Chapter 6
SIX
Lacy guided us back through the open doors.
As soon as we were out of eyesight, the voices in the Winter Garden rose again, likely gossiping about Lacy and the angry friend who had the nerve to mouth off to a priest. In that moment I didn’t care.
I was grateful to step away from the heaters and into the cool night air.
I needed to get away from that awful priest, and maybe the frigid weather could bring me back to myself.
We went a hundred yards past the Winter Garden and Lacy turned left.
A minute later we found ourselves on the stone portico overlooking the rose hedge maze and the wide back lawn leading to the residential cottage.
As we surveyed the mountains backlit by the moon, the sound of Anton’s raised voice caught both of us by surprise.
“I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m say—” Anton practically shouted.
“You’re one to talk,” his mother cut him off. “I told you that this was all too fast, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Lacy’s frame stiffened beside me, and when I turned to her, she was frozen in place, her eyes fixed on some point in the distance.
“I’ve been seeing Lacy for two years, Mother.” I could barely make out the figures beyond us, but I was fairly certain I saw Anton’s hand lifted in exasperation. “Two years!”
“You’ve known Bella for your entire life. She is the one we all wanted. She’s the one who will take our family and the business into the next generation. She’s the one we trust. Lacy is practically a stranger.”
“I know her, and I trust her. That’s what matters—not to mention the fact that I don’t want Bella,” Anton said. “I’m in love with Lacy.”
I raised my eyebrows and gestured with my head that maybe we should head inside.
This seemed like a positive note on which to end our eavesdropping, but Lacy, her expression wounded, didn’t budge.
I followed her gaze and realized that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
I could see Anton and his mother clearly now, standing only a couple of feet from one another, engaged in a verbal sparring match.
“We had hoped for better things for you,” Patty said.
“Who is ‘we’? You and Dad? He’s not even here, so I doubt he cares one way or another about who I marry.”
The voices went quiet, presumably as Patty collected her thoughts. “Your father had a large shipment that he needed to get to a client.”
Puzzled, I glanced at Lacy. She seemed just as confused. After all, Anton’s family were ranchers, right? One didn’t exactly ship cattle, and even if they did, surely the boss wouldn’t need to travel with the cows.
“What does that even mean?” Anton asked, his voice tiring now.
“It means that your inheritance is at stake.”
“I don’t want to inherit the ranch, Mother. I told you both a long time ago that ranching isn’t in my blood.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Patty sighed.
Did Anton know it? He seemed as oblivious as us.
“Regardless, you don’t get to choose what is or is not in your blood, Anthony Swanson. You come from a long line of Texas entrepreneurs. They worked hard to get you to the place where you could choose your life’s direction. That’s a privilege that you shouldn’t squander.”
“Mother, do you hear yourself? Talk about privilege to choose! You left your husband and you’re dating a man half your age.”
“He’s not half my age, and your father was the one who first decided to have a dalliance outside of our bed,” Patty Swanson responded as adamantly. “Besides, we are making it work. He stays in his half of the house, and I stay in mine.”
“With a priest?” Anton’s voice was high-pitched, as if he couldn’t stress the strange fact any further.
“I’m in love with Todd,” Patty said.
“Love?” Anton laughed then. “That man-child is obviously after your money. It’s…” Anton struggled for the word before spitting out, “It’s inappropriate.”
“And you’re one to talk about inappropriate?” Patty threw back at him.
“What the hell does that mean?” Anton shouted.
I shivered and put an arm around Lacy, whose skin was cold to the touch. She shuddered, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the night air or from the conversation we were overhearing.
“Lacy seems like a lovely girl, she really does,” Patty said, her voice not nearly as loud but still carrying across the garden. “But, Anton, you’re our only child. Things are expected of you.”
“This isn’t the 1800s, Mother.”
“I’m aware,” Patty said, with a sigh.
I hoped to God that the next words out of her mouth weren’t something about how Lacy wasn’t a fitting partner, a good woman for the role of Anton’s wife, because I was ready to barge in on their conversation and slap Patty Swanson across her lifted face, mother of the groom or not.
Lacy was the best person I knew. She was loyal and kind.
She had business acumen, the ability to laugh at herself and with others, as well as a natural sense of decency that let her know when to speak and when to simply sit and be with someone.
Lacy had always been the best of friends to me, and a stalwart in the year after Momma died.
Though I wanted to remember that Anton’s mother didn’t know all of these wonderful things about my friend firsthand, fury was rising in my chest. If I had my way, Patty and the priest—along with the rest of the Texas party—would leave tonight and never return.
When voices rose above the garden again, they were heading toward us, and instinctively, Lacy and I crouched behind the stone balustrade.
“We were fine with you gallivanting off to find yourself, taking menial jobs at restaurants and bars,” Patty said, less aggressively but still as eager.
“We were even fine when you moved halfway across the country and started working at a little stable even though you always said you didn’t want to be a rancher.
But, my dear boy, it’s been long enough.
We need you back home. We need you to help with our new direction.
” Patty’s voice grew quieter. “Have you even asked Lacy if she’s willing to move back to Texas?
If she’s willing to give herself to our community?
Hundreds—no, thousands—of people depend on our family for their livelihood, and if you throw all of that away for a pretty face… then you’re not the son I raised.”
“I’m not throwing anything away,” Anton said. “I could give you a list of people who can take over, and I know Dad has a dozen hired guys who would love to be in charge.”
“They aren’t family. We can’t trust them with our next steps.
Your wedding was supposed to be you and Bella tying the knot, starting a life together, coming home to run things.
It was always supposed to be the two of you.
” Patty paused for a beat. “Tomorrow, when everyone arrives, you’ll see.
You’ll understand how beloved you are in Swanson, how much people want you to come back and be one of them. ”
There was a long silence as Anton and his mother headed back into the garden. Lacy started sniffling next to me.
“Come on,” I whispered, still bent forward at the waist so we wouldn’t be spotted. A tear ran down Lacy’s cheek as I said, “Let’s go inside. We’ll swing by the restroom and get you sorted out. I may even be able to swipe one of those travel-sized bottles of liquor from the maid’s cart.”
Lacy was more than willing to let me take the lead, and together we wound through the halls, past the Solarium and the doors to the Primrose Ballroom, through the Color Gallery, and into the large guest restrooms near the vestibule.
I considered taking her back upstairs, but she was supposed to make an appearance in the Carriage House to meet the girls for the bachelorette party in a few minutes.
If I let her go back to the suite, she might not come back down, and I was hoping that seeing the handful of other women who were there to celebrate and support her this weekend might remind her why she’d decided to get married in Aubergine after all.
I would just have to deal carefully with Bella Rivera’s presence.
When we were inside the restroom, I handed her a Kleenex box before grabbing a wad of paper towels from the counter, wetting it lightly, and gesturing to a wingback chair in the entryway for her to sit. I dabbed at the edges of her eyes, where only a very small bit of her makeup had run.
“This waterproof mascara holds up well,” I said, assessing her before beginning my ministrations: the primary skill I’d taken away from winning the Rose Palace Pageant six months earlier.
While Lacy sat staring at her hands in bewilderment, I took her purse and rummaged through it to find her emergency powder and lipstick. As I dabbed it on her lips, I tried not to let my own anger show, and reminded myself that there was something soothing about tending to another’s beauty needs.
Lacy blew her nose and examined herself in the bathroom mirror.
“Does Anton want me to move to Texas?” She hardly noticed her reflection though, as she spun around and tried to reason with me or herself—or the universe.
“I have a business here, and he’s never said a word about wanting to live there, much less work on a ranch. ”
“It didn’t sound like they wanted him on the ranch,” I replied, before quickly realizing that Anton’s family’s vague business prospects weren’t the primary concern here.
“Either way, it sounds like his mother is the one who wants him home.” I dabbed a brush into her shadow, a shimmery nude, and motioned for her to close her eyes. “Anton wants you to be happy.”
“But what if moving back home would make him happy?”
“So he can run a business with his obviously dysfunctional family?”
The question was genuine. I was still getting to know Anton.
Him arriving on the scene after my mother’s death hadn’t exactly been great timing for me to become chummy with anyone, but I’d been coming out of the worst of the grief fog in the past few months and I’d found that I genuinely liked the guy.
When he looked at Lacy, there was admiration and protectiveness—and laughter. I couldn’t wish for more for my friend.
I bit my lip, wondering if I dared ask the next question. “Did you know about Bella?”
Lacy’s eyes went to the ground as she thought back. “I think he mentioned her name, but you know how I am. I don’t ask a lot of questions about the past. My motto, ever since Brett, has been to let the past lie, to focus on the future.”
It was true. Brett’s jealousy had made Lacy totally uninterested in being possessive of, or being possessed by, any man. Until now.
A stricken look crossed Lacy’s face and her bottom lip trembled as she added, “I didn’t know that they’d been bathing together as toddlers. Or that she was the chosen one for him to marry. He failed to mention those details.”
“Because she doesn’t mean anything to him,” I suggested, though this didn’t feel quite right. After all the drama with Lacy’s high school sweetheart being murdered at our class reunion in October, I would’ve thought that the subject of former flames would’ve been on their minds.
Lacy started sniffling again, and tried to open her eyes wide to avoid undoing the work I’d just finished on them. The expression made her appear manic, and when both of us caught her reflection in the mirror, she laughed and groaned at the same time.
“Weddings are supposed to be happy,” she breathed.
“No, they’re not.” I scoffed. “Please recall every bridal show we’ve ever watched on TLC.”
Lacy chuckled softly. “But mine is supposed to be happy.”
I lifted her chin. “Hey, you’re marrying the man you love. Nothing can take that happiness away. And besides, The Countdown has begun.”
Just like we referred to The Worst, as in the worst-case scenarios, to put things in perspective, we also used The Countdown, a shorthand way to remind ourselves that for better or worse, an impending event would pass.
Over the years we’d used it to reference unwanted things like the SATs, Pap smears, and competitions.
Using The Countdown to talk about Lacy’s wedding ceremony wasn’t ideal, but if the weekend was destined to be filled with family drama, then perhaps it was more than appropriate.
“Listen.” I checked my watch. It was almost 8 p.m. “In about twenty-four hours, your rehearsal dinner begins, and in”—I calculated—“forty-three hours and twelve minutes you’ll be walking down the aisle.”
“We want a short ceremony,” Lacy reminded me. “Twenty minutes tops. That’s what we emailed the priest.”
The mention of the priest made both of us pause.
“I didn’t expect him to be quite so…” I wasn’t sure how to finish the description of Reverend Todd Anderson.
“Dick-ish?” Lacy finished, one eyebrow lifted.
“That seems appropriate.”
“Me either.” Lacy blinked. “And to think that he and Anton’s mother are… sleeping together? Without being married? Is that even allowed?”
I cringed, thinking about Anton’s reaction to the news of his mother’s love life, and Lacy put her forehead in her hands. She seemed to be trying to find the motivation to get herself through this weekend.
I wanted to tell Lacy that I would fix things, that I would drag Bella and Patty and the priest out to the backside of the property and keep them locked up until after the wedding, but I’d learned—was still learning—that I couldn’t promise happiness or peace of mind or even a good eventual outcome.
I could only be there for whatever came next.
“Regardless of the background noise this weekend, you’re gonna be surrounded by people who love you.
Not only do you have your family, you have me and Aunt DeeDee, Savilla, and Jemma.
” I listed the two other bridesmaids off on my fingers.
“The three of us will form a little triangular shield around you this weekend. Patty Swanson and friends will not pass without our say-so.” I winked at Lacy.
“Aunt DeeDee and Charlie can be our bodyguards—a kind of first line of defense.”
Lacy managed a smile. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Dakota Green.”
“Ditto,” I said, putting my forehead against hers before taking a tiny bottle of gin I’d grabbed from the storage room and waving it in front of her. “Now let’s get smiley so we can greet the bridal party and get you as drunk as you want.”
“I’m not sure The Rose has enough liquor for this wedding.”
“Then we’ll find some more.”