Free Always the Baker, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker Page B

company.
    “Why are we hiding?” she whispered, and Jackson turned two shades of embarrassed.
    “Ah.” He didn’t seem to want to tell her, but then he admitted, “My sister’s just arrived.”
    “Which one?”
    “George.”
    “Oh.” She nodded. Georgiann really was the sister most likely to induce hiding.
    “You’re a little afraid of her too?” she asked.
    “Afraid? No.” He looked at her with an odd arch of his eyebrow. “No. She’s got her son-in-law with her.”
    She considered that for a moment and then asked, “You’re afraid of him?”
    Jackson sighed. “Not afraid. I’d just rather avoid him if I can. It’s a long story.”
    “Ohh.” Emma sounded as if she understood, but she really didn’t, so she started to inquire further. “I don’t think I—”
    The door flung open just then, cutting her words clean in two.
    “Jackson, I thought that was you,” Georgiann crooned. “What in the world are you two doing locked up in here?”
    “Hello, Jackson,” the young man beside her said, and then he smiled at Emma with an aura of sweetness, not very scary at all. “Hello.”
    “Emma Rae Travis,” Georgiann announced. “Meet my son-in-law. Reverend Miguel Ramos.”

     
    Jackson figured Emma must have thought he was some kind of heathen, running for cover at the mere sight of a pastor! He wished he could explain, tell her that it wasn’t like that.
    Well. Not exactly.
    Miguel was a good man. He’d officiated over Desiree’s funeral, said the most beautiful things about her, and then he’d phoned Jackson every week for months afterward just to see how he was doing. But all of those encouraging words about how God had a plan and how God turned all things to good if you believed, no matter how impossible that might seem— those words acted as an irritant against Jackson’s wounded heart.
    He didn’t want to hear that God had a plan; not if that plan included taking away the only woman Jackson had ever loved completely, who had somehow been able to see past all the garbage, straight into Jackson’s shell of a soul, and love him in return. He never was one of those hearts-and-flowers believers in soul mates or destiny, but the fact was that Desiree had been the one and only love of Jackson’s life. When she was taken from him, he was left with nothing—or so it had felt for a very long time. So platitudes from a young pastor with a beautiful wife and two small children, words that said God had a plan and that Jackson would somehow recover after losing her felt as hollow as he did. After a while, he associated that vacant feeling toward God with the messenger. With Miguel.
    When he bought The Tanglewood and set it up as the wedding destination hotel that Desiree had dreamed it could be, Georgiann had come up with the idea of bringing Miguel on board as the official wedding pastor. She’d been campaigning for the idea ever since, and Jackson had been able to consistently avoid the meeting she wanted to arrange. Three Sunday mornings in a row, the two of them had shown up at his house after services. He’d felt like a Class A jerk, hiding out in his home office until they finally stopped ringing the bell, but he just couldn’t face Miguel and his God is good mentality. Maybe one day, but not yet.
    So with that in mind, he’d left home early that morning, hiding out at The Tanglewood, certain that he’d outsmarted them. But as usual, Georgiann had shown who was really boss in the outsmarting department.
    “I just had a feeling we’d find you here,” she said as the four of them gathered around a bistro table in the courtyard.
    “I was just taking care of some planning with Emma,” he explained. Never mind that it had been an impromptu meeting rather than a scheduled one.
    “I really wanted to put you and Miguel together to talk about him performing the weddings here.”
    “What’s to talk about?” he asked casually. “We’d love to have you on board, Miguel.”
    “I’m