The anniversary celebration was by far the oddest affair Avery had ever attended. The whole thing felt like a warped blend of birthday party and funeral luncheon. Everyone wandered around the beautifully decorated barn with an air of tense happiness. There was laughter, groaning-full tables of good food, cheery hellos and handshakes, but it all glossed over the huge disappointment everyone knew was coming.
After that heart-stopping set of kisses yesterday, Gabe had pulled himself away and walked without a word into the house. She’d sat on the log for a few moments, desperately trying to sort out her feelings. Should she leave? Could she even consider staying? What she felt now, strong as it was, didn’t change a single one of the obstacles facing her. It certainly couldn’t be enough to risk the girls’ stability.
But what about their happiness? Hers? She had wandered inside, lost in a haze of emotion and confusion. Gabe’s study door was shut and she couldn’t bring herself to open it. What was there to say or do? He didn’t come out for supper. She could barely keep up the appearance of an appetite herself.
Sunday morning, Gabe left before everyone else rose and stayed away until timing forced his return to dress for the late-afternoon party.
She left him alone. It wasn’t as if she could help what was about to happen. Last night had been a wonderful mistake, but a mistake anyway. She needed to leave. Even if she could somehow stay, if Danny consented to let her move the girls, would she really want to? Build a life as living embodiment of what Cyrus had done to this community? Back in Tennessee, she wouldn’t have to watch them tear that beautiful old estate down to put in a strip mall. Watch them send boys back to places that weren’t as beautiful or special as the Triple C. It hurt to leave, but not as much as standing in this party and pretending to be happy—her heart was breaking on so many levels.
Bea pulled Avery from her thoughts by clanging a spoon against a glass. The woman stood in the center of a little makeshift stage at one end of the barn, framed in dried vine arrangements Avery had helped to make.
“I’m delighted to say that the boys have prepared a little entertainment for y’all this afternoon.”
Dinah tugged on her hand. “Do we get to see a show?”
“I don’t know what we’ll get to see,” Avery replied. “You’ll just have to wait and find out like the rest of us.” She pointed to the stage, where the boys lined up in a bumbling sort of line, each holding a sheet of paper.
The tallest boy—Riley, she remembered from her time painting frames with the boys—stepped to the microphone. “We have a poem for you. Nothing fancy, but y’all might find it interesting. On account of most of you are in it.”
“That can’t be good,” Jethro muttered beside Avery.
“Hush now, they might surprise you,” Marlene chided.
Riley cleared his throat and smoothed his page on the podium, then began.
“Some folks think we’re not much good,
“That ranch boys ain’t got smarts.
“But we see more than you might think
“When it comes to lonely hearts.”
“Well, this just got interesting,” Marlene whispered.
Riley stepped away as Avery recognized Ben moving up to the podium.
“Mr. Tanner may sell seed,
“Or tractors, hay or twine,
“But it took more than books before
“He read between the lines!”
One of the youngest held up one of the painted frames—filled not with a boy’s photograph, but with a red paper heart that read “Tanner + Macy” in big letters. He hung the frame by a colored ribbon to the decorative vines. The room burst into laughter and applause at the poem and the antics it confessed. The boys were the mystery matchmakers, it seemed.
“I suspected it was you,” Macy announced.
“You did not,” Ben countered, smiling all the while.
“I thought my students wrote me not to take up with Tanner!” Macy called as Tanner’s face turned more than a few shades red.
“Well, they did, but they got a little help from us, too. Changed our mind about that, didn’t we?” Ben called back.
“They do say teamwork is the first tool of management,” Harold Haverman called playfully to Tanner. “Gotta respect a young man who changes his thinking and makes use of resources.”
“Not in my Sunday school class I don’t,” Macy called back. “Y’all stop such meddling.”
“No need to meddle anymore now,” Ben replied. “I’d say we got the job done.”
“Oh, so you’re taking credit for this?” Tanner teased.
“Only some. Most, maybe.”
That sent the room into further laughter as Ben left the podium and Diego and Stephen took their place. In tandem, they recited:
“Miss Josie may be fond of calves,
“But Rangers take her heart.
“So we sent pie and baby things
“To give those two a start.”
Another frame, this one holding a “Heath + Josie” heart, rose from the smallest of boys.
“That was a pretty good pie,” Heath called out. “Surely, none of you made it.”
“Another bit of teamwork,” Lila from the café added with a wide smile. “Who could resist helping out a cause like that?”
“You could have at least spelled my name right on your note.” Heath pointed a finger at the boys.
“Nobody’s perfect, amigo.” Diego offered an exaggerated wink as he stepped away from the podium.
Avery gaped at Marlene as a trio of the younger boys took to the podium for another recitation.
“Miss Lana had to kiss some frogs
“Before she got her prince
“But little Logan’s Christmas wish
“Sure looked a lot like Flint’s!”
“That’s a terrible rhyme,” Flint moaned, his hand over his eyes as the now-expected framed heart appeared and was hung on the vines.
“Honestly, you did some terrible matchmaking, boys,” Lana added. She’d told Avery about the multiple notes pointing her in the direction of some truly unsuitable “matches.”
“Hey, someone had to make sure Mr. Flint looked good by comparison,” one of the boys said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Flint commented with a mock sour look.
“It worked, didn’t it?” a second boy called back.
“So all the mystery matchmaking you told me about—it was the ranch boys the whole time?” Avery asked Marlene.
“And they’re three for three, those rascals,” Marlene said, giggling.
Avery thought about the note she’d received inviting her to pie at Lila’s and gulped. The boys had caught on to the attraction between her and Gabe, but they wouldn’t keep their “perfect score” today. How could she explain to those boys—and everyone listening—that in her and Gabe’s case it wasn’t enough?
It wasn’t enough, was it?
Corey and Aiden, two other of the ranch boys, stepped up to the podium, but Avery barely listened to their poem about false invitations to a dance as part of a rodeo fund-raiser. Her pulse was starting to roar over what would happen when those boys got to her and Gabe. They’d make some clever rhyme about how they belonged together, and she couldn’t bear to hear it.
Because such a huge part of her had come to believe that she and Gabe did belong together. She wanted to see a frame holding their names coupled. She wanted to belong here, with these people, far more than she wanted to go back to Tennessee.
But I can’t, can I?
As laughter and applause rang out for Nick and Darcy, Avery headed for the door. She couldn’t hear the next verse about the veterinarian, Wyatt, and his long-lost love, Carolina. Nor could she bear to see them leave off the last verse—or worse yet, speak up—about their unsuccessful attempts at matching her up with Gabe.
She fled out the back entrance to lean against the side of the barn and gulp down air. I can’t stay. I can’t bear to leave. Lord, why ever did You bring me here?
It would be complicated and messy to stay here. She’d have to deal with Cyrus’s legacy. She’d have to watch the whole town shoulder this unfair burden. She’d have to restart her business. She’d have to ask Danny for permission, and she chafed at the idea of asking him for anything, sure he’d say no just to spite her. None of those things seemed to matter in light of her heart.
For her heart had already chosen to stay here, whether she physically left or not. Her heart had fixed itself to the man about to tear out his own heart up on that stage surrounded by symbols of everyone else’s happiness.
She couldn’t leave him to do that alone. Not after all he’d done, after all he meant to the girls. To her. She’d go inside and stand witness to his pain. She owed him that much.