Читать книгу Close to Home - Deborah Raney - Страница 11

Chapter 4

4

Did Grant know too? Bree checked her rearview mirror, half expecting to see him following her. But the road behind her was empty.

She’d been suspicious at Audrey’s reference to a “hot date”—even if she had been talking about CeeCee. But now, Grant’s comment about it being “time to make some changes” made her feel certain Tim’s parents knew she was going out with Aaron this weekend.

If Grant had been testing, she’d failed. But how could they know? She hadn’t told anyone. Not even her own parents. Not that there was anything to tell. Or that her parents would ever bother asking.

So why didn’t she tell? What kept her from simply telling Grant she was going to a movie with a friend from work? A guy. A hot guy.

And there it was. That was why. Because no matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t a date, she knew it really was. In Aaron’s eyes for sure. But in her own, too.

But why was that a bad thing? Everyone else got to move on with their lives. Getting married, having babies, buying houses. They couldn’t expect her not to do the same.

She braked needlessly, as if she could curb the thoughts by slowing the car.

Stop it, Whitman. Nobody is trying to stop you from moving on. You’re guilting yourself. And she knew it had more to do with Tim than any true guilt about “moving on.” She still loved her husband. Was that so wrong? And Tim’s family had become hers. Maybe even more than when he was alive. They’d been through so much together. She didn’t want to move on from them. And yet, that was inevitable, wasn’t it?

She wanted to be married again someday. She wanted a family. Babies. The good Lord knew that being around Tim’s precious nieces and nephews made her long for the day she would hold her own baby in her arms. Yet such thoughts were so very complicated.

Aaron had been flirting with her for months now. At first she’d been too dumb to recognize it, but even Wendy in reception agreed: he was definitely flirting. Bree had to admit she found Aaron attractive. But whenever she tried to wrap her mind around the idea of dating again, Tim’s sweet face would be there. And she’d feel like she’d cheated on him with her very thoughts.

She wondered what kind of man would tolerate her having such a close relationship with her late husband’s parents—his entire family. Not many. And who could blame them. If she tried to think of the situation in reverse, she knew she would be none too thrilled.

But thinking about her life without the Whitmans? That just about broke her heart.

Because the truth was, when she thought about bringing her future babies to Christmas dinner and Easter egg hunts, it was Grant and Audrey she imagined in the background. She frowned. Her children, if she ever had any, wouldn’t call Grant and Audrey Poppa and Gram. Her children wouldn’t even be related to the rest of the Whitman crew. It seemed cruel. One more thing Tim’s death had inflicted on her.

She entered Cape Girardeau’s city limits and tapped the brakes. She had to get out of this pit of dark thoughts before she walked into the office. Pulling into a parking space on the street in front of Wilkes, she tried to peer through the plate-glass windows to see whether Aaron was at his desk or not. But the glass only reflected the row of stores across the street. And her own reflection. She’d been told she wore her feelings on her sleeve, and she did not need Aaron reading her mind the minute she walked through the door.

She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, locked the car, and stepped up the curb to the entry door.

Before she could reach for the handle, the door swung open, and Aaron strode out and took her by the arm. “Come with me.”

“What?” She resisted his grasp. “What’s going on?”

“I have ten minutes to get a hundred chairs moved into the basement of some church out on Lexington.”

“What? What’s the big rush?”

“A funeral.”

She stared at him like he’d lost his last marble. “Aaron, I can’t just drop everything and go to a funeral. Are you crazy?”

“Don’t worry, I already told Sallie I needed you to go with me.”

“And who’s going to finish the hair expo stuff? That’s due tomorrow, you know.”

“I’ll help you with it when we get back.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “As long as I don’t have to actually go to the hair expo.”

“Hey, if I help you move a hundred chairs, you’ll let a blind first-year student give you a Mohawk if I say so.”

“Fine. Just come on. We need to take a truck.”

He took her arm and practically dragged her to the company pickup in the back parking lot. Once she was buckled in the passenger seat, she turned to look at him. “Since when did Wilkes add funerals to our events list anyway?”

“Apparently since this stiff’s family decided to plan a family reunion around their grandfather’s death. Sallie said the daughter who hired us said something about they had to clean out dear ol’ Grandpa’s house to get it on the market, and suddenly second cousins once removed were coming out of the woodwork wanting to get in on the haul. They lived in one of those huge old houses out by the college.” Aaron gestured in the direction of the Southeast Missouri State campus.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “So Grandpa’s funeral is suddenly going to be standing room only? When is the funeral?”

He looked at his watch. “Four o’clock.”

“Today?” She practically screeched.

“See why I’m in such a hurry.” He pushed the speed limit for the six blocks to the warehouse where Sallie stored event rentals.

On the city’s old, uneven brick streets in the downtown area, Bree was jostled and jolted in her seat. “Take it easy, would you, Lightning McQueen?” She clutched the door handle for dear life.

Looking proud of the cartoon name he’d earned, Aaron parked as close to the warehouse as he could get. They jumped out of the vehicle in unison.

Forming a two-man “bucket brigade” with Aaron in the bed of the truck and Bree on the ground, they started stacking folding chairs into the truck in tight rows.

Within minutes, sweat was rolling down Bree’s forehead into her eyes. Not to mention her feet were killing her. “I would have at least changed my shoes if I’d known this was what you were dragging me off to do.”

“Sorry.” He shrugged and tried to look sheepish, but she wasn’t buying it.

“How many chairs will this truck hold? You don’t think we can get them all in one trip, do you?”

“If we stack ’em right, we can.” He took two more chairs from her and lifted them into the bed of the pickup. “Tell you what, when we get to the church, I’ll let you set up chairs in the nice cool basement and I’ll bring them in from the truck.”

“You’d do that for me?” she teased.

“As long as I don’t have to do the hair expo.”

“Wait a minute. You promised—” A drop of sweat dripped off the end of her nose and made a spot on her shirt. “Fine. Deal.”

They finished loading the truck and located the church. She asked someone in the office where they were supposed to set up, then helped Aaron with the first dozen chairs before taking him up on his offer to do set-up in the air-conditioned basement. She easily kept up with him and even took a break to go splash cool water on her face and try to do something with her hair.

“Hey, looks good in here,” he said as he brought the final load of chairs in. He helped her finish straightening chairs, then they went to stand at the back of the room, admiring their tidy rows of white folding chairs all facing a big-screen TV where the service in the sanctuary would be broadcast to any who didn’t arrive early enough to get a seat upstairs. “You ever wonder if they’ll have to have an overflow for your funeral? I’m thinking I don’t even want a funeral. I mean, what’s the big deal? Just go have a party in my honor or something.”

“It is kind of a big deal, actually.” She didn’t really want to talk about it, but she couldn’t help but remember Tim’s funeral. She’d forgotten they had to set up chairs in the smaller chapel at his funeral, too. Of course, the family hadn’t been in that room, but she wondered now what it was like, watching a funeral on a TV screen. Had the camera captured her family and Tim’s in their grief? There was a video of his funeral somewhere, but she’d never had the courage to watch it, not wanting to relive an hour that had been excruciating the first time around. But now she wondered: were there others who had seen their grief via that video?

“Seriously? Not me. Just scatter my ashes over the—” He took in a short breath, then clamped his mouth shut. After a long moment, he spoke quietly. “I’m an idiot. Bree, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of . . . that subject.”

She waved him off. “It’s okay. No big deal.” She’d practiced saying such words for four and a half years now. Almost five. And sometimes she wondered if she’d ever be able to say them and mean them. But it was a big deal. Even after all this time, every reference to death, funerals, tragedy felt loaded. Even when she knew they weren’t intended to be that way.

“I’m truly sorry,” he said, hanging his head.

“Forget about it, Aaron. It’s fine.” She gestured and blinked back an unexpected heat behind her eyes. “Really.”

“I wish I could take that back. It was stupid of me and—”

“Do you think any of the chairs need touch-up paint?” She walked along a row of chairs, ostensibly inspecting them for chipped paint. If they didn’t change the subject in about three seconds, she was going to cry.

Thankfully, Aaron took her cue. “I checked most of them when I loaded and unloaded them. I didn’t see anything that looked too bad. Do you? I’ve got the paint kit in the truck if we need it though.”

Sallie was a stickler that the event equipment they rented be in top-notch condition. “I didn’t see anything. We can check them better when we pick them up.”

“Oh, did you ask the office about that? Do we have to do that yet today?”

She shook her head. “They said we could pick them up in the morning as long as we have everything out of here before noon.”

“We? So that means you won’t mind coming with me to do this all again.”

Grateful they’d turned the corner on a depressing subject, she smiled. “I’ll come if we can do it first thing, before it gets hot. And I’m wearing my tennis shoes next time.”

“Meet you here at eight?”

“Make it seven-thirty, and you’ve got a deal. In fact, buy me breakfast at seven, and I’ll forget all about the Mohawk.”

“Wait . . .” A funny gleam came to his eye. “Did you just ask me on a date?”

“Cut it out, Jakes. It’s breakfast with a coworker.”

“And friend.”

“Whatever.” But she couldn’t help smiling. And looking forward to tomorrow morning. Maybe breakfast with Aaron would ease the path to their real date on Saturday.