Chapter 40
“Ijust don’t know if he’s ever going to ask me,” Lila Mae said as she put a pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table at Elaine’s house. She was hosting the December Walker Lady Luncheon, and she’d invited Lila Mae for the first time.
She’d been told that they usually catered, but Elaine had clearly made the cream of cauliflower soup, which sat in a steaming pot in the middle of the table. She’d pulled bread out of the oven mere moments after Lila Mae had arrived, so she hadn’t even run to the bakery for that.
Clara Jean, Glory Rose, and Ruby all had their little ones with them, and Lila Mae wanted to be as helpful as possible to Elaine so she’d get invited back.
She also wanted to get to know these ladies better, as they were all Walkers or married to a Walker, and if Trap would ever ask her to marry him, she’d become part of them.
“Of course he’s going to ask you,” Clara Jean said as she sat down at the table. “You already know he’s bought a ring.”
“Then what’s he waiting for?”
“That’s a great question,” Elaine said, and she dipped a ladle into the soup and sighed as she looked around. “I think that’s everything.”
Ruby finished strapping her little girl in the highchair, and Glory Rose came over from the couch. She handed her phone to Elaine. “Take this from me. I don’t want to look at it during lunch.”
“What’s going on?” Elaine asked, and Lila Mae was glad the topic had moved to someone else. They hadn’t bombarded her with questions about Trap, but one of the very first things Elaine had asked after welcoming her was when Trap was going to propose.
“It’s my amazing husband,” Glory Rose said with a sigh. Lila Mae watched her for a moment, a hint of anxiety moving through her.
“What’s he doing?” Elaine asked. Instead of looking at the phone, she opened a drawer in her island and put Glory Rose’s device inside.
“Talking about all the goats and pygmy pigs we could have if he bought the farm behind us.” Glory Rose sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Ah.” Elaine closed the door and joined them at the table.
“I probably shouldn’t let JJ buy whatever animals he wants.” Ruby patted Glory Rose’s hand. “Sorry, friend.”
“It’s fine,” Glory Rose said. “I just think he forgets how stretched thin he is.”
“Sorry, Glory Rose,” Clara Jean said.
“What we really should think about doing is this luncheon at dinnertime,” she said. “Or on a Saturday, so Camila can be here.”
“She said she doesn’t mind,” Ruby said.
“But she does,” Elaine said.
“How do you know?” Clara Jean asked.
Elaine shrugged one shoulder, picked up her bowl, and filled it with creamy, cheesy soup. “Because any of us would feel left out if we were the only ones who couldn’t attend, because of our job.”
She handed the soup to Lila Mae and picked up the empty bowl in front of her and started to fill it next. “It wouldn’t be that hard to do this in the evening, and your husbands could take care of the kids then, or you can bring them.”
Lila Mae was so new to the group that she had no opinion. She watched the others’ faces, and they all seemed a little disappointed, worried, or apprehensive.
“Who’s hosting next month?” Lila Mae asked. “Because I can, and we can do it in the evening at my community center.” She smiled as Elaine handed her bowl to Clara Jean and then took her empty one to fill. “There’s no way we’ll fit in my house, but we can maybe cram on the back deck.”
“Now that there are six of us,” Elaine said. “We can each just do twice a year.”
“Wait,” Clara Jean said. “What about Marta? She and Easton are getting married in April, and she’s not here.”
“All the more reason we need to do it in the evening,” Elaine said. “Because then she could be here too.”
“Austin might get married next year too,” Glory Rose said. “At least if Conrad is to be believed.”
“He might.” Elaine finally finished the bowls and sat down. “I mean, he finally gave Joelle the label of girlfriend, so praise the heavens for that.” She grinned around at everyone, but her smile didn’t stay long.
Lila Mae once again glanced around to judge the reactions of others, and she saw that Glory Rose noticed it first. Maybe because she sat directly across from Elaine. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked.
All eyes went back to Elaine, but she looked steadfastly at Clara Jean. The other woman nodded slightly, and Elaine drew a deep breath. Lila Mae had no idea what she’d just gotten herself into, but she noted that no one else had picked up their spoons yet, so she left hers on the table as well.
“I don’t want to be a downer or anything,” Elaine said. “But I need to tell you guys something, and then I don’t want to talk about it again today.”
“What is it?” Glory Rose asked.
“I haven’t told my momma yet either,” Elaine said. “And I don’t want any of the men to know until I’m ready to tell them.”
Everyone at the table looked around at one another. When Lila Mae looked back to Elaine, she found her holding her head high.
“I can keep a secret from Trap, if it’s important,” Lila Mae said.
“It’s important,” Clara Jean said.
“I can do it too,” Glory Rose said. “At least I hope I can.”
Elaine looked at Ruby, who only nodded with her big brown eyes wide and filled with trepidation.
“Everyone’s going to know eventually,” she said. “And I may ask you to be the ones to tell your husbands and significant others.” Her eyes met Glory Rose’s. “Not my brothers. I’m going to tell them myself.”
Glory Rose nodded and leaned forward. “Just tell us. You’re scaring me a little.”
“It’s about Brandt Lyman,” she said. “And what really happened when we broke up.”
“I have no idea how I’m going to keep this from Trap,” Lila Mae muttered to herself as she made the turn off the highway and onto Feline Friends. Her SUV bumped over the dirt road, almost like a protest.
After Elaine had told them what had happened at the brewery, she’d covered Lila Mae’s hand and promised that their luncheons weren’t normally like this. The others had disagreed and said, “No, they’re always like this: amazing food and a safe space to talk about anything.”
“It’s usually happier news,” Elaine said.
“But it doesn’t have to be,” Ruby said.
Lila Mae went past the bank of trees where the ranch really opened up, her Intake Center in front of her, and the community barn and the veterinary stables to her left.
She made a right and trundled along toward her tiny house, where she parked and then just stared out at the woods behind her house.
Elaine said she hadn’t told anyone what had happened in September, because she’d needed time to process it.
Lila Mae knew exactly what she meant, because she’d left lunch an hour and a half ago, ran a few errands in town, and gone grocery shopping, and now all she could do was stare.
She finally blinked and reminded herself that she had ice cream in the back.
She got out and started taking her groceries into the house. She went to Wilde & Organic every couple of days, because she didn’t have a huge fridge or freezer to hold things long term.
She’d told the women she worked with at the Intake Center that she wouldn’t be back that day, and she’d been planning to take a book out to the hammock and relax after the luncheon.
But suddenly that didn’t feel like the right thing to do, and Lila Mae leaned one palm into her countertop and closed her eyes.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed. “Bless me to know how to help Elaine.”
She didn’t know what else to add to the prayer, finally deciding that sometimes the simplest of pleas were the most heartfelt. Besides, God knew Elaine Walker and what she needed, and if He needed to use Lila Mae to accomplish His plan, He would.
She opened her eyes just as her phone chimed, and she looked across the counter to where she’d left it next to the sink.
She moved that way as her brain registered the sound as the one belonging to Thad.
Her veterinarian knew she was out today as well, so when she saw his message—Can you come over to the veterinary hospital ASAP?
—Lila Mae’s pulse kicked into a new gear.
Perhaps this was why she hadn’t felt like going out to the hammock to read. On my way, she sent, and then she hurried outside to the UTV.
She arrived at the veterinary hospital only seven minutes later, and she pushed through the front doors calling, “Thad, where are you?” She didn’t even look toward his office, because an ASAP meant that he needed her right this second, and she assumed he’d be in one of the patient rooms or the surgical center.
“Right here,” he said, and he came out of his office wearing a smile and holding an envelope. Lila Mae frowned, because this was not ASAP behavior.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He extended the envelope toward her, and she saw that it was pale yellow. “Someone dropped this off for you.”
“Who?”
He simply wiggled it, and Lila Mae stepped over to him and relieved him of the envelope. She opened it as he went back into his office. A single piece of paper sat inside, and it had Cat House Three printed on it in black ink.
Lila Mae exhaled heavily. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” Thad said. “What does it say?”
“Cat House Three.” She looked at him, hoping he’d have the answer.
“Maybe your next package is there.”
Lila Mae wanted to tell him she didn’t have time for a scavenger hunt around the cat sanctuary. She stomped out of the veterinary clinic and got behind the wheel of the UTV again.
On her way to Cat House Three, which only took four minutes, she managed to calm herself a little bit. She actually did have the rest of the day to go on this wild goose chase.
She pulled up to Cat House Three, which she’d designated as a sanctuary for smaller, younger felines. A woman named Cheri ran the house with a vet tech named Damien. As Lila Mae swung out of the UTV, she noticed something different about the sanctuary.