The Art of Romance (16 page)

“Girls, before we go…there’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you since we got here.” Zarah looked so serious, so solemn.

Caylor immediately dropped her teasing demeanor. She grabbed Zarah’s hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Flannery took Zarah’s other hand in both of hers.

“Bobby and I…”

Oh, please, Lord, don’t let them have broken up!

“We’ve set a wedding date. We want to get married the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.” A tremulous smile broke out on Zarah’s stark-white face.

Flannery dropped Zarah’s hand as if it had given her an electric shock. “Don’t do that to me. I thought you were going to say y’all had broken up—or worse. I can’t believe you didn’t call us as soon as you decided. Or at least as soon as you walked in the door here.”

Caylor pulled Zarah into a hug. She could understand a little better than Flannery where Zarah was coming from, having talked to Zarah at greater length about her relationship with Bobby since he’d returned to her life fourteen years after a bad breakup.

“I’m so happy for you.” She stepped back and held Zarah’s shoulders at arms’ length. “Are you scared?”

“A little bit. One of Bobby’s friends from work has a cousin who’s a family and marriage counselor, so we’re going to start going—we still have a lot of stuff to work through, both together and separately, but we know we’re meant to be together. After all, if we weren’t, why would God have brought us back into each other’s lives the way He did?”

Flannery pushed Caylor’s hands out of the way so she could hug their friend, too. “There’s so much planning to do, and I want to help with everything. Oh, and I’ve got all those books at work about wedding planning that I helped edit. I’ll grab copies of those, and we can work our way through them.”

Zarah nodded. She sniffled, her eyes suspiciously wet, but her smile stretched wider than Caylor had seen it since Thanksgiving, when Zarah and Bobby had announced their engagement. Not that it had been news to Caylor and Flannery, who’d helped Bobby prepare a special evening for the proposal.

“I want you two to be my maids of honor. We’re going to try to keep it somewhat small—just two attendants, a small guest list, and in the chapel, not the main sanctuary at Acklen Ave.” Zarah’s curly dark hair bounced on her shoulders as she looked from Caylor to Flannery and back. “You will be my maids of honor, won’t you?”

“Of course we will,” Caylor and Flannery answered in unison and hugged her together.

“Hey, there’s a bridal store in this complex—over by the steak house, I think. Once we’re finished with Caylor’s Christmas shopping, we could go over there and start looking at dresses.” Flannery’s eyes shone with more excitement than Zarah’s.

“Maybe, if we have time. But I’m not even sure about colors or how formal we’re going to be yet, so it’s a bit premature.” Knowing Zarah, she’d want to have a complete plan in place before she set one foot in a store—and then she’d go in, order exactly what she wanted, and walk out. Ten, fifteen minutes, tops.

“Oh come on. It’ll be fun just to go in and daydream.”

Zarah sighed, a little overdramatically, which made them all laugh. “Fine. If there’s time when we finish Christmas shopping. I have a few things I need to pick up while I’m here, too.”

“And lunch. Let’s not forget to leave time to eat—since it’ll probably be late before any of us gets to where we’re supposed to be having supper tonight.” Caylor had promised herself she was going to get back on a regular eating schedule during the holidays before her crazy schedule started again in January.

After finding the few things she wanted, she’d just moved to the head of the checkout line when her phone chimed out the tone that indicated a new text message. With her arms full, she waited until she’d finished her transaction before checking it. Even if it was Sassy needing something, there wasn’t much Caylor could do for her from down here.

While Zarah checked out, Caylor moved toward the door, put her bag on the floor between her feet, and pulled out her phone. She had to read the screen three times to believe what it said.

New Message from Felicity Evans
.

“What is it?” Zarah asked, joining her.

“A text message from my sister.” Caylor tapped the screen to open the message as Flannery finished up and rejoined them.

“Did you just say you got a text from Felicity?” Flannery asked.

“Yeah.” Caylor read it—and groaned. “Y’all aren’t going to believe this. F
LIGHT LEAVING
D
ENVER
. I
N
N
ASHVILLE
2 P.M
. M
EET ME AT BAGGAGE CLAIM
.”

“Wait. She’s coming in this afternoon? I thought you weren’t expecting her until later in the week.” Flannery took the phone from Caylor to read it for herself.

“That’s the last I heard, though I’ve been e-mailing her for a week to get her to send me her itinerary.” She ran her fingers through her hair, thankful that messy was the purpose of this short style. “If Mama and Daddy’s flight weren’t coming in so much later today, I’d tell her just to wait and I’d pick her up at the same time I pick them up.”

“When do they get in?” Zarah asked.

“Six. No matter how much she frustrates me, I can’t ask her to sit around waiting at the airport for four hours.” Caylor took the phone back and read the message again to see if Felicity had said what airline or flight number—but no, of course not.

Flannery flipped her long blond hair over her shoulders. “Why not? She’s asking you to rearrange your entire day to accommodate her. Waiting a few hours might be good for her.”

“Yeah, but the security at the airport probably doesn’t like people to just sit around and wait for that long.” She dropped the phone back into her purse and rolled her head from side to side, trying to alleviate the sudden tightness in her neck and shoulders. “Come on. I have about an hour and a half before I have to head back to Nashville to pick her up.”

Dylan sorted the canvases into four stacks—those he would use to try to get into some local galleries, perhaps the Hillsboro Village Art Walk; those he thought were high enough quality for the art auction Mother wanted to do as a campaign event; those that could possibly be recycled and painted over; and those that needed to be thrown away.

Most of the paintings going into the trash pile were those he’d painted in the past six to twelve months. His dark period, he’d call it. Crouching down beside the trash pile, he flipped through several of the pieces. Actually, he should call it his
door
period. He hadn’t realized how many of his pieces involved some kind of doorway—or window or gateway.

He rocked back on his heels. Even when he hadn’t been able to see it, his subconscious mind had been screaming at him that he needed to escape, needed to find a way out.

“Whatcha doing?”

Startled off balance at the sound of his brother’s voice, Dylan grabbed the leg of the worktable and leveraged himself up to his feet.

Pax leaned against the doorjamb, hands in the pockets of the oversized gray fleece hoodie he wore over a blue-and-white plaid flannel shirt. It was about as rugged looking as the scientist would ever manage.

“Just doing some organizing. What brings you here?” Dylan crossed to the utility sink to wash his hands, nearly black from the years of dust on some of the boxes he’d been into this morning.

Pax lifted the shiny black laptop he’d had tucked under his arm. “Spencer, Tyler, and I had planned to talk today about Christmas gifts for Mother and Dad, Gramps and Perty, and Grandma and Grandpa Paxton. I didn’t know if you had a webcam on your computer or not, so I figured it would be just as easy if I came over and we talked to them together.”

In years past, Tyler had informed Dylan of the decision they’d made about their joint gifts to their parents and both sets of grandparents, and Dylan had sent however much they told him he owed to get his name on the cards.

He motioned his brother toward the stairs at the other end of the storage room that served as his art studio. “Come on up. Gramps and I just installed a new booster for the wireless a couple of days ago, so I get a strong signal and good Internet connection out here.”

“Wow.” Pax let out a low whistle when he reached the second-floor apartment. “You’ve done wonders with the place.

The one-bedroom apartment looked bigger than it probably had when Pax had lived here his first years of graduate school—mainly because Dylan didn’t have the money to buy much furniture. But he’d lucked out with a few nice pieces from a thrift store in Brentwood. And he’d livened it up by hanging a few of his favorite pieces from his final showing his senior year of college—large history paintings in the style of the Renaissance masters with a bit of Romantic era color and light melded into the Venetian school tradition. In fact, one of them had been inspired by a sample cover he’d drawn for one of Melanie Mason’s books, complete with the knight in shining armor and the not-so-distressed damsel fighting right along beside him.

“Where’s your desk?” Pax stood in the broad, central corridor of the house, making a slow three-sixty turn.

“Uh…I don’t have a desk. We can use the table.” He pointed at the dinette set he’d picked up for twenty bucks. Gramps had helped him attach new, much sturdier legs to the table and wooden chairs. It now looked pretty good sitting in the large dormer that had once been the hayloft access of the old carriage house.

“That’ll work.” Pax started up the large laptop. Within moments, his video-chat program alerted him he had two calls waiting. He clicked on both of the alerts, and windows popped up containing live video feed of both Spencer and Tyler—who apparently had been talking to each other.

“Hey, Spence, Tyler.” Pax adjusted the angle of the laptop screen so that the little window in the corner showed both him and Dylan. “Spence, how’s Utah?”

“Cold and snowy as advertised, and almost as crowded as Chicago.” The third of the Bradley brothers picked up his computer and carried it to the window. Several stories below, they could just make out the base of a ski run crawling with people. The picture bobbled, then stilled, and Spencer sat before it again. “We’re leaving here Wednesday. My flight gets in around three in the afternoon. Can one of you pick me up?”

“We’ll come get you. I got the itinerary you e-mailed, and I have it in my calendar. Don’t forget, we have to go out to Mother and Dad’s for the family photo shoot. The campaign publicist should have e-mailed each of you the information.” When had Pax become the authoritative, responsible one? Growing up, he’d never been one to think beyond his next science experiment. “Tyler—I saw Boston’s getting hit with a big winter storm this weekend. You all bundled up and keeping your toes and nose warm?”

Their youngest brother rolled his eyes. Warmth trickled down into Dylan’s stomach. Oh how he’d missed seeing Tyler grow up. Why had he let himself be pulled away from them? He and his brothers had all gotten along pretty well as kids. The idea he might have lost that sliced into his gut like a broadsword.

“I’m keeping warm.” Tyler contorted himself to lift one foot to show them his thick woolen sock—the toe of which flopped around with extra room, as a little kid’s would. “They should have the snow cleared out before I head to the airport Monday. Dylan, are you picking me up?”

Surprised at the request, Dylan glanced at Pax, who shrugged. Dylan turned back to the computer screen. “Yeah, li’l brother, I can come get you. Just send me your flight info.” His cell phone buzzed almost immediately with a new text message.

“Now that we’ve got that all squared away…” Pax reached out and made a millimeter adjustment to the angle of the screen. “Guys, Dylan thinks that we’re supposed to be talking about the gifts for Mother and Dad and the grands.”

“You didn’t tell him?” Tyler’s voice cracked. His face reddened, and he took off his wire-rim glasses and cleaned them on the tail of his long-sleeved Boston Harbor tourist T-shirt.

“Tell me what?” Dylan studied Pax’s profile, then the averted gazes of Spencer and Tyler, whose glasses seemed to be terminally dirty. “What’s going on?”

Pax cleared his throat. “We, uh, wanted to talk to you before everyone got here and things got crazy with the holidays and Mother’s campaign stuff.”

Tyler slid his glasses back on. “Dylan, we’re worried about you. I probably know more than Pax and Spencer, only because we’ve spent time together over the last few years. But dude, we all grew up in the same house. We know you—or at least we used to; and even though we don’t know all the specifics, we know something’s wrong.”

“We know Mother and Dad never made life easy on you.” Spencer leaned closer to his computer, making his nose look strangely enlarged. “We heard all the ‘debates’ “—he enclosed the word with finger quotes—”about your desire to major in art and that they wouldn’t support you financially if you chose to go that route.”

Dylan twisted the carved silver ring around his left thumb, every nerve in his body firing mixed signals of anxiety and relief.

Pax turned to look at him. “We’re your brothers. We love you and respect you. And we’d like to help you. If you’ll let us in, tell us what happened, so we can help you come up with a solution. And no, we won’t tell Mother and Dad or anyone else. It’s just us—the Bradley brothers.”