Chapter Three
Neglected Minor
Brooke glanced up at the chapel’s wall clock. Six minutes to go, and still no Ames. She shoved an already bitten fingernail back in her mouth.
Where was he? She shot him another text: Hey, I’ve got your seat all saved.
Then she slid over on the pew and made an Ames-sized spot for when he arrived. Because that would be soon, right?
“My, Brooke.” Aunt Ruth beamed down at her and plopped into the open spot on the bench. “Great pitch yesterday. Pansy Proust got a perfect action shot of it. We can put it up in the museum when we open it. Everyone will ignore the Babe Ruth Jersey and come to admire the pic of you pitching a fastball in an evening gown.”
“It’ll be the stuff of baseball legends, for sure.” The snark rolled on. Ah, the Thunder Chadwick baseball collection museum. In all the swirl of dating Ames, Brooke and Aunt Ruth hadn’t bantered about their pretend plan in ages. “I think we can blow it up mural size and use it to wallpaper the bathroom.”
“But seriously, your Grandpa Thunder would’ve been proud.” She beamed. Brooke had been Aunt Ruth’s life-focus too long. Three years, ever since the accident. It’d be good if Aunt Ruth found her own life now.
Brooke glanced at the clock again. She checked her texts. Fifteen were there— all from everyone except Ames.
Congratulations.
That was so romantic.
What color are your bridesmaids going to wear?
Is Quirt going to walk you down the aisle?
When’s the big date?
Lots of questions, and no answers.
Including no answers from Ames.
Twenty hours— this was the longest she’d been without him in three whole months. He texted her every morning, and they called each other and talked before bed— about their days, their lives, their plans. She hadn’t told him yet about the life insurance money coming to her this summer now that she was reaching the legal age to collect it; that they could use it for him to open a practice, or as a down-payment on a little house for when they started their family. She’d wanted to surprise him with it after they got married— if he showed up on time to the ceremony and didn’t miss his own wedding.
The organist started playing “Be Still My Soul.” How appropriate, since Brooke’s soul had shifted into high gear— anything but still— whizzing to all kinds of places it shouldn’t.
He’d been killed in an accident. He’d contracted amnesia. He’d been eaten by sharks.
He’d changed his mind and didn’t love Brooke after all.
The last one really stung. Be still, soul. Be still. He’d be there, any second, for sure.
She scooted over on the bench to make room for Ames.
“Brooke!” Pansy Proust flounced down next to her. “We’re all so excited. I mean, you and Ames Crosby? It’s like a match made in Maddox celebrity heaven. It’s all any of us can talk about.” And Pansy would know, being head hairdresser at the Bob and Weave, its gossip rippling in waves to all bounds of the county. “So, if you need any help, I’m totally here for you. Totally.” She touched Brooke’s arm and then left, and the spot opened up again. For Ames. Yeah. She was holding it open for him.
“Brooke-ster.” Quirt sat down beside her, filling the slot. “Devout as always, I see.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m devout, too.”
“Uh—”
“Okay, Olivia’s devout, and it’s rubbing off on me.”
“I like her.”
“Me, too.” Quirt rubbed the back of his neck. Wait. Quirt was in love. Brooke could see it. “Maybe I should ask Dane to be the best man.” He frowned.
“Dane.” Brooke smirked remembering the heat of yesterday’s encounter with Dane. It now burned her cheeks, but the possibility of Quirt reaching out to Dane for the first time since the accident made her happy. Maybe things between them all could get back to normal sometime soon. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Quirt tugged a strand of her hair. “Where’s Dr. Jumbotron? Bold move, kissing you on the big screen for all Maddox to see.”
Good question. I wouldn’t miss it, he’d said about church today. “On his way. I think. Hey, would you check the news?”
“What? On my phone? During church?” He bumped her elbow. “Check for reports of his untimely death? Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know how your mind works.”
Not like she didn’t have life experience to prove her paranoia valid.
Quirt saw her face. “Uncalled for. Sorry.” He started tapping his phone for the news. A minute later he said, “A two-liner about new doctors sworn in. Ames is listed. But nothing else. No explosions, no wrecks. He’s just late. He was late yesterday, too.”
True. Miss-the-pitch late. “Okay, probably.” The meeting hadn’t even started yet. He’d be here. “Fine. Move down, though. I’m saving his seat.”
“Hey. It’s gonna be fine,” Quirt said, making a space between them. “His phone’s probably dead.”
Yeah, that was it. He had a big day yesterday. Probably forgot to charge it. Geez. What was he thinking? Did he know what an uncharged phone was putting her through? Ire started getting her agitated now. She could lash out at the next person who tried to wedge himself into the spot she had saved for Ames. Because when and if Dr. Ames Crosby did show up, she’d be using the full duration of Pastor Walden’s speech to give him an earful of charge your phone, pal.
“Well, if it isn’t the sexiest pitcher in the whole Maddox Little League.” In beside her, sitting far closer than was necessary, slid Dane Rockwell. Speaking of people who never showed up at church. Brooke’s muscles clenched. If Dane had any idea how close to the edge she was right now, he’d find someone else’s heartstrings to toy with.
“I don’t think the word sexiest is appropriate for the chapel.” She glanced over at his three-button charcoal suit, his neatly-combed chestnut hair and that blasted long dimple down his cheek sunk deeper than ever, her fury forgotten for a second. As she did so, a shadow of yesterday’s near kiss with him tingled on her lips. She reached up and brushed it off.
“Don’t look so stunned. I attend meetings now and then.” He slid closer to her. “Besides, I didn’t get to give you my goodbye kiss before I head back to Naughton. Knowing how much you’d feel deprived, I didn’t think it would be benevolent.” He leaned a little too close, smelling a mixture of peppermint and lemon. How would he taste, she mused, if that was how he smelled? What would those lips feel like?
The oft-pondered questions resurged.
Dang it.
Quirt leaned over and frowned. “Didn’t think I’d see you here today, Rockwell. On The Bachelor, maybe. Or Girls Gone Crazy: Chesapeake, but not in church.”
Dane pressed a hand to his chest in mock-offense. “Like all us humans, I’ve been a sinner. So maybe I’m here to make confession.” He looked around. “Where’s the box with the little curtain between me and the priest where I tell him all my impure thoughts?”
She tingled at the words, but she had to bat them away in a solid volley. She was an engaged woman now. “That’s the Catholic church down the street.” Brooke elbowed him. “Maybe you should head down there with your impure thoughts.” And take Brooke’s with him, dang it all.
Dane nuzzled her hair as the opening song began. “I could make quite a few confessions, actually.” He slid closer, his thigh lining up against hers. For a moment she considered fanning herself with the hymnal. Dang him. Dang him and his terrible timing.
And for making her curse in church.
If Ames had shown up, like he’d promised, she wouldn’t be sitting here plagued by Dane Rockwell temptations. She glanced down at the ring from Ames and flipped the diamond around and around her finger, leaving the stone on the palm side so it wouldn’t flash at her in the glint of the overhead light.
Up front in his signature gray suit, Pastor Walden cleared his throat at the microphone. “Welcome, brothers and sisters.” He’d only been shepherding this flock for about a year, but he’d won hearts.
Quirt leaned over and gave Dane the death-stare.
The song ended. Still no Ames. A prayer was offered. Still no Ames. And there was no more room on this pew to slide over, either.
“I see quite a few sunburns out there,” Pastor Walden said as he began his address. “So I assume the town’s celebration was a big success. Brooke Chadwick, do I hear congratulations are in order?”
A whisper rippled through the audience.
No. Ames was missing this! Stinging nettles pierced her all over.
“Sister Brooke, stand up. Come on.” Pastor Walden beckoned her to rise. She put on her best pageant smile, but she knew it didn’t reach her eyes and looked strained. “Wonderful first pitch at the game. Congratulations.”
The audience now laughed heartily. And Brooke bent quickly with a relieved salute.
Too soon.
“Just kidding. Please have the handsome young man beside you stand as well. Not you, Quirt. We know you think you’re handsome.” More laughs.
Brooke shook her head vehemently, her eyes pleading, to alert the pastor to his mistake. No luck.
“Come on, young man.” The pastor reached out with an open hand of welcome to Dane, who beamed. “I hear you’re the luckiest man in Maddox today.”
In a flash, Dane was standing beside her, all six feet of him, his arm encircling her waist. He beamed out at the crowd like he was their king or something.
“Congratulations on your engagement, Sister Brooke. The Lord made marriage and blessed it.” Pastor Walden said some more things about Adam and Eve, but blood pounded so loudly in her eardrums Brooke couldn’t hear them, accelerated by the way Dane gripped her waist possessively. The diamond was still against her palm, and she touched it with the tip of her thumb. It singed her.
Obviously the congregation was aware of Pastor Walden’s mistake, and a few anxious twitters rose. Brooke caught Pansy Proust’s snort of derision. “Looks like Brooke Chadwick thinks bigamy is the new monogamy.”
And then, when it couldn’t get worse, the pastor upped the ante with, “Young man, give us a few words.”
Dane’s slow, lazy grin spread. “Thank you, but actions speak louder than words, preacher.”
And in half a second, Brooke found herself bent over backwards, Dane’s lips ablaze on her own, a fulfillment of yesterday’s promise. It came stronger and with greater heat, though, as he spun her around faster than a carnival ride, and they hovered in the air between the two benches, her mind repeating, Dane, Dane, Dane.
A million sparklers ignited inside her, afire with the dozen years of built up longing for Dane Rockwell’s lips on her own. Bonfire. Blazes. Conflagration. She kissed him back, powerless to quench the inferno of longing and satisfaction that accompanied every movement of his lips on hers.
For the first time in her life, she was being well and truly filled with passion— passion that felt more real than anything she’d ever experienced before, as Dane Rockwell’s kiss exceeded her every teenage fantasy.
A gasp rang out from the churchgoers. It rattled in Brooke’s ear, alerting her to reality. They were in church! How long had the kiss lasted? Three seconds? Three minutes? Three years?
Not long enough.
Dane’s lips were suddenly forcibly ripped from hers, like a violent surgery. Time stopped and their eyes met, Brooke gasping for breath. Something in Dane’s expression— not his usual laughing confidence— made her think he was feeling something as deep as she herself was, that her kiss might have awakened inside him more than just a passing interest.
“Dane, I—” She grabbed the back of the pew as time resumed its stream, and as Quirt took charge.
“Rockwell!” he snarled, grabbing him by the neck. In one progressive movement, he jerked Dane around, wound up and punched him right in the side of the head.
“Quirt! Stop!” Olivia jumped to her feet and pulled Quirt away, but he landed another blow.
“I told you, hands off my sister.”
Brooke lunged to pull them apart. Masses backed up to give them wide berth. Pansy’s mother, Mrs. Proust, grabbed at the precarious pile of lilacs atop her hat.
What a spectacle of horrors. Why couldn’t Brooke teleport to a hidden planet on the far side of Pluto this instant?
Over the mic came Pastor Walden’s calming voice. “Now, boys. Let’s take the fisticuffs to the foyer.” This diffused things, and Quirt dropped his arm.
Brooke made a run for the exit, done with church for the day. Maybe the month. Anger propelled her gait.
“Brooke! Wait up. Hey!” Dane called as she emerged into fresh air with no fistfights in it. “Hey, I have something I want to talk to you about.”
Rage bubbled inside her, and she spun on her heel. “Dane!”
“That was some kiss, wasn’t it?” He inched closer, another kiss obviously perched on those ridiculously tempting lips— and infuriated her.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Just kissed the prettiest girl in Maddox.” Ah, there it was, the cocky tone from the guy who didn’t care what anyone thought— the guy who didn’t care what anyone thought of Brooke. Well, Brooke couldn’t afford that luxury, not with salon-gossiping Bob and Weavers on the loose— and with no Ames in sight this morning.
“No. You’ve just helped me commit reputation suicide.” Didn’t he have any idea how vicious the tongues in this town could be?
Quirt jogged up next to them. “She’s engaged, loser.”
Dane’s wry grin fled, and Brooke felt her stomach clench— for the both of them.
Quirt ignored the emotional train that was wrecking between his sister and his best friend and said, “Yesterday afternoon at the gazebo, didn’t you see it? Everyone else in that church house did.” Quirt aimed a thumb toward the church.
With a sharp pang, Brooke held out her hand for Dane to see the ring. A war erupted in her— and soon the nay-saying superego squelched the cries of hallelujah from her well-kissed id. Because Quirt was right to be mad, and she could see that now, Brooke frowned and hurled an accusation at Dane.
“Kids from my little league team were in there today, at least a couple of them.” And they’d seen her passionately kissing someone she wasn’t engaged to marry. “Not the finest example to set for them.”
Example-setting was imperative, especially now that she had a team.
Why hadn’t Ames shown up? Her eyes skittered down the highway but still caught no sight of him. Anger bubbled up at him now as her alternate rage-target. How could he put her in this position?
A glance at Dane’s face showed something else, though. Confusion, not lust. Her anger slid sideways, but it didn’t quite diffuse.
“Look, Dane. That was a mistake we both made. You were just…surprised to see me in that pageant dress yesterday. It was a passing thing, one you’re probably already regretting. Maybe it’s better if—” She trailed off, not sure how to frame words that fit her fury.
“If what?” Dane’s neck muscles flinched.
No, he was only messing with her head, and he was ruining her reputation in the process, and probably jeopardizing her chances with a guy who’d declared his love for her publicly just yesterday— and for what? A single kiss? Dane couldn’t be allowed to toy with her this way, just because she obviously hadn’t extinguished her fiery crush on him yet. It would flame out— maybe not as fast as Dane’s interest in her would, but she’d get over him, and his kiss, as soon as Ames and she started their lives together.
“Just go, okay?”
Dane gave her a confused look, but then Quirt leaned in, ready to fight again.
“Stay away from her, Rock. I’m serious.”
Dane kept his eyes on her. They looked more hurt and confused than she would have expected. But that had to be acting. He couldn’t be seriously interested in her, not after all these years of putting her on ice.
“Is that what you want, Brooke?”
Was it? Yes. It was, and it had to be. The diamond from Ames had substance, and it hung heavy on her hand, weighting it down, giving it gravity.
She could not afford to ruin her shot with Ames, who also had substance and gravity, for a passing fling with an old flame. Dane shouldn’t be here, screwing this big chance at sparkle and goldenness for her. He was in the wrong, doing this to her now with his bad timing and his great kisses, and he had to go.
“Keep your distance.” Brooke’s voice quavered, but the words were firm. “Until I tell you otherwise.”
With trembling knees and hands she got in her car and drove away, pushing all her anger and disappointment into a deep crevice in her soul.
__________
The rest of Sunday passed, and still no word came from Ames.
This had to be a bad dream. Or he had a broken phone. Or all the phones in all of Naughton suddenly got broken. The satellite that connected all phones got shot down by a stray ballistic missile.
That had to be it.
Monday came, and she fired off joking texts during shift breaks at Maddox Regional hospital— You’ve got to fix that phone charger, dude— and left more than one voice mail. These morphed into concern by Tuesday, panic on Wednesday, and anger on Thursday. By Friday, she swore off texting, and after little league practice headed to Naughton to his apartment, but there was no sign of him.
She tried his parents’ house. No one. It was like the whole Crosby family had decamped and left no forwarding address. And there was nothing in the police blotters. Yeah, she resorted to that level of paranoia.
Asking on social media made her feel awkward, jilted, so she avoided that mine field. Radio silence continued another week, while she told herself all kinds of lies and excuses, that he was busy at the hospital, that he’d been abducted, that he’d been initiated into national intelligence unexpectedly, but her texting app showed he’d received and read every one of her messages.
After work and ball practice every night she went home to her parents’ house and crumpled onto her teenage bed, her knees hugging her chest. If she had to field one more question about her wedding plans, she’d snap— right in two. In front of everybody.
Three weeks passed. Four. Five.
What had she done wrong?