“Can’t tell that you bought the meat?” Arabelle looked puzzled and sniffed the pork. “This is from Depot Barbecue. Everyone eats there. They’ll recognize it.”
“Oh, no,” Lanie said. “You don’t get it at all. She doesn’t want anyone to know she made the other food. She always lies and says she buys it. She doesn’t want anyone to know she can cook.”
Arabelle laughed a pretty laugh to go with her pretty face. She had dark hair and bright blue eyes like Luke and Emma. “I won’t tell. I don’t understand but I am good at keeping secrets.”
“You’d understand if you lived in a town that had as many bake sales as this one does. They would wear me down to nothing.”
“Missy, how many guests do you think you’ll have?” Lanie asked as she started to count out plates for the buffet.
“Oh, who knows? We should put out twice as many plates as we’ll have people because some will go back and get a clean plate. I’d say fifty plates, but Harris is always inviting random people without telling me, so make it sixty. We can pull out more if we need them.”
“I’m afraid Brantley might have done a little of that inviting this year,” Lucy said. “Did he tell you he invited Will Garrett?”
“No,” Missy said. “But that’s fine. What’s one more? And we like Will.”
“Only one more?” Arabelle said. “What about his wife?”
“Will doesn’t have a wife,” Lucy said. At least he’d never mentioned one and she was pretty sure he didn’t wear a ring. “Though, I could be wrong.”
“No,” Missy said with certainty. “Will’s not married. Never has been. I’d know it.”
“No fiancee?” Arabelle persisted, as she poured Missy’s homemade barbecue sauce into a serving bowl.
“No,” Missy said. “Never been engaged. Though come to think of it, it seems there was some rumor going around about that. But it wasn’t true. Why?”
“Nothing,” Arabelle said. “I guess I heard the same rumor. No matter. Missy, do you want this barbecue sauce from the Depot put out too?”
“No. I control the sauce in this house and they are going to eat mine.”
An hour before kickoff the guests arrived in droves, including a classmate of Brantley and Missy’s, Ila Jo Gentry, who was in Merritt from Indiana for the holiday. Her husband, Jerry, wore a Notre Dame jersey.
“Are you going to send him home?” Lucy asked Missy.
“No. I guess I need to make my rules a little clearer next year.”
Lucy did not point out that there was no way Missy would don anything herself that lauded a team other than her own alma mater’s.
There were the usual suspects in crimson: the Cochrans, the Bennets, the Eubanks—all couples, all with children—plus Millie Carmichael, Jessilyn Chambers, and Jill St. John’s fiance, though Jill was wearing the orange and blue. Besides Jill, other members of the Auburn contingent consisted of Carla Ashley, Larry and Jackie Joseph, and veterinarian Christian Chandler’s entire family.
When Will Garrett arrived twenty minutes before kickoff, it was impossible to tell by his attire—pressed jeans and a green starched oxford cloth shirt, devoid of any sort of logo—which team he rooted for, or if he cared. No one called him on it, maybe because baby Lulu was awake and in full overdrive or because Will wasn’t the kind of man you called on anything.
Most of the men settled into the den where the huge plasma TV hung, while the women divided themselves between the sunroom and the living room.
“I’m surprised you don’t want to be where the big TV is, Missy,” Arabelle said as she settled into a chair in the sunroom. Missy had steered serious fans to the sunroom and talkers to the living room. The older children were on the screened-in porch with the two teenagers Missy had hired to watch them.
“Lord, no. It would take a Marine Corp Special Unit to get me in there. You can practically taste the testosterone pouring out of there.”
“And what does testosterone taste like?” Laura Cochran asked.
But Missy answered without missing a beat, “Like pigs in a blanket.”
Lanie looked toward the TV. “Y’all watch for Tolly and Nathan.”
“Lanie.” Missy put Lulu in the nearby play yard with John Luke, who had pulled up and was dropping blocks over the side. “There are 101,821 people in that stadium. We are not going to see Tolly and Nathan—though we might see Kirby on the sidelines. His number is ten.”
“We
And just then ESPN sideline reporter Audrey Evans appeared on the screen and said, “I’ve got former Crimson Tide All-American Nathan Scott with me.” And Nathan’s face appeared on the screen.
Pandemonium broke out throughout the house, even from the Auburn fans.
He was one of their own.
It was an afternoon of food, fun, and, of course, football.
It was also an afternoon of Brantley, with him appearing every so often to offer Lucy a drink or just say hello.
During halftime, he wandered into the kitchen, where Lucy was loading the dishwasher, to try to convince her to put on that sweatshirt.
“It’s eighty degrees in here,” she told him. “Missy just cut down the air.”
“All the more reason for you to need a sweatshirt.”
“I’m good,” she’d said. “Go back to the man cave.”
He gave her shoulder a little squeeze before he left, and Ila Jo Gentry laughed.
“I’m glad I was around to witness that,” she said. “It was worth coming from Indiana to see.”
“What?” Lucy asked.
“Brantley Kincaid besotted.” If only that were true.
She looked across the way and noticed Arabelle standing by the fireplace in what appeared to be an intense conversation with Will Garrett. She idly wondered what that was about, but she was soon distracted by Brantley’s reappearance.
He carried two straight bourbons. “Here, baby. I thought you might want a fresh drink before the second half.” He gave her a brief kiss, so brief but so important because, even here among her friends, it was a ticket to fitting in, to belonging.
And she vowed that, though it wouldn’t last forever, she was going to make this last as long as she could.
Chapter Twenty
“Can you believe that game?” Brantley asked in an indignant voice as he held the door and helped her into his SUV. “I thought we were actually going to lose there for a while!”
Why he was so astounded, Lucy didn’t know. Alabama might have been the clear favorite this year, but where this rivalry was concerned, all bets were off—no matter who had the better team. For most Alabamians, this was the most important game of the season, far outweighing any bowl game or national championship. Losing this game got coaches fired; winning it guaranteed multimillion-dollar contracts.
But he ranted as he drove and she took pleasure in it—such pleasure that she barely noticed where he was going until he pulled into the garage between Miss Caroline’s house and the carriage house.
“I thought you might want to see the kitchen cabinets,” Brantley explained.
Yeah. That’s it. That’s exactly what she wanted to see.
