Matched, page 25
He kissed the top of her head, then let her go and turned to Lindsey, who was wearing a mix of her serious lawyer lady mask and undisguised sympathy. Those sharp eyes of hers had made a quick sweep of the room, and he had a notion she knew it was all wrong.
“Aunt Jessie, meet Lindsey. She’s been helping me write songs.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Lindsey said.
The two of them watched each other for a minute. Lindsey’s calm and relaxed act was almost convincing, but Aunt Jessie eyed her like she would an alligator.
“Got any sweet tea?” Will said to Aunt Jessie. Because any Southern woman worth her salt offered the alligators sweet tea too.
Aunt Jessie huffed. “What kind of a question is that, young man?”
He grinned at her. “Lindsey here ain’t ever been south of the Mason-Dixon line before. Dadgum shame, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I’ve been to Disney World,” Lindsey said.
“Oh, honey, bless your heart,” Aunt Jessie said. “Disney World ain’t south. Y’all didn’t happen to see Donnie’s car in town when you came in, did you?”
“Can’t say we did,” Will said. “You want a glass, Aunt Jessie?”
“No, thank you, honey.”
“Mikey’s in town too today. Thought we could have him over. Fry up some chicken and okra. Make some cornbread.”
Aunt Jessie moved to the window, pushed the gauzy curtain out of the way and peered at the road. “Sure, sure. Y’all go on in and see what I got in the fridge.”
“Thinking about catching an armadillo too,” Will said. “Add some fried butterflies on the side.”
Lindsey choked on air, but Aunt Jessie nodded again. “Sounds good, hon.”
“Aunt Jessie.”
She turned. Her mouth wobbled and she blinked quickly, but Southern steel shone through.
She’d never had as much steel as Mari Belle, but she didn’t let that stop her.
“Don’t you go judging me.” Her voice cracked. “You bring her into my house, and you want to tell me I’m wrong to pick love?”
Will held his hands up. “Not judging. I’m worried.”
“I’m sixty-two years old. It’s high time I took charge of my own life, and I don’t take kindly to people telling me who is and isn’t good for me.”
“People make mistakes, even when their hearts are in the right place.”
“What heart’s in the right place when it’s trying to break mine?”
“The kind that’s loved you longer.”
“That kind told you to go chasing a girl who’s fixin’ to dump you tomorrow.”
Lindsey pursed her lips together. Will clamped down on the instinctive need to defend her.
Difference between his situation and Aunt Jessie’s was that Lindsey was meant to be his.
He knew she’d miss him. He knew she cared. He knew she was scared.
And he knew he was man enough to be steady, to be her friend, even from afar, as long as it took for him to give her the courage that she’d once given him.
“I’ll go take care of the sweet tea,” Lindsey said quietly.
He let her go—not because he wanted her to, but because he understood she needed to.
“She still is, isn’t she?” Aunt Jessie said. “She’s still fixin’ to dump you.”
He wasn’t here to fix him and Lindsey. He was here to fix Aunt Jessie and Sacha. “Why do you love Donnie so much, Aunt Jessie?”
She sucked a big breath through her nose, her brows shooting halfway up her forehead. Her eyes went misty, and she touched a hand to her heart. “He knows me. Right here. Like he’s known me all my life. I know you don’t trust anybody new, and I know Mari Belle don’t trust anybody male, but Donnie doesn’t want anything from any of you. He wants me to be happy being me. Lord knows he’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for me. I’ve never wanted more to keep my vows to any man like I want to keep my vows to him. And if you’re taking sides, you—you can—”
“Not taking sides.” He wasn’t one who could argue with listening to his heart. Even when he knew he was heading for stormy weather, even when he knew it would hurt, he couldn’t help but follow his heart now that he’d found it again.
Looked like he and Aunt Jessie both had some of what his Momma had had. “Just want you to be happy, Aunt Jessie. And you don’t look real happy today.” None of the women in his life looked real happy lately.
She turned to the window. “Life ain’t always beautiful.”
That was the honest truth.
“How about I go get you a glass of sweet tea too.”
“You’re a good boy, Will. Always have been. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Want the same for you, Aunt Jessie.”
In the kitchen, Lindsey had found the old flowered Corelle glasses and the jug of sweet tea. Will settled his hands at her waist and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You try any yet?”
“I thought you’d like to see the show.”
Will forced a grin. “You eat Kimmie’s cupcakes, you can drink sweet tea. I got faith in you.”
She wrinkled that cute nose, but when he let her go, she held the cup to her nose, gave a big sniff, and then took a gulp.
The shudder wasn’t as big as he expected, but it was still cute and funny as all get-out.
“That is sweet,” she said.
He clinked his own glass to hers. “Welcome to the South, pretty lady. You notice if there’s any okra in the fridge? Not letting you leave without trying some of that too.”
“I wouldn’t even know what it looks like.”
“Looks like a big ol’ bag of dee-licious.”
While she humored him with a halfhearted laugh, he grabbed another glass from the cabinet. Didn’t like standing there pretending everything was fine, because it wasn’t.
Lindsey didn’t want to be there. Aunt Jessie didn’t seem to want either of them there. And Sacha would be gone before Will was done delivering Aunt Jessie’s tea.
Here it was, his last day of being plain ol’ Will Truitt before he spent the next nine months being Billy Brenton, and everything was all wrong.
He wanted Sacha to come over and make her secret cornbread recipe. To stay. He wanted Aunt Jessie to fuss that Will was making a mess helping bread the okra. He wanted Paisley to jump around, interfere with everybody and chatter away. He wanted Wrigley underfoot, and Mari Belle’s dogs too. He even wanted Mari Belle sighing over some such thing or another.
And he wanted Lindsey to fit into it all.
The front screen door banged against the doorframe before he could carry Aunt Jessie’s glass in to her.
“Nat’s first husband was a real prick,” Lindsey said softly. She had a clear view of the living room. Will didn’t hear anyone talking, so he guessed Aunt Jessie had stepped out front.
Hopefully not to give Sacha a what-for. Will angled closer to Lindsey.
Donnie’s truck was in the driveway.
Will’s heart kicked up like it was fixin’ to win a NASCAR race.
Lindsey could solve this. She could tell them all who was right—Sacha or Aunt Jessie.
And then Will could put his family back together.
Lindsey put a hand on his arm. “I broke my own rule and told Nat she shouldn’t marry him. I tried the you’re not happy tactic instead of the because I can see it route, but it didn’t matter. People believe they love whomever they believe they love. And it sucks for the people who get hurt in the name of love.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” Will said. “He’s just kinda useless. Got some kind of inheritance, and he’s been chasing bad business ventures for as long as Aunt Jessie’s known him.”
“You think she’s his backup plan when the cash dries up?”
He shrugged, watching Jessie hustle up behind Donnie on his way into the house.
“When they got married, Sacha said they’d make it,” Will said. “Never said that about Aunt Jessie’s other husbands. Just said getting married was the right thing for Aunt Jessie to do at the time. Thought maybe somebody in our family could find that true love this time.”
“Has Sacha ever been married?”
“Nope. Says knowing too much gets in the way of following her heart.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, interesting, or hmm, you can relate?”
The screen door opened. “Donnie, please, not now,” Jessie said. Her voice was hushed, cracked, as though she didn’t want it carrying through the house.
As though she didn’t want to be saying it at all.
Will stepped into the living room and sized up his uncle-in-law.
The older man was plump, with a receding hairline and a bulbous nose. His usual outfit was a three-piece suit, but today, he was in baggy jeans, sneakers and a loose brown polo sporting dust streaks.
Looked like the streaks Will’s crew got moving boxes of merchandise around.
Will’s gut tightened. “Afternoon, Donnie.”
The older man wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Afternoon. Didn’t realize you were in town.”
Aunt Jessie was hugging herself, shifting from foot to foot.
“Y’all have plans this afternoon?” Will said. Bright. Happy. As if he were standing on a stage, playing for a crowd instead of watching something he didn’t understand going down in his aunt’s living room.
As if his heart wasn’t pounding like he’d run ten miles.
Lindsey put a hand to his back, a subtle I’m here.
“Don’t want to make a big fuss,” Donnie said, “but I finally figured out I ain’t what Jessie needs. I’m clearing out my stuff. Won’t take long.”
“He’s staying,” Aunt Jessie said. “Will, tell him he needs to stay.” She looked past him, pointed to Lindsey. “You. You’re supposed to know these things. You tell him he needs to stay.”
“Jessie.” Donnie started to look at her, but his eyes pinched shut, his mouth twisted, and he turned away from her. “Don’t need to be making this harder.”
“Then don’t leave.” Aunt Jessie sent a desperate look at Will. “He’s the love of my life, and that woman said he needs to go, so he’s going. Tell him not to leave. Tell him to stay.”
Beside him, Lindsey’s gaze flitted between Aunt Jessie and Donnie. There was a wrinkle in her nose. Her brows shifted down. And she studied Donnie’s retreating backside with a singular concentration that gave Will’s heart the shivers.
“Why are you doing this?” Lindsey said quietly.
Donnie froze.
Will did too. He’d heard her lawyer voice, her telling-a-fun-story voice, her bedroom voice, but he hadn’t heard this voice.
The you’re wrong on a cosmic level voice.
“What’s really going on, Donnie?” Lindsey said.
Donnie’s face had gone pale, and he seemed to be struggling with what to do with his hands. “It’s what’s best for everybody. I ain’t in her future. Suppose all y’all heard that by now.”
“Why aren’t you in her future?” Lindsey said.
“Quit asking him questions and tell him he needs to stay right here.” Aunt Jessie had always been prone to tears, but these tears were different. These were heart-cracking, life-shattering, world-ending tears.
“I don’t know what the truth is,” Lindsey said, “but you owe it to your wife to tell her all of it.”
She had Donnie’s full attention now. He mopped a hand over his pale forehead. “Ain’t your place—”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you want to?”
“Now that’s just plain insultin’.”
Will wasn’t Donnie’s biggest fan by any stretch of the imagination, but there was an honest ring to the man’s answer.
“Are you still married to someone else?” Lindsey said.
“Now you listen here, missy—”
Lindsey didn’t stop. “Problems in the bedroom?”
“Never,” Aunt Jessie said. “Not ever.”
Will grimaced. He’d have to thank Lindsey for that visual later.
“Money problems?” Lindsey suggested. “Religious differences? You want children and she doesn’t? I’ve been a divorce lawyer for ten years. I can keep going all day.”
“I’m dying,” Donnie blurted. “You happy now? I’m dying.”
He sagged against the wall that used to hold pictures of the whole family. “I’m dying,” he repeated, softer.
Silence descended like a thick smoke. Will tried to pick his jaw up off the floor. Lindsey gripped his shirt where her hand had been resting on his back.
And Jessie stood there, gaping, her heart—her life—breaking before his eyes.
Will moved first. In three steps, he was at Aunt Jessie’s side. He knew something about heartbreak. Knew something about being left behind. Hell if he’d let her think she was alone.
“Got cancer.” Donnie swiped at his eyes. “End’s coming. My momma had cancer. My daddy had cancer. Now I got cancer. I took care of ’em both for nearabouts ten years, all said and done. Ain’t pretty. Jessie, darlin’, you deserve a better life. You deserve a man who’s whole, who can keep taking you out to the Pork’n’Fork, who can keep up with you goin’ out and havin’ fun. You got the whole rest of your life ahead of you. Don’t need to be turning you into a nursemaid. You’ve given up enough for me. I don’t want you doing any more.”
Jessie shrugged out of Will’s reach. “Donnie Boyd, you are the dumbest man God ever put on this planet, but you’re my man, and I’ll be danged if I’m letting you get away with this.”
“Jessie. Been a good two years, but I can’t ask you to spend the next forever taking care of me till I die. Sacha was right. I—”
Jessie mauled him with a hug. “You hush. You ain’t going through this alone, Donnie. Not so long as I got breath in me and a heart in my chest.” She had a clenched fist buried in Donnie’s shirt while she tilted a look at Will, then at Lindsey. “We’re right, us two. He’s mine. In sickness or health. He’s supposed to be mine. And I’m his.”
Lindsey nodded. Once, but it was an honest nod, the truth echoing in the sadness and longing and sympathy in her eyes. “You’re a beautiful match.”
Will’s heart swelled to twice the size of Texas.
He wouldn’t have picked Jessie and Donnie to be forever, but if Lindsey would put stock in them, then Will could work harder on accepting Donnie. She did see. He had the same shivers on his shivers that he got when Sacha was dead-on.
And turned out, Sacha might not have been wrong. And that put a crimp in Will’s heart for his aunt.
While she fussed over Donnie, Will took Lindsey by the elbow and steered her to the backyard. And when they stood outside in the warm Georgia sunshine, he wrapped his arms around his girl and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “You see that coming?” he asked.
“No,” she whispered. “I thought maybe he was doing it for Sacha, not for… that.”
“They really good together?”
She hesitated, went stiff against him. But then she put her arms around his waist and softened with a whole body sigh. “Yes.”
For how long was anybody’s guess, but Sacha hadn’t been wrong.
Will had to get over and tell her. Jessie would need her now—would need all of them—more than ever.
“Bet it feels good to say that,” he said into Lindsey’s hair.
And there she went, getting all stiff again. “Will.”
He let her go and hoisted himself onto the top of Aunt Jessie’s picnic table, his feet on the bench. “After seeing all the people who get married for the wrong reasons, wouldn’t it be nice to nudge couples together who have the chance to get married for the right reasons?”
He was pushing her buttons, but she wasn’t biting. No stubborn lawyer face coming out, no stubborn just-plain-being-Lindsey face either. Instead, she nodded. Once. Again. “It would.”
That bass drum kicked up in Will’s chest. He reached for her hand. Soft, smooth, with pink-tipped nails. She squeezed his hand back. She was all woman, all beauty, all strength.
And she was finally figuring out how much more she was too.
“You feel like making any other matches today?” He couldn’t keep the raw, husky hope out of his voice. He wasn’t on a stage, wasn’t talking to reporters or deejays or fans.
He was talking to the woman who had always been his world.
Her gaze dropped. “Will,” she said again.
“Don’t tell me you’re leaving tomorrow because we ain’t good for each other. I know you don’t like crowds. I know you don’t like being in the spotlight. You don’t have to be, Lindsey. I can fix that.”
“Stop,” she whispered.
He slid off the table, cradled her face in his hands, her soft hair cascading around his fingers, and tilted her head so he could see those pretty, teary brown eyes. Wasn’t anything in the world that could’ve stopped him. “I didn’t ask for three weeks for me. I asked for three weeks for you. A long time ago, you believed I had what it takes to be a star. You believed in me. Now it’s my turn. I believe in you. I believe in who you are, who you are under the suits, under the baby-eater lawyer lady, under the smileys. And I’m gonna keep believing in you as long as it takes, until you’re ready to believe in us.”
A tear dripped on her cheek. Her chin wobbled. But instead of tipping up like they were supposed to, her lips drew down. Instead of crinkling in happiness, her eyes had hopeless misery written in them. “I can’t,” she whispered.
His heart let out an oomph like it had been socked in the gut.
“Will, you are an amazing man—”
“Stop,” he growled.
“—and you could be happy with any woman in the world.”
“I’m looking at the woman I want to be happy with.”
“No, listen. Listen to me. I’ve seen you with Pepper, with Kimmie, with Dahlia and Nat and Marilyn, with all those women who wanted your signature at Suckers. And you’re a good match for all of them. All of them. You can do so much better than—”
“Stop.” She was wrong. He couldn’t do better. He didn’t want to do better.
He ignored the quaking in his gut, in his bones, in his soul, and stared into her, willing her to know what he knew. To understand that in this case, he knew better. “And what do you see when you look at me with you?”
