“The man is trying to buy his son off. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Sorry, Son, I can’t make it, but please accept these ridiculously extravagant gifts and my mother as consolation prizes.’ It makes me sick.” Sophia brushed her hair behind her ear. “Collin doesn’t need material things. He needs his daddy.”
Josie reached over and patted Sophia on the leg. “I’m really sorry.”
Sophia leaned against the tree and stretched her legs out in front of her. “That made me mad enough, but then Mrs. Prescott handed me an envelope from Ty before she left. He’d scribbled a letter about loving us and wanting to take care of us. Along with the letter was an obscene amount of cash that he instructed me not to deposit.” She shook her head and huffed. “The man is clearly floating money around that he shouldn’t. The gifts he gave Collin are well into the thousands. I just don’t want to get caught up in his sweet talk and financial mess.”
“What did you do?” Josie asked.
“I handed the envelope back to his mother and told her to return it to him. She wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t want to cause a scene, so she took it and left. Thank goodness.” Sophia looked heavenward and watched the late-afternoon sunbeams wiggle their way through the tree branches.
“I can’t blame you there.” Opal scooted beside her and leaned on the tree while moving a hand along her tummy. Sophia couldn’t wait for Baby Cole to start showing as more than a tiny paunch.
The women moved their attention to the little guy on his tractor with a paint-splattered artist hot on his heels.
Sophia was tired of being the downer of the group, so she redirected their conversation to a lighter note. “Josie, you and August know how to wear paint well.” The couple came straight from teaching an art session at Palmetto Fine Arts Camp, and both were dressed in their usual outfits of tees and jeans that were speckled with paint. Sophia found that little quirk endearing.
Josie giggled. “August certainly does. Isn’t he just something to look at?” The blonde tilted her head and openly admired her husband.
Sophia snickered. “You sound like a lovesick teenager mooning over her boyfriend. It’s so sweet.”
“It is,” Opal agreed. “Speaking of boyfriends . . . I was disappointed to hear that your boyfriend wasn’t at the party, Sophia.” Leave it to Opal to spoil the lighter topic.
Sophia scoffed. “Fake. It’s fake and you know it.”
Opal scoffed right back. “Well, whatever you want to call him, I don’t understand why Wes wasn’t invited.”
“Stop meddling,” Sophia warned as she stood and brushed the back of her shorts. She walked away, wishing the same could be so easily done with the bothersome situations she found herself snared in at the moment.
Later that night, Ty called and only spoke briefly with Collin before having the little guy hand Sophia the phone. Ty tried talking Sophia into flying out to see him. Of course she declined, but he put up one heck of a fight. The man was just as good at manipulation as he was at rushing a football field. Sadly, it had taken her too long to figure out how to see through his deceitful tactics.
After a long night of tossing and turning, church the next day should have been a reprieve from all the stress. Instead, Sophia could barely keep a grip on the escalating sensation of coming unraveled as she sat on the pew beside Wes.
As they stood to sing the offertory hymn, Wes leaned close and whispered, “Are you okay?”
Sophia kept her eyes glued to the bleary hymnal in her hands and pretended to not hear him. For some reason, him asking her that in his smooth, sincere tone made her want to break. She wanted to scream and let loose a litany of complaints on how unfair life was treating her. To lash out until someone else felt the sting of her despondency.
After the usher passed by, Sophia’s eyes fell to the aisle and she contemplated how freeing it would be to just fall out of her pew and let it all out in one momentous fit. She could picture it now, her limbs flailing about and the rage spewing from her mouth until someone showed up with a straitjacket.
With a great deal of effort, Sophia bottled up the lunacy of that idea and tucked it away with the distress that had conjured it in the first place. When the song concluded, she wedged her purse between them on the pew, using it as a boundary.
Wes gave the purse a thoughtful look and then did the same with her but said nothing. After that, his attention remained on the pastor for the remainder of the service.
As they left the sanctuary, Sophia’s mom was quick to pounce on Wes before he made it too far.
“Wes, dear, would you like to join us for Sunday dinner? It’s a special one for little Collin’s birthday. I’ve made all of his favorites.” Lucy grinned wide while looping her arm through Sophia’s to keep her rooted in the invitation.
“Oh, I thought yesterday was the big celebration.” Wes directed his remark to Sophia, stirring her guilt for not inviting him.
“That was for his little church friends. Besides, today is his actual birthday. We would love for you to celebrate with us,” Lucy offered, adding an enthusiastic head nod while nudging Sophia, but it didn’t encourage her to join in. She was barely holding on to her unsteady composure as it was. “Opal, Josie, and their hubbies will be there too.”
The expression on Wes’s face looked a lot like hurt at the mention of Sophia’s friends being invited and not him. Sophia swallowed past the lump of guilt lodged in her throat and whispered, “Wes, would you like to join us?”
“I’d like that, but I left Collin’s gift at my house.” Wes rubbed the back of his neck and looked over at his fancy sports car.
“You could bring it by their place later on today.” Lucy released her hold on her daughter and ordered, “Sophia, give Wes directions out to the farm,” before dashing off.
“Are you sure about me joining your family for dinner?” Wes asked quietly once they were alone.
“Collin will be tickled for you to be there. I need to get him from his class.” Sophia turned on her heel.
“Directions?” he called out before she got too far.
She swatted the air. “I’ll text them to you shortly.” Sophia was tempted to give him the wrong address but decided against it.
The meal was a bounty of Italian dishes that Sophia’s mom prided herself on making from recipes her own grandmother had brought with her from Sicily. The woman’s gravy, aka red sauce, was drool-worthy. Judging by Wes’s exuberant appetite, he agreed. The man was going head-to-head with both Neanderthal Lincoln and Big-Boy August with shoveling it in, and Sophia was impressed that he was keeping pace.
At her mother’s insistence, Sophia managed to eat a couple of meatballs and a chunk of fresh focaccia by the time Wes polished off his third plate. Collin followed his example and ate with gusto, too.
“Wes, I’d like to thank you for hiring our daughter,” Sophia’s dad said as dessert was served.
Mitcham Gaines was a country boy through and through who’d managed to snag himself an Italian beauty—his very words—while attending the state fair back in the seventies. He’d recalled the story for Sophia several times over the years about how he followed Lucy around booth after booth until she agreed to a date. It was a sweet tale, but Sophia had no faith in love stories anymore.