Never again would he fail to keep his woman safe.
Turner excused himself to make a few calls. The first one was to Reggie.
“What’s up, little brother?” Reggie said with a hearty chuckle. “How’s the new roommate working out? She paying her rent on time, man?”
“I need your help.”
His brother went silent for a moment, clearly catching on that this was no time to joke. “Anything you need. You know that.”
“Good. I need you to leave work and come over here. As soon as you can. Just stay in the house with Candy until I get back. No questions. I need you, man.”
“On my way.”
* * *
The next few days went by without incident. Turner worked late, and since Reggie had apparently been assigned as her after-hours bodyguard, he and Candy got to know each other well. They watched movies, played Uno, and Reggie filled Candy in on what Turner had been through when Junie died. It broke her heart to learn he’d responded to the scene of the accident and was there to see his own wife pronounced dead. But she was grateful that Reggie and Rosemary had been there to see Turner through the worst of it, and she told Reggie so.
“My brother deserves a little happiness in his life,” Reggie said, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“I know he does,” Candy said.
On Thursday evening, as Reggie sprawled out on the couch watching the news and Candy finished the dinner dishes, she had an epiphany. The very same day Turner lost his wife and unborn child, Candy closed on her first million-dollar real estate deal and marched out with her big wad of cash to buy Sophie, now stashed in Turner’s wall safe.
Why hadn’t she realized this before? The same day! She had to stop what she was doing and take a couple of deep breaths. Right then and there, Candy made a promise to herself: whatever she decided to use Sophie for in the future would be in honor of Junie and the baby, if only in her heart. It would be something good and honorable. Something real. It would be a symbol of something more than vanity or material wealth.
On Friday evening, when Candy had to stay at Lenny’s late to finish the engagement party cupcakes, she put Reggie in charge of the sprinkles.
“I’ve never done this before,” he said proudly, distributing the tiny sugar crystals with his giant fingers.
“You’d never know,” Candy assured him. “You’re a natural.”
On Saturday afternoon, Candy and Turner arrived at the lake a good hour before the party was set to start. They pulled the SUV close to the front porch to unload the cupcakes and saw that preparations were almost complete. The band was setting up on the stage. The front lawn was dotted with guest seating, potted plants and flower arrangements, and serving tables. Balloons and streamers were hung on the trees, the porch, and along the dock.
“Need some help with that?”
Together, Candy and Turner looked up to see a man in an eye patch standing near Tater Wayne’s infamous hog-shaped portable barbecue. Candy decided he even looked a little like Tater Wayne. He could have been Tater Wayne’s well-groomed cousin, if he’d had one of those.
She and Turner reached the same shocked conclusion at exactly the same time. “Tater Wayne?” they shouted.
“Haven’t seen ya’ll in a while. How’s it goin’?” Tater removed the tray of cupcakes from Candy’s hands and began to carry it into the house.
Turner followed with another tray, wiggling his eyebrows at Candy over his shoulder.
“Oh, my ’effin’ God,” Candy said under her breath. Just then Cheri came out the door and headed down the porch steps to lend a hand. Candy stared at her with giant eyes.
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered. “Stay cool. I’ll tell you what I know a little later, but I don’t want Tater to feel self-conscious.”
“But—”
“I know. I know. Viv about had a coronary when she saw him, and made such a big deal that he went home real upset. He didn’t even finish his usual chores. I don’t think he wants the attention.”
“But he’s so—”
Cheri elbowed her just as Tater and Turner returned for more. Cheri and Candy handed them each a tray.
“The cupcakes look really beautiful,” Cheri said to Candy, as they waited for the men to get back inside. The second they were out of earshot, Candy grabbed Cheri’s hand.
“His teeth are perfect,” she whispered.
“Yeah. A full set of implants. He got them done in Atlanta.”
Candy gasped. “But that kind of thing costs a fortune! How the hell did he—” Candy managed to shut her mouth just in time. “Here you go, Tater,” she said, handing him the last tray. “That’s all of them. Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” he said, flashing her a Brad Pitt-esque grin. That’s when Candy noticed a couple other things that were different about her lifelong buddy. He’d had his blond hair cut and styled—professionally—and he was sporting a stylish goatee that set off his new smile. He was wearing a pair of nice jeans, clean sneakers, and a new shirt, with an actual collar. Plus, there was the eye patch.
“I think I’m gonna faint,” Candy managed, once Tater was back in the house. “But what’s with the pirate patch?”
“He had surgery, apparently. It was just the first round, and Viv says he’ll be wearing one until his eye is all the way fixed.”
Candy was stunned, but when her friend came back out she gave him a big hug, immediately noting that he was wearing an expensive cologne. The overall effect was mind-boggling. “You look really great, Tater.”
“Well, now. Thank you. You do, too.” And with that, Tater went back to his hog-shaped barbecue barrel to stoke the coals and check on the marinade.
“Could you lend me a hand in the kitchen?” Cheri put her arm around Candy’s waist and directed her up the front steps, giving her a sideways glance.
Candy giggled, noticing the sly smile on Cheri’s face. “Well, don’t you look cute as a June bug today?” She touched the hem of Cheri’s flirty, ivory lace sundress. “Very pretty.”
“Thanks,” Cheri said, her smile not mellowing. “It’s a big day for me, you know.”
“It certainly is.” Candy slipped her arm around her best friend’s shoulders and squeezed. “I couldn’t be happier for you and J.J.—well, I can’t really say that since I’ll be even happier on your actual wedding day, but today is a close second.”
“Ha!” Cheri slipped out of Candy’s grip and twirled around in the living room, her arms out at her sides, her frilly dress translucent in the afternoon light. For a moment, Candy had a flashback to when they were little girls, with little-girl dreams.
It seemed some of them were coming true—for both of them.
The two friends laughed and chatted while putting together the plates and napkins, and Candy told Cheri about her father’s building on Main Street. After Cheri had regained her ability to speak, she had a thousand questions, most of which Candy had no answer for. When she asked Cheri to go on a walk-through of the building with Jacinta’s lawyer on Monday, Cheri enthusiastically agreed.
They were almost done assembling the veggie tray when Cheri suddenly placed her hand over Candy’s, which happened to be full of radishes. The little purple balls went rolling all over the wooden kitchen table and onto the floor.
“Is it wonderful?” she asked Candy. “Are you and Turner happy?”
Candy nodded, overcome with a rush of emotions she wasn’t sure she could contain. She felt foolish holding back tears like she was, just because her best friend had asked her if she was happy, but the answer wasn’t simple. She was happier than she’d ever been in her life. She was deeply in love and loved in return for the first time. And she was scared to death about making the wrong decision about her life.
“Oh, Lord-ee!” Cheri opened her arms and hugged Candy close. “It’s going to be okay, girl.”
Candy nodded but pushed herself away. “I would just die if I got mascara all over that white dress,” she explained.
They laughed, but Cheri patted Candy on the arm. “Nobody is rushing you, you know,” she said, gentleness in her voice. “You just do what you think is best for you when you’re good and ready to do it. I believe that you’ll wake up one day and you’ll know what the right thing to do is. Sometimes, it’s that simple.”
Candy smiled at her friend. “It was that way for you, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How did you know, Cheri?”
Her friend glanced out onto the lawn, where J.J. was chatting it up with Turner and Tater Wayne. “When I looked at that man and realized nothing made any sense in my life without him.”
Candy gasped.
Guests began arriving. Everyone was casually dressed and brought a hot dish or drinks. The beer keg was tapped and flowing. The band—featuring one of the Bugle reporters on banjo and lead vocals—was playing everything from Merle Haggard to Metallica, and some people were dancing, some were swimming, some were just sittin’ and drinkin’.
The guest list was a real cross-section of Bigler society. There was practically everyone from the paper, of course, including Gladys Harbison, who hadn’t spoken to Candy since her nighttime getaway.
“Seems you’ve landed on your feet just fine,” Gladys told Candy, eyeing Turner up and down as if he were a Porterhouse steak in the butcher’s window.
“I have. Thanks. And again, I appreciate you letting me stay with you for a bit.”
Gladys shrugged. “I wish I could say you were the first person to run away from my place in the middle of the night, but you weren’t. First woman, though.” And with that she wandered off, which allowed Candy to see the strap of one of her bras peeking out from Gladys’s shirt.
Turner’s mother and brother arrived soon after, and Candy was greeted warmly by Reggie, who gave her a big hug, and introduced her to his eleven-year-old son, Marlon. Rosemary kissed Candy’s cheek and told her how good it was to see her and asked if her son was behaving himself.
“Of course he is,” Candy said. “He’s the sheriff.”
That made her laugh.
When Jacinta arrived with Hugo in tow, Candy and Turner were pleased to watch their mothers greet each other warmly and break out into laughter. They had a good idea what was so funny.
When it seemed that just about everyone who was coming was there, Candy blinked in surprise to see the female DEA agent wander onto the lawn. Candy poked Turner in the side and nodded in the woman’s direction.
“O’Connor? What the—”
J.J. put his arm around Turner. “Like I said, I knew she was in town so I invited her.”
“That’s great,” Turner said noncommittally. He supposed every party needed a mystery guest.
O’Connor grabbed a beer and strolled over to where J.J., Turner, and Candy stood. They made small talk for a while, Candy admiring O’Connor’s idea of “casual” attire—a pair of dress slacks with a sharply pressed seam, a starched cotton blouse, four-inch heels, and full makeup. She looked the part—of an elegant visitor from out of town.
While O’Connor had been chatting, she’d been carefully observing her fellow partygoers. Candy assumed it was part of her training—a hyperawareness of her surroundings. But suddenly she froze. Stood taller. Sniffed the air.
Candy looked down to find that O’Connor’s hand had landed on her forearm.
“That man,” she said to Candy.
Candy followed to where O’Connor had nodded. “That man? The one by the barbecue?”
O’Connor nodded. “Yes. Him. Do I know him?”
Candy bit her lip, trying not to laugh at the idea that Tater and this hardcore DEA agent might have met socially. “Uh, I doubt it.”
“He reminds me of someone.” O’Connor started to tug at Candy. “Introduce me. Please. I’d appreciate it.”
Candy looked back over her shoulder to Turner, who just shrugged.
Once they reached the stainless steel hog, Candy did her duty. “Kelly O’Connor, this is my lifelong friend Tayyy—” She stopped herself. Maybe part of Tater’s problem had always been his nickname. The man deserved to be introduced to a beautiful woman by his actual name. “This is Thomas Wayne. Thomas, this is Kelly, a colleague of Turner’s.”
“Nice to meet you,” O’Connor said.
Tater held out a perfectly manicured hand. “The pleasure is all mine,” he said, bringing the agent’s fingers to his lips.
Candy wandered away, making sure O’Connor didn’t see her shocked expression. She stopped to chat with Cheri’s aunt Viv and granddaddy Garland for a moment and then returned to J.J. and Turner, catching the very end of their conversation.
“It’s that good?” J.J. asked.
“If it got any better I’d have to hire someone to help me enjoy it,” was Turner’s answer.
J.J. shook his head. “Damn. You’re not going to be obnoxious about this, are you?”
“Hey, you asked.”
“I guess I did.”
After J.J. went off in search of Cheri, Candy made her presence known by tapping Turner on his back. He spun around and his face immediately filled with delight. Candy felt herself pulled tight and kissed with a sense of purpose.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Nothing you don’t already know, darlin,’” he said.
The band finished a song and suddenly the air filled with the sound of someone banging on a microphone.
“Is this contraption on?” Garland said, loud enough to send the birds scattering. Everyone laughed. “Oh, well, now, pardon the interruption, folks, but we have a little business we’d like to attend to. On each table ya’ll will find some fancy little plastic champagne glasses and a couple bottles of bubbly, so please serve yourself and get situated.”
“Tell them where to stand!” Viv screamed from across the yard.
Garland rolled his eyes. “I’m gettin’ to it, Vivienne. Anyway, folks, we’d like to ask everyone to gather around the lake edge, if you don’t mind. We’re gonna do this at the end of the dock.”
“I’ll get us our drinks,” Turner said. “Be right back.” When he returned, he had Garland with him.
“Ya’ll have special duties today,” Garland whispered, a glint in his eye. “You two come with me.”
The crowd had started to assemble near the water’s edge, and parted when Garland walked toward the dock. “Leave a little opening, if you don’t mind,” he said to everyone, waving his long arms around. Turner and Candy followed him.
“What’s all this?” Turner asked Candy.
And that’s when she saw J.J. standing at the end of the dock, now wearing a jacket and a tie, with his hands folded nervously in front of his body.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Garland immediately shushed her.
Turner laughed. “Oh, hell. Is this what I think it is?”
“Shh!” Garland said again.
Candy stood where Garland directed her, off to his right, and Turner took his place next to J.J.
“Thank you,” was all J.J. had time to say to his best friend.
Garland tapped on the portable microphone. “Friends and family, we are gathered here together for the surprise wedding of Jefferson Jackson Decourcy and Cherise Nancy Newberry!”
About half of the hundred or so guests gathered around began hooting and hollering. The other half were speechless.
“All right. Pull yourselves together. J.J. and Cheri said the most important thing to them was having everyone together and they didn’t want much of a fuss made over the wedding details, so here it is, folks—for those of you a little slower than the norm—what I’m telling ya’ll is this is not the engagement party. This is the actual wedding. And since I’ve been working as a part-time magistrate since retiring as publisher of the Bugle, I am hereby authorized to perform this ceremony.” Garland paused and pointed to the band. “Hit it, boys!”
The band immediately began playing the wedding march and Candy saw Cheri b
egin her walk, first down the front porch steps, then across the lawn, and down the dock. She looked beautiful and happy as she carried the simple bouquet of wildflowers Candy had seen displayed in a pitcher on the kitchen table just moments before. It was all so lovely and simple that Candy started to cry.
It was a short ceremony. J.J. and Cheri exchanged sweet and loving vows and kissed each other with gusto. Then J.J. grabbed the microphone from Garland and thanked everyone for being good sports and asked anyone who felt compelled to give a wedding gift to donate to a charity of their choice.
Then everyone toasted the couple. Cheri and J.J. strolled down the dock as husband and wife, followed by Garland, then Candy and Turner, holding hands at the rear of the procession.
The party continued on as it had begun, even though everyone now thought of it as a wedding reception. O’Connor barely left Tater’s side the whole evening, helping him serve up ribs and chicken and dancing with him when the stars came out. The cupcakes were a hit. Cheri and Candy spent a few quiet moments on the porch steps together, laughing and crying.
“I should be mad at you,” Candy told her.
“Why?”
“Because—I had, like, two seconds to relish the fact that I’d been asked to be your maid of honor!”
“But you’re not mad, right?”
“How could I be?” Candy asked. “It was perfect. It was you and J.J. and it was just as it should have been.”
Turner and Candy danced, too, and it felt wonderful to be whirling around the lawn in the middle of dozens of other couples. Just before Turner’s family left, Rosemary pulled Turner and Candy aside, embracing them both.
“You make a fine and dignified couple,” she told them. “If you choose each other from the heart then that’s all that matters. I followed my heart when the whole world told me I was wrong, and I never regretted it for a second.”
Candy had barely recovered from that touching encounter with Rosemary, when the crowd became noticeably quieter. It probably didn’t help matters that the band was packing up for the night and there was nothing to draw people’s attention away from Tanyalee’s entrance.