Chapter Sixteen #2
“I’m in love,” Lyle blurted out.
“Does that have anything to do with your decision about college?”
“She graduated last year, and she wants to get married when I finish my senior year,” Lyle answered.
“Is she in college?”
Lyle shook his head. “No. She went to Vo-Tech and works for a doctor over in Vega.”
“Is she discouraging you from continuing your education?” Walker asked. “You don’t have to answer any of my questions if they are too personal.”
Lyle sat down beside Walker and didn’t say anything for several minutes.
“She says I have to make a choice between her and going away to play ball somewhere. I’ve already got a couple of recruiters talking to me—one in New Mexico and one in Arizona.
Full scholarship with everything paid for. I feel torn between her and my folks.”
“Leave all of them out of it. Just sit right here for a couple of minutes, or for a week or more, and figure out what you want. You should enjoy your senior year and not have to worry about marriage right now. You are too young to even be looking down that road. But the important thing is that you follow your dreams, and then you won’t have regrets, no matter how things turn out.
” Walker wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Lyle or to himself.
Lyle stared at the tree, which seemed even more misshapen than ever. “My girlfriend and I had sex for the first time under that tree.” His face turned scarlet red, and he wiped the sweat away with a paper towel he yanked from his hip pocket.
“That was a brave thing to do with three old ladies living across the street,” Walker chuckled.
“We didn’t even think about that.” Lyle frowned before he went on. “I guess I have to do some serious thinking, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do,” Walker answered. “But my advice is not to rush, and especially be sure that a pregnancy doesn’t pop up. That would change everything.”
“Thanks for talking to me. I needed someone who wouldn’t pull me one way or the other,” Lyle said.
“I should get going. Grandma will be calling every five minutes about dinner being ready. She wasn’t real happy about me skipping church this morning, but I told her that I needed to get some things worked out.
Grandpa always says hard work is the best way to think through problems.”
Walker patted him on the back. “Herman is a wise man. Anytime you need to talk, just holler at me.”
Lyle stood up and stuck out his hand. “Sure thing. When you get ready to build that greenhouse, give me a call.”
Walker shook with him and picked up a log from the truck. “I promised Tina that I’d keep enough to make something for her as a keepsake.”
“The tree must be as special to her as it is to me,” Lyle said.
“I imagine that it could write volumes if it was able to talk,” Walker chuckled.
“And some of it would be pretty raunchy,” Lyle laughed as he got into his truck and drove away.
Mae and Cleo didn’t even notice the foot-long log lying on the porch.
They hustled right on past it and went straight inside the house.
Tina picked it up and carried it up to her bedroom.
Someday it would be the base for a small lamp, or maybe a picture frame if she could find someone talented enough to make one or the other for her.
She put it on the dresser and went to the window to look at the tree.
Poor thing looked sad, with that big pale circle shining where the limb used to be attached to the trunk.
“In a year or two that will heal over and maybe a new branch will grow in its place,” she muttered.
And maybe I will heal and do the same.
She turned away from the window and went to her closet.
She changed out of her sundress into a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt.
She had stepped out into the hallway when she heard water running in the shower.
That meant that Walker was getting cleaned up after a morning of hard labor.
A vision popped into her mind of coming in with him, both all dirty and sweaty after taking care of the tree.
In the picture in her head, they went from groaning with sore muscles as they climbed the stairs to stripping their clothing from their sticky bodies and taking their first shower together.
Her heart threw in an extra beat. Her hormones raged.
Her chest tightened. Her face was crimson when she reached the kitchen.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
Mae stopped cutting up the roast and stared at her. “Do you have fever?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
Cleo rushed around the table and laid a hand on her forehead. “No, she’s just gotten too hot from rushing around to change clothes.”
Mae went back to slicing the roast. “In that case, you can get the iced tea ready. Cleo has set the table already, and she made a sweet potato pie yesterday for our dessert.”
The aroma of soap mixed with Walker’s cologne wafted into the kitchen a few seconds before he appeared. Tina couldn’t look at him for fear that he would read her mind.
“The smell of hot rolls met me when I came out of the bathroom,” Walker said. “I love Sundays when y’all make a roast.”
“Iris made one, too, so the whole block probably is throwing off the same scent, but hers won’t be as good as ours,” Cleo said. “She doesn’t give them four hours in the oven like Mae does, so it’s tough as shoe leather.”
Tina filled four glasses with ice and tea. “Then I bet Brother James is glad he already had another invitation today.”
Cleo laughed so hard that she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. “You are so right. We should invite him for Sunday dinner sometime.”
Tina put a glass beside each plate. “Maybe he won’t put his brussels sprouts in the trash.”
Mae chuckled down deep in her throat. “We figured that was you who did that little number. The trash smelled horrible by morning.”
Walker raised a hand. “Confession. When Gracie and I saw her do that, we did the same thing.”
“Did y’all ever think about trying to make peace with Iris?” Tina asked.
“Sure, we did,” Mae answered. “We thought about it, laughed about it, and forgot about it.”
“You should have given her some of your herbs and spices, and maybe even a few recipes,” Walker suggested.
“The Bible says to love your neighbor.” Cleo brought a bowl of corn to the table. “It does not say you have to like her well enough to give her your secret recipes or your herbs.”
“Amen!” Mae agreed.
Tina laughed with all of them, but she really wanted the meal to be over so she could talk to Walker and clear the air about how much he had hurt her feelings by not letting her help trim up the tree. But first she had to get that vision of the two of them in the shower together out of her head.
Walker laid a hand on her shoulder, and without thinking, she turned to look at him. His dark hair was still damp, and his touch sent shivers down her spine. His blue eyes had a question in them, but she couldn’t read what he was thinking. Damn that picture in her head anyway!
“You are awfully quiet,” he said.
“She got sassy with Sabrina in church,” Mae said, “so she’s probably reliving that moment.”
Walker didn’t take his eyes from hers. “Oh, really?”
Cleo told him what had happened. “And you won’t believe it, but I think Sabrina was flirting with Brother James.”
“So soon after Brandon broke up with her?” Tina asked.
Mae laid a hand over her heart. “Oh! No! That hussy better not have our poor Brother James in her crosshairs. I bet Iris put her up to it so that she’ll be the preacher’s wife.”
“And that’s bad, why?” Tina asked.
Mae’s and Cleo’s phones both dinged at the same time.
“Sweet Lord!” Mae gasped. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“What?” Walker asked.
Cleo read the text and laid her phone on the table beside her plate. That had always been a no-no when Tina was a teenager, so it shocked her.
“That’s from our quilting friend, Lillian.
She says that she found out that Sabrina does have her eye on Brother James and that Faith is trying to set them up on a date.
Sabrina says that when she is the preacher’s wife, she and Iris will see to it that Mae and I are not welcome in the church anymore,” Cleo said.
“I’d like to see them try. That girl is trouble, and besides . . .” Mae took a long drink of her tea and went on. “Do you remember Barbara and Thomas McBride?”
“Of course I do. They got married in our church about twenty years ago and went to do missionary work in Africa,” Cleo answered.
“Well, they are coming to preach at our church next weekend while Brother James goes to Woodward, Oklahoma, to interview for a job there. Sabrina won’t be latching on to him if he takes that position, because she would have to leave her queen bee spot in Benson,” Mae said.
Tina got stuck on the very idea of Sabrina as a preacher’s wife. “Revenge is a horrible reason to marry a minister,” she muttered.
“Amen to that,” Walker agreed and turned to focus on Cleo. “How do you know all about new people coming to preach at your church, anyway?”
“Barbara called me late last night to tell me the news. I was going to share it, but after that incident with Iris, it slipped my mind,” Mae explained.
“We kind of helped with Barbara’s wedding. Her folks were having some trouble, so . . .” Cleo shrugged.
“What goes around, comes around,” Walker said with a grin.
“I will have to give Sabrina this much: She’s nice to Iris, and that takes a lot,” Tina said.
“Hmph . . . ,” Cleo snorted. “She’s only sucking up to her aunt to get back at you.”
“Small towns,” Walker said under his breath.
“Got to love ’em, even with folks like Sabrina and Iris,” Tina told him.