Page 84 of Tate
Well, at leastKelseywas wanted. Glo wasn’t quite sure what she was doing here.
“Can I help?” Glo asked.
Gerri looked up from where she was pulling a plastic container from the fridge. She’d already given Glo a rundown of the activities. Tonight, a cookout after the brief rehearsal in front of the family room fireplace. Tomorrow, the small ceremony—just the family and a few friends who were driving down in the morning.
Glo heard voices and glanced outside to where the screen door led to a porch. She spotted the bride, Gilly Priest, a petite redhead and the pilot for the Jude County Smoke Jumpers team, with another woman about her age. They were wrapping purple and gold wildflowers in twine and plunking them in mason jars.
“I think we have everything under control, Glo,” Gerri said. “Gilly’s sisters are preparing the cupcakes, and Kelsey’s salting the onions…” Gerri glanced at Kelsey.
Glo startled when Kelsey looked up, crying, but then her friend grinned. “Onions.” She wiped her face with her apron, then slid the onions into a bowl.
“I’m just going to grill this chicken for tomorrow’s salad—” Gerri started.
“I’ll do that.” Glo reached for the container. “I can grill.” Probably. Because how hard was it to put meat on a grate and watch it cook?
Gerri lifted a shoulder and handed her the container. “It’s lit and warming. Just put these tenderloins on and let them cook, a few minutes on each side.” She handed Glo a pair of tongs.
Glo toed open the door and found the grill already steaming on the porch. She opened the lid, leaning back when steam billowed out.
“Careful. That thing is awfully close to the house,” said a voice, and Glo looked over to see Gilly getting up. “I didn’t see you come in, Glo. How are you?”
Oh. Gilly was referring to the fact that the last time she’d seen Glo, she’d been bleeding from a gunshot wound. Gilly had flown her to Helena.
Tate had held her hand and tried not to have a meltdown right there in the plane.
How they’d gone from hot to cold in a matter of a month, she didn’t know. But he’d brought her suitcase inside, greeted his mother, and vanished.
She would have been just fine at home, sitting by the pool under Rags’s watchful, albeit chagrined, eye.
“I’m good. It looked worse than it was.” She lifted her T-shirt sleeve to show the still-reddened but fading scars.
Gilly made a face. “My father always says, ‘Don’t be ashamed of your scars. They are tattoos of triumph.’”
Huh. They mostly felt like just ugly scars to her.
Gilly’s friend came up behind her. Tall and lean, she wore her auburn-gold hair in a low ponytail and carried a baby on her hip, maybe a year old, tawny curls askew as the little girl lay her head on her shoulder, her eyes closed. “I’m Kate Ransom,” she said quietly. “And this is Amber.”
Kate filled her in on how she knew Gilly—the smokejumping team, her husband, Jed, a longtime friend of Reuben, Gilly’s future husband—while Glo put the chicken on the grill and closed the lid.
“And you’re one of the Yankee Belles,” Kate said. “This is such a small world, because Reuben’s friend Pete—he couldn’t be here this weekend, sadly—knows Benjamin King. The country singer. Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He’s a great guy. We played with him once.”
“Tate told us that your band is up for an award.”
“CMG’s New Group of the Year.”
“I love your song—‘One True Heart,’” Gilly said. “I was sort of hoping you might sing it at the reception tomorrow.”
Oh. “Uh…”
“Gilly. Let the woman relax,” Kate said. “She’s here to enjoy herself.”
Was she?
Smoke began to billow out of the grill.
“I’m actually not sure why I’m here.”
