Caleb's Bride. Wendy Warren

going or planning a trip to the moon?

      Cal would die for his daughter. With a failed marriage to her mother, and no role models among his own relations, he required the Coombses’ guidance on how to create a successful, stable family.

      If that meant killing off the last vestiges of his fantasies about Gabby, so be it.

      By eight-thirty on Friday evening, only five hardy souls remained at the Honeyford Days Fourth of July Celebration Committee meeting. Unseasonably sultry June weather and Vernon Reynaud’s refusal to contribute to “wasteful government spending” by turning on the air-conditioning in the community center had considerably thinned their ranks. Gabby and Lesley remained, however, Lesley doodling idly on a yellow legal pad, and Gabby eyeballing the Honey Bunz—puffy croissant-style pastry balls with a crunchy honey coating—donated for the committee’s sustenance by Honey Bea’s bakery.

      “No, leave it. We’re having dessert later,” Lesley whispered as Gabby’s fingers snaked toward a Honey Bunz.

      “Right. Thanks.” She snatched her hand back, but holy sugar rush, Batman, did she long for the distraction of a quality insulin surge. She’d been horribly depressed since this morning.

      “How late can you stay out tonight?” she whispered to her sis-in-law.

      “Probably until ten,” Les whispered back. “I warned Eric I’d be late. He’s at your parents’ with the girls. What’s the matter with you? You keep kicking the table leg.”

      “Are we still discussing the plans for Honeyford Days or have we decided to adjourn?” Flo Bixby raised her rickety voice above the irresponsible extraneous chatter in the room.

      “Adjourn, I beg you,” Lesley muttered under her breath, but she rallied for the cause, smiling nicely at Flo and offering a succinct update on her choreography for Honeyford, A Retrospective in Dance, being presented by the Dancing Honeybees Senior Tappers.

      As the secretary for tonight’s meeting, Gabby dutifully took notes, but her mind was a million miles away. She had a plan for The Radical Improvement of Gabrielle Coombs, a plan she intended to begin instituting immediately, and, forgive her, but plotting her transformation trumped working on yet another Independence Day lollapalooza. After this morning, she’d like to ignore July Fourth and its loaded memories altogether.

      Cal’s reappearance and his pointed comments had whipped up a tumultuous sea of self-recriminations inside her. She’d been pretty successful over the years at burying the memory of the July Fourth when she’d lost her virginity to Cal Wells, but after his visit to Honey Comb’s, images from that long-ago night had been forming in her mind, growing sharper and clearer all day.

      She recalled vividly, for example, that he’d found her in the dark shelter of the Doc Kingsley Park gazebo, sitting all alone, yielding to pitiful tears that had poured down her cheeks and trickled like brine into her mouth. The brackish flavor only partially masked the bitterness of Dean’s announcement that he was serious about the lithe beauty he’d brought home from college, someone he had known less than a year.

      Gabby had spent five times that long trying to make Dean see her as a romantic possibility.

      When the July Fourth fireworks had died down and most everyone filed out of the park, Gabby curled up on the gazebo bench and gave in to silent sobs that stabbed her abdomen. Time seemed irrelevant at that point, but she didn’t think she’d been there too long when a voice reached her, so soft and close that she jumped.

      “Don’t cry.”

      She’d turned to see Cal climbing the gazebo steps, his angular features tense in the moonlight. His plea, pained and earnest, only made her cry harder, however, and after a moment he’d slid onto the bench beside her. “Damn it, Gabby, don’t…”

      She’d felt his strong arm curl around her shoulders, the unexpectedness of the gesture temporarily interrupting the flow of her tears. Other than the times when she cut his hair or he helped her with chores around the farm, they didn’t touch.

      Through the shadows in the gazebo, she’d looked at him, her heart breaking, lips wobbling.

      “What can I do?” he’d whispered.

      A tsunami of hurt and frustration and regret and need had tossed her heart around like a piece of driftwood. Wetly, she’d blinked then pleaded with no forethought whatsoever, “Kiss me…”

      “Stop kicking the table.” Lesley shoved an elbow into Gabby’s ribs.

      “Sorry.” Heat flooding her cheeks, Gabby looked down at the notes she was supposed to be taking. Some secrets were too big to tell even your very best friend.

      It took another half hour for the meeting to wrap up and then Gabby grabbed Lesley’s arm, hustling her to the diner, where they grabbed their favorite booth in the back and gave their order to Opal, who was hard of hearing and generally handed her ticket book to regular customers so they could write their own orders. She soon returned with a pot of decaf, a slab of marionberry pie and two forks.

      “Oh, Mama, that’s good,” Lesley purred in appreciation.

      Gabby picked up her fork. “You haven’t even tasted it yet.”

      “I’m not talking about the pie, innocent child.” Lesley nodded pointedly toward the counter, where a lone man sat, his large hands cupped around a mug of coffee.

      Gabby squinted. “Isn’t that the new pastor at Honeyford Presbyterian?”

      “Yessiree. Pastor Keith. Single Pastor Keith.”

      “Keith doesn’t sound like a pastor’s name,” Gabby commented, apropos of nothing, but grateful to have a moment before she launched into her own topic. Stabbing a few marionberries and a piece of crust, she moaned at the deliciousness.

      “He doesn’t look like a pastor, either,” Lesley mused. “He looks like he should be on a TV show called Sex In The Small Town. Or Desperate Worshippers.” She waggled her brows.

      Gabby put a hand over her mouth to trap the berries that nearly spilled out. “You’re ogling a man of the cloth? I’m telling Eric.”

      “I’m not ogling him for me, you ninny.” Lifting her fork, she jabbed the tines at Gabby.

      Gabby leaned forward, whispering fiercely. “You think I should date the minister of Honeyford Pres? Are you kidding? I grew up in that church. If we ever got serious, I’d picture half the choir in our bedroom, singing ‘Amazing Grace.’”

      “Or ‘Glory Hallelujah.’”

      “Lesley!” Gabby shook her head at her irreverent sister-in-law.

      “He’s not a priest, Gabs. He can have sex. And FYI, so can you.” Abandoning the fork, she snatched a few tiny containers of creamer and laced her coffee, eyeing Gabby with barely concealed impatience. “So what about it?”

      “No! I told you—”

      Lesley waved a hand. “Forget the gorgeous man of God.” She took a fortifying sip of decaf. “I mean sex. What’s your excuse for not having any?”

      Gabby squirmed, ironically feeling as if her best friend had caught her in the act, not out of it. “How do you know I’m not having any?”

      Lesley slapped the table as if she’d heard a good joke. “Please.”

      Gabby’s glance skittered away, a mouse hoping the cat one foot away might not notice her.

      “I love you, Gabs,” Lesley said, sighing. “You know I’d never say anything to hurt you, but we’ve reached critical mass. I didn’t say anything while there was still a chance that Dean might…”

      “I know, I know.” Plopping her elbows on the table, Gabby covered her eyes with her hands then peeked around to make sure no one they knew was nearby, but Les would not have spoken if there had been. Gabby knew her sister-in-law truly