Sweet Nothings (38 page)

“Sounds like a plan.”

A soft exhale sounded from Frank.

Chapter Twenty-Two

J
oanie checked the time on the Barn’s new kitchen stove as she paced. Ten minutes until five o’clock. The open house would be over soon. She grabbed a fresh-baked cookie off the platter Jane had kept continuously filled throughout the afternoon and turned, taking steady strides to the other side of the room, the heels of the boots she wore clicking on the floor. There were two couples still upstairs looking around.

It had seemed as if everyone she knew, and some she didn’t, had shown up there today. Most just wanted to see what had been done to the place, but several, Joanie had noticed, were interested. Very interested.

Which had given her a headache.

Someone else was going to want her house and she would have to sell it to them.

Or worse, Grace would sell it to them.

Joanie clenched her free hand into a fist as she thought about the woman. Rumor was that she’d been traipsing about town earlier in the day, causing trouble any way she could, stooping so low as to stop in at the salon and mock Linda Sue’s work. And to top it off, Grace had apparently not even bothered to visit GiGi’s grave.

At least, the rumor was she hadn’t been seen out there. Though Joanie had no idea who was keeping tabs on the Memorial Grounds just to see if Grace showed up.

Bert Wheeler and his wife, Betty, came down the stairs, smiling and nodding their heads. When Bert saw her, he turned in her direction.

“You weren’t lying,” he said, giving an appreciative whistle. “Nick did a bang-up job here. Me and Betty have been thinking about closing in our porch to make a nice den. We’re thinking we might see if he can work us in.”

Bert picked up one of Nick’s business cards sitting out on the counter as Joanie nodded and smiled. She made the appropriate chitchat until they left, but honestly, she had no desire to talk up Nick’s work today.

First, it could speak for itself. He was highly skilled and it showed.

Second, she was annoyed with him.

How dare he scream he loved her and then hang up? She just wanted a little break. They’d moved so fast, she had no clue what she wanted.

Then her mother had shown up.

Now Joanie was going to lose the house and owe a boatload of money.

Add to that, she’d started thinking she was the type to toss her life away and chase Nick back to Nashville.

It was all just too much.

She wanted to think about nothing until she met with her mother at the lawyer’s office Monday. And she certainly didn’t want to see Grace
or
Nick before then.

As for what she was going to do about Nick in the long run, she was backing off. They needed space. And he had to quit pushing. She wasn’t the same person she’d been six weeks before, and honestly, she had no idea what she thought about that.

But she did know enough to know that she needed time to think.

If she went with her mother’s experience, she should run from Nick. Push him as far away as she could. That way she wouldn’t get hurt.

But she also wouldn’t have Nick.

He’d been good for her. And she kind of liked the changes he’d inspired over the last few weeks. She had a cat she adored. She loved her job, loved that she’d created a business that represented both her and her grandmother. And she’d come closer than she’d ever imagined to reconciling with her grandmother before she’d passed.

Best of all, she wasn’t going to sell Cakes.

Cakes made her happy. Life made her happy. And she hadn’t even known she’d been unhappy.

She was also dating. Real dating. Which she kind of liked.

If they continued, she just had to make sure she didn’t do things so wrong that it went from dating to stupid Bigbee behavior and everything would be fine.

She paced across the room again, anxious for the last couple to come down with Jane, and for all of them to get out of her house.

When they did finally make it down, Joanie was polite, smiling and speaking when necessary, but practically shoving them out of the house. The minute they set foot onto the porch, Cat zipped in from outside, and she threw the deadbolt, then turned to collapse against the heavy wood. Cat came over for some loving and she scratched him on the back of the neck.

She liked her life.

And she liked Nick.

She sighed, thinking about that. It was more than “like,” and she knew it. But she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Nick right now. It was a Nick-free weekend.

Only, she had no idea how to spend the remainder of the evening.

Lee Ann had invited her over, letting her know that the boys wouldn’t be back from Atlanta until tomorrow, but she wasn’t in the mood for company. She thought about the boxes sitting on her living room floor.

She could go through those.

But what if she found something that made things even worse?

Or proved even more how unhappy GiGi had been?

Joanie didn’t know what she expected to find, but that unknown had kept her from going through everything. She just didn’t want to know that GiGi had been more miserable than Joanie already thought she had been. Today, however, seemed the time for facing it all. No one else was going to do it for her.

Making a decision, she nodded and grabbed her car keys. Nick wouldn’t be around tonight, so she’d pack everything up and haul it back
out here. It might be the last night she had the opportunity to spend the night in the house. It would also be the only time she’d ever spent there alone.

Other than that fateful weekend when she’d lost her virginity.

Stupid boys. She still couldn’t believe she’d given in to him back then, but it had quit bothering her long ago. Life was all about lessons learned.

She hurried home, then dragged the boxes out to her car, muttering about the absurdity of wagging these same three boxes all over the place. Once she’d loaded them in her car, she grabbed Bob and an overnight bag, then locked her door and headed back out to GiGi’s. Bob had learned from Cat that it was fun to sit on the dash, so that’s where he immediately went. Joanie couldn’t help but feel a lump in her throat as she looked at him. She missed Nick.

She got to the house and unloaded the boxes yet again, but only made it so far as the porch. The swing was inviting, and seeing it made her feel good. She’d dig through the boxes there.

When she went back to the car for her overnight bag, she noticed the handle of a canvas tote poking out from under her passenger seat. Pulling it out, she found the metal box she’d retrieved from the cabinets the first night she’d been here with Nick, its small lock still in place. She’d taken the box to her last visit with GiGi, but after the emotional exchange between the two of them, she hadn’t asked her grandmother about the key.

If she didn’t find it in everything stashed on the porch, she would figure out a way to cut the lock off. She had a feeling some of Pepaw’s possessions that he hadn’t taken when he’d left were stashed inside. Maybe things that had meant something to GiGi. Joanie wanted to know what they were.

She settled onto the swing and dragged the first box over to her.

Three hours later, more than tipsy and heading toward drunk on the bottle of whiskey she’d remembered was still in GiGi’s kitchen, she moved to the final box. She’d turned the outside light on a while ago and felt like she was in the spotlight every time a car passed, but she couldn’t
say she cared. It was turning out to be one heck of a relaxing night, and she was enjoying it.

Most of what she’d worked through so far had been the owls that GiGi had kept in her room, or random paperwork Joanie hadn’t run across at the house. Such as the deed to the house.

There was the original title to the car GiGi had owned thirty years ago. Joanie had sold it for junk two years before, just to get it out of the way. There had been a handful of other important documents located in the piles of paper as well, but most of it had just been junk: notes from nurses at the home, weekly menus, randomly scribbled notes in GiGi’s unsteady handwriting.

The last box, from what she could tell, held GiGi’s clothes and bathroom supplies. As Joanie dug through it, she found one lone box under all the clothes. It was about five inches deep, and bulging at the seams. She pulled it out and moved a rocker over in front of the swing to prop her feet as she went through it.

She poured herself more whiskey and wondered why she’d been so worried about going through this stuff. She hadn’t found anything that had come close to upsetting her. It was just GiGi’s small world that she’d had at the nursing home. Nothing whatsoever that showed anything Joanie hadn’t already known about her.

Until she removed the lid of that last box.

She stared down at the newspaper clippings, seeing article after article of herself. Some were from her teenage years, or even before, but many were from the last fifteen years after Joanie had moved out. There was the ribbon cutting at the first business she’d opened. That had been a small gift shop that still thrived on the square today. There was even one from her inaugural trip with the cupcake van.

Where had GiGi gotten the later newspapers?

Joanie paid the bills every month, and there had never been a subscription to the weekly paper being sent to the nursing home.

She found an envelope mixed in with the clippings and pulled it out, spilling a few of the articles on the concrete porch. Inside the envelope were letters from Beatrice Grayson. The woman who had told Joanie
about GiGi’s attempts at having children had been sending GiGi the articles since she’d been in Knoxville.

At first glance, Joanie wondered if it was just Ms. Grayson butting in, spreading gossip—or maybe returning the favor she felt she owed GiGi from years before—but then Joanie read one of the letters and realized GiGi had requested her to do this.

Pressure built inside Joanie’s chest at the thought of her grandmother wanting to know what was going on in her life, and caring enough to keep the evidence of it. She’d thought for so long that GiGi hadn’t cared, but this box implied differently.

Pain weighted her down. They’d missed out on so much. All because of her.

She dug on down past the articles and found several old pictures of Pepaw, and the tears began. Almost all were pictures of GiGi and Pepaw together from their younger days. Pictures where they were smiling and hugging. Where they were happy.

There were also photos of the three of them. The pride showing in her grandparents’ faces was unmistakable. The few pictures that Joanie uncovered that included her mother mostly showed her sullen, her arms crossed, and Joanie couldn’t help but wonder what made someone so unhappy with their life. She couldn’t imagine being like that. It made her feel sorry for her mother to know she’d been that unhappy her entire life.

How had that made GiGi feel? Surely it had broken her heart as it was doing to Joanie’s now. You couldn’t bear a child and then not ache for her every time you saw her unhappiness, could you?

Maybe Grace could. That woman didn’t seem to have a nice bone in her body. Joanie supposed some people were just made like that.

Her hand landed on an envelope containing a single folded piece of notepaper. She pulled it out, flutters going through her stomach before she unfolded the creases. When she had it open, her hand began shaking as she saw it addressed to her and written in GiGi’s shaky scrawl. It was dated the day after Joanie’s last visit.

Tears dripped unheeded down her face as she read GiGi’s good-bye to her. She spoke briefly about being sorry she hadn’t done better over
the years. She’d been scared she would lose Joanie as she already had Pepaw and Grace, but she’d also lived with the guilt of knowing Grace hadn’t come back because of her.

GiGi also apologized for begging Joanie to bring her home. She asked Joanie not to worry about having to say no. According to her grandmother, Joanie had done the right thing. GiGi had been where it was best for her. Where she could best be taken care of.

Just as she’d once put Pepaw where it was best for him.

Joanie’s gaze froze on the words before going back and rereading them. What was she talking about?

She blinked, trying to clear some of the whiskey from her eyesight, then plowed through the rest of the letter.

Your Pepaw had his pride, Joanie. Too much of it. And in the end, it hurt us all.

He never wanted you to be ashamed of him. He wanted no one to be ashamed of him. And he couldn’t stand knowing what was happening to him.

I didn’t agree with his decision, but I loved him enough to do what he asked. And as requested, I never told a soul. Until today.

I’m so sorry his leaving hurt you. I wanted to do better for you, but his leaving hurt me, too. I wasn’t strong enough to be all you deserved, and for that I apologize.

I’ve included a key. There’s a box in the house, Joanie. It was your grandfather’s from when he was a little boy. It explains everything.