Jolene to see her wiping her eyes. Evidently the song was hitting her the same way.
Tucker thought about everything he and Jolene had been through and realized he was ready to do more than just share a bed with her. He was ready to share his life with her.
Home was Magnolia Inn in a physical sense. But home was Jolene Broussard in an emotional sense. He’d fallen in love with the woman, and now all he had to do was give her enough time and room to fall for him.
Jolene felt every word of Garth’s song, and as the words sank into her heart, she let go of the guilt and the pain of the past. She might have missed the pain, like he said, but she would have missed the dance. The good times with her father in his flower garden. The shopping trips with her mother when she was a little girl. She’d hang on to the good memories, however scarce they might be, and do her best to let go of the others.
There was a pause when the song ended, and then a woman in a bright-red dress stood up. She had a microphone in one hand and a hankie in the other.
“Saying goodbye to my precious husband is not easy, and y’all might think that song is crazy for a funeral. But it was our song. We had a rough year in our marriage the year that song came out. We lost both sets of our parents. The kids were young, and Luke had lost his job. We used up all our savings before he finally got another job. We were fighting a lot in those days about money and kids and everything else. One day he came into the house, put a cassette in the player, and held out his hand to me. He wasn’t a romantic man, so I was a little shocked, but I thought maybe . . .” She paused and dabbed at her eyes before she went on. “I thought maybe that he was ready to try a little harder, so I put my hand in his. He pushed the button on the cassette player, and that song started playing. We danced and wept all the way through it. That was the turning point in our marriage. He still wasn’t romantic, but sometimes he’d come in and put on that song again, and we’d dance. He didn’t want a funeral. He didn’t even really want this much. He just asked to be buried by our daughter, Melanie, and for me not to grieve too long. I can do it all, and maybe when the grief gets to be too much, I’ll just put on this song and remember that if I didn’t have this horrible pain today, I would’ve had to miss the dance with a fantastic man. Thank you all for coming—the song as you leave was his choice for today. It’s the one that we danced to the night before he went to be with our daughter in heaven.”
Jolene didn’t even try to keep up with the tears dripping on her jacket as Vince Gill sang “Look At Us.” She watched Carla kiss a single red rose and lay it on the casket. Then Carla sat down, and her shoulders began to shake with sobs.
Tucker left his place with the pallbearers to hug her. “Call me anytime. I’m here for you and the boys.”
“Thank you,” Carla said.
He took a few steps toward Jolene. She met him halfway, and their tears blended together, washing away the past.
He handed her his handkerchief. “I need to say something right now, Jolene, because we might not have anything but this moment. I’m falling in love with you.”
“I never believed that love conquered everything. But maybe, in our case, it could be right.” She wiped her eyes and handed it back to him. “I feel the same about you. Do we go home now?”
“We should go to the house,” he said. “Carla wants to meet you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Conversation flowed in low tones as they reached the house. Tucker kept her by his side for a while, and then Carla looped an arm in hers and said, “You boys go on in the living room and talk. I want to show Jolene something.”
Jolene sent a frantic look toward Tucker, begging him to make an excuse to take her home, but he just nodded and went into another room with Will and Patrick.