Sweet Carolina Morning (7 page)

The minister scowled, took off his glasses, and rose. “Well, then, I'll see you ladies out.” Walking briskly toward the door, he held it open for them.

In the car, they both kept straight faces while they were in the line of sight of the office windows. Once they'd pulled out of the driveway, they burst into gales of laughter.

“Too wooden. That's the best I could come up with?” Linny snorted and turned to Kate. “Fields of gold and saffron rice? That was inspired.”

“I know.” Kate giggled. “They're paint colors from an HGTV show I watched last night.”

“Too bad we didn't get to the part where I told him it would be my third marriage,” Linny said, laughing harder now.

Kate stopped chuckling, her eyes wide. “Laughing makes me leak.” But she caught Linny's eyes and cracked up again. “Don't you ever tell anyone this, but I'm wearing a lady's Depend.”

They made a pit stop at Bojangles so Kate could “freshen up,” and while Linny waited, she scrolled through the addresses of the other venues.

“Better,” her sister said primly as she climbed back in the car. “Mama should be calling any minute. . . .” Interrupted by the ringing of the phone, she grinned at Linny and picked up and pushed a button. “Hey, Mama. Linny's right here and you're on speaker. How are you?”

“Busy as hen's teeth.”

Linny raised a brow at Kate and they both smiled at Dottie's mixed-up idiom.

Her mother continued in the too-fast cadence she used because she worried about long distance charges. “The girls and I treated ourselves and got our hair and makeup done. The hairstylist who worked on me is named Cinder—that's short for Cinderella—and she used to work on hair for the Rockettes. Can you believe that? So Cinder cut my hair in a way she says is kicky.” Dottie clarified, “Kicky is supposed to be good. And she adjusted the color because she said my hair was too pink! Can you believe that?”

Linny rolled her eyes at her sister. They'd only told Dottie a hundred times that her hair was too pink.

“Give Curtis a big smooch and tell him he's my precious boy. I miss him so much.” She blew out a sad sigh, but her voice brightened as she went on. “But we're having a grand time. Our excursion leaves in a minute. We're going to see the stingrays from inside a baby submarine. After, Ruby wanted us to go touring around George Town on one of those two-wheeled Segways, but Dessie and I talked her into the Trolley Roger instead.”

“Good!” Linny marveled at how worldly her country mouse mother sounded. “What else?”

“The food's been so tasty, and the people we've met have been real nice.” In a low voice, she said, “At prayer meeting, Dessie met a widowed junkman who wears fedoras and white shoes.” Her voice returned to normal. “Oh, they're calling us. I need to skedaddle. I'll call you tomorrow.” A voice murmured in the background and Dottie giggled. “Correction, I'll Skype you tomorrow.” She ended the call.

Eyes wide, Kate looked at Linny. “Gracious.”

Linny shook her head and smiled. “She was overdue for happy adventures.”

Kate nodded her agreement as she pulled out of the parking lot and they were on the road again. “This next place is going to be perfect,” Kate promised as they tooled down Old Willow Hill Highway. “The pictures on the website were amazing, and the minister's name is Raven Moon.”

“Sounds like a hippie name,” Linny grumbled. “I hope she went to ministerial school and didn't just get ordained over the internet. She's legitimate, right?”

I'm sure she is,” Kate said breezily. “She had letters after her name and had a lot of comments from happy customers. One lady said,
enchanting
. One couple said,
magical
.” She sent Linny a meaningful glance. “Weddings should be magical.”

Linny nodded doubtfully, still trying to shake off the meeting with the first minister. She and Kate needed to go through a car wash without the car to get the remaining ick off them.

Kate made a sharp right turn and slowed as she carefully nosed the Honda down a cobblestoned lane.

They pulled up to a creamy white cottage topped with a copper roof that made the sunlight it reflected glitter and dance. The shutters framing the windows were cherry red, as was the glossy, arched doorway. Window boxes spilled over with yellow pansies and ornamental cabbages.

Kate turned off the ignition and gave a low whistle. “Good Lord. This is straight from a fairy tale. Rose Red would live here.”

Linny nodded, enchanted, as three peacocks strolled by, their tails fanned out in a showy display of iridescent greens and blues. “My goodness.” Her stomach fluttered with excitement. She turned to Kate, struggling to contain her excitement. “Let's go.”

The red door was ajar and Linny poked her head in, calling out, “Hello? Hello?”

“Hello-oh,” a cheerful voice called to them from the next room. “Just finishing a phone call. I'll be right there. Walk around back and take a look. That's where we hold our events.”

The sisters grinned at each other, linked arms, and walked toward the backyard.

The cottage must have been situated on a hill, though Linny hadn't realized it. An amber field rolled out before them, dotted with circular hay bales. Cotton-ball clouds puffed along in a bright blue sky. At the crown of a small hill, a graceful white gazebo with Roman columns stood, the spot where the ceremonies took place, she guessed. As a backdrop, the land sloped away gently, and the view of the valley below went on and on forever, it seemed.

“It
is
magical.” Kate's eyes sparkled as she squeezed Linny's arm.

Linny nodded, almost afraid to let herself get excited. “I could get married here.”

“Greetings, ladies,” a tall, willowy woman called out as she closed the back door of the Rose Red house and walked toward them. Her jet-black hair piled on top of her head, she looked bohemian in a paisley blouse and long skirt. She carried a walking stick. “I'm Raven.”

Linny unhooked herself from Kate and turned to greet the woman. “I'm Linny and this is my sister, Kate.”

Kate gave the woman a twinkly smile. “Raven is such a pretty name.”

Raven pointed heavenward. “The ravens were messengers for many Gods.”

“Ah,” Linny said and shot a glance at Kate that said,
I told you she was a hippie
. “You have a beautiful site here.”

“Thank you.” She looked from one of them to the other. “You make such a lovely couple. They say married couples start to look alike, but you two already do!”

“We're sisters,” Linny said slowly, trying to catch Kate's eye, but she'd twirled around to get a 360-degree view.

Raven smiled serenely. “Of course you are, and you'll be even more so after the ceremony.”

The winter sun was glaringly bright, but as the woman drew closer, Linny got a better look at her. Raven wore a leather skirt over billowy pantaloons, and her hairdo contained twigs and feathers and was anchored by what appeared to be a bone. She tried to catch Kate's eye and give her the finger-across-the-throat sign, but Kate was sighing rapturously over the view.

Raven explained, “We have all kinds of ceremonies here. We celebrate harvest's end, honor the ancestors, consecrate magical tools, and do croning ceremonies.”

The silence spun out. “People do get married here, though, right?” Kate looked doubtful. “That's what it said on your website.”

“Many folks marry here.” Raven bobbed her head; something fell out of her hair and bounced on the hard ground.

Linny squinted. It was an acorn. An acorn had shaken loose from her hairdo.

The woman leaned on her elaborately carved staff. “Many Druids, Pagans, and Wiccans choose our sacred place for their ceremonies.”

Bingo. Linny tried to hide her smile as she watched her sister digest the news about Raven's clientele and start to take in the woman's garb.

Kate's eyes widened and she sent a pleading look to Linny.

Laughter bubbled up inside her and Linny worked at looking solemn. “Raven, your site is stunning, but we're just boring old lapsed Baptists. This may not be a good match for us.”

Despite Raven's offer to throw in free circle casting or drumming as an enticement to hold their ceremony there, Linny and Kate made it to the car before the laughing fits began again. Linny turned to her sister. “I can't wait to see what you've picked for our third option.”

After the Wedding in the Dale Chapel of Love turned out
not
to be located in a dale, but right off 1-95 right between a truck stop and a nightclub called Girls! Girls! Girls! Kate finally admitted defeat. “All right, all right. Today wasn't my finest hour as a wedding planner.” She raised one shoulder as she turned the Honda toward home. “But the pictures made each place look perfect and the reviews were all so glowing.”

Linny patted her sister on the arm. “You did great on the research. People who are good with cameras can make any old place look great.” Linny thought back on the day and gave a wry smile that turned into a chuckle. “You got me out of my funk.”

“Good.” Kate grinned, and lowered the visor. “Why don't you get Jack and Neal to help you with the planning? It's a big day for them, too.” She glanced over at Linny, her eyes kind. “I just want you to be excited about this wedding.”

Linny felt a stab of guilt. She'd been thinking too much about herself and not enough about them. Jack knew about her wedding blues and had tried to take off the pressure. “We'll do it however you decide. Just tell us where to show up,” he'd said in that voice he used to calm spooky horses. But instead of taking the pressure off, trying to make the decisions on her own just felt overwhelming, and inertia had taken hold. Kate was right. She needed help from both of them to make the day special, and from what she'd read online on the Helping Teens with Your New Marriage site, Neal would do better with this wedding if he was involved.

After her sister dropped her at home, Linny sat between the two dogs, which weren't supposed to be on the sofa, rubbed their silky ears, and thought about it. She found her phone and sent Jack a text.
New plan about the planning. Need you two men to give me ideas about wedding. Am stumped. Let's talk about it over supper tomorrow night. XOXO.
She smiled as she hit the Send button. Her heart lightened. The wedding worry was starting to lift.

P
ulling on a trench coat over her good black wool blazer, Linny checked her lipstick, grabbed the laptop, and headed out the door. Tonight's Building Customer Loyalty program was not her first rodeo teaching classes at Earth and Sky Market, but this crowd would be nerve-racking. The last three classes had been for managers and owners of small businesses. Now that they'd vetted the classes, they were sending their employees. She'd worked a lot with experienced leaders—bright, hardworking entrepreneurs who'd built businesses from scratch, former business majors, sons of bosses, and business owners always working to improve their business—but she hoped she was smart enough to be credible with their employees, like the ones who'd signed up for this class. These were the frontline folks who did the face-to-face, often hard and unglamorous work each day with tricky customers. But, she reminded herself,
she'd
done hard, unglamorous work before. Grimacing, she remembered flaming hot summers working in the fields stringing tobacco with her daddy. But she didn't know as much about these class members' worlds as she did about their managers'. Linny opened the door of the Volvo and slid into the driver's seat. She took a deep breath. She could do this.

* * *

Lil, who owned the Earth and Sky with her husband, Frank, and was the chief cheerleader for Linny's class, stood under the big, hanging coral lobster sign in the seafood department, talking with an employee. When she saw Linny, she beamed and hustled over to greet her, a cup of coffee clutched in her hand. Her trademark wild red curls were pulled back in a scarlet batik scarf that matched her red Birkenstocks.

Linny smiled. Lil always seemed to travel at high rates of speed.

Grasping Linny's arm, Lil burbled excitedly, “This afternoon we got two more calls from business owners wanting to enroll their employees in this class. We have waiting list for the April program. You're a success!” She threw up her hands, grinning.

“
We
are a success,” Linny reminded her, but still felt thrilled. “You let me run the class in your space for free and you talked the class up to everybody.”

Giving a little bow of acknowledgment, Lil's dangly earrings sparkled like her smile. Walking Linny toward the coffee shop that became a classroom once a week, she said quietly, “People are networking, too. Jacob's Florist got a standing order for flowers from the Sweet Life Bed and Breakfast, and Kelsey's Appliance is having us cater a big client appreciation party next month.” She patted Linny on the back and scurried off.

Participants trickled in. Whoa. Not one man in a button-downed shirt and not a woman in a charcoal pantsuit. Surreptitiously, she wiped her now clammy hands on her pants. She'd expected diverse, but not this diverse. She said hello to the gray-haired woman wearing a too-short skirt, the skinny fellow in cowboy boots and a bolo tie, and the three men in blue short-sleeved shirts with tags sewn on the pockets that read
Spivey's Garage
.

After a few moments Linny stood up at the front of the room. “Welcome to the Building Customer Loyalty program. Your managers handpicked you to attend this class because they believe in you and want to give you all the skills you need to be even more successful in your jobs. For two hours a week for the next three weeks, we'll focus on beefing up your customer service skills.”

Several students nodded and smiled at her, but the three blue shirts from Spivey's Garage whispered to one another. The apparent ringleader was Denny, whom Linny remembered from when she'd brought her car into Spivey's for repairs. Denny was a man in desperate need of customer service training. Linny eyed him. He wore a baseball cap and a mulish expression that said
I don't want to be here.

Linny strolled closer toward the table with the whisperers and continued to talk. “Have you ever been overcharged by a business? Have you been treated rudely by a salesperson? Some of you still get mad just thinking about it.” People nodded and a few looked disgusted. “The kind of service you receive—and give—can make or break a business.”

As Linny went over the agenda, the flat-eyed men in the blue shirts exchanged sly looks. Her scalp prickled as she remembered a class in which she'd expected troublemakers to self-correct with a little nudging, but they'd acted like sniggering thirteen-year-olds for the entire day, distracting and annoying other students. Linny stood up taller. She'd not let that happen again. She had to break up that rat pack or risk the class going to Hades on a fast train.

As the group members introduced themselves, Linny scribbled notes and decided how to rearrange the tables to separate the blue shirts—Denny, Wayne, and Ennis—and put them with people who looked like they'd be good influences. Denny would sit with Tina with the blond crew cut who was being groomed to be manager of Earth and Sky; bubbly Jessica from New Day Chiropractic; Reggie, who was ex-Navy and now a paralegal; Megan, who was the new manager of an independent hardware store; and bolo-wearing Bob from Lush Lawns, whose voice quavered as he talked about how blessed he was to find work at a company he loved after being laid off for two years.

“Let's switch things up and give you a chance to meet some new folk.” Linny made the new table assignments. From the corner of her eye, she watched Denny and his buddies roll their eyes as they shambled over to their new tables, looking uncomfortable at being parted. But Denny's eyes lit up as Jessica sent him a megawatt grin and stuck out a hand to introduce herself. Linny hid a smile. He'd have a hard time being snarky in that cheerful, earnest crowd. Poor guy might even learn something.

* * *

As the class drew to a close, Denny's baseball cap was off, and despite his protests about his terrible handwriting, his tablemates had picked him to report their ideas to the larger group. He stood at the flip chart and in a gruff voice, summed up, “So the main things customers want is for you to be good at what you do, don't keep 'em waiting, don't overcharge 'em, and treat 'em fair and square.”

Linny nodded. “Good job.”

Blushing furiously, he sat down. Bolo Bob gave him a congratulatory fist bump, and Tina gave him a thumbs-up. Linny sent him an encouraging smile, but he looked away, his lip curled.

Pretending not to notice the rebuff, Linny felt a wave of self-doubt. She probably looked too shiny and uptight, and maybe the examples she'd used were ridiculous. The words of her no nonsense mentor, Amy, came to mind. She would have shrugged and said in her pack-a-day voice, “A few will buck the whole time, especially if their bosses made them come. Some won't like a woman instructor. Most will come around. Do your best, don't take any baloney, and don't take it personally.” Good advice for tonight.

* * *

Later, Linny stood in the doorway and said good-bye to the class members as they filed out, feeling heartened by their comments: “This class is going to help me.” “You did a good job.” “I thought I'd fall asleep, but it was real interesting.”

The men from Spivey's had reformed their pack and now snorted with laughter as they swaggered toward the door. Denny made a show of extracting a round can of Skoal from his pocket and dropping tobacco in his cheek as he walked toward her.

Pretending not to notice, she nabbed Bob from Lush Lawns. “I need the advice of an expert, Bob. How do I get rid of voles?”

Bob stopped, blushed violently, and launched into an explanation. “Well, they're tough little critters, and the best way to get them gone is to get at their food source, which would be the grubs. . . .”

As the last of the three blue shirts ambled out of the room, Linny acted riveted by Bob as he waxed on about larvae, soil conditions, and bait. After a few moments the room was empty and, thankfully, Bolo Bob seemed to be winding down.

Linny nodded at the right time, but her eyes wandered outside the door of the classroom/coffeehouse to the wine section of the store, where she saw two familiar faces—Vera and her new husband Chaz, Jack's ex close friend. Edging back a step behind Bob so as not to be seen, her eyes widened as she watched Vera in her scarlet car coat glaring at her good-looking, black-haired husband. The glamorous blonde snatched a bottle of wine from the shelf and put it in the cart. Grim-faced, Chaz removed it and, looking like he was giving her a sotto voce dressing down, thunked it down on the shelf. Hand on hip, Vera took the bottle back down and put it in the cart, adding another for good measure. Chaz threw up his hands and stalked off. A mutinous-looking Vera followed him with the cart, her eyes shooting daggers at his back.

Distracted, Linny said good-bye to Bob, wondering what that little brouhaha was about. Was Chaz trying to curb her drinking? Were they arguing about how much the wine cost?

Linny felt a warm glow of satisfaction at having seen the perfect couple fight. As she tidied up the room, she chided herself for not being nice but couldn't muster up an ounce of remorse. Whenever Vera mentioned Chaz to Jack, she always managed to slip boasts into the conversation. Linny called them brag bombs. Grimacing, she remembered a few of them Jack had relayed to her.

“Chaz has been working twelve-hour days on this huge case, but he won, just like he always does.” “We'd take Neal Friday, but Chaz's been invited to a big dinner for an elite club of Trial Lawyers.” “Chaz threw the football around with Neal until way after dark. He's so good with him.” “We wanted to keep Christmas simple, but Chaz insisted on buying me this diamond bracelet even though I'd begged him not to.”

Jack would roll his eyes and make light of Vera's not subtle boasts. With a wry smile, he'd pass the brag bombs on to Linny like prize bon mots, but the comments made Linny's blood boil. Jack shouldn't have to listen to such nonsense from the ex-wife who'd left him.

Zipping her laptop into the bag, she straightened up the chairs and recalled Jack telling her that prior to his meeting Linny, Vera had even offered him dating advice. She'd oozed sympathy, telling him he needed to “get back out there,” and that she hoped he'd “find someone who
completed
him” like Chaz completed her.

Funny. The two of them hadn't looked all that complete hissing at each other in the wine aisle. After turning out the lights, Linny walked to her car with a decided spring in her step.

* * *

Pulling in at Jack's farm, Linny grasped the pizza boxes in her arms and pushed the car door shut with her foot. The enticing smell of garlic and the yeasty, fresh-baked crust hit her and her mouth watered. When she and Jack had started dating and he'd told her the best pizza in Worth County came from Gino's Gas and Go gas station, she'd thought he was kidding. But Gino's Sicilian mother, Concetta, happily baked away in a tiny restaurant housed in the gas station and made mouthwatering, delectable pizza. Now Linny had Gino's place on speed-dial. Tonight she'd ordered a small spinach and artichoke for herself and an extra-large pepperoni for Jack and Neal, both on whole-wheat crust as a cursory nod to healthiness.

Linny glanced at the white farmhouse that would soon be her home. Jack's place looked tidy and welcoming, with smoke from the wood stove puffing out of the stone chimney and the pink and white flowering camellia bushes framing the front door.

Linny spied flashes of color down by the barn and saw Jack and his son unloading lumber from the red truck and stacking it inside the bay of the building. She cocked her head. Add snow and a horse-drawn sleigh and you had a Currier and Ives scene. Jack looked up, grinned at her, and gave a big wave. Neal raised a hand and kept working. The boy's greetings were always tepid after he came back from his mother's house, she reminded herself. Linny just smiled and held up the pizza boxes. Jack nodded and said something to Neal. They'd be up directly.

Gazing at them a moment longer, Linny felt a swell of the still-novel sense of possessiveness and pride. This was
her
little pack. Jack and Neal looked pretty darned cute wearing the only two Christmas presents she'd gotten right: Jack in the red plaid Mad Bomber hat he wore with the faux fur ear flaps pulled up, and Neal in the bright yellow down vest he wore over his fleece. She gave a little shiver as she stepped toward the porch. Part of having a pack was worrying about them. She'd picked the red and yellow partly to decrease the likelihood that they'd get mistaken for an eight point buck by a trigger-happy hunter during deer season.

In the kitchen Linny put the oven on warm and slid in the boxes. She glanced at the set of plans for the ultimate tree house the men planned on building in the hundred-year-old pin oak behind the house and shook her head, amused. This wasn't going to be your average Joe tree house, no siree. All winter the two of them had been avidly watching
Tip-Top Tree Houses
on the Manly Man Channel and jotting down notes about extra-fancy features like multiple decks, secret passages, swinging bridges, and ultra-fast exits made of slicked-up sliding boards and poles from old fire houses. Though she'd been content to just read while the two watched the show, she'd been intrigued and snuck glances at the TV screen from behind her book. Secretly, she thought it would be thrillingly romantic to sleep under the stars on a tree-house deck, or take a bubble bath in a claw-foot tub thirty feet up in the air.

As she pulled plates and napkins from the cupboard and set the table, the phone rang. Jack had encouraged her to answer when she was at his house; but she'd demurred. It just didn't feel right until she was officially part of the household. Filling her and Jack's glasses with iced water, she'd just started to pour milk for Neal when the call rolled into voice mail. Recognizing Ceecee's sunny voice, Linny tensed and listened hard.