Love Starts with Elle(68)

Elle tore at the waded tissue her hand. “Oh, Miss Anna, your heart must have broken.”

“Into a million pieces. He was standing out in the yard, looking at our peach tree, calling for me to come out and join him. It was a lovely spring afternoon. But I wanted to finish up my dishes. I was rinsing the iron skillet when he collapsed right before my eyes. By the time I got to him, he’d gone on.”

Elle brushed her hand lightly over Miss Anna’s arm. How could she seem so peaceful and right about her life? “I’m so sorry.”

“Last thing Lem ever said to me was, ‘Anna, honey, come see this.’” When she glanced at Elle, she smiled. “Such a profound man, don’t you think.”

“Miss Anna, how can you joke? You’re talking about the man you loved. What’d you do?”

“Lived my life. But Lem’s breath had been my very own. I had to learn to breathe for myself. Daddy moved me home. Eventually I worked for him, then took over his business.”

“You never wanted to remarry?”

“Not right away. I missed Lem so much. I was lost and confused. Out of plain ole desperation, I got down on my knees one night and begged the Lord to show me how to get rid of the pain and live for Him.” She gripped her Bible tighter to her chest. “You’re second generation, you know, Elle.”

Elle glanced at her for a long second. “Of widows? Please say no, because I’m not even married yet.”

“Goodness, no.” Miss Anna patted Elle’s leg. “Dorothy Morris prayed in this old chapel—of course it was the sanctuary back in them days. When Lem died, she approached me to come pray with her. I’d read about my namesake in the Bible, a woman named Anna praying in the temple. So I thought I’d give it a try, see what Dorothy had been doing every morning for years.”

“I see.” A sense of awe couldn’t bypass her sense of terror. Elle wanted to be a woman of faith and prayer, but in her core being, she wasn’t sure she was willing to pay the price. “So you chose me like Dorothy chose you?”

“I didn’t; He did.”

“So, what do I do about Jeremiah?”

“Pray. It’s all you can do. Pray and move the heavens to answer.”



Rain grayed the morning as Elle drove to Daddy’s Port Royal office on the corner of Ribaut and Barnwell.

She parked in a visitor slot next to Daddy’s Cadillac and reached over to the passenger seat for a bag of Bubba’s Buttery Biscuits and homemade strawberry jam.

As a salesman, Daddy spent most of his office hours in the car and on the road, but since Elle could remember he spent the quiet morning hours in the office doing paperwork.

She tried the front door. It was unlocked, so she slipped into the reception area, careful about invading unannounced.

Last year Arlene Coulter had redecorated the offices for a huge discount as a favor to Elle, replacing the old seventies rust-colored shag carpet and dark-wood paneling with polished hardwood and drywall. She hauled off the plastic and wood-laminate office furniture and moved in real cherry desks with ergonomically correct chairs.

A soft rain began to rat-a-tat against the picture pane. Elle peeked down the hall from the reception area to see if Daddy’s light burned.

“Daddy?” Why hadn’t she bothered to phone first? This was his only time to work undisturbed. “Daddy?” Knocking lightly, she peered into his giant, square-shaped office with a wall of windows.

He was jamming with headphones on.

Smiling, she moved in front of his desk, jiggling the bag of biscuits. “Oh, Daddy . . .”

He snapped off the headphones. “Elle, what are you doing here?”

She sank down into the western-style leather chair he’d insisted Arlene buy for his office. “Leave the frou-frou stuff in the reception area.”

“I brought biscuits.”

“From the Frogmore?” Daddy’s interest peaked.

“Of course from the Frogmore.” When she opened the bag, butter-scented steam drifted out.

Daddy swiveled around, opened the bottom door of his credenza, and produced two plates. “All right, pass them over.”

“Jeremiah is back, Daddy.” She picked out a biscuit before handing the bag to him. She’d only bought three—one for her, two for him.

He rocked back in his desk chair, leaving the biscuit bag for now. “And?”

“He left the church in Dallas, which is a long, sad story, and now he wants to marry me.” Repeating it out loud didn’t bring any more clarification.

“I see.”

Elle popped the top off the minitub of jam. “He accepted a job at FSU to be the assistant athletic director.”

“Um-hum.”

“You got anything to say besides ‘I see’ and ‘um-hum’?”

“I suppose. Seems to be a trend with that boy, accepting a job, then asking you to marry him.”

Elle set aside her biscuit, not really all that hungry. “I noticed.”

Daddy rocked forward, propping his arms on his desk. “Do you love him?”

“If I do, does that make him the right choice for me?”

Daddy’s face remolded into his “father” expression, the one with fleshy lines between his eyes and around his nose. “What about Heath?”