Close to Home. Deborah Raney

back the covers and squinted at the clock. She was wearing a cotton nightgown. “Oh, no. Did I oversleep?”

      “It’s my fault,” Bree said, not sure if CeeCee was confused or if she was referring to her nap. But surely she hadn’t changed into a nightgown just to take a nap. “I’m late picking you up for our Tuesday dinner.” She cast about the tidy room, looking for the outfit CeeCee had been wearing. “Can I get your clothes for you?”

      CeeCee looked down at her nightgown. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll change.”

      Bree laughed, but CeeCee’s expression said she wasn’t kidding. Bree went to the closet and chose a pair of elastic-waisted pants and a colorful blouse she’d seen the woman wear often. “How about this?”

      “I really think I’ll just stay here. I’m pretty tired. I played bridge all afternoon, you know.”

      “Oh, but don’t you want to go out to Grant and Audrey’s for dinner? Everyone will be disappointed if you don’t come.”

      “They’ll get over it.” She waved a frail hand and sank back onto the pillows. “Audrey said she’d do the dessert tonight anyway.”

      Was that what was bothering CeeCee? It was usually her job to furnish the dessert for Tuesday nights. But it wasn’t like her to get her feelings hurt over something so petty. “Are you sure you feel okay? Have you eaten?”

      “I’m just tired. Don’t you worry about me. You go on and have a good time. Give them all my love.” She sounded more like herself now.

      But Bree was still worried. She said her good-byes, but didn’t feel quite right about leaving. She locked the door behind her, but in the driveway, she called Audrey again and told her how she’d found CeeCee.

      “I wouldn’t worry too much, honey. She did play bridge today, so maybe she’s just worn out. And if she insisted, you can’t force her to come.”

      “Well, if you’re sure.”

      “Grant will check on her later tonight. You come on. We saved a plate for you.”

      “Okay.”

      Backing out of the driveway, she shot up a prayer for Tim’s grandmother. If anything happened to CeeCee, she would never forgive herself. And none of this would have happened if she hadn’t been daydreaming about that stupid movie date.

      Chapter 2

      2

      She drove too fast and arrived at the Chicory Inn just as they were clearing the table and dishing up dessert—Audrey’s apple crisp and homemade ice cream. She held up the bags of rolls from the bakery and gave a sheepish smile. “Anybody want a roll?”

      Audrey took them from her. “Don’t worry about it. We had plenty to eat. I’ll just put them in the freezer for next week. Unless you want one now?”

      “Are you kidding? Forget my plate.” She pointed to the apple crisp, which filled the kitchen with a tart, cinnamony scent. “This can be dinner for me.”

      “Don’t be silly.” Audrey gave her a one-armed hug and thrust a warm plate at her, a sampling of the supper she’d missed. “You eat. You’re too skinny as it is. And don’t you worry, I’ll make sure there’s apple crisp left for you.”

      “And ice cream,” Bree said, taking the proffered plate, but casting a suspicious eye on Tim’s brother, Link, and three brothers-in-law who were standing at the counter snarfing apple crisp and looking as if they could easily put away a second bowl before she could put a dent in her plate.

      Tim’s three sisters came to her defense, ushering their husbands away from the counter. “You let us worry about them,” Landyn said. “You eat, sis.”

      It warmed her heart when Tim’s sisters included her, calling her “sis” the way they did with each other. “Thanks for having my back.”

      “You know we do,” Danae said, laughing even as she shooed Dallas from the counter for the second time.

      “Grant must have the kids?” Bree said over a mouthful of green bean casserole. She hadn’t seen any of them yet. “And where’s that new baby?” Corinne and Jesse’s new little girl—four girls for them now—had been born on Father’s Day less than a month ago. Bree had only seen little Sasha twice since then. She was learning how quickly babies grew up, and she didn’t want to miss holding this newest little one while she was still tiny.

      “Sasha and Tyler are both asleep upstairs,” Corinne said. “Poppa has the other six down in the meadow playing some target game he invented.”

      “Did Poppa get any apple crisp yet?” Bree asked, eyeing the dwindling supply.

      Audrey popped her head around the corner. “Poppa had two servings before any of you even got here. Don’t you worry about him, Bree.”

      She gave an exaggerated whew and took a bite of Audrey’s lasagna. The sisters started putting food back in the fridge and loading the dishwasher, and she hurried to finish eating so she could help. It seemed like she sailed in late too often and ate while the others did the work of cleaning up. They never seemed to resent her for it, but she sometimes worried they might.

      When they were finished in the kitchen, Audrey shooed the young women to the family room. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, but I want to start a breakfast casserole for tomorrow’s guests.”

      Conversation among the sisters quickly turned to babies and marriage, and Bree felt herself curl up and withdraw a little. Tim’s three sisters were all moms now that Danae and Dallas were raising the two little boys of an incarcerated woman. Since Tim’s death, she’d swung between relief that he hadn’t left her with a child to raise on her own and grief that she’d never gotten to fulfill her dream of having his babies. At twenty-eight and with no prospects for a husband, she definitely saw her chances of ever having a family slipping away.

      Some of her friends thought she was crazy to have kept such close ties to Tim’s family. And maybe it was a little unusual. But it wasn’t as if their marriage had ended in a messy divorce. After Tim was killed in Afghanistan, his family had kept her sane. They alone knew the man she mourned as well as she did. Knew he’d been a hero in so many ways—not just as a Marine killed in the line of duty.

      And as Audrey had told her more than once, the Whitman family’s grief was doubled by the thought of losing Bree. “You’ll never lose me,” she’d promised Audrey. They were words easily spoken in the throes of grief. But sometimes she wondered if it was a promise she could keep.

      Until recently, she’d been content to still be considered a part of the Whitman clan. To sit with Grant and Audrey and CeeCee in church most Sunday mornings, to feel that she fit in at their Tuesday night dinners, and that she was welcome—more than welcome—to come around any time she needed a dose of family. To feel close to Tim, the way she always had at the house on Chicory Lane.

      But the winds were shifting. She felt it more each week. And she wasn’t sure if it was her, or if it was Tim’s family who was pulling away. If they were, it wasn’t intentional. She knew that. But their lives had all gone forward, while more and more, when the Whitmans gathered, she felt like the odd man out.

      She loved this family with all her heart. She still considered them her family and knew they loved her like their own daughter and sister. Yet with every new grandchild who entered the Whitman family, she felt her place—her purpose—in the family diminished. They were getting married, having babies. And she was stuck. Stuck in love with a man she could never have again. At least not on this side of heaven. She was in a holding pattern that would be painful to come out of, no matter how it came about.

      Maybe that was why she’d agreed to go to the movies with Aaron. Maybe it was a way to ease into the—

      “Isn’t that right, Bree?”

      She shook herself back to the conversation, racking her brain to remember what they’d been talking