Page 27 of Butterfly Sisters
Colton set the painting against the wall where it had been, and reached over to give Elvis a pat, his chest grazing Leigh’s arm and causing her pulse to quicken.
“You and Meredith get along so well,” she noted, wondering how he could turn on her sister’s warmth the way he did.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re not going to start that again, are you?”
“Start what?”
“The insinuation that something’s going on between me and Meredith. Come on, Leigh.”
“Why haven’t you ever thought about it?”
“Her lack of a schedule would make me crazy, she has a terrible temper, and I have nothing in common with her. But she’s fun to be around.”
Leigh nodded. She wanted to ask what he’d ever seen inher, but she stayed quiet. No sense in digging up old emotions. It would only muddle everything. She wasn’t staying and he certainly wasn’t going anywhere if he had Jax Wrigley’s farm to run.
“Are the cookies and salad ready?” Mama asked, peeking her head into the kitchen.
Leigh took in a steadying breath. “Almost.” She pulled the platter over.
Once they were alone, Colton turned to her. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
She’d been waiting for that since the moment she’d run into him at Leon’s and just that one sentence lifted her mood. She’d missed him.
“Same,” she returned, trying not to let her incredible fondness for him show. Instead, she arranged the cookies in a layered fan round the edges of the plate, working her way to the middle. “It’s good to be back.”
“Is it?” A soft breath moved through the slack in his lips, as if he had a hundred more things to tell her, but he’d stopped there.
She fought the urge to wrap her arms around him and bury her face in his chest; she needed to break the spell immediately before she burst into tears, everything she’d gone through spilling out of her, right there in the kitchen.
“You know I love this cabin,” she replied, knowing he’d expected more in her response. She finished the cookies, picked up the plate, and headed outside without looking his way.
Colton grabbed the bowl of salad and followed her out, with Elvis following along.
The soft spring breeze and the familiar swishing of the lake water relaxed her the minute she stepped outside onto the porch. Coupled with the happy buzz of the few people who had arrived already, her spirits were instantly higher. Thomas and Rosemary Peabody who ran the local market were there. Thomas used to keep a cooler of popsicles for all the kids who were at the market with their parents. Leigh’s favorite flavor was cherry, and he’d save one of them just for her.
Meredith was admiring Rosemary’s artsy earrings as if they’d spent no time away from each other at all. But that was how people were here: years or days, they still treated each other as if they were family. Rosemary had the first stall at the outdoor market, her tables covered in handmade jewelry and knickknacks. She used to share her booth with Nan whenever she had pottery to sell, and Mama owned a couple of her rings.
Their neighbor, Luella Wilson, who had to be pushing ninety, had come over and was working to sit down on one of the chairs; a new addition, an antique plate piled with scones covered in plastic wrap, sat amidst Mama’s spread on the table. Luella lived in a little yellow cottage through the trees, and before she’d got so feeble, she would take morning walks every day, often dropping by with her homemade scones. Leigh hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that until now.
Leigh set the platter of cookies onto the table next to Luella’s scones. Colton followed suit with the salad bowl before being pulled over to the grill by Mama.
“Hey, Leigh,” Meredith called up to her. “Mom says there’s champagne in the kitchen. Let’s crack it open!”
“All right,” she returned, going back inside to put the champagne on ice.
Leigh opened one of the kitchen cabinets and started pulling down the glass flutes, setting them onto the counter to take them out to the table on the porch. Elvis had followed her in, so she filled a bowl of water and set it down for him.
“You sure are sweet, you know that?” she said, stroking his back as he lapped it up. Elvis had been a happy surprise, some sort of divine intervention to provide the serenity that Nan had taken with her. “You have a good daddy too, but I’ll bet you know that already.”
Colton stepped into the room, the corners of his mouth twitching upward before something occurred to him to wipe his fondness away. “I need to get the pack of hot dogs for the grill.” He peered down at Elvis, subtly shaking his head. He retrieved the pack from the refrigerator.
As he shut the door, Meredith came rushing back in.
“Were you ever going to bring us the champagne?” she teased, getting a bottle out of the fridge. She unwrapped the cork and handed it to Colton. “Can you get this?”
Colton blinked as if switching mental gears and untwisted the metal casing from the bottle, working the cork. With aPop!it came loose in his large hand, releasing the carbon dioxide from the inside of the bottle in a white puff.
“Thank you,” Meredith said, taking the bottle from him and snatching a glass off the counter. She took hold of his arm. “Come! Make us food. I’m staaaarrving.” Whatever he’d been thinking about was now gone as he headed out the door with Meredith.
