Page 35 of Take Me to the Wedding

I didn’t want to take a nap or explore the farm. I had other things on my mind. After the luggage fight, I didn’t want there to be any question—in anyone’s mind—that I was interested in Caleb. So I was going to repay my debt to him, the sooner the better. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

ChapterEleven

Samantha

A little way along the wooded path, Lilly was sitting on a bench overlooking the lake, lost in an artist’s zone, her chalk pastel box spread open beside her. A batch of bright orange and yellow tiger wildflowers bloomed in a profusion of color right at the lake’s edge, which were clearly her subject.

I felt a little bad interrupting, but I was on a mission. “Could I talk to you?” I asked.

She glanced up and smiled. “Oh hi, Sam. Sure.” She moved her art supplies so I could sit. In front of us, the sun was shining on the calm water, illuminating the trees and grasses in dappled light as only a bright May sun can. One glance at her sketchbook told me she was a seriously talented artist.

After watching her work for a few minutes, I said, “I want to say something that’s been on my mind. I feel like I need to get it off my chest.”

She put a hand to her own chest. “You’re scaring me a little.”

I sounded a little scary to my own ears, but this was serious. I glanced around, making sure Caleb wasn’t about to pop out of the woods and burst in on us. I knew he wouldn’t like what I was doing. But I plunged ahead, having only two days to accomplish the impossible. “I want to clear up something you might’ve heard about Caleb.”

“Okay,” she said carefully. “What is it?”

“At the hospital, he and I had a professional disagreement that made me upset—I mean, we often disagree—but I didn’t handle it in the best way. In my anger, I repeated what I’d heard about him from one of my friends. It was pure gossip, and it did damage—to you.”

“You’re talking about what Stacey told me?”

I nodded. “Caleb is—well, he’s a good guy. He didn’t two-time anyone, and he didn’t cheat. I wanted you to know that.” I found myself actually believing the good-guy part, which threw me a little.

I really, really hoped I was doing the right thing. Caleb had to get going or he was going to lose this woman forever.

Lilly set down her sketch pad. “You know we used to date, right? Caleb called me to say hi a few weeks ago. He said he wanted to make sure we were okay before the wedding, but I think he might’ve been working up to ask me out.” She turned to me. “I have a lot of conflicting feelings about that. I mean, we were young, but it was a bad breakup.”

“I get that.” Okay, here goes. My chance to make Caleb shine. “I know him mostly professionally, of course, but I can tell you he’s a very good doctor and also a very compassionate one.” I’d seen him interact with patients before their surgeries. He had a great way with kids and their parents. Once, he stayed long after his twenty-four-hour call shift was up to make sure that one of his patients was out of the woods. I’d found him at the patient’s bedside post-op, falling asleep in a chair. Most residents would’ve gone home long before and learned their patient’s fate the next day.

“Being Mia’s best friend, I see that Caleb really loves his family,” I continued. I thought of the cute, casual way he called his momMa. How he’d playfully rubbed his beard against her cheek. How tight he was with his parents and siblings.

“He’sreallyinto his family,” Lilly said. “When we’d have time off during his first year in med school, he’d always want to head home to see them.”

She’d said that like it was a bad thing. That was hard for someone like me to imagine, who struggled on a daily basis to keep that sense of family alive for Wynn. “That must’ve been a very hard year for both of you,” I said.

“It really was. I still have hostility.” She laughed. “But it’s nice to connect with him again. I think this weekend will help us to resolve some things.”

“He doesn’t seem to hold grudges.” Even though he detested me, he’d still somehow offered me a ride. Which was kind of incredible. “I mean, I think he’d welcome connecting with you and making amends.”

“Caleb never gives up on anything. Once, the D’Angelos’ dog got sick, and for weeks all he did was research senior-dog ailments and try to find alternative therapies.”

“Larry?”

“Yes, Larry!” She laughed again. “How did you know his name?”

“I think he’s a family legend. Did anything work?”

“The dog was fifteen.” She lifted her hands in a shrug. “I mean, it was just time to go.”

We both pondered that. I wondered what that must feel like, to be loved like that. It didn’t seem like something to take for granted—unless it was stalkerish. Was Caleb a stalker?

“He’s not bad-looking,” she said.

“That he is not.” I suddenly thought maybe I shouldn’t have agreed so quickly, so I added, “He’s also not beyond apologizing.” That damn apology was still rerunning in my head like an Instagram reel on loop. I kept trying to understand how it had still really mattered, even all this time later.

As I strained to come up with more compliments, I thought about adding that fact that he liked kids—I mean, he chose peds ortho for a fellowship—but thought that might be a straw too much. We fell silent in the afternoon heat. An occasional frog made a strange trill.

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