Thirty and a Half Excuses
Page 23

“You bringin’ us lunch?” David asked.
I sighed. “I’ll bring you something, but you have to get the beds on this side of the building cleaned out and pruned before you can eat it. I’ll be back in about three hours.” I had serious doubts they could do it, but maybe the incentive would work.
When I got back to the nursery, Violet was talking to a customer about azaleas. She looked up and smiled. She seemed unusually happy today, but then again, she had reason to be: Business was going well, and she had a date.
She pulled me aside. “I haven’t had time to get started on the pots for Reverend Jonah. Can you? Besides, I don’t want to get too dirty. Brody is picking me up from here to go on our date.”
“Oh.” I still had a hard time imagining her with someone besides Mike. “You know I love making planters.” And we both knew that she’d be better at dealing with the customers. It was an unspoken agreement between us. “Where are you two going?”
A smile softened her face, and I was surprised how shy she looked. “He said he was taking me out to dinner.”
“I’m happy for you, Violet.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Really?” Her chin trembled. “I know how hard this is for you and everyone else. It’s gonna be an adjustment.”
I pulled her into a hug. “This is your life, Violet. You deserve to be happy.”
“Thank you, Rose. I’ve been so envious watching you and Joe together.”
My lips parted. “Envious of me?”
“You two are just so happy and in love. You have no idea how much I wanted that. I’m so happy to have found it too.”
I narrowed my eyes. “But you and Brody just met.”
Fear and guilt slid over her face, and then it was replaced by a mask of fake happiness. How had I never noticed that either? How long had my sister been hiding behind the masquerade of her life? I missed the Violet who’d been my confidant and best friend. When had I lost her? I suppressed a sigh. In some ways, I had lost her when Momma died. When I decided to start taking control of my own life.
Violet wiped imaginary dirt off the counter and scrunched up her nose. “How’s it looking out at the church?”
She was hiding something, but I decided to let it go for now. “They were just getting started when I left, but Bruce Wayne seems determined to repay me for helping exonerate him by doin’ a good job.”
“And the other guy?”
I shrugged, unwilling to admit to my doubts. “Jonah seemed pleased to meet them, and he welcomed them to come inside to cool off when they get too hot.”
She scowled. “They’ll end up spending most of the day inside that church.”
I could see why she might think so, but I decided to trust Bruce Wayne.
The next several hours flew by as I did what I loved. Working with flowers. I’d been so busy with the chaos of life lately—Momma’s murder, dating Joe, being picked for Bruce Wayne’s jury, opening the nursery—I hadn’t had much time for my hobby, now my business. But putting my hands in the cool soil and transferring the plants to new containers—to new lives—I experienced a peace I’d never found with people, not that I’d had many people in my life before Momma’s murder.
Joe had changed all of that.
I missed him more than I cared to admit. How could I live twenty-four years without a man, and then find myself so attached to him after four months that I found it difficult to breathe when I wasn’t sure he was safe? Worry for his safety was a constant, anxious current beneath the surface of my skin. But Mason’s revelation that he knew about Joe’s secret, along with what Joe himself had said, raised it to a higher level. Everyone was ashamed of something in their past. Lord knew I had plenty of regrets. But I’d shared all my painful secrets with Joe. There was hardly any part of me he didn’t know, yet I couldn’t say the same about him.
Mason’s suggestion that Joe should have told me was nipping at my faith.
But wasn’t faith believing in something even when you didn’t have irrefutable proof? What was I doubting? Joe’s love for me? No, I was as sure of Joe’s love as I was that the sun would rise in the morning. The scary realization was that I wasn’t sure who Joe really was. It was no secret that his job was pretending to be someone else. What if Mason was right? What if the Joe I knew wasn’t really the Joe I thought I knew?
Nausea bubbled in my stomach. I needed to stop this and focus on what I did know. Joe loved me for all he was worth. What did it matter if something had happened in his past? The truth was, I was a totally different person before Momma’s murder, and he wasn’t holding that against me. I needed to give him the same trust.
After I prepared six pots, I decided to take them to the church when I went back with the guys’ lunch. But fitting them in my old Chevy Nova proved to be a challenge. There was no doubt a few of them could fit on the back seat, the question was how to fit them in the door without ripping off the blooms. I put a hand on my hip, staring at the car. I was sure this wouldn’t be the only time we had this issue, and we couldn’t count on Violet’s father-in-law to help us out every time. Especially if she was gonna start dating again.
Joe had been after me to sell the Nova for months, but it had been Daddy’s car, and I’d gotten it by default when he died my freshman year in college. Violet was already married and had a car of her own, and Momma had quit driving by then. I loved the car, despite its size and gas-guzzling ways, mostly because it had been Daddy’s and was full of happy memories. But the few times I’d driven to Little Rock to see Joe, he’d been a nervous wreck, worried the car wouldn’t make it there and home. Maybe it was time to consider getting something else. Not a sedan like Joe had been not-so-subtly implying that I should buy (he e-mailed me links to local used car lots daily), but a pickup truck. We needed one for our business anyway.