True believer - Nicholas Sparks [62]
Tonight wasn’t the same. This wasn’t a celebration where friends and acquaintances got together to enjoy each other’s company before the hectic holiday rush. This was a party meant to honor someone who had nothing to do with the town and didn’t give a damn about this place. Even worse, though Rodney was here on official business, he suddenly knew he shouldn’t have bothered ironing his shirt and polishing his shoes, since he doubted that Lexie would even notice.
He knew all about it. After Doris had gone back to Herbs to get the cooking under way, the mayor had rolled in and mentioned the awful news about Jeremy and Lexie, and Rachel had called him straightaway. Rachel, he thought, was sweet in that way and always had been. She knew how he felt about Lexie and didn’t tease him like a lot of other folks did. Anyway, he got the impression that she wasn’t all that thrilled, either, with the idea of them showing up together. But Rachel was better at hiding her feelings than he was, and right now he wished he were somewhere else. Everything about tonight left him feeling lousy.
Especially the way the whole town was acting. By his reckoning, folks around here hadn’t been this excited about the town’s prospects since the Raleigh News & Observer had sent a reporter to do a story about Jumpy Walton, who was attempting to build a replica of the Wright Brothers’ plane, one he planned to fly in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of aviation at Kitty Hawk. Jumpy, who’d always had a couple of screws loose, had long claimed to be nearly finished with the replica, but when he opened the barn doors to proudly show how far he’d gotten, the reporter realized that Jumpy didn’t have the slightest clue about what he was doing. In the barn, the replica looked like a giant, crooked version of a barbed-wire and plywood chicken.
And now the town was placing its bets on the existence of ghosts in the cemetery and that the city boy would bring the world to their doorstep because of them. Rodney strongly doubted it. And besides, he didn’t honestly care if the world came or not, as long as Lexie stayed part of his world.
Across town and at about the same time, Lexie stepped onto her porch just as Jeremy was coming up the walkway with a small bouquet of wildflowers in hand. Nice touch, she thought, and she suddenly hoped he couldn’t tell how frazzled she’d been until just a few minutes ago.
Being a woman was challenging sometimes, and tonight had been rougher than most. First, of course, there was the question of whether this was even an actual date. Granted, it was closer to a date than what had gone on at lunch, but it wasn’t exactly a romantic dinner for two, and she wasn’t sure whether she would have even consented to something like that. Then there was the whole image question and how she wanted to be perceived, not only by Jeremy but by everyone else who would see them together. Add the fact that she was most comfortable when she wore jeans and had no intention of showing any cleavage, and the whole thing became so confusing that she’d finally just thrown in the towel. In the end, she’d decided to go with a professional look: brown pantsuit with an ivory blouse.
But here he comes waltzing up in his Johnny Cash look, as if he hadn’t given the evening a second thought.
“You found the place,” Lexie observed.
“It wasn’t too hard,” Jeremy said. “You showed me where you lived when we were on Riker’s Hill, remember?” He offered the flowers. “Here. These are for you.”
She smiled as she took them, looking absolutely lovely. Sexy, too, of course. But “lovely” seemed more appropriate.
“Thank you,” she said. “How’d the diary search go?”
“Okay,” he said. “Nothing too spectacular in the ones I’ve looked through so far.”
“Just give it a chance,” she said with a smile. “Who knows what you’ll find?” She raised the bouquet to her nose. “These are beautiful, by the way. Give me a second to put them in a vase, grab a long coat, and then I’ll