Bride for a Day by Carolyn Brown

Author:Carolyn Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“It’ll be a few days before you walk easily,” Brock told Ted on the morning before Alicia’s graduation that night. “Use your crutches for a couple of weeks, but at least you can get back out into the field and supervise your hired hands.”

Ted had been dreaming of taking Cassie dancing after his boot came off and the cast on his arm, but right now he couldn’t two-step any faster than an armadillo could fly.

His dad put down the magazine he’d been reading in the waiting room at the clinic and rose to help him.

“Thanks, Dad, but crutches are a little like riding a bicycle. Once you get the hang of it, you never forget. Remember when I fell out of the pecan tree and sprained my leg? This isn’t a whole lot different, except this bum arm makes things a little tougher,” Ted said.

He stared out the window at the passing countryside while his father drove in silence. One good thing about the Wellman men—they usually knew when to leave people alone and let them work through their problems.

That afternoon his mother and Aunt Maggie were busy decorating the house for Alicia’s graduation party that evening. Their sister Liz and her husband, Justin, were coming home for the event, and the whole house was astir with energy. No one paid any attention to Ted, so he decided that it would be a good time to take care of a task that had been on his mind for the past four weeks.

He slowly made his way up the stairs for the first time since his wreck. He headed to John’s room, but he couldn’t make himself open the door. He just stood there, staring at the knob with something that felt like a cold chunk of ice in his gut.

Finally, after several minutes, he put his hand on the knob and peeked inside. He remembered when he had moved into a room down the hallway that had one bed in it. His mother and his sister Liz had moved all his clothing to the new room and closed the door. Everything in the room was covered with dust, but then it had been more than four years since the door had been closed.

“I’m sorry, Brother. It wasn’t right to shut you up in this room and not let you go,” Ted muttered.

Two twin beds were separated by a nightstand holding a dusty lamp shaped like a football. Newspaper articles about the calves they’d shown at the county fair, football games they’d played in junior high, and their favorite pinup of a movie star were all still thumbtacked to a huge bulletin board on the other side of the room. A tall chest of drawers and a double dresser sat against another wall.

A box was sitting on John’s bed, and Ted eased down beside it. The pictures that had been strewn across his dresser were tucked away in the box. His mother must have planned to clean out the room at one time, but she couldn’t bear to do it.

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