Chapter Twenty-Three
Walker had always been a quiet kid of few words and grew into a man who spoke even less—except with Gracie and Tina.
On the way home on Sunday morning, he seemed even more pensive than usual.
The ladies in the back seat talked ninety miles an hour, and over each other, so no one noticed except Tina.
Could he be having second thoughts about their relationship? Had the whole wedding spooked him?
When they got home, Mae and Cleo went straight to the kitchen and made a fresh pot of coffee. Walker and Tina brought in all the baggage, set the ladies’ things beside their bedroom doors, and took their suitcases and clothing bags upstairs.
“Are you okay?” Tina asked when they were halfway up the stairs.
“I’m fine,” Walker said. “Meet me at the Tomorrow Tree in a few minutes.”
“Sure thing,” she agreed. “But first we’ll have to have a little brunch with the ladies. They’ve been alternately talking about the wedding and whispering behind their hands all the way home. I think they’ve got something they want to share with us.”
“They’re probably upset about the fact that they weren’t invited into the hogan with the other families,” Walker said. “But whatever it is, let’s go drop our things and let them get it out of their systems. Then we’ll go over to the park.”
Tina led the way down the stairs, across the foyer and dining room, and into the kitchen, where they were sitting at the table. Four mugs, a pot of coffee, and several pieces of leftover wedding cake on a platter were ready for them.
“Iris moved out yesterday, and the house next door is officially ours now,” Cleo announced.
Tina raised her hand toward the ceiling. “Hallelujah! Now we can take down the fence, right?”
Mae poured herself a mug full of coffee and sent the pot around the table. “Yep, we sure can, and do some yard work over there to make the place presentable. We’ve been dying to tell you our news, but we didn’t want to take one second away from Gracie’s wedding. It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Walker said.
“One of Dakota’s cousins explained the process that went on when they were in that hut. I think y’all should do that when you get married. It would make Ally very proud,” Cleo said.
Tina felt the blush start on her neck long before it turned her cheeks crimson red. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come out.
“Now, look what you’ve gone and done,” Mae scolded. “You’ve embarrassed both of them by talking about another wedding.”
“Well, I’m just calling it like I see it,” Cleo argued. “It might not happen tomorrow or even by Christmas, but I’m not usually wrong about these things. Are you going to tell them what we are doing with Iris’s house, or do I have to do it?”
Mae took a bite of cake and ate it very slowly. Tina thought she was drawing out the moment, that she was about to say they were going to let the new preacher live in it while the interior of the parsonage was being repainted.
“We have remade our will,” Mae said.
“First thing we’ll do is have the new house fumigated and sprayed for any kind of pests.
” Cleo shivered at the idea. “You never know what she might have left behind when she moved. She knows what I did to my husband when I left our house. The sorry bastard did me wrong and deserved it, so I don’t have to repent or be sorry about anything. ”
“What did you do?” Tina asked.
“I put an open can of tuna fish inside all the vents,” Cleo laughed. “He never did find what was making the house stink and eventually moved out with his new wife and sold the house for a fraction of what it was worth. Served the sorry sucker right for cheating on me.”
Walker almost choked on a bite of cake. “Remind me to never make you mad, Tina,” he said when he could speak.
“Enough about all that,” Mae said. “We want you two to move into the house. You’ll be right beside us then, and the fence will be gone, and—”
“And you can do paperwork over there instead of going to the motel in Vega on Saturday afternoons,” Cleo giggled.
“But . . . ,” Walker started to argue.
“You will still come to supper a few nights each week and work for us to pay your rent, and things won’t change that much,” Mae told them.
“When we are both dead, that house will automatically be yours, and this one will go to all three of you. If you two want it, then you can buy out Gracie’s share. ”
“If you are married by then,” Cleo added. “But we aren’t rushing you into anything.”
Mae sighed loudly. “But we would like to sit on the porch and watch our grandbabies play over at the park under the Tomorrow Tree while we are both alive.”
“And we are offering to babysit while y’all work,” Cleo said. “That will keep us young.”
“Like it did when we got to take care of you kids,” Mae told them.
Cleo laid a ring with two keys on it on the table. “These are yours. You can decide what kind of remodeling you want to do on the house, and you know you are welcome to stay here until you have it fixed up like you want it.”
“But . . .” Mae’s eyes twinkled. “Cleo snores at night, so I put earplugs in. That means I can’t hear a thing that goes on upstairs.”
“Me?” Cleo growled. “Mae’s the one who snores so loud that I have to use earplugs and a wind machine.”
Tina used up every bit of her willpower to keep her face from flaming. “I don’t know what to say. Y’all have already been too kind to me.”
Mae patted her hand. “Ain’t nothing to say. The deed is done, and we couldn’t be happier with our decision. Gracie is living her dream. We are living out ours in our last days. And we hope what we’ve done will help you live yours.”
“I’ll buy the house,” Walker finally said.
“Nope, we might not have birthed you three, but you belong to us all the same,” Mae argued, “and you’ll hurt our feelings if you don’t take it.”
Tina laid her hand on top of Mae’s. “Then thank you, not only for the house, but for loving us all these years.”
Cleo grabbed a napkin from the middle of the table and wiped her eyes.
“Darlin’ kids, what goes around, comes around.
You loved us, so we just loved you back.
Now, y’all get on out of here and go talk about things at the Tomorrow Tree or go look at the house.
If we talk much more, I’m going to start bawlin’ like a baby.
This whole summer has already been a wonderful emotional time for me and Mae. ”
Tina pushed back her chair and rounded the table to hug Mae first and then Cleo. Walker followed right behind her.
“I’ll call Lyle tonight,” Walker said in a hoarse voice, “and tomorrow we will—”
“No, you will not!” Tina argued. “I’m going to help you take down the fence, just like I helped you get that rooster into the yard.”
Mae and Cleo both clapped their hands.
“I knew it!” Cleo squealed.
Mae did a little wiggle dance right there in her chair. “Life is so much fun with y’all here with us.”
“Yes, it is,” Tina agreed. “Coming home has given me a brand-new lease on life.”
“Tomorrow Tree still on?” Walker asked when he and Tina left the kitchen.
“Yes, but isn’t this the evening when you talk to your mother?”
“It is, but that’s not set in stone. Tonight she’s at a dinner party with Kelsey, my stepfather. We’ll catch up tomorrow,” he answered.
“Can we go look at the house first?” Tina asked. “I haven’t been in it since I was a little girl.”
Walker didn’t want to deny her anything, but he shook his head. “I really need to talk to you under the tree before we go to the house.”
“You aren’t going to refuse it, are you?” Tina asked. “That would hurt Cleo and Mae’s feelings. Giving it to us made them so happy.”
He opened the front door for her and grinned. “I could see that, darlin’. It’s a big gift, and I admit that I feel a little guilty about it, but like they said, it will make getting our paperwork done so much easier.”
Tina tried to suppress a giggle, but it was impossible. “If all of this has been a dream, I don’t ever want to wake up.”
Walker drew her close to him, and they crossed the road in perfect step. “This is not a dream. It’s very real.”
“I’m glad that we came here first, because I haven’t told our tree all about the wedding.
I missed those quiet moments all those years I was gone,” she said as she sat down and braced her back against the trunk and patted it with her palm.
“I told you about the one I bought at a yard sale and how I would sit in front of it and pretend that it was this one.”
Walker sat down beside her and wrapped her up in his arms. “Why didn’t you just come home?”
“I’d been rejected so many times that I couldn’t bear it if it happened again, especially with you and the rest of this family, so I pretended with my little replica of our tree,” she answered.
“I was hoping to mend things with my folks when I decided that coming through here wouldn’t be too far out of the way.
I could tell by her voice that my mother was .
. . That’s all irrelevant now. A very good friend once told me to put the past away, live for the present, and look forward to the future. ”
“Smart friend.” Walker gave her body a gentle squeeze.
She deserved the whole nine yards of romance—a night she could remember forever.
But how was he going to get down on one knee and look up into her eyes when he proposed?
He had the speech all worked out in his mind, but now the words were so jumbled up that they reminded him of one of the jigsaw puzzles that Bull had liked to put together in the evenings.
Finally, he stood up and extended a hand to her.
“I thought we were going to spend some time here and tell the tree all about the wedding,” she said as she put her hand in his and let him help her up.
“That’s Gracie’s story to tell,” Walker said.
“Then why are we here and not looking at the house where . . .” She clamped a hand over her mouth and her eyes floated in tears. “You don’t want us to move in together, and you brought me out here to tell me before you let the ladies know.”
Walker dropped down on one knee, reached into his pocket, and brought out a red velvet box.
“Quite the opposite. Tina O’Grady, I can’t remember when I didn’t love you.
You’ve always been my best friend, and when we weren’t together, part of my heart was missing.
But it’s only been since you came home that I realized that I don’t only love you as my friend, but that I’m in love with you.
I want us to have a full commitment before we move into our house, though I don’t want you to feel pressured to set a date.
We can live together for years or get married any place and any way you want tomorrow.
That’s all up to you, but will you marry me someday? ”
He opened the box to reveal a diamond set in the middle of an infinity loop.
“Yes!” she said, without a split second’s hesitation.