Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,46
very happy Lolly in the open truck bed.
“He called this morning to let Frank—Mr. Hughes—know he was going to pick up that part for our old lawnmower when he was over in Savannah today,” Barbara explained, clearly happy with herself. “I knew you were headed that way and thought I could at least spare you taxi fare one way.”
A whole lot of things were going through Honey’s mind at the moment, but what came out of her mouth was “Dylan repairs lawnmowers?”
“Why, not as a usual thing, no. But Mortimer Smart, who runs our little appliance repair shop on the square? Well, he’s taken to being closed more than he’s open of late. He’s got the gout, you know. Poor dear. Dylan happened to be passing by when Frank was swearing up a storm at our ancient mower. I keep telling him to just get a new one, but he’s determined this one will outlive both of us. Men. Anyway, Dylan stopped by, took a look, and said he just needed some new thingamajig or other.”
“That was very nice of him,” Honey said, still wrestling with the fact that she hadn’t exactly gotten over yesterday’s . . . everything, and she really wasn’t prepared to sit in a truck cab next to the cause of most of it, quite yet. Maybe ever. But there was no way out of it that she could see. She wondered how Dylan felt about being corralled into providing ferry service. She couldn’t make out his expression, but she doubted he was happy about it, either—leaving Lolly as the only excited party in this endeavor.
“Well, folks may say about him what they want,” Barbara went on, “but the way I see it, just because there are some bad apples on a family tree doesn’t make the whole tree rotten to the core.”
Honey pulled herself from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Why, I have a second cousin on my mother’s side who was about as bad an apple as they come. Certainly on par with Mickey Ross, that good for nothing brother of Dylan’s. My lord, the trouble he put that family through. Lettin’ us all believe it was their daddy whuppin’ on Dylan all that time when all along, it was Mickey himself. Never did like the look of that boy, but I felt sorry for him just the same. Bless their souls. What with their mama runnin’ off the way she did, leavin’ Donny to care for them. Not that their daddy was a prize, of course. Leavin’ those boys to all but fend for themselves while he drank himself to death. I understand grieving a broken heart, but when you’ve got children to care for, you find a way to pull it together.”
Honey blinked, trying and failing to keep up with the flood of information. “Dylan has a brother?” She thought he’d said he was the only Ross left.
“Had. Died in prison. Was a better end for him than he deserved, I’ll tell you that much. I know it doesn’t sound very forgiving of me, and I like to think I’m a better person than that, but that boy . . .” She trailed off, shook her head. “Well, listen to me tellin’ tales, anyway.”
Honey was still staring out at the truck by the curb, as Mrs. Hughes’s words and the images Honey had seen the day before all collided together in a huge jumble. Add to that all the things Dylan had said and done, not the least of which was kissing Honey completely and utterly senseless, and she couldn’t have rightly said which way was up had anyone asked her at that exact moment—which was why she didn’t notice Barbara coming to stand beside her.
The older woman slid her hand through Honey’s arm and gave it a good, solid squeeze. “Don’t you listen to this old woman, now. You go and have yourself a good morning. I say you play your cards right, perhaps there might be a nice lunch in the day for you. Don’t let the dark looks and that serious air put you off. There’s a decent man in there, mark my words.”
Barbara’s reassurances had faded to a distant hum. Honey had already been sent spinning off into that other place of fragmented visions, snippets of words, overwhelming emotions as she not only observed glimpses of future events, but felt them as if they were happening to herself. Mrs. Hughes—Barbara—was running . . . somewhere. Honey felt her own