She was pondering how to get out of midnight flower duty when the doorbell rang. She jumped. It wouldn’t be Brantley. That would be too good—and too bad—to be true. Probably Missy, having stood it as long as she could. Maybe Tolly or Lanie. Or it could be the whole damn lot of them. There was nothing to do but let them in.
But it wasn’t any of those people. On the doorstep stood Charles Kincaid with so much kindness on his face that the tears in her eyes escaped with an explosive sob.
“Oh, baby girl.” He caught her in his arms, where she stayed for the barest second before stepping aside to let him in the house.
Much to her embarrassment, Charles picked up the empty wine bottle off the floor and set it on the coffee table.
“It looks like you’ve been passing the time of day the same way my son has. I think we’d better get this worked out before we have a couple of alcoholics on our hands. Though I am pretty sure my boy had himself a bottle of Wild Turkey 101.” Poor man. He had no idea there was nothing to work out. He removed his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. “They’re predicting snow for tonight. I almost believe it.”
“It’s cold enough,” Lucy said, though she had no idea if that was true. She hadn’t seen a weather report in days.
He picked up her coffee cup. “Is there any more of this around here?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry. Let me—”
“No. You sit down on that couch and curl up under that blanket. If I can’t find a cup of coffee, I’ve got no prayer of doing you any good.”
No prayer of that, regardless of his aptitude for locating coffee. She hoped he didn’t notice her McDonalds wrappers in the trash.
Charles came back, settled her refilled mug in her hand, and settled himself in a chair opposite her. She steeled herself.
“I’m not going to ask you a lot of questions.” He smiled like Brantley. The tears gathered again but this time she swallowed them. “At least I hope I’m not. I haven’t ever involved myself in my son’s love life before so I’m not exactly sure how this is going to go.”
“You can ask me anything you like. I have a lot to answer for.”
“Answer for?” He frowned like he didn’t understand.
“I embarrassed him in public. You can’t be happy about that.”
Charles laughed a little and sipped his coffee. “I am not sure Brantley has ever been embarrassed about anything in his life, but if he is, it’s his own fault. Or maybe mine. But I never imagined as I prepared my son for life that I would need to say to him, ‘Don’t issue marriage proposals in public, especially if you don’t know what the answer will be.’ I would have thought that was a given.”
She rubbed the place between her eyes. “I wish I had handled it differently.”
“Oh?” Charles said. “If you want to change your answer, I’m sure that can be arranged. When I talked to him last night, he was three sheets to the wind and not in the best state of mind.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s where he was always going to end up—back in Nashville with Rita May.”
Genuine surprise passed over Charles’s face. “No. He
“I called. She answered the phone.”
“You called? That’s encouraging.”
“I was not encouraged.”
“Yes, I can see where you wouldn’t have been.” Charles went silent for a moment. “I think I am putting this together. According to Brantley, she did show up at his door. He told her to leave and went upstairs. When he came back down, his phone was broken. She must have answered it and then smashed it. Brantley has no idea you called.”
That was something. Not enough, but something.
Charles smiled. “So you see, it’s all a misunderstanding. The two of you can work this out.”
And she had thought that was possible too, before Rita May had answered that phone. What had changed? Other than mass consumption of wine and fried food? Apparently, alcohol and grease had made her wiser.
“It’s more than that,” she said.
“Lucy, I know you love my son. I can see it. I know you have been involved for barely a month, but I maintain if you don’t know in a month you never will. I ought to know. Eva was just like Brantley except in high heels and lipstick. I never had a chance.”
“And neither did I,” Lucy admitted. “But Brantley doesn’t love me. He never said that he did.”
Pure amazement washed over Charles’s face. “You mean to tell me that my boy proposed marriage to you and never said he loved you?” He shook his head. “I thought he had more sense. Though he’s not completely stupid. He does have the good sense to love you, even if he hasn’t said so.”
Lucy just shook her head.
Charles sighed. “Look, y’all have had a miscommunication. You can work this out. I have reserved three rooms at the Hilton in Nashville and I hope one of them is going to be yours. I am headed over to pick up Miss Caroline and that sorry excuse for a dog. It’s not the Christmas we imagined, but we are going to be where he is whether he wants us or not. Why don’t you get yourself ready and we’ll come back for you. He’ll be a lot happier to see his grandmother and me if you are with us. He’s got a new phone. Call him and tell him you’re coming. I would suggest surprising him but I think there have been enough surprises lately. Besides, I’d like to see him put out of his misery.”
“So would I,” Lucy whispered. “But I am not the solution to his misery.”
Charles took a drink of his coffee and inclined his head, signaling her to continue. She hesitated. Might as well.
“Brantley is a runner. When things become intolerable for him, he runs. It’s tied up in his grief for his mother and grandfather.”
Pain crept in to Charles’s eyes but he nodded. “I see.”
“I don’t believe Brantley has ever grieved properly and when he moved back here it slapped him in the face. I don’t understand all of it. He will not talk to me, will not consider getting help. But there are things going on inside him. For some reason, he can cope when he’s with me—or he thinks he can. He told me that the night we decorated the tree at Miss Caroline’s. But his dependence on me has nothing to do with love.”
Charles shook his head sadly. “A fiasco if ever there was one. I should have put a stop to that before it started but Caroline was doing what she thought was best. I am not blind to Brantley’s grief. I just don’t know what to do to help him. But I don’t understand why you think he doesn’t love you. Grief and love are not mutually exclusive.”
“I am a refuge—a way to cope. One that seems to work on some level. But that kind of coping mechanism is bound to last only so long. Marrying me would be just another way of running.”
“I guess I taught him that,” Charles said after a moment of consideration. “Maybe I shouldn’t have jerked him up and taken him out of the country as soon as the funeral was over. Maybe I should have kept him here and gotten some counseling for him.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said. “And maybe you did exactly the right thing. It’s impossible to know. What is not impossible to know is what kind of father you are. And what kind of grandmother Miss Caroline is. There are no better. You did what you thought was best, and it might have been. And it doesn’t really matter how Brantley got here.”
Charles nodded. “I don’t know that I have been the best father but thank you for thinking so. I can’t say you’re wrong about Brantley’s state of mind but don’t you think it would be a good thing if you went to Nashville with us and talked to him? Don’t you think you can help him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I have that power. But I know this. I can’t go to him. He has to stop running before he can do anything.”
Charles rolled his mug between his palms and gave a half laugh.
“Until that day, nothing bad had ever happened to Brantley, at least not to speak of. From the first, we all fell at his feet—Eva, Caroline, Alden, and maybe me most of all. I’d buried my parents and there was literally no one else on the planet who shared my DNA. Not that Alden and Caroline didn’t treat me like a son, but this was
