day at the office,” Magnolia told her, “so I imagine he’ll be around this afternoon, but I can call him to remind him, just in case.”
“Ah. You know him pretty well, then.”
“I should say so. We’ve known Brooks Harris Leland his entire life.”
Eva sat up straight again. “Do tell.”
Magnolia looked down, picking up stray crumbs from the tabletop with her fingertip and transferring them to her plate. “He’s a family friend, the best friend of our nephew Morgan. His father was paralyzed in a fall when Brooks was in grade school and died while he was in college. His mother wore herself out taking care of her husband and died before Brooks married.”
“He’s a widower, right? He mentioned his late wife last night.”
Magnolia’s amber gaze speared Eva’s. “That’s right. His wife, Brigitte, died only a few years after they married.”
“And he hasn’t remarried?”
“No. It’s been, oh, sixteen, seventeen years, and he’s never remarried, never even come close, that I know of.”
Eva realized that her mouth hung open and snapped it shut. “Dr. Gorgeous has been single for that long?”
Lifting her eyebrows, Magnolia disciplined a smile. “He is rather...handsome, isn’t he?”
Rolling her eyes, Eva said, “Yeah, well, there’s eye candy and there’s handsome. In my book, handsome is as handsome does.”
“And as I said, Brooks is handsome,” Magnolia insisted. “He’s a fine Christian man.”
“Which is three reasons to avoid him,” Eva told herself, only to realize that she’d spoken aloud when Magnolia frowned at her.
“Three reasons?”
Eva cleared her throat. So much for that interior monitor. Still, might as well lay it out for the old girl. “One, he’s a doctor.”
“Not usually a negative,” Magnolia mused, obviously confused.
“Two, he’s gorgeous.”
“Again, not usually a strike against a man.”
“And three,” Eva went on, only to realize that number three might actually insult her hostess, an outspoken Christian. “He, um, is obviously still in love with his late wife.”
“I suppose that might be true,” Magnolia mused, frowning.
“How about kids?” Eva asked, more to distract Magnolia than from any true desire for an answer. As a rule, she tried not to think about other people and their kids.
“None, sadly,” Magnolia told her with a shake of her iron-gray head.
“Well, at least he’s not raising them alone,” Eva said, quickly adding, “I mean, since he hasn’t remarried. I can see why he might not, really. If his experience with happily-ever-after was anything like mine, he’ll have sworn off forever-after, believe me.”
“You’ve been very hurt, haven’t you?” Magnolia observed more than asked. “Was your husband a professing Christian then?”
Eva snorted. “Not hardly.”
“Perhaps that was part of the problem,” Magnolia suggested before abruptly getting to her feet. “Now, let me show you the library.”
Sheepishly, Eva got up and let the garden gnome in her cardigan and penny loafers lead her back through the house to the library just off the foyer across from the formal parlor.
* * *
First a phone call, and then an ambush. Brooks tamped down his irritation and smiled at Magnolia, who looked like a shrunken version of her late father, albeit with a braid gracing one shoulder. The fact that she wore a pair of Hubner’s old galoshes and huddled inside his old overcoat added to the illusion. She might even be wearing his old eyeglasses at the moment. Doubtless, she was also encased in one of Hub Sr.’s old cardigan sweaters under that voluminous coat. Magnolia did not wait there on the porch of Chatam House in the cold January sunshine so he could admire her frugal, androgynous style, however. Like her phone call reminding him that he had promised to take Eva to retrieve her personal belongings from her impounded van, this did not bode well for his peace of mind. Inwardly he sighed.
“What has she done?”
Magnolia waved a gnarled hand. “So far as I know Eva hasn’t done anything but eat and read. I am deeply concerned with her spiritual condition, though, especially as I suspect she is very unwell.”
Magnolia stood no taller than his shoulder, but when she looked up at him with those stern, steady amber eyes of hers, she—more so than her sisters—made him feel all of ten years old again. He resisted the urge to clear his throat and shuffle his feet.
“You already know that she has a brain tumor. Beyond that, I cannot tell you a thing.”
“Such frightening words, brain tumor,” Magnolia mused, turning away, “but I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No.”
“Still, great strides have been made in treatment.”
“Indeed.”
“Many new treatments are now available.”
“True.”
“I understand that some tumors are now treated with drugs alone.” She looked over her shoulder then, pinning him with a gaze so direct that he knew he was being probed. He was almost glad that he didn’t have answers to give her, answers he could not have given her, anyway, for ethical reasons.
“Some,” he returned succinctly.
As if admitting defeat or drawing an unhappy conclusion, she nodded. “And God is still in the healing business.”
“He is.”
She turned to face him again, her chin aloft. “We’ve come to the conclusion that we need to get her to prayer meeting.” The we being Magnolia and her sisters, of course, for whom he would do just about anything, as they well knew.
“Tonight, you mean.”
“The sooner the better, wouldn’t you say? All things considered.”
Well, she had him there. Given Eva’s condition and the fact that she would be staying only long enough to let her scalp wound heal, it didn’t make any sense to delay.
“I assume you want me to convince her to attend the meeting.”
Magnolia’s mouth twitched. “I think that in this instance Dr. Gorgeous might have more influence than Penny Loafers, Silk-and-Pearls and Kindred Spirit, not to mention Easter Egg.”
Brooks rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother.”
“Although Hilda the Muffin Queen runs you a close second at this point,” Magnolia informed him from behind her hand.
He laughed. “So her cognitive abilities are not seriously impaired, then.”
“Or at least she knows which side of her bread is buttered. Literally,” Magnolia teased.
Brooks reached out an arm to escort her into the house, saying playfully, “I think Eva is rubbing off on you.”
“She does have a winsome way about her,” Magnolia admitted.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Brooks muttered, letting them into the warmth.
“I believe you’ll find her in the library,” Magnolia told him.
Brooks unbuttoned his overcoat and walked across the foyer to the open door of the library antechamber. A large red mahogany conference table surrounded by chairs took up most of the space. Beyond that was a small office with a double desk topped