Back on Blossom Street (Blossom Street #4)(21)

“You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“I’m not.” She might be conceding but she wasn’t willing to pretend. “You know what I thought?” she asked, growing a bit sad that their wedding had slipped away from her.

“You were looking forward to some time for the two of us tonight. We’ll have that, Alix, I promise, as soon as we pick out the invitations.” Jordan sipped his coffee.

“It isn’t just that,” she said wistfully. “When you gave me the engagement ring and we started talking about the ceremony…” She paused. “I thought it would be a small service and I’d make the invitations myself.”

“Really?” Jordan seemed impressed. “Maybe we could do it together.”

She doubted it. “How many people on your mother’s list?” she asked. Needless to say, her own would be considerably shorter.

“Three hundred at last count.”

Alix’s heart rate went into overdrive. “Three hundred people?”

“Invitations,” he corrected, apparently unaware of what this news had done to her. “That means maybe five hundred people.”

“You’ve got to be joking!”

“Alix, my father is a pastor. You wouldn’t believe how many friends and associates my parents have. Mom’s whittled the list down to three hundred invitations. If I told you how many she started out with, you’d have a panic attack.”

“I’m having one now.”

Jordan grinned, clearly thinking she’d made a joke; she hadn’t. The idea of walking down the aisle in a church filled with hundreds of wedding guests—all of them strangers—was enough to make Alix sick to her stomach.

“I hope you realize how much I love you,” she muttered.

Jordan grinned again as he reached for his coffee. “I sure do.”

“Can we talk about something other than the wedding?” she asked. The inside of her elbow was beginning to itch and she suspected she was breaking out in hives. She hadn’t experienced hives since she was a kid and assumed she’d outgrown the tendency, which she’d learned to associate with stress. Obviously not.

“Sure,” he agreed readily. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Uh…” A few minutes ago she’d had a dozen different things she’d looked forward to discussing with Jordan. All of a sudden her mind was completely blank. “I went to the first knitting class for the prayer shawl.”

“How’d it go?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Tell me about the other people in the class,” he said.

“There’s only two other women. Susannah and Colette.” Alix enjoyed having a smaller class. She’d helped Lydia teach Susannah, who’d had some of the same problems Alix did when she’d started knitting.

“Susannah, from Susannah’s Garden?”

Alix stiffened. “I suppose your mother’s upset because I haven’t decided on the flowers yet?”

Jordan blew out an exasperated sigh. “Alix, we weren’t going to talk about the wedding, remember?”

“Right.” Actually that was a relief. It seemed there was always something she needed to be doing or should have done with regard to the wedding.

“Okay, so you’re knitting a prayer shawl.”

She nodded. “Lydia gave us a bit of the background on prayer shawls. Some church groups apparently take them to nursing homes and use them as part of their ministry. Lydia said the whole idea came about as a way of nurturing and caring for family or friends who’ve got health problems. I don’t think the recipient necessarily has to be ill, though. The shawls are…small displays of love,” she said on a burst of inspiration.

Jordan smiled in approval.

“I’m going to take your suggestion and knit mine for your grandma Turner.” Right away she could see that Jordan was pleased.

“Alix, she’ll adore you for that.” His brown eyes were soft with appreciation. “You made quite an impression on her, you know.”

Alix had begun to think of Sarah Turner as her honorary grandma. She couldn’t remember having grandparents of her own, although she must have. At any rate, neither her maternal nor paternal grandparents had played a role in her life. If they had, she might not have ended up in foster care.

She’d never spent time around elderly people, so meeting Jordan’s grandmother had been an experience. Grandma liked to talk and Alix had found her fascinating. Everyone in the family had heard Grandma’s stories, but not Alix and she hung on every word. Grandma talked about the Depression and World War II, when she’d worked as a school secretary for twenty-five cents an hour. Later, when her husband was in the army overseas, Grandma Turner had gone to work at the shipyard in Portland, Oregon, as a welder and saved five thousand dollars. At the time, that amount of money was a fortune. With her savings they were able to purchase the property on Star Lake, near Seattle, where she lived to this very day. The Turners had raised their two sons there; she’d been a widow nearly twenty years.

Jordan reached for Alix’s hand and entwined their fingers. “How about if we splurge and go to a movie?”

“Popcorn?”

“Why not?” He smiled and Alix leaned close to give him a lingering kiss.