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“How neat.”
They chatted about his parents on the short drive to the restaurant. Cara’s interest was genuine; she was very fond of Dean and Judith Griffin and had missed them since they’d moved off to Florida.
“Maybe I should have gotten a reservation,” Neil said, parking his pickup in one of the few available spots. “I didn’t think it would be this crowded on a weeknight.”
Inside they were able to get a table. Not surprisingly, Cara recognized a number of friends and acquaintances, as did Neil. They responded to greetings, following behind the hostess.
“I thought that was Agnes Tanner’s car outside,” Cara commented when they were seated. “Wouldn’t you know she would pick this same restaurant tonight?”
“So what?” he replied.
“She just happens to be the biggest gossip in Hammond. You know that.”
Neil grinned. “Should we give her something juicy to gossip about?”
Cara hadn’t seen that streak of playfulness in Neil during the three years since he’d returned to his home town a widower. “Let’s,” she replied, smiling impishly.
He leaned across the table, picked up one of Cara’s hands and brought it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Cara felt a jolt of electricity at the contact of his lips against her skin. Warm pleasure gushed through her, all the way to her toes. Wow, she almost said before she caught herself.
“Was she watching?” he asked, returning her hand to the table.
Cara had forgotten all about Agnes Tanner. She glanced in the woman’s direction. “Gawking is more the word.”
Apparently Neil hadn’t experienced anything similar in reaction to his playacting. He opened his menu and began perusing it. Cara followed his example. Neither of them made any further mention of Agnes or paid her any further attention.
They ordered their meals. The waitress soon brought their salads and a basket of hot rolls. Cara ate with relish, enjoying the food and Neil’s company. The conversation never hit a lull. The two of them always had things to talk about. Cara didn’t bring up Roy’s name, nor did Neil until the plates were cleared away and they were having coffee.
“You said you’d decided to break off with Xavier,” he stated, stirring cream into his coffee.
“Yes, I had gotten up the courage to tell him last night, but he worked late, and we ended up just talking on the phone. So I put off telling him.”
“Don’t procrastinate, Cara. The sooner you stop the wedding preparations, the better for everybody.”
“You’re right.” Cara sipped her coffee.
Neil frowned, obviously not satisfied with her answer. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice before he spoke in the same sober tone, “After our conversation today when you were leaving to go to the post office, I did some thinking. If you’re going to marry anybody out of desperation just so Sophia can attend your wedding, I’d rather it be me.” Cara was so taken by surprise and so humbled by this proof of his affection for her that she just gazed at him, tongue-tied. He went on, “Not that I’m in favor of the whole idea, mind you. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a real marriage. We wouldn’t sleep together, naturally.” This last statement came out sounding stern. He sat upright again.
Cara felt herself blushing and wondered whether he’d been aware of how she’d responded earlier to his kissing her hand. “Neil, I’m deeply touched. This afternoon I wasn’t proposing. Honest. I would never put you on the spot like that.”
“I didn’t construe what you said as a proposal. My offer is purely voluntary. Consider it a backup plan if you start wavering about breaking off with Xavier.”
“Oh, I see. You’re afraid I’m too big a coward to face the music.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure. Don’t be hard on yourself.” He reached over and gave her forearm a gentle squeeze. Cara felt a warm tingle of pleasure in his touch. Warm pleasure had always been there when Neil patted or hugged her, but the tingle was new. What was going on?
“My conscience wouldn’t allow me to exploit our friendship,” she said and sipped her coffee. “We’re talking a major disruption of your life.”
He shrugged. “I have a routine more than I have a life.” The statement was quietly matter-of-fact. He wasn’t asking for pity, but Cara felt a surge of compassion anyway as she thought of how lonely he must be.
“You haven’t dated at all, have you?” she asked.
“No. I wouldn’t make a very good date.”
“Tell that to all the women who come on to you. Some of them even ask you to go out. I’ve heard you let them down easy.” She hesitated. “It’s been three years, Neil. You don’t want to live alone indefinitely.”
“Between work and my involvement in civic organizations, I have a lot of interaction with people. Don’t make me out to be a hermit. How did the conversation get on to me, anyway? We were discussing you.”
Cara wrinkled up her nose. “Aren’t we always?”
“So you’ll take steps to stop the wedding? Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll invite Roy over to my place for supper and tell him I can’t go through with marrying him. Then the hard part.” She sighed. “Breaking the news to Nonna and my mother. They’ll inform the rest of the family. My best bet is to take my phone off the hook. Better yet, leave town until the worst blows over.”
“Tell your family you’re acting on my advice. Make me out to be the bad guy. I can take the flack.”
“You’re so sweet.”
The waitress brought the check. Cara asked if she could pay half and he said no. While he was taking out his wallet and extracting a credit card, she glanced over and noted that Agnes Tanner and her husband had departed. Cara hadn’t noticed them leaving. She hadn’t been aware of anybody except Neil all through dinner, for that matter. Their table might have been a private island in the room.
Poor Roy. She’d never been that focused on him when the two of them were out together in public. For the first time, Cara was willing to admit that maybe Roy had had a legitimate complaint about her devotion to her boss.
No more was said about Neil’s willingness to participate in a fake marriage, but Cara knew without a single doubt he would stand by his word if she decided to take him up on the offer. The knowledge that he’d given her what he called a “back up plan” would, she knew, shore up her courage to act decisively—and wisely—in rectifying the mistake she’d made in accepting Roy’s proposal. That had been Neil’s intention—to push her in the right direction.
The scene with Roy the next evening turned out to be much uglier than Cara could ever have imagined. It turned out to be much briefer, too. They never got around to eating the meal she’d prepared. Roy was in a fury when he arrived and began hurling bitter accusations about her fooling around with her boss behind Roy’s back.
Cara could barely get in a word, but she quickly surmised that Agnes Tanner had been busy spreading gossip, and Roy had gotten a full-blown account of yesterday’s embrace outside the store and last night’s innocent playacting at the restaurant.
“I’ve had it up to here!” Roy shouted, with a slashing motion across his throat. “The wedding’s off!”
“I’m so sorry about all this,” Cara began in a contrite tone.
He didn’t let her continue a meek explanation. “So it’s okay with you to call the wedding off?” he demanded.
Cara sighed in defeat and nodded. The whole story was so complicated, and what could she say to salve his pride? “I’m truly sorry, Roy. And I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“Spare me any apologies, you—” He balled up his fist, and for one frightened second, Cara cowered away from him, afraid he might strike her. He conquered the violent impulse and instead directed a tirade of verbal abuse at her before he stormed out.
The loud slamming of the door made Cara wince. She collapsed into a chair, weak with relief and horrified that she might actually have married Roy, a potential wife-beater, judging from the way he’d acted tonight. Ironically, his language and his behavior absolved her of a great deal of guilt. He didn’t love her, either, because no man who loved a woman could call her such foul names and accuse her of such sleazy actions. Roy’s mind was in the gutter.
“No wonder Neil took a dislike to him,” Cara murmured.
One thing for sure—she wouldn’t describe the breakup scene to Neil in any great detail. He just might call Roy up or, worse, go to see him and bawl him out for treating Cara as he had. Neil had come to her defense in the past. Cara remembered a couple of incidents during her teens when he’d tracked down boys who’d acted disrespectfully toward her. She didn’t know what he’d said or done, but he’d cured the problem in each case.
The phone was ringing. Cara rose and picked up the cordless phone from an end table. She spoke a cautious hello. Roy could be calling to shout at her some more or any number of friends could be checking in to report the rumors Agnes was circulating.
“Cara Marie.” Her mother’s voice came over the line. Cara’s heart sank. She could easily picture Rose LaCroix’s face, her compressed lips and grim expression. The gossip must have made it to her ears already.
“Hi, Mamma. How are you?”
Rose ignored her conversational opener. “Are you talking on that cordless phone?”
“Why, yes.”
“I don’t want the whole world listening in to what I have to say, even if it is a pack of lies.”
Recently there had been a feature on the local news about the lack of privacy in using cell phones and cordless phones. The news reporter had played recordings of intercepted conversations, some of them embarrassingly personal.
“Why don’t I come over in about fifteen minutes?” Cara said. She might as well go ahead and finish the job of calling a halt to the wedding preparations. Especially since nosy Agnes had laid the groundwork.
“We’ll be here. Your daddy is at a meeting,” Rose added.
So “we” meant Rose and Sophia, Cara deduced, the dread settling over her like a heavy blanket and making her clumsy as she hurriedly put the uneaten dinner in plastic containers to stow in the refrigerator. My stomach feels hollow, but I’m not even hungry. That’s a first, she thought, wiping up spillage on the counter.
The drive to her parents’ house took her only ten minutes. She parked in the driveway and entered through the rear porch, as was her habit. It wasn’t necessary to use her key since the doors weren’t locked and wouldn’t be locked until bedtime.
“We’re in here. In the kitchen,” Rose called out.
Cara inhaled the mouthwatering aroma of food. The worst case of nerves couldn’t deaden her tastebuds to her mother’s cooking. “I smell something delicious.”
Sophia spoke up, “Stuffed manicotti. Your mamma is heating some up for you in the microwave oven in case you didn’t eat supper yet.”
None of Rose’s children could err badly enough to kill her nurturing instincts. That knowledge gave Cara some slight reassurance.
“I haven’t eaten,” she said from the doorway. Rose stood by the counter, a pot holder in either hand. Sophia sat at the table, wearing a robe, looking thin and gaunt and ever so dear.
“Sit down here, next to me, cara mia.” Sophia patted the seat of the chair adjacent to hers.
Cara went over and hugged her grandmother and kissed her on the cheek before she did as instructed. Rose set down a plate in front of her. “You want iced tea?” she asked.
“Please.”
“Eat,” Sophia scolded. “It’s good.”
Cara picked up her fork. “Thanks, Mamma,” she said when Rose served the glass of iced tea.
“You’re welcome.” Rose sat down across from them, her hands firmly clasped in front of her. Cara knew better than to expect a reprieve while she was eating, and, sure enough, her mother came right to the point. “So who’s spreading these lies about you fooling around with your boss behind Roy’s back?”
“How did you hear?”
“Angela from next door came over, all embarrassed, and told me it was the big topic of conversation at the Ladies’ Altar Circle meeting this afternoon. She thought I ought to know. No sooner had she gone than your Aunt Mary called to say the story was all over Hammond. I gave her a piece of my mind when she asked me if there was any truth to it. Then she had the gall to say she hoped the wedding was still on. I said, ‘Of course, it is,’ and made an excuse and hung up.”
Mary Landry was Cara’s father’s sister, and no love was lost between her and Rose, as Cara well knew.
Sophia smoothed the placemat in front of her with a bony, fragile hand. “Poor Mary’s always been jealous because you had pretty daughters and her girls are so plain, Rose. It wouldn’t surprise me if she started the gossip herself out of pure spite.”
Cara laid down her fork. “Aunt Mary didn’t start the gossip. I’m guessing Agnes Tanner is behind it. She was at the same restaurant last night where Neil and I went to have dinner.”
Rose’s brown eyes grew as round as marbles. “Cara Marie,” she said in a shocked tone. “You don’t go out on dates with other men when you’re engaged to be married.”
“Neil isn’t ‘other men.’ I’ve known him forever.”
“Where was Roy? Where is he tonight?”
“Last night he was at his regular poker game. And tonight he came to my apartment. He’d heard the gossip, too, and believed it. We had a big fight and broke up.”
“She broke up with her fiancé, Mamma. Did you hear that? There’s going to be no wedding.”
“I heard,” Sophia replied. To Cara’s anxious eye, her grandmother seemed to shrink and grow more frail. Sophia had regained some of her old animation during the past few weeks since Cara had announced her engagement. Now that animation had died.
Rose sat with her palm clapped across her forehead and her eyes closed, reciting a quick prayer.
“I’m so sorry,” Cara said. “I realized a few days ago that I couldn’t marry Roy. I don’t love him, and he insisted I give up my job….”
Sophia patted her arm. “Finish your supper. Then come and tell your nonna good-night. I’m going to lie down and rest.”
“But, Mamma, your favorite TV show is coming on,” Rose said. “You want me to tape it for you?”
“Yes. I’ll watch it tomorrow.”
Cara wanted to burst out crying, but what good would that do? It wouldn’t change the fact that she was the cause of the disappointment weighing down the atmosphere in the room. She had to do something, say something to dispel the gloom and revive the expectation she’d cruelly fostered in the first place. Her mother was healthy and could cope, but Nonna wasn’t in good health.
Neil had given her permission to claim he was her new love interest, Cara reminded herself.
“Before you go to bed, Nonna, I have a secret to tell you and Mamma. Now don’t you breathe a word to anyone. You swear?”
Rose and Sophia both leaned toward her.
“Those rumors about Neil and me? Well, there’s some truth in them.”
Chapter Four
It wasn’t even necessary for Cara to embroider the fib—a fib being an untruth motivated by good, as compared to a lie—into a believable romance. Her mother and her grandmother did that for her.
“So that nice Griffin boy finally woke up!” Sophia exclaimed, a delighted smile breaking across her dear old face. “You always worshipped the ground he walked on.”
“I’ll bet you got his attention when you were about to marry another man,” Rose said, nodding wisely. “He saw you were about to slip through his fingers.”
“He realized our Cara is one of a kind.” Sophia caressed Cara’s cheek lovingly. “He won’t find himself another wife so sweet and good.”
Rose dealt with practicalities. “You’ll want to wait a few weeks before you announce your engagement. Otherwise it would look odd, canceling one wedding and planning another one.”
“Neil and I haven’t actually discussed wedding dates,” Cara put in weakly. She had only meant to lift their spirits, not obligate Neil to step in and replace Roy as bridegroom, even though he’d agreed to do so.
“God will understand the rush,” Sophia stated, her tone tranquil. Seeing the change in her grandmother now that hope was reborn for Cara’s future, Cara couldn’t be sorry for the deception. God in His infinite wisdom surely would understand everything.
“I didn’t really like that Roy Xavier all that much,” Rose revealed. “He struck me as a typical car salesman, all phony smiles and handshakes. Your daddy agreed with me.”
So did Sophia. So did Natalie and Angie and the majority of the family, Cara learned. No wonder Rose and Sophia had been so quick to accept Cara’s breakup with Roy and new relationship with Neil.
