Pastor Brown took Cole’s hand and squeezed it. Although a comforting presence, he wasn’t conducting this celebration of life, Cadence was.
Cole’s sister-in-law had been in whispered discussion with his momma in the hospital over what was to happen during this memorial until Momma had finally smiled with satisfaction and patted Cadence’s hand, declaring that it was good.
No one would’ve blamed Momma for falling apart when she’d basically been handed a death sentence, but the Slade matriarch had found purpose in making her party plans. She was a strong woman for thinking of so many besides herself in her last moments… so was Cadence.
Clearly, Cadence was heartbroken, but Porter’s wife greeted guests with a calm, clear voice. “Thank you!” She hugged the Slade’s elderly aunt, Martha, close to her. “The garden is exactly how Lily wanted it—I enjoyed every second of it with her. I hopeshedid too.”
“Of course, dear,” Aunt Martha assured her. “Lily loves everything about you. Never forget that.”
Cadence’s eyes turned bright with emotion. Cole noticed that she held a manila envelope in her hand, and though she was pregnantandin mourning, her shoulders were back, her spine was straight.
Emily joined River in the gazebo. The brother and sister team picked up their guitars and played a pretty duet that blended into a sweet harmony drifting through the courtyard like the fallen snow. Cole choked back his emotion when he heard the lyrics of the song they’d written for Momma.
“Think happily of Lily and her roses red
Her hugs are soft with fragrance, her gardens like a painting spread.
Bright, abundant, cheery, real, all she grows lives on still.”
At the corner of his eye, Cole caught sight of a movement.
West had shown up and he wasn’t alone. Eva was with him.
Cole froze. His heart lifted and fell all at once. Eva had gotten the memo to dress brightly—boy, had she! She was in yellow. Her hat was smothered in flowers draped stylishly over her eye. She was chic as always, and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
What was she doing here?
And with West?
His older brother leaned over his kids, inspecting their flowers and pulling the brightly colored posy from his lapel to show them what he’d brought. He’d disobeyed Momma’s wishes and was in a black pinstriped suit, though his tie was yellow—the exact shade of Eva’s dress, to be exact.
Cole tried to swallow the anger that ached against his throat. Why had she disappeared like she had, and then, without warning, reappeared with West like Cole’s heart didn’t matter?
His jaw felt stiff. He was gritting his teeth, wasn’t he?
Eva made a big deal over West’s children, buzzing Charlie’s cheek with gloved fingers. She grasped a white lily—her tightly clenched fingers the only sign that she wasn’t as calm as she appeared. And still, she seemed amazingly chipper.
Disturbingly so.
He’d been driven to madness over how miserable he thought she’d been when she was trapped with her father, but Eva looked freer and more radiant than ever, like the lighthearted will-o’-the-wisp that she was. She’d always been good at hiding her distress.
But what was real? What was the act?
Confusion completely immobilized him.
What if West had been right about her all along? Had she used him to get his brother back?
It killed him to even suspect that she’d pretended to be anything other than who she was with him.
A breeze caught at her dress, maybe not as violently as it had done Marilyn Monroe’s, but it seemed like it might carry Eva away as easily as her daddy had done before.
This time, she dug her heels into the snow-powdered ground and turned until she caught eyes with him. She brightened with a smile that was more brilliant than her hat, if that was possible. His knees feel like they were melting.
He needed to go to her. No, he needed to throttle West for keeping her away from him.
Wait, no, no, this wasnotall on West, was it? He groaned as the truth shook him. As much as he wanted to believe that West was the villain here, it was Eva who’d taken a razorblade to his heart and sliced it to shreds with careless fingers.
Resentment burned through him, easily replacing the useless hours he’d wasted worrying about her. She was perfectly fine, wasn’t she?