Before We Were Yours(92)

I hear a car coming up the drive, and I pull him toward the barn. That could be Dad and Honeybee returning from the luncheon. If they see us, we’ll never get any alone time. “Let’s go for a walk. I want to have you all to myself.” Hopefully, the folks won’t notice the extra car parked next to Allison’s SUV.

Elliot frowns at my bare feet. “Don’t you need your shoes?”

“I’ll grab some muck boots from the tack room. If I go up to the house, everyone will know you’re here, and Mama will want you to stay and chat.” The words have barely cleared my lips when a dose of reality hits. “Does your mother know you’re in town?” Bitsy will kill us both if Elliot comes and goes and doesn’t spend time with her.

“Relax. I’ve already been by to see her. We had a late breakfast together.”

That explains why Bitsy wasn’t at the brunch earlier. “Your mother knew you were coming, but you didn’t tell me?” I hate to be jealous, but I am. Elliot shows up in town, and the first person he spends time with is Bitsy?

He pulls me to his side and kisses me in a way that lets me know who he really likes best. “I wanted to surprise you.” We amble along the stable aisle together. “And besides, I wanted to get Mother out of the way. You know how that can be.”

“I see your point.” As always, he’s handled the situation with Bitsy in the best possible way. And he’s spared us from having to visit her together, which would have turned into an intense wedding discussion. “Did she harass you about nailing down our plans?”

“Some,” he admits. “I told her you and I would talk about it.”

I refrain from pointing out that We’ll talk about it means Yes, we’ll do whatever you want in Bitsy’s vernacular. Really, the last thing either one of us wants to focus on is his mother.

He opens the tack room door for me and hangs his jacket on a hook. “How’s your dad doing now?”

I give him the latest rundown on Daddy’s health while I find a pair of muck boots about the right size, slip them over my feet, and tuck my slacks inside.

“Nice,” he teases, studying my outfit when I’m done. Elliot isn’t a muck-boots-with-slacks kind of guy.

“I could go up to the house and find something better while Honeybee talks to you about spring weddings….”

He chuckles, rubbing his eyes, and I can tell he’s tired. That makes it even sweeter that he detoured to come here. “Tempting but…no. Let’s walk awhile, and then maybe we can sneak out for a little drive.”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll text Allison and Missy and ask them not to tell the folks you’re here.” I send a quick message while we start toward the riding trails. As always, Elliot and I fall into easy conversation. His hand slips over mine, and we talk about business, family issues, his trip to Milan, politics. We catch up on everything we haven’t had time to discuss on the phone. It feels good, like coming home after a long journey.

The rhythms of conversation and movement are ones we’ve learned over time. We both know where we’re headed—down to a little spring-fed lake, where we’ll sit in the pine-shrouded gazebo that’s been there as long as I can remember. We’ve almost reached it when I find myself spilling the story of May Crandall, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, and Grandma Judy’s strange warning to me about Arcadia.

Elliot stops at the base of the gazebo stairs. He leans against a post, crosses his arms over his chest, looks at me like I’ve just sprouted horns. “Avery, where is all this coming from?”

“All…what?”

“All this…I don’t know…digging into things that are ancient history? Things that have nothing to do with you? Don’t you have enough on your plate with your dad, and the hubbub over the nursing home cases, and Leslie always trying to whip you into shape?”

I’m not sure whether to be offended or to take Elliot’s protest as the voice of reason speaking. “That’s just the point. What if it did have something to do with us? What if Grandma Judy was so interested in the Tennessee Children’s Home Society because our family had some connection to it? What if they were involved in the legislation that legalized all of those adoptions and sealed the records?”

“If they did, why would you want to know about it? What does it matter, decades after the fact?” He frowns, his brows drawing together in a dark knot.

“Because…well…because it mattered to Grandma Judy, for one thing.”

“That’s exactly why you need to be careful of it.”

I’m dumbfounded for a minute. Heat rises under the silky sleeveless blouse I wore to church. Suddenly, my fiancé sounds way too much like his mother. Even the intonation of the sentence reminds me of Bitsy. Over the years, she and my grandmother have found themselves on opposite sides of various issues around town, often with Honeybee as a wishbone in the middle. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Maybe Elliot is just tired, and or maybe Bitsy got under his skin about something at breakfast, but I’m shocked when he flips a hand into the air. It falls and hits his leg with a dull slap. “Avery, you know that Judy Stafford has always been too outspoken for her own good. It isn’t any big secret. Don’t act like no one’s ever said it before.” He looks me in the eye with an annoyingly calm countenance. “She came close to ruining your grandfather’s career a few times…and your father’s.”