Looking quite pleased with herself, Bobbie waved to Emily from across the room. “Come say hello to your uncle.”
Emily gave Wade a rather rueful smile. “She’s been a schoolteacher for more than thirty years,” she whispered. “She just can’t stop talking like one, even at home.”
Nevertheless, she moved obediently to kiss her uncle’s lined cheek. “Hello, Uncle Caleb. How’s your arm?”
He smiled fondly at her and flexed his left arm, which he’d injured in a fall at the golf course a few weeks earlier. “Much better, thank you, dear. Doc Horton says it’ll be as good as new in another couple of weeks.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Have you had any nibbles on your house yet?”
Emily looked involuntarily across the room to where Wade stood chatting with Bobbie and Marvella Tucker, a longtime neighbor of the senior McBrides. “One or two,” she replied vaguely.
Caleb followed her glance. “I hear Chief Davenport’s interested.”
Emily should have known that her uncle, the small town’s longest practicing attorney, would have already heard the gossip. “He’s looked at the house,” she admitted.
“Don’t you let him pay too little for the place, you hear? That property’s worth a good bit The house could use some work, but it’s still sound. You deserve a fair market price for it.”
Emily nodded. “I’ll bring any offers to you, Uncle Caleb. I always value your advice.”
Her uncle beamed. He’d been Emily’s advisor on legal and personal matters for a very long time, something her own father, Caleb’s older brother, had never been even before his illness had robbed him of his ability to communicate. Emily was fond of all her family, but she had a special place in her heart for her uncle Caleb.
The doorbell chimed. “That’ll be Brother Tatum and Jennie,” Bobbie said. “I’ll go let them in, and then we’ll be ready to eat.”
Of course Bobbie had invited the minister on one of the few Sundays Emily had chosen to be lazy and sleep in. She sighed, knowing she would be in for delicate questioning from the minister’s wife, who took a rather maternal attitude toward her husband’s flock.
This could prove to be a very long afternoon.
Officious as always, Bobbie ushered everyone into the dining room and directed the seating. Emily doubted it was coincidence that she ended up seated at Wade’s left, with Clay at Wade’s right. Caleb and Brother Tatum took the head and foot of the table, respectively, leaving Bobbie, Marvella Tucker and the minister’s wife opposite Emily.
Very cozy.
Emily glanced at Wade to find him watching her with a gleam of amusement in his warm brown eyes. She suspected he’d guessed that Bobbie was trying her hand at matchmaking. If it bothered him, he didn’t let it show. Outwardly, he seemed perfectly comfortable.
She suspected that Wade was quite proficient at concealing his true feelings. That stolid, laid-back manner of his had caused Martha Godwin to doubt his intelligence. Emily had never underestimated him so naively.
The three older women made sure that conversation did not lag during the meal. Wade and Emily answered when spoken to, and contributed when expected. Young Clay, exhibiting excellent table manners, said little, though Emily got the impression he didn’t miss much.
Again, she had the feeling that Clay was unusually mature in some ways. She wondered if it was because he’d lost his mother so early—a bond Emily shared with the boy. She wished she were sitting next to him so they could talk. She wasn’t quite as comfortable chatting with Wade when she knew that every adult at the table was watching them with varying degrees of interest.
“This ham is simply delicious, Bobbie. Best I’ve had in years,” Jennie Tatum, the minister’s plump wife, pronounced as she enthusiastically attacked her meal. “What is your secret?”
Bobbie looked delighted by the praise. “Thank you, Jennie. I cooked it the way my mother always did—basted in Coca-Cola.”
“These sweet potatoes with pecan topping are great,” Wade chipped in. “How do you stay so trim, Caleb, married to such a good cook?”
“Golf and fishing,” Caleb replied. “You play golf, Wade?”
“Badly.”
“He fishes,” Clay announced. “Once he caught a great big fish that he stuck on a board and hung on the wall.”
The adults all smiled indulgently at the child.
“Getting close to the height of deer season,” Caleb went on. “You do any deer hunting, Wade?”
“Some. But I have to admit, I prefer fishing.”