He kissed me and said, “Yeah. You’re right. And I’ll settle for walking down the aisle with you.”
“You are too kind, sir. Every woman wants to be settled for.” We both laughed. No man settling for a woman would ever endure all this.
He smirked and shifted to the other end of the sofa, looking at me intently. “Still want to move?”
I sighed and smiled. “Well...”
“I can’t imagine my girl leaving Peachtree Bluff.”
I shrugged. “For better or worse, even when it’s hard, it’s home.”
“It’s such a part of your story, of our story, really,” Jack said. “I want to go different places and do different things, build a life with you, but I can’t imagine home plate being anywhere but right here.”
I heard a knock at the back door, followed by it swinging open. I smelled the coffee before I saw Kyle hand the cups to Jack and me right at the downstairs couch where we had spent a sleepless night that had led to a very stiff neck—at least for me.
“I got the feeling you might need these.”
He sat down in a wing chair flanking the sofa.
“Is it true?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He looked down at his feet. I would have thought he would be happy, but he looked distraught. “How is she?”
“She’ll be OK,” I said, smiling encouragingly.
“I don’t want her to be sad ever,” Kyle said. Then he shot me a small smile. “Even though it was pretty clear that her wedding day was my funeral.”
I shook my head. “You can’t tell her now, Kyle,” I blurted out. “She’s very sensitive at the moment.”
“Ansley, I’m not a masochist. And I have some sense of propriety.” He stood up. “I’m just off to take the girls their coffee and juice.”
Jack saluted him. “Godspeed, my man. I wouldn’t go into that house, and if you haven’t heard, two of the three of them are mine.”
Kyle laughed. “People in the far corners of Siberia have heard, Jack.”
I got up. “I’d better go, too.”
Kyle and I walked across the backyard between Jack’s house and mine and opened my back door. Caroline and Sloane were sitting in the kitchen, but Emerson was nowhere to be found. I had a horrifying thought. Emerson had woken up, found Mark, and changed his mind, trading the future we all knew she really wanted for him. I sighed. Well, if she had, I guessed that was OK. And I was glad I hadn’t said anything critical about him.
“Hi, Kyle,” Sloane said at the same time as Caroline said, “Mom, have a seat.”
I sat down at one of the woven barstools, feeling exhausted. She slid something across the island. I picked it up and did a double take.
It was an engraved Crane invitation with our family crest at the top. It read:
Mrs. Caroline Murphy Beaumont, Mrs. Sloane Murphy Andrews, and Miss Emerson Virginia Murphy
Request the Honor of Your Presence at the Marriage of Their Mother
Mrs. Ansley Morgan Murphy
To Mr. John Stanley Richards III
Saturday, September 2, 2017, at half past six o’clock in the evening
At the Sandbar
