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“Annie, you love Steve. You’ll get married. You should be telling him this, not me. Call the man now and call me later.”
They hung up, and Maggie thought about Annie being pregnant. She’d move to Cypress Cove and build a life there, just like Maggie was doing.
Later that night, she called Maggie again.
“Well?”
“He’s great. He said we’ll get married as soon as we can. I have to put my notice in so the agency will give me a good reference. I’m going to be honest and tell them I have a time constraint so they don’t make me do ninety days or anything ridiculous like that. And I’ll get a job there. The county seat is a twenty-minute drive north of town. They are always short of staff, or so I hear.”
“Annie, that’s wonderful. I’ll have you close by. Once you get sick of being with Steve every second of the day, maybe we can go for coffee once in a while.”
“And you can take me for a boat ride. I still feel guilty about that.”
“It’s no biggie. You were lusting after your man.”
“And look what it got me.”
Laughing, they promised to talk in a day or two when her wedding plans materialized.
While Annie’s drama unfolded, Elizabeth helped Val work on the old mansion when she wasn’t working at the speech-writing job. He’d asked her if she was going to retire, and she of course said that was out of the question.
“He probably expected me to be at his beck and call twenty-four seven, but no way, buddy. I nipped that in the bud right away. His late wife was in service to him, he let it slip that her attention was one of the things that attracted him in Vietnam. I can see where the transition from a devoted wife of over fifty years to me, someone who never had a husband before, must have been pretty dramatic for him. But too bad.”
“Aunt, you’re teaching me the way to be a wife. I don’t want to take care of Justin, either. I mean, I’ll be nice to him and have sex with him, but I’m not his chef or laundress. I’m not sure how other people do it.”
“If they have the money, they hire it out. I’m not a chef or laundress, either. No way,” Elizabeth repeated emphatically. The women roared laughing. “Does Justin know?”
“He’d better by now,” Maggie said. “I hate to cook and he knows it, and I’ve never offered to add his smelly barn clothes to my laundry. The guy comes home from work and he reeks. No.”
“Oh god, you’re too funny,” her aunt said. “So that brings me to your mother.”
“Yes! What is going on there, pray tell? The woman is as secretive as a nun.”
“Well, Victor loves her. But she’s resisting leaving that crappy townhouse for some reason. It’s not like Dan loved it there, either. Trust me, if he’d had his way, they would have moved back to New Orleans or even have stayed right there at the cottage.”
“My dad loved Bayou Cottage,” Maggie said, a little sadness trying to creep in. “I guess I’ll call my mother and see what her problem is. It would be easier for both of us if she was here in Cypress Cove.”
“Everyone is moving here from Pensacola,” Elizabeth said. “It’s the circle of life all over again.”
“It really is. Okay, goodbye.”
She hung up and called her mother next.
“You’re acting a little suspicious,” Maggie said. “What’s going on with you and the doctor?”
“He loves me. But I miss Daddy. I feel like I’m betraying Dan if I let this relationship go any farther.”
Then Maggie heard Rose weeping and it broke her heart. “Mother, Daddy would love you to be with someone. You must trust me on this. He hated you being isolated, just like what you’re doing now. You know how sociable he was. And he’d be thrilled that you were with a gentleman like Dr. Chastain.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“My god, no! I’m thrilled. It’s a little weird that we’re dating father and son, but good weird, not bad weird.”
“I do really like him,” she said, and Maggie could hear her blowing her nose. Her poor mother.
“Mom, I’m so happy for you. You deserve to be happy. You’re not even fifty years old yet. You could probably even have another kid.”
“Oh, shut up!” she cried, and they laughed hysterically. “No way. You and my aunt, two peas in a pod.”
