The Wedding Garden (6 page)

But she’d learned the hard way not to be fooled by dreams.

“Is this seat okay?” the usher asked, indicating a vacant pew with access to a side exit. “You’ll have the end and the door in case Miss Lydia needs to leave.”

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” Lydia answered, but her voice was frightfully weak and raspy today. The preparations alone had taken too much out of her, but though she’d argued, Annie had not been able to change her mind about attending.

With a smile, Annie said, “This is perfect.”

Sloan positioned himself next to Lydia, and Delaney plopped down on his other side, whispering excitedly about the pretty lavender flowers and bows decorating the church. Needing to be near her patient, Annie sat beside her daughter with Justin at her elbow. This close she could smell Sloan’s cologne—a subtle, expensively masculine mix of spice and sandalwood that had driven her to distraction in the car. She’d be salivating by the time the wedding ended if she didn’t find something to take her mind off Sloan Hawkins.

Fortunately, the wedding music commenced. Traditional notes of “Amazing Grace” played on a violin accompanied the groom, the minister and the best man as they made their way to the front of the church. Annie had known Doctor Trace Bowman both personally and professionally since he’d moved to Redemption, and she had never seen him happier than in the last year since he and the darkly intense woman from Colorado had fallen in love. Today he radiated happiness as his daughter, the effervescent Zoey, made her way carefully down the aisle, strewing rose petals along the way. For a blind child, Zoey was remarkably confident, but her grandmother, Trace’s mother, walked behind, one hand resting lightly on the child’s shoulder.

Then the music changed and the congregation stood as a unit. A little thrill raced along Annie’s arms. She loved weddings, especially this moment when the bride appeared in all her glory and the groom got that thunderstruck expression on his face.

Cheyenne, a former police officer who had overcome a terrible violent attack to become a champion to battered women, floated down the aisle on her father’s arm. Her dark beauty was glorious in a long, ivory dress of simple design, her ink-black hair lying in wispy layers on her bare shoulders.

The ceremony began and Annie couldn’t help watching the
faces of the guests. Half the town was here. Miriam and Hank Martinelli from the Sugar Shack—who had, no doubt, created the cake du jour—exchanged frequent glances that made Annie smile. The couple had been married for years, but their devotion burned bright.

Kitty Wainright, the maid of honor, sniffled. Jace Carter, a local building contractor, was watching the pretty motel owner with such intensity, Annie began to wonder. Did Kitty have an admirer? If she did, would she ever let go of her memories and take a chance on love again?

Lydia coughed and Annie’s attention snapped to her, but Sloan had leaned forward, blocking her view. After a moment, he sat back and she could see that her patient was all right.

She turned her attention back to the ceremony. Trace and Cheyenne, gazing at each other with trust and adoration, repeated their vows. A hot knot tightened in Annie’s chest—a knot of yearning to love and be loved forever. Tears gathered in her eyes. She always cried at weddings but today with the memories of the past sitting an arm’s length away, the emotion was raw.

Despite her determination not to, she sneaked a peak around her daughter. Sloan’s jaw was hard as granite and he swallowed often, a sign she recognized as emotion. Was Sloan feeling it, too? This painful case of what-might-have-been? What if Sloan had never left town? What if they had married? Would they have stood before the church with friends and family surrounding them, breathing in the scent of gardenias and candle smoke?

Sloan chose that moment to glance her way and caught her staring. She held on to his gaze, trying to read him, but his blue eyes burned with some emotion she couldn’t identify. A muscle twitched in his cheek, and after a moment when Annie thought her heart would jump right out of her chest, he rotated toward Lydia and whispered something.

Blinking back tears, Annie looked down at the tissue she’d twisted to bits in her lap.

What a foolish woman she was. Sloan was here for Lydia, not for her. The emotional wedding atmosphere had put sappy, nostalgic thoughts in her head. That was all.

Sloan Hawkins had left of his own free will and never looked back, giving her no thought or consideration. The last thing she and her children needed was another man they couldn’t count on.

“H
ey, Sloan, can I ask you something?”

Sloan paused in digging a hickory scrub out of Lydia’s roses to lean on his shovel. Something had been eating at the kid all morning. Something was eating at him, too, and her name was Annie, which was part of the reason he and Justin were out here in the hottest part of the day. Ever since the wedding, when Annie had looked at him with tears floating in those big green eyes, he’d known he was in more trouble than Chief Dooley could ever manufacture.

She’d nearly melted him with that look, and though he knew better than to read anything into it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He also couldn’t stop thinking about Annie and Joey standing before a preacher somewhere getting married. His gut churned every time that picture entered his head. Like now.

With more force than necessary, he tossed the shovel aside and whipped off dirty leather gloves to backhand a drenched brow.

“Sure,” he said to Justin. “Take five. Grab some water.”

Justin set aside the bag of fertilizer he was dumping into
a wheelbarrow and removed his gloves, slapping them on the side of his leg the way Sloan had. The boy, though thin and lanky, was surprisingly strong for an eleven-year-old. His face dripped with sweat and his white T-shirt would never see clean again. Sloan figured it was good for him to sweat out some of that anger festering in him like poison.

Justin tossed him a bottle of water from the small ice chest Sloan kept handy and headed for the back of the garden and the shade of huge drooping oak branches.

Sloan opened the bottle of water and guzzled half of it, letting the cold liquid drip down his chin onto his steaming chest.

Suddenly, his skin prickled and it had nothing to do with the cold water. Annie must be looking out the window again. Bottle to his lips, he glanced toward the house, saw her there and hitched his chin. She wiggled her fingers and Sloan felt a goofy lift in his belly.

Man. He was messed up. She was waving at her kid, not at him. Annie was worried sick about the boy and probably scared that Sloan Hawkins was a bad influence.

“You coming or you gonna stare at my mom?”

Sloan grunted. Smart-aleck kid. He guzzled the rest of the water, tossed the empty onto the growing stack next to the fence, grabbed another bottle and followed Justin to the shade.

The kid was doing all right. Even Annie acknowledged as much. After the initial few days when his smooth hands had blistered on the end of a shovel and he’d griped about the heat, the work and the injustice in the world, the boy had come around. Sloan figured most of the whining was posturing and now that he had it out of his system, they were getting along pretty well. Justin wasn’t afraid to work and didn’t really mind the dirt and heat no matter how much he griped—which wasn’t much the last few days.

Together they collapsed beneath the huge, ancient oaks,
leaning their backs against the rough bark of opposite trees. Both lifted their knees and dangled their drinks over one. Sloan thought it was kind of funny the way Justin imitated him. Funny and a little worrisome. What kind of role model was Sloan Hawkins?

He removed his shades and hung them on the neck of his T-shirt. Justin, he noticed, did the same.

Sloan laughed and pointed his water bottle at the rings of dirt around the boy’s eyes. “Raccoon.”

Justin snickered. “You, too. Your face is brown as dirt and your eyes are white.”

“Handsome dudes, too. Can’t keep the women off.”

The boy allowed a tiny smile but Sloan could see he had something on his mind. “So, what’s up? Something bothering you?”

“Yeah.” He took a swig of water and stared toward the house. Sloan followed the gaze. Annie had disappeared. “I was wondering something.”

“Spit it out. I’m listening.” Sloan swigged at his bottle, casual-like, careful not to press the kid or look at him while he gathered the courage to ask whatever was on his mind.

Justin tossed a dirt clod and watched it break against a tree trunk. When the small patter of sound subsided he said, “Are you my real father?”

Sloan spit water halfway across the garden. Whoa! Where had that come from? He’d expected the kid to ask him about life or girls or paying restitution for his crime. Not this. Never this.

Adrenaline jacked into his bloodstream like jet fuel. Sloan wanted to get up and run.

He took a minute to think, to breathe, to get his heart back in his chest. Annie would kick him if he handled this wrong. He’d kick himself.

Think, Hawkins. Do it right.
The kid deserved a legitimate
answer, not some half-truth or platitude. If he was old enough to ask, he was old enough to know.

Besides, hadn’t he wondered the same thing?

Treading lightly to test the waters, Sloan said, “What makes you ask?”

Justin’s expression darkened. “Just tell me. Are you? I hope you are because I hate my old man.”

Whoa. So much for testing the waters. He’d just waded out into the deep with a rock around his neck.

He took his time, leaned back against the rough bark of the oak, propped a foot, and dangled the water bottle over one knee.

He knew from bad experience the kid didn’t need to go through life with unanswered questions hanging over him like a guillotine, waiting to slice him in two at every turn. If Justin had the question inside him, he deserved an answer.

“I’m a straight shooter, Justin. So here it is, as straight as I can give you.”

The tension radiating off the boy was painful to watch. “Yeah? Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

Justin’s head jerked once. “So you could be.”

Sloan figured he’d let that one go. The boy wasn’t stupid. “If this is eating you up, you should talk to your mom. She should be the one to answer a question this important.”

The silence told Sloan what the boy thought about that suggestion.

Okay, try again. This was way too crucial to the kid’s mental health to leave it dangling.

“Want to tell me where you got this idea? Ronnie Prine, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Might as well tell me. There aren’t any secrets between us now.” He held the boy’s eyes, waiting for the acknowledg
ment to sink in. Justin
could
be his son. The possibility was there, however slight.

At the thought seeping in like rainwater through cracked walls, Sloan felt a strange mix of hope and despair. What if Justin
was
his son?

Justin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He fiddled with the label on the bottle. “Ronnie’s a creep. His mom said you and my mom…back in high school…well, you know.”

Sloan huffed one hard, disgusted huff. Yes, he knew.

“Will it help to know I loved her?”

Justin’s head jerked up and his eyes gleamed suspiciously damp. “Did you? Really?”

“Yeah,” Sloan said, almost grimly. The kid was killing him. “Really.”

“What happened?”

Ah, now, there was a slippery slope. “Your granddad didn’t like me. I joined the military.” Close enough to the truth.

“He still hates you. I heard him griping at Mom about you.”

The heaviness in Sloan’s chest expanded. Some things never changed. No matter how he’d felt or was feeling about Annie now, Dooley Crawford would stand in the way. He’d make Annie miserable again, as he’d done before. There was no way Sloan was going to ask her to choose. She had enough to deal with.

“Talk to me about your dad.” When Justin just stared at him, he said. “Joey. Why do you say you hate him?”

“He’s a jerk. He cheated on Mom.”

“You get that from Ronnie Prine, too?”

The kid gave a short mirthless laugh. “Everybody knew but Mom. Even me. Kids talk. They teased me.”

Not good. No wonder the kid was boiling on the inside. “You know what your dad did was wrong, don’t you? Your mother is a good woman. She deserved better than that.”

Justin managed an embarrassed grin. “I’m not a little kid. I know about…that kind of stuff.”

Sloan remembered thinking the same thing the night his mother left.

“Your mom’s a real special woman. A man lucky enough to marry her should treat her like a queen.” He bumped the boy’s knee. “Her son should treat her that way, too. She deserves your best.”

“You gonna tell her? I mean, about what I asked you?”

“I think I should, don’t you?”

Head down, Justin rubbed a hand over his damp hair. “If you do, will you tell me what she says?”

The implication of his little chat with Justin rocked Sloan’s world. He wasn’t sure what he felt. Pure terror, for certain, but also a kind of longing he couldn’t fathom.

What would he do if this was his son? If he were a father? He, who was tormented with Clayton Hawkins’s blood running in his veins, was now tormented by the thought that he may have abandoned his kid the way his mother had abandoned him.

Maybe he was as worthless as Dooley claimed. Maybe he was a bad seed.

But then where did that leave Justin?

Annie was vacuuming the living room when Sloan came storming in with thunder in his face and yanked the electric cord from the wall. The loud motor fell to a whine and then ceased.

“We gotta talk.”

Her heart bumped, the way it did every time Sloan came striding in with that swagger and the heat of summer steaming off his tanned skin. He was dirty from head to toe, his face streaked with sweat and dust, and his T-shirt clung to his skin. He filled the room with his presence, dark and intense and determined.

She wanted to joke and ask if he’d found a daffodil bulb where the rhododendron should be, but the tension in his body told her this was serious.

Her thoughts went to her child. She swung toward the window. “Where’s Justin? Is he all right?”

Sloan touched her arm. “He’s fine. I gave him twenty bucks and sent him uptown for a six-pack of Gatorade and something to snack on.”

“Walking?”

“He has legs.”

“But he’s alone.” She hadn’t planned to let him out of her sight. “What if he gets into more trouble?”

Sloan fisted his hands on his hips. “He won’t.”

Lord forgive her. Sloan had more confidence in Justin than she did.

“Okay, talk. I’m listening.” She pulled the electric cord up and began to wrap it around the vacuum’s hooks.

Sloan’s hand stopped her. “Leave it. Please.”

It was the
please
that got to her. She dropped the cord and then wondered what to do with her hands. She couldn’t remember feeling awkward with Sloan before but as he stood there, with something serious on his mind and his eyes shooting blue laser fire, she had the strangest urge to bolt while she could.

“I have a feeling I’m going to be upset.”

“That’s not my intention, Annie, but Justin asked me a question today that I can’t answer.”

Annie’s heart began to race. She gripped the handle of the upright vacuum cleaner. “What did he ask?”

Sloan studied her face as if he wasn’t sure how to say what was on his mind. That muscle below his eyes ticked and she fought the need to stroke the spot in reassurance as she’d done long ago. But Sloan Hawkins was a man now, not a broken boy. He no more needed her than he needed another Harley.

“Sloan?” she said, hearing the anxiety in her voice. “What did he ask?”

As if the words were heavy, Sloan’s chest rose and fell in a quick huff of air. “He wants to know if he’s my son.”

Annie’s hand went to her lips, but the gasp escaped anyway. This was the last thing she expected to hear.

“He’s too young to ask questions like that.”

“No, he’s not, Annie. Trust me. He knows what he’s asking, but he’s too young to deal with it on his own.”

“Where did he get such an idea in the first place? He couldn’t have come up with that by himself.”

“Think about it. Ronnie Prine.” Sloan’s jaw was tight.

“So that’s why he and Ronnie are constantly fighting?”

“Partly. Roberta always had a big mouth and she spread trouble like fertilizer.”

Everything made sense now. Annie felt like the worst mother on earth. Justin had been defending her honor in the only way an eleven-year-old knew how. No wonder he was angry and confused.

“Roberta never liked me,” she said. “She was jealous. She had a crush on you. Did you know that?”

Sloan’s expression was horrified. “You have to be kidding.”

“I’m not. A woman scorned is a dangerous thing.” Roberta wasn’t the only girl who’d noticed Sloan Hawkins, but he’d been clueless of his appeal. He’d been a one-woman man and that woman had been Annie.

He rubbed a hand down his face, further smearing the dust and dirt. “You still haven’t answered the question. He needs to know and so do I. Is Justin my son?”

It was almost a relief to have this out in the open at long last. Lydia’s urging ringing in her head, Annie said the only thing she could. “Yes.”

With a groan, Sloan collapsed on the sofa and dropped his head in his hands. “How much do you hate me?”

Hot emotion burned inside her. Annie eased down next to him, so terribly tempted to touch him, and yet she resisted. “Not nearly enough.”

He made a small huffing sound. “God help me.”

“He will. How do you think I got through the hardest time of my life?”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“I wanted him, Sloan, from the moment I knew I was pregnant.” She’d wanted Sloan, too, the pair of them together as man and wife, raising the child they’d made together.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I never had the chance. You know I would have.” The love they’d shared had been real, even though they were too young and foolish to handle it properly.

He nodded, lifting his head to stare out the windows. “Yes, I know. We have to tell him.”

“No.”

“I promised him, Annie, and he needs the facts, not wild and hurtful rumors. He already suspects and it’s tearing him up. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with gossip and suspicions but never really know the truth?”

She had no doubt he was thinking of his mother. Since he was Justin’s age, Sloan had wondered why Joni Hawkins had left, where she’d gone, or if she would ever return. Annie, too, had lived with that kind of wondering after Sloan had left and she understood how painful the not knowing could be. At least she’d had her father’s word that Sloan was gone for good. Sloan had had nothing but an older aunt who’d loved him and taken him in.