“Not really. You?”
“Hell, no. I say we go stand in front of a magistrate. How about Gwen Utley next week sometime?”
“Be serious, Dwight. There’s a lot of middle ground between a big church wedding and a magistrate’s court. Part of this is PR—show the voters I’m becoming a respectable married woman, remember? That means pictures in the newspaper and some sort of church ceremony. And you know how hurt the boys would be if we didn’t invite them to come. Or their wives if we didn’t let them do the reception.”
Dwight laughed and leaned back in the wooden chair till he was extended his full length. “In other words, the usual big, sprawly Knott family celebration with two pigs on the cookers and half the county invited?”
“It’ll probably be too cold for a pig-picking,” I murmured, sneaking a discreet glance at the fit of his jeans. My body still pinged and tingled like an overheated engine cooling down.
“Too cold?” he scoffed. “It won’t get too cold till November.”
“I was thinking the Christmas holidays,” I said. “When Cal could be here.”
“
“No, it’s not.” I pulled out a calendar and laid it on the table between us to count the weeks. “We’re practically into October, see? So it’s only ten or twelve weeks till Christmas vacation starts. We’ll need that much time to get it together. You’ll have to give notice on your apartment. I have to clear my court calendar and find a dress. Not white satin with a train and veil,” I assured him, “and you won’t have to wear a tux, but I think I ought to look a little bit bridal, don’t you?”
There was a discreet glance of his own as he ran his eyes over my snug shirt. “I guess.”
(
“It won’t be easy finding something for a matron of honor who’s gonna be about nine months pregnant,” I mused aloud, already making lists in my head.
“You’re having bridesmaids?”
“Just Portland. To balance your brother. You’ll want Rob to be your best man, won’t you?”
He nodded. “Did you hear that he and Kate are expecting a baby?”
“No! When?”
“January or February.”
Rob and Kate were already raising two children: her son, who was born after her first husband died, and her orphaned cousin, who was four or five when Kate married Rob. This would be their first child together.
January or February? Nice. That should help distract Miss Emily’s attention from Dwight and me. I adore his eccentric mother, but sometimes she’s a real force of nature.
We talked some more, then Dwight got up to go. I walked him out to the truck and he gave me a chaste goodnight kiss on the forehead. At least it started out chaste. We were both breathing heavily when we pulled apart.
“No,” I said a little unsteadily, “not repulsive at all.”
He laughed and stepped up into his truck.
I watched till his taillights disappeared through the trees, then went back to bed where I lay awake another hour thinking about where I’d landed myself this time. It might not be a great and burning romance, it might be settling for safe and comfortable, but it was certainly going to have its compensations.
(“
(“
(But I noticed he was grinning, too.)
CHAPTER 12
MONDAY MORNING
I had just dragged myself out of bed, put on the coffee, and was now going through the daily ritual of deciding how to retrieve my morning newspaper. I could jog the half mile to the box at the end of my driveway, or I could pedal down on the dirt bike I’d bought secondhand from a niece who recently acquired her driver’s license, or I could cheat and drive. I’d about decided on the bike when I heard a car door slam. My back door stood open to the screened porch and April didn’t bother to knock.
Automatically, I glanced at the clock. Seven-oh-five. Court didn’t start till nine, and I’d showered last night, so I had plenty of time, but I was under the impression that April’s school day started at eight so why was she over here in stained shorts and sneakers, no makeup, and a ravaged face? After Minnie, April’s the sturdiest, most got-it- together of my sisters-in-law, but today even her short brown hair with its threads of gray stood up in un-combed tufts.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as my heart froze. “Daddy—?”
Well past eighty now, he’s always my first thought when someone obviously bearing bad news shows up at my door unexpectedly.
April shook her head mutely.
“The kids?”
