Chapter 44
Tucker
“This wedding almost killed me,” Hanna says, leaning her head on my arm as we stand near the side of the dance floor, surveying the successful reception-in-progress.
I put my arm around her, and she leans against me.
“I can understand why,” I say. “It almost killed me, too.”
“Literally,” she says and shudders.
I flash back to that gun on Autumn and suppress a shudder of my own. “I hope those two go to jail for the rest of their lives.”
“Do you think they will?”
“Probably not nearly long enough,” I say.
“Rena will get first-degree arson, possibly a reckless-endangerment charge, and a few other counts. Sienna…it’s hard to know.
Maybe some destruction of property because of the earlier sabotage attempts?
Accessory? A couple decades at most for either of them. ”
“Well,” Hanna says with a sigh, “at least they won’t give Hott Springs Eternal shit for a little while.”
I watch Autumn as she flits from group to group, laughing and smiling. There’s a pit carved out in my gut. Aside from the brunch tomorrow morning, this is the last time I’ll see her…maybe ever. I have a lot of work to do on myself, and by the time I’m done…
I don’t expect her to wait around for me.
“Isn’t it cake time yet?” a voice says behind Hanna’s right shoulder.
It’s Nan from Rush Creek Bakery.
“Not yet,” Hanna says patiently. She gives me a look.
Nan likes to be the one who does the cutting of the cake once the bride has made the first cut and fed her new spouse the first bite.
We both think it’s because that basically lets her crash half the weddings in town, which in turn lets her collect even more Rush Creek gossip.
Of course today has been a goldmine of storytelling for our resident grapevine worker.
Which isn’t all bad. By bedtime, Five Rivers and its criminal activity will be the talk of the town, and Hott Springs Eternal will be back on top of the wedding world.
“Soon?” Nan asks.
“I won’t let you miss it,” Hanna promises with admirable patience. My sister is a marvel.
“Well, if it isn’t the fifth brother,” an unwelcome voice says behind my left shoulder. I turn to find my least favorite person, Arthur Weggers, in a lime-green suit. I don’t know where he shops, but it should be closed down by the Board of Other People’s Mental Health.
And uh-oh. Nan and Weggers have a longstanding enmity that dates back further than anyone else’s memories. When they’re both in the same space, it’s not oil and water. It’s—well, fuck, I don’t remember my college chem. It’s Coke and Mentos, then.
“I’m actually the fourth brother,” I remind him. “Quinn’s the youngest.”
“You’re the fifth brother to be given the terms of your engagement with the will,” Weggers says. “And the first one to fail.” He gives me a long, baleful glare.
“About that,” Hanna says. “You need to cut him some slack. Autumn literally walked out of the room while he was sleeping. It’s not like he left her side to go get a beer with buddies.”
“What’s all this?” Nan demands.
Hanna’s eyes light. I suspect she thinks if she can pit Nan against Weggers, it’ll give her argument weight. I think she’s playing with fire.
“According to Weggers’s rules, Tucker wasn’t supposed to leave Autumn’s side. And he didn’t. Autumn left his side, while he was asleep. And Arthur here is trying to claim that that nullifies the will—”
Nan doesn’t wait to hear the end of Hanna’s argument. She turns on Weggers with the force of a November windstorm in the mountains. “You pea-brained, small-minded, tiny-little-dick of a man!”
Whoops.
“How could you, when they’ve worked so hard and come so far!?”
Hanna and I do our best to wedge ourselves between the two wedding crashers—this is the problem with outdoor weddings; it’s very hard to manage the guest list.
“And you’re a meddling witch!” Weggers calls around us.
“I’m meddling because you’re a vicious, cheating, teeny-tiny prick!”
“I won that election fair and square!” Weggers says.
Wait, what?
“You cheated!” Nan says.
Hanna and I look from one of them to the other.
“What’s going on here?” she asks.
“Class president,” Weggers says. “Senior year.”
“I was going to win,” Nan says. “And then he pretended to be interested in me so he could come over to my house. He pilfered my diary from under my bed and passed it around the school.”
Weggers’s mouth falls open. “You thought that was me?” he asks.
“Of course it was you. Who else would it have been?”
“I would never have done something like that,” he says. “I would never have stolen your diary, let alone shown it to anyone else.”
All the bravado has gone out of Weggers. He sounds sad and deflated. “I can’t believe you’ve thought for fifty years that I was that person.”
Nan has gone very, very quiet.
Hanna and I stare at each other, wide-eyed.
Is Arthur Weggers about to cry?
Surely not.
Then he seems to gather himself, drawing himself back up to his full height and setting his shoulders.
“Nan,” he says. “If I agree to give Tucker another chance, if we agree that Autumn ‘leaving his side’ is not the same as him leaving her side, will you”—he takes a big breath—“agree to give me another chance?”
Hanna’s and my mouths drop open. You could knock us both over with one bald eagle feather.
“What does that entail, giving you another chance?” Nan asks cautiously.
I can’t blame her. You have to be careful what you agree to with Weggers. He’ll hold you to it.
“Could we…” He looks green around the gills. “Could we try to pick up where we left off?”
Nan’s eyes are almost as big as Hanna’s. And her mouth is open so far, she could catch trout.
Weggers shifts from one foot to the other. “No pressure. No obligations. But a long time ago, you didn’t think I was pea-brained or small-minded, and you definitely didn’t think I had a small d—”
“Please stop,” Hanna says, wincing.
“—you didn’t think any of those things you said about me,” he finishes diplomatically. I didn’t think he had that level of tact in him.
“No pressure, no obligations,” Nan repeats, carefully. “I just—give you another chance?”
“That’s right,” Weggers says, nodding.
His gaze is on Nan. On her eyes, still bright and clear even if her hair is dandelion white and flour sits in some of the deeper wrinkles on her face.
“And you give Tucker another chance,” Nan clarifies, although instinct tells me it’s to buy herself time, to give herself space. She’s not making this deal for me.
She’s making it for herself.
“Yes.”
Weggers has lost all signs of shiftiness. He’s just waiting. Patiently. Like this is the most important deal he’s ever made.
“Okay,” Nan says.
We all exhale simultaneously. Even Nan seems to relax a little; at least, her puff of hair gets smaller.
I look at my sister. She widens her eyes at me in exaggerated disbelief, then swipes imaginary sweat off her forehead.
I’d wager Hanna and I are about as relieved as it’s humanly possible to be.
But as relieved as we are, I don’t think either of us can match the look of unrestrained joy on Arthur Weggers’s face.