He laughed, the corners of his pale blue eyes crinkled and that damn dimple appeared on his left cheek. The Deadly Dimple, Sophie and I had called it. It still was. “How many times have you heard ‘You haven’t changed a bit’ tonight?” Charlie asked.
“With you, over a thousand.”
“Well, you haven’t.”
“I live a pure life.”
“Ha. I doubt that.” He put his hands in his suit pants pockets. The top button of his shirt was unbuttoned and his blue tie, which set off his eyes in a mesmerizing way, was loosened. I wondered if Sophie had picked it out. “How have you been?” he asked.
“Good. Fantastic. How about you?”
He shrugged and looked around. “I’m still in Lynchfield.”
“Wasn’t that the plan?”
A sheepish smile. “Yes.”
“I hear you’re right on track. Law practice, now running for State Senate?”
“Yep.” He nodded. “It wasn’t always easy.” He caught my eye and looked away.
“Anything worth having is never easy, is it?”
“I suppose not.”
The funeral director walked into the room on soft feet and with a polite, grieving smile. He met Emmadean and Dormer at my father’s casket and spoke in a low voice about whatever was next on the list of tasks for a grieving family.
I steeled myself to ask about Sophie when a young woman walked down the aisle, her head buried in her phone. Her dark hair hung down past her shoulders, save a small braided portion near her hairline. She was tall and thin, with coltish legs jutting from beneath her thigh-length black sundress. The sleeves of a pale pink summer sweater were pushed halfway up her forearms. When she finally looked up from her phone, I inhaled sharply, and loudly enough for Charlie to notice.
“I know, right?” he said.
Sophie’s daughter stopped by her father and appraised me with aquamarine eyes that she’d obviously inherited from Charlie. But, the Bette Davis eyes, the thick lashes that curved almost to her dark eyebrows, the full lips, those were pure Sophie.
“Nora, this is my daughter, Logan.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I shuddered to think of what she’d heard. “Nice to meet you.”
“Logan’s a junior,” Charlie said.
“Rising senior,” Logan corrected him. “School just ended. I’m sorry about your dad. That’s gotta suck.”
“Logan,” Charlie chided.
“What? It does. I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”
Charlie pulled his daughter into a one-armed hug. “You won’t have to worry about that for years.”
“You don’t know that. I’m sure Mr. Noakes didn’t expect to be run over by a bunch of cows, either.” She snapped her fingers. “It can happen just like that.”
“Well, my pop was sixty-five years old,” I said.
“True,” Logan said. Her mouth twisted into a crooked smile, and I almost burst into tears at the sight of the familiar mannerism. “Still, what a way to go.” She appraised me again. “So. Why haven’t you been back to Lynchfield?”
“Logan,” Charlie said, pulling his daughter into a playful headlock.
“No, it’s okay.” She was direct and bold, and utterly guileless, just like her mother had been. I liked Logan immensely. “My father kicked me out of the house. Told me never to return. So I didn’t.”
“Harsh,” Logan said, at the same time Charlie said, “What?”
I ignored Charlie. “Is Sophie hiding in the car?”
“No.” Logan became interested in her phone again and said, dismissively, “She doesn’t feel well. A migraine.” She was lying. Unsurprising, under the circumstances, but Logan’s embarrassment at her mother’s absence was interesting.
“She’ll be at the funeral tomorrow,” Charlie promised.
“Excuse me. Nora?” The funeral director had impeccable timing. “We’re getting ready to close the casket, would you like a few moments before we do?”
“Yes,” I lied. “Thank you.”
“We should go,” Charlie said. “See you tomorrow.”
I smiled and offered a half-hearted wave.
Emmadean and Dormer came up beside me. Emmadean rubbed my back. “You okay, honey?”
“Yes. Where’d Mary go?”
“The kids.”
I rolled my eyes. The kids were Mary’s built-in excuse for everything.
“Come on, Emmadean,” Dormer said in his soft drawl. “Let’s give Nora some time alone with Ray.”
He nodded, his gentle eyes full of understanding. Dormer was a soft-spoken, solitary man of few words. He rarely offered his opinion, so when he spoke, everyone took his word as law and obeyed almost without question. When Dormer closed the door behind them, I sank down into the nearest chair, exhausted. My head hurt, and my face ached from smiling. I rubbed my stomach, trying to massage away the squirming bundle of emotions that woke at the sight of Charlie and Logan Wyatt.
I inhaled and forced myself to look at my father’s polished cherrywood casket. Rather showy for a salt-of-the-earth man like Raymond Noakes. Mary’s doing, no doubt. It would have been more appropriate for the bastard to be propped up against the wall in a pine box like the bandits of the Old West. I chuckled. “You would have loved that, wouldn’t you?”
From my vantage point, I could only see Ray in profile, his broad forehead beneath a thick mane of hair, his nose arching up and dipping down to point to his handlebar mustache, which had gone completely gray in the last two decades. Emmadean told me Ray had been found facedown, his arms covering his head, which explained why his face was unmarred by hoof prints. The back of his head, set deep into a soft pillow, hadn’t been so fortunate, but Dormer said you couldn’t tell at all. Ray looked like he was taking a power nap, something he’d done in his recliner at lunchtime for forty years. The Mardell Funeral Home always had done nice work.
The crown of Ray’s straw Stetson poked up from his stomach, covering his hands, most likely, or possibly his hands were clutching the brim. I had no intention of finding out. I was here to bury my father, not to grieve for him, to make up with him or, God forbid, cry over his cold body.
I sighed and rose. I buttoned my blazer and pulled down the cuffs of my crisp white shirt. I tucked my hair behind my ears, turned around and walked away, praying with every step that Sophie would feign another headache tomorrow, so I could escape Lynchfield without seeing her.