Susannah's Garden (Blossom Street #3)(33)

Sitting at the kitchen table, Susannah buried her face in her hands. She was upset with her father and her husband, and now she’d added her mother to the list, and Doug, too. If her brother were alive, she wouldn’t have to cope with all these painful decisions alone. She knew it was a fruitless thought, but she couldn’t stop feeling that way. She wished she could be seventeen again, before the year that changed everything. The year of Doug’s death and Jake’s disappearance. If she was, she wouldn’t think twice about eloping. More than that, she’d leap at the chance. Oh, to be young again, to be in love with the fervor and intensity of youth. Only this time, she’d defy her father, stand up to him and run away with the man she loved.

At six-thirty, Susannah pulled into Carolyn’s long gravel driveway and, as if by magic, her unease left her. She’d loved this house as a young teenager. Tucked against the foothills, it had a lush green lawn that sloped down from the tree line into a soft meadow. Many a late afternoon had been spent with Carolyn, listening to records in her upstairs bedroom and looking out her window, watching the deer graze.

The house itself was a brown-shingled two-story with a sweeping porch across the front. A profusion of roses bloomed in the beds nearby. It was a shame that Carolyn’s mother and her own had never become friends, since they’d shared a love of gardening. A large cement patio was positioned on the right-hand side of the house, complete with a set of matching outdoor furniture.

Susannah parked by the three-car garage and reached for her contributions: a package that contained the makings for a Caesar salad and a bottle of wine she’d picked up at the grocery store on her way out of town. She felt a twinge of guilt about bringing something store-bought, but between packing up the house and visiting her mother, there hadn’t been time to prepare anything.

The front door was open and the screen unlatched when Susannah approached.

“Come on in,” Carolyn called from the kitchen.

Susannah walked inside. Her friend was assembling an appetizer plate of cheeses, fresh green grapes and crackers, which sat on the marble counter.

“I brought wine,” Susannah said, holding up the bottle of white zinfandel. She placed the bag of Caesar salad fixings on the table.

“Great.” Carolyn motioned toward the cupboard. “Wineglasses are on the top shelf. And you’ll find a bowl in the bottom cupboard.”

Susannah quickly prepared her salad. She’d begun setting out wineglasses when the sound of two car doors closing interrupted her.

A moment later, two of Susannah’s high school friends walked in together, each carrying a dish and a bottle of wine. From the way Lisa and Yvette looked around, it was clear they’d never been inside the house. Susannah came forward to meet them, and as soon as they saw her, they both started screeching with delight.

Once they’d put the desserts and the wine aside, Susannah was wrapped in a giant hug and questions were tossed at her in quick succession.

“How long will you be in town?”

“Where have you been?”

“Why weren’t you at the last reunion?”

Before she could answer one question, another presented itself.

“Give her a break, will you?” Sandy Giddings said as she entered the house. She plunked her bottle of wine and a pan of homemade brownies on the kitchen counter. Carolyn brought a huge spinach salad out of the refrigerator and tossed it, letting it wait on the table beside Susannah’s.

“I thought we’d eat outside,” she said. Carrying the cheese platter, she led the way to the sliding glass door that opened onto the patio. The round table was covered with colorful place mats and the umbrella positioned to block out the setting sun.

The five women chatted and laughed nonstop through the appetizers, followed by a dinner of salads, creamy stroganoff with buttered noodles and fresh green beans. They lingered over their desserts—Sandy’s rich chocolate brownies, berry pie and warm apple crisp with ice cream. Then they cleared the table and returned outside with their glasses of wine, comfortable in the waning sun.

“This is so much fun,” Yvette said with a contented sigh. “I can’t tell you the last time I had a ladies’ night out.”

“Me, neither,” Sandy chimed in.

They pulled their chairs into a small circle as they caught up with each others’ news.

“So you’ve got two children?” Lisa asked, looking at Susannah.

She nodded.

“I love your ring,” Yvette commented. “Is it from your husband?”

Susannah’s gaze dropped to the emerald. “Joe got it for me on our twentieth anniversary.”

“Ben and I go way back, too,” Yvette said, tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder. “But I didn’t get an emerald ring on our anniversary.”

Susannah laughed and then frowned. The last she’d heard, Yvette had married Kenny Lincoln shortly after high school. “I thought you and Kenny—”

Yvette interrupted her. “We divorced two years later. Kenny got into drugs.”

“I’m sorry.” Susannah didn’t want to dredge up unpleasant memories.

Yvette raised her eyebrows. “I knew he was experimenting with the stuff when we got married, but turned a blind eye to it. The last I heard, he was doing time in Shelton.”

Susannah couldn’t imagine the athletic Kenny Lincoln behind bars.