The Marriage Conspiracy. Christine Rimmer

in the doorway.

      “Whoa, big guy.” Dekker stepped up and took him.

      About then, DeDe stopped sobbing long enough to glance across the room. “Dekker! You made it!”

      The three Tilly women broke from their huddle and rushed for the door. Joleen got out of their way again. They surrounded Dekker and Sam, all of them talking at once.

      “Where were you?”

      “We’ve been waiting for hours….”

      “We were so afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

      “Is everything all right?”

      “Is everything—”

      He chuckled. “Everything’s fine. There was just a little matter of a long delay between flights. But I am here now.” He had Sam on one arm. He wrapped the other around DeDe, who looked up at him through shining eyes. “And I am ready to give away this gorgeous bride.”

      Twenty minutes later, down in the backyard beneath the pecan trees, the wedding march began. A blessed breeze had actually come up, so it wasn’t quite as stifling as it had been for most of the day. The ceremony went off without a hitch. And when Wayne Thornton kissed his bride, everyone could see that this was a true, love match.

      Joleen had had her reservations, when DeDe and Wayne first announced that they would marry. After all, DeDe was only twenty. It seemed young to Joleen.

      But looking at the two of them as they repeated their vows, Joleen let go of her doubts. Wayne was a good, steady man. And DeDe adored him almost as much as he worshipped her. In the end, Joleen supposed, the two had as good a chance as any couple at lasting a lifetime side by side.

      She was pouring more ginger ale into the punch bowl, feeling kind of misty-eyed and contented for the first time that day, when Dekker appeared at her side.

      “What the hell are the Atwoods doing here?” He spoke low, for her ears alone.

      She gave him her most determined smile and whispered back, “I invited them.”

      “Damn it, Jo. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

      “Me, too—and would you go in and get me some more of this ginger ale?”

      Midnight-blue eyes regarded her steadily. “I wish you had listened to me.”

      “I did listen—then I did what I thought was right.” She waved the empty bottle at him. “Ginger ale? Please?”

      Shaking his head, he turned for the back door.

      The afternoon wore on.

      Camilla, on something of an emotional roller coaster this special day when her middle baby was getting married, had a little too much sparkling wine and flirted blatantly with anyone willing to flirt back.

      “You probably ought to say something to her, hon,” advised Aunt LeeAnne as Joleen was putting the finishing touches on the buffet.

      Joleen shook her head and took the lid off a chafing dish. “My mother is a flirt. Always has been, always will be. I have enough to worry about without trying to fight a person’s nature.”

      “When your father was still with us—”

      “I know. All her flirting was for him then. She never looked at another man. But he’s been gone for so long now. And she is still very much alive. She will never stop lookin’ for the kind of love she had once.”

      “So sad…” Aunt LeeAnne looked mournful.

      Camilla’s musical laughter rang out as she pulled one of the groom’s uncles from a chair and made him dance with her.

      “I don’t know,” said Joleen. “Seems to me that she’s having a pretty good time.”

      Aunt LeeAnne picked up a toothpick and speared a meatball from the chafing dish. “Mmm. Delicious. What is that spice?”

      “Cumin?”

      “Could be—or maybe curry?”

      “No. I don’t think there’s any curry in those meatballs.”

      Aunt LeeAnne helped herself to a second meatball, then shrugged. “Well, I suppose you’re right about Camilla….”

      Uncle Hubert Tilly staggered by, yet another beer clutched in his fist.

      Aunt LeeAnne clucked her tongue. “Now, there is someone to worry about. He has been drinkin’ all afternoon, and in this heat…” Aunt LeeAnne frowned. “He looks peaked, don’t you think?”

      “True,” said Joleen. “He does not look well.”

      “Someone really should talk to him….” Aunt LeeAnne gazed at Joleen hopefully. Joleen refused to take the hint, so her aunt added with clear reluctance, “Someone of his own generation, I suppose.”

      “Be my guest.”

      So Aunt LeeAnne DuFrayne trotted off to try to convince Uncle Hubert Tilly that he’d had enough beer.

      Uncle Hubert didn’t take the news well. “What?” he shouted, leaning against the trunk of the sweet gum in the southwest corner of the yard. “I’ve had enough? What’re you talkin’ about, LeeAnne? There ain’ no such thing as enough.”

      Aunt LeeAnne tried to whisper something into his ear. He shrugged her off and stumbled away. Aunt LeeAnne pinched up her mouth for a minute, then shook her head and returned to the buffet table.

      “Well, I guess you are right, Joly. There is no savin’ that man from himself.”

      “You tried your best.” Joleen handed her aunt a plate. “Taste those buffalo wings. And the pasta primavera is pretty good, too.”

      Aunt LeeAnne took the plate and began to load it with food.

      Out of the corner of her eye, Joleen could see Robert Atwood, standing at the edge of the patio, Antonia, as always, close at his side. Robert wore a look of aloof disdain on his distinguished face as he watched Uncle Hubert’s unsteady progress toward the coolers lined up by the garden shed.

      “Joly, is that pickled okra I see?”

      Joleen turned her widest smile on another of her father’s brothers. “You bet it is, Uncle Stan. Help yourself.”

      “I surely will.”

      With the buffet all ready to go, Joleen went to check on the punch table again. The bowl needed filling. She took care of that. Then she went back inside to look for those little frilly toothpicks that everyone kept using up the minute she set them out.

      She got stalled in the kitchen for several minutes. Burly had a traveling-salesman joke she just had to hear. Once he’d told it and she had finished laughing, she found the toothpicks and headed for the back door once more.

      Outside again, she discovered that her mother was dancing with yet another of the guests from Wayne’s family. And Aunt LeeAnne whispered in her ear that Uncle Hubert had gone behind the garden shed to be sick.

      Joleen suppressed a sigh. “I’ll go see to him.”

      “I think that would be best. I’d do it, of course, but you saw what happened the last time I tried to give the poor man a hand.”

      When Joleen got to the other side of the shed, she spotted two little DuFraynes and a small niece of Wayne’s peeking around the far end. Uncle Hubert sagged pitifully against the shed wall, his head stuck in among the dark pink blooms of a tall crape myrtle bush.

      She dealt with the children first. “You kids go on now.”

      The three stared for a moment, then began giggling.

      “I mean it. Do not make me get your mamas.”

      The giggling stopped. Three sets of wide eyes regarded her. Joleen put on a no-nonsense