My gaze drifted back to my daughter. Good things had come for me, and more good things would happen. I just had to be patient. For that one perfect moment, I believed my feelings reached her.
Chapter 33
Aspyn
“Here’s your coffee,” I said, handing a parishioner a Styrofoam cup filled with the hot brew. Perri stood next to me, handing out cookies.
“Thank you, dear,” the old woman said before moving on.
It’d been a while since I helped out with the after-service coffee at church. We all needed to do our part, but I’d been so busy lately. It took Mama pointing out how long it’d been since I helped to spur me towards volunteering. Guilt could do a lot to motivate a woman. Well, that and Mama had agreed to watch Kadie.
I smiled as I handed another cup to the next person. Warmth filled me at the fellowship I was sharing with the rest of my congregation. It’s part of what I loved about Livingston. I had my friends and Mama, but I also knew I could depend on the people from my church to help me out.
Having people you could count on was a big thing. Ev
ery time I thought about Alex living in Texas, my heart ached. He’d had to return to Livingston because he didn’t have people he could count on. Now, he did.
As I handed out another cup, I thought about getting Alex to start coming to my church. Maybe if he had even more people who cared about him, it’d help him open up even more.
The line slowly shrank until we’d served the last person. I let out a sigh of relief and picked up my own cup of coffee to take a sip. A glint caught my eye, and I turned. Perri’s new engagement ring was the source.
“It’s nice,” I said, smiling.
My friend looked over at me with a frown. “Huh?”
I nodded toward her hand. “Your ring. I haven’t said anything yet about how nice it looked.” I nodded toward the hallway. “Now that we’ve served everyone, let’s go chat.”
Perri picked up a cookie and cup and followed me. Once we reached the side hallway, she glanced up and down it before returning her attention to me, a suspicious look in her eye.
We both took a few sips of our coffee before Perri broke the silence.
“What’s up?” she said, still eyeing me like I’d stolen from the collection plate.
“Nothing’s up,” I said. “I just wanted somewhere quieter.”
“And conveniently where there’s no one else around to overhear us?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I guess. Yeah, the thought had occurred to me.”
Perri stared at me for a few seconds. “What’s wrong, Aspyn?”
I shook my head. “Nothing’s wrong. Just your ring got me to thinking.”
“About what?” She frowned slightly. “Don’t you dare tell me you think I shouldn’t have said yes. If you were going to make a stink, you should have done it that night.”
I threw up my hands in a placating gesture. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. It’s just engagements make me think about the future.”
“What about the future?” she said, her eyes narrowed. “My future? Your future?”
I rolled my eyes. “Relax, Perri. You and Carl have been in love since high school, and you’ve basically been all but married since then as well. I don’t think there’s a single person in Livingston who thinks your marriage is a bad idea. Well, maybe that one waitress who used to work at the Wild Mustang, but she’s over at Tornado Alley, and I don’t think Carl even goes there anymore.”
“He doesn’t.” Perri let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing. She’d been about two steps from throwing down with me to defend her man’s honor. “Then what are you getting at?” she said. “With all your talking about the future and such?”
“I wasn’t thinking about you and Carl. I was thinking about me and Alex.”
Her face lit up. “Did he ask you?”
I scoffed so loudly, I’m sure the entire congregation heard it. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just yesterday I was at his house helping him put together furniture. He’s got a room there for Kadie, bought all sorts of stuff.”