakfast had been tossed in the garbage and the sticky plates stacked in the dishwasher, he opened the cabinet over the sink and reached for the bottle of aspirin. Shaking two into his hand, he poured a glass of water and downed the pain reliever.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I'll call Mrs. Winter about Meg's pie tomorrow.”

The lure of a hot shower had him detouring to the bedroom; he could always turn on the TV after he relaxed under the hot spray. Twenty minutes later, he was dressed in his favorite ratty sweatpants and sweatshirt and parked in front of the tube, but he just couldn't get comfortable. His conscience was eating at him.

***

“You are asking for trouble, Honey B.”

“Actually, Mitch,” she purred, “I've been practically begging for it for years now and you haven't done one thing about it.”

For more than half of Meg's life, Sheriff Mitch Wallace had been the strong, stalwart figure upholding the law in Apple Grove. Watching his mouth open and close with no sound coming out, she realized he was just as vulnerable as any other person. She nearly applauded on the spot because two-thirds of the triumvirate were correct—the man wouldn't like Honey B.'s plans.
Ah,
she thought
, but would he try to stop her?

“I think it's a great idea,” Meg said, watching both of their faces for reactions. Honey's smile was like the cat who'd just finished a bowl of cream, while the sheriff's—well, he looked like he'd just taken a big bite of a rotten apple.

He turned around and glared at her. “If you think you're going to be signing up too,” he warned, “you've got another think coming.”

Wrong thing to say to a woman whose lady parts were still singing from their late-night marathon doing the hoochie-coochie. “You might be the law around here, but you have no jurisdiction over what happens on the Internet—in my life or Honey B.'s.” She crossed her arms and waited for the fireworks.

The sheriff surprised her by keeping a lid on his temper, but his eyes were definitely the window to his soul—they burned like hot molten coals. “I do if I feel it crosses the line into Internet pornography.”

Honey B. lunged past Meg, placed her hands in the middle of his chest, and shoved him toward the door. “Get out!” she yelled. “Why, if you were the last man in Apple Grove, and I was the last woman—”

He threw his arms out to keep from falling. Braced in her doorway, he growled—seriously growled at Meg's friend. “You'll want to watch what you threaten, Honey B., or you'll find out that I'm a man who takes what he wants.”

Honey B. lifted her chin high in the air. “Obviously it isn't me.” She spun on her heel and walked to the back of her shop.

Meg looked over at the sheriff and straightened to her full height. “I've always looked up to you, Mitch. You've saved my sorry butt on more than one occasion, and I know I owe you for that, but you're just plain stupid if you can't see how badly you just hurt Honey B.'s feelings.”

When he just stared past her in the direction Honey had gone, she felt her temper bubbling to the surface. “I hope to hell she finds a man worthy of her.” That had his gaze snapping back to clash with Meg's. “She deserves better than being ignored.”

She swept past him, hurrying after her friend. “Honey B., are you all right?”

Her friend was running water in the kitchenette. “I'm just so mad I could spit nails.”

Meg agreed. “I feel like I just found out my best friend ran away with my man.”

Honey B. laughed, just as Meg had intended. “I guess it's time that I woke up and smelled the coffee. That man has no interest in me at all. You heard him,” she rasped, as tears welled up in her pretty green eyes. “If he was interested, nothing would stop him from pursuing the woman he wanted.”

“I'm not so sure about that. There might be more here than meets the eye. The sheriff is a quiet man… maybe you haven't misjudged him. Maybe he does feel more for you than you realize.”

When Honey B. glared at her, Meg shrugged again. “Why else would he threaten to interfere, tossing around words like ‘Internet pornography'?”

Honey B. sniffed and tossed her glossy mane of hair over her shoulder. “I'm so tired of waiting, and after you took the bull by the horns with Dan, I realized that I'd let life pass me by for too long waiting on that man.”

Meg put her arm around her friend and hugged her close. “I think we should stick to the plan you ladies came up with. Besides, wouldn't it just irritate the crap out of Mitch if you had to close the shop early come Friday night because you had a date with a hunky guy from Newark or Cincinnati?”

Honey B.'s eyes glazed over. “Yeah,” she whispered. “And instead of meeting here in town, I'll go there—so much better than if it was someone I've known since grade school.”