.

and power. But his face and shoulders lacked the same energy.

      He looked like the kind of man who had been striking once, but any vibrancy had been replaced by weary resignation that he tried to hide behind a practiced facade. It wasn’t hard to recognize the familiar duality of someone pretending at life, the too-wide smile and the fast-but-weary strides. Single parent, she assessed perhaps too quickly. Dad who has to try hard.

      Without any ceremony whatsoever, the little girl climbed up onto the red vinyl counter stool next to Lulu and said, “Hi, I’m Carly. We just got here.”

      “I’m Lulu,” Lulu replied. “I live here.”

      “Lulu,” repeated Carly with admiration. “That’s a great name.”

      “Thanks,” replied Lulu with a grin. “I like it.”

      “She also likes strawberry ice cream. What do you like, Carly?” offered Marvin in a congenial tone. Next to Mayor Jean, Marvin was the unofficial ambassador for Matrimony Valley. Everybody loved Marvin, and not just because he served up delicious ice cream. Whenever she felt blue or insufficient or just plain tired, Marvin’s compassion and his ice cream were always ready with a spoon and a smile.

      “I like chocolate and vanilla and strawberry. In stripes,” the little girl replied. “You got any spumoni?” She put an adorable effort into the difficult word.

      “Carly’s mom was Italian,” the man said. Kelly noticed he said “was,” not “is,” because like most widows, she always noticed when people spoke about their spouses in the past tense. Especially someone her own age. So maybe more than just a single parent. Maybe a sole surviving parent. Her heart pinched at the unfair snap judgment she’d made upon his entrance.

      “Spumoni, huh?” Marvin bunched his eyebrows as if this required deep concentration. “Can’t say I’ve got anything that fancy. How about I scoop a little bit of each into one dish and you pretend it’s spumoni?”

      “Oh, I’m great at pretending.”

      Weren’t all little girls? “I’m guessing you’re Bruce,” Kelly said, rising up off her stool. When his eyebrows rose, she explained. “A tiny town like this can’t hold too many unfamiliar fathers with daughters named Carly. I’m Kelly Nelson, the florist for the wedding. Tina asked me to work with you on the boutonnieres for the groomsmen while you were here.”

      The slightly suspicious look on his face turned into a sort of bafflement. “Oh, yeah. She said something about that, now I remember.”

      “I have to say,” Kelly went on, “you’re the first best man who I’ve ever had get assigned to pick those out.”

      Bruce shrugged. “Well, this wedding’s unusual in a lot of ways if you ask me. Darren’s like a brother to me, but the guy is...weird.”

      “You’re the reindeer wedding!” Lulu exclaimed to her new companions.

      “Um, elk, yes,” Bruce replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

      “An elk-themed wedding is an especially...unique choice.” Glad she’d happened to bring her tote bag along that had her tablet inside, Kelly grabbed it and nodded toward the small table a few feet away. “Pick out a flavor from Marvin, and why don’t we get those boutonnieres picked out right now while the girls are getting friendly?”

      As Bruce ordered his sundae from Marvin and made a fuss over his daughter’s improvised “spumoni,” Kelly began pulling up the photos and notes for the upcoming wedding.

      “Tina certainly does believe in group efforts,” she said as Bruce sat down. “I’ve dealt with her for her bouquet, the maid of honor for the attendants’ bouquets, Darren’s mother for the church decorations and Tina’s mom for the reception centerpieces. This is ‘wedding by committee’ if ever I’ve seen it.”

      “That’s a nice way to put it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’d categorize it closer to cat-herding myself. Or is that elk-herding?”

      Kelly smiled. “The man clearly loves his work. And I shouldn’t laugh. It might be our first elk-themed wedding, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the last. We get a lot of tourists up here interested in the elk herd. We owe a lot to our Forest Service guys.” After a moment’s thought, she added, “Are you one of them?” He had a ranger look about him—rugged and intense—and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she’d heard Tina mention that all the groomsmen were Darren’s Forest Service buddies.

      “North Carolina Forest Service helicopter pilot. Based in Kinston. But Carly and I are here early making a vacation out of it.”

      Kelly tamped down the reaction that still came with the word pilot. It wasn’t such a tidal wave anymore, mostly just a sharp surge, a “shiver of the soul,” as Pastor Mitchell put it. “Fire service?”

      “Some,” he said. “Mostly support, transportation, supply, that sort of thing. But we do our fair share of fires. Sounds like you’ve got someone in the service?”

      “No,” she replied. “My husband was a commercial pilot.” Was, not is. Did he notice her use of the past tense the way she’d noticed his? It always amazed her how such ordinary words held enough weight to grow a lump in her throat. “But he had friends in the service in Georgia,” she added, feeling the past tense of that sentence stick in her throat with the same weight.

      The look in his eyes and the pause before his next question told her he had indeed noticed which tense she’d used. “Retired?” He said it with the low and careful tone of someone who knew there was another possible answer.

      Kelly lowered her voice. “Fatal crash. Lightning strike. A few years ago.”

      He looked down at the table and dragged the next words out in a low voice. “I’m sorry. We...um...we lost Carly’s mom Christmas before last. Cancer.”

      Christmas without the one you love. Was there a bigger hole in the world than trying to survive a child’s mourning at Christmastime with your heart in splinters? “I’m so sorry.” Funny how they instinctively traded those words that never, ever felt like enough to contain the mountain of pain.

      For a moment, neither of them spoke. They both sat up a bit as Marvin set a sizable sundae down next to the peach milkshake she’d brought over from the counter. “Enjoy,” Marvin said with his congenial smile. “Welcome to Matrimony Valley.”

      “Thanks,” Bruce replied, looking up with an expertly applied smile Kelly knew all too well. The smile left as Marvin turned away, and for a moment or two Bruce swirled his spoon in the sundae’s whipped cream. “It’s hard,” he said softly, his voice catching a bit on the words. He nodded back in the direction of his daughter. “But I try, you know?”

      “I do know. And then there are happy things like Darren and Tina’s wedding.” She hoped he caught the brightness in her voice. Weddings could be both lovely and excruciating from the viewpoint of a surviving spouse. Watching someone else’s heart find happiness always proved a mixed sort of joy.

      “Weird, happy things,” he amended, a bit of a smile returning to his face. “Tell me you’ve got some idea for whatever it is I’m supposed to pick, because I sure don’t know. Couldn’t they have stuck me with just planning the bachelor night like a normal best man?”

      “We’ll get you through this.” Kelly turned the tablet to face him. “Since the groomsmen are all wearing red plaid shirts and gray vests, I thought we’d go with pine and ferns.”

      He clearly had no preferences. “Looks fine to me. Just nothing fussy.”

      “Naturally. We’ll add a bit of red fabric to match your shirts and the women’s boleros.”

      “Their whats?”

      “Boleros,” she repeated. “The short jackets made from the same flannel as your shirts that the bridesmaids are wearing over their dresses.”