Page 56 of A Whim and a Prayer

“Ooooh, I just knew it!” She bounced up and gave him a voracious hug before sitting back down to snatch a cookie. “True love always makes me hungry.”

He chuckled. “I thought it usually depleted an appetite.”

“Not when you’re the mother who’s looking for her daughter to marry well, Beckett, and you, my boy,” she said with a proud lift of her chin, “are a mother’s dream of ‘marrying well.’”

He ran a finger around his collar to loosen it. “Well, thank you, Mrs. D, but I’m afraid your daughter doesn’t share that opinion.”

Mrs. D grunted in the grand fashion of a burly worker down on the docks. “Ha! You could have fooled me and every other person in that audience”—she filched another cookie and took a big bite, swallowing hard—“no, Winnie is definitely attracted to you, Beckett.”

His ribcage expanded and deflated as he reached for another cookie himself. “I know. But she’s been denying that for weeks now, and Abby told me she’s been denying it with her forever, so naturally I believed it because she’s been so adamant about it.”

He shook his head while he chewed, then swallowed hard, mouth compressing considerably. “But those kisses onstage pretty much convinced me she wasn’t telling the truth.”

“Ha! Like mother, like daughter.”

“Pardon me?” Beck paused with a cookie halfway to his mouth, not sure what Mrs. D was saying because she was one of the most honest—i.e. blunt, no beating around the bush—people he knew.

She waved him off, disregarding his skepticism. “Oh, I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but trust me—when I was Winnie’s age?” She gave a little shiver. “Well, let’s just say I had a gift for rearranging the truth.”

Cookie to her mouth, she expelled a wispy breath as her gaze seemed to lag into the past. “I was so bad, in fact, that Mitch was going to marry another woman despite loving me.”

Beck’s mouth sagged open as he stared, hardly able to believe what she was saying because she and Mr. Dennehy had one of the best marriages he’d ever seen.

She snapped back with a giggle and extended her palms wide. “But, oh well, God obviously had other plans, I guess, because here we are.”

She chewed her cookie for a while, cheeks chunky as she studied him with a suddenly serious air, the twinkle nowhere to be found. The cookie bobbed in her throat as she finished it and leaned in, as solemn as he’d ever seen. “And He’s going to do the same for you, Beckett Campbell, I just know it.” She pilfered another cookie and slowly sat back in her chair with a smug smile, the sparkle back in force. “And I’m gonna help Him do it.”

He shook his head and laughed. “It’s not that I doubt your abilities, Mrs. D, but Winnie won’t even talk to me or see me—not since the night of the play—and Abby says she plans to continue with that until ‘this situation,’ as she calls it, is over and our friendship returns.”

He shrugged as he reached for another cookie, his smile fading considerably. “To be honest with you, Mrs. Dennehy, for my own state of mind—and Winnie’s—I’ve been planning to stay away. Just for a while, mind you, both from her and our friendship to give us some true perspective. Because the truth is, given my current state of heart, it’s just too hard—and counter-productive—to continue our friendship right now.”

Mrs. D shoved the rest of her cookie in her mouth and brushed her hands together to get rid of the crumbs before clasping his hand in hers. “Okay, Beck, I know you both want time and distance right now, but as a true romantic, I think that would be a mistake. I’ve always had a knack for knowing when two people belong together, and you and my daughter are a match made in heaven.”

She squeezed his hand. “We just have to match you up on earth, that’s all,” she said with a wink. “And that takes spending time together whether Winnie likes it or not.”

He relinquished a long and ragged exhale. “It won’t be easy pretending friendship, Mrs. D, not when I’m feeling so much more.”

“Then don’t!” she said with a jag of her brow, the secret smile on her lips not boding well for his peace of mind. “You’re in love with my daughter, Beck, so act like it. You have my permission—in fact, my utmost plea—to remind her every time you see her that you’re in love with her.”

His lips pursed in a dubious smile. “I don’t know, Mrs. D—I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

She squared her shoulders. “Well, I do,” she said with a thrust of her chin, “because it worked with her father before we were married.”

His nose wrinkled in a squint. “It did?”

“Well, not overnight, of course, but yes, it did. I just kept showing up and reminding him that he was in love with me, and eventually”—her smile took a slide toward dry as she ducked her head for emphasis— “too long of an ‘eventually,’ unfortunately, he finally figured it out for himself. It’s called ‘the power of suggestion,’ Beckett, described by French physicians in the 1880s as ‘a psychological force capable of altering physical and mental states.’”

Beck shook his head with a chuckle. “You’re a true wonder, Mrs. D, and a true psychological force yourself.”

“Thank you. That’s what I keep telling my husband, but I’m not sure he always believes it. Anyway …”

She rose to lift the lids on the pots once more, stirring both before checking the meat loaf as well. “Julia is worried about taking chess lessons from her grandfather when she turns thirteen and is quite anxious to get started ahead of time, but unfortunately Winnie and I aren’t interested in chess. And Mitch is so exhausted when he gets home from work, after being railroaded into extra hours for a stupid fundraiser”—she wrinkled her nose, obviously not happy about his work situation—“that all he wants to do is camp out in his recliner.”

She turned to face him, absently wiping the steam from her palms on her apron. “And Winnie tells me you’re a master at chess, yes?”

Beck’s smile took a slant. “Well, that depends on who I’m playing, Mrs. D. Henry makes mincemeat out of me every time, but I guess I could give Jewels a run for her money.”

“Good!” She hurried back to the table to sit. “That’s the excuse we’ll use to have you over for dinner twice a week … if you can make it?”