The Wedding Wish

around, thinking they were lucky to have found this premium location, smack dab between the hospital complex and the high-rise parking garage. The old play house had been torn down to make way. But that was okay. A bigger and more elegant one had been constructed across campus by the arboretum, complete with an outdoor amphitheater. That had come in handy this summer, with the school opening up student performances of Shakespeare to the townsfolk in general. Kip pulled a hanky from his pocket to wipe the building sweat on his brow. Eighty-five degrees in the shade, and it was predicted to get warmer. Apparently, the student body knew it and had dressed accordingly. He perused a group of passing students in shorts and flip-flops as Buddy wrapped up his instructions. Things were a lot less busy here during summer session, but there were still enough kids around to keep the academic atmosphere at play. Kids and a few medical professionals, he mused, as a bunch of young people in scrubs rounded the sidewalk and headed his direction.
    Buddy asked him a question, and he turned to address it, believing he’d spotted a familiar face as he did. “That’s right,” he told his foreman, “nobody in the interior courtyard this time. Not until the skylights are all set and the scaffolding removed.”
    Not twenty feet behind him, he heard a male voice say, “I can’t believe it! You actually heard from Susan?”
    But what caused him to set his jaw was the voice Kip heard next. The voice belonging to none other than Isabel’s indomitable new boyfriend. “I was starting to think she’d never call. You know what I’m saying? Like maybe I’d dreamed it.”
    “I hear ya, man,” the other one said. “But sometimes dreams can come true.”
    Kip angled his hat and glanced casually over his shoulder. It was Robert Reed all right. Talking one-on-one with some other guy as they trailed behind a group of students.
    “This one’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure,” Robert said.
    “So when are you going to see her?”
    “As soon as she’ll let me, I guess.” Robert gave a happy chuckle as his voice trailed away, and it was all Kip could do not to wheel around and tackle him. Kip had played football in high school and hadn’t forgotten any of those moves. Okay, so maybe he was a little wider in the gut, but his shoulders were still as broad. And he sure as hell knew how to handle somebody messing with his daughter. Man to man, that’s how.
    “Kip?” Buddy asked, his face questioning. It was only then that Kip realized he’d missed some sort of question. “What should I tell the guys?”
    “You can tell them…” Kip narrowed his eyes toward the sidewalk as Robert and his pal strolled away. “Just wait until they have daughters!” he said with an angry growl.

    “Now, Kip,” Trudy said on the porch, “I want you to calm down.” She’d just poured them a pitcher of lemonade, and at Kip’s insistence had also retrieved a bottle of vodka. He dumped some in his pink glass and frowned.
    “None it sounds good, Trudy, and you know it.”
    “Goodness gracious, who knows what you overheard? You could be mistaken.”
    “About Robert being called by a woman named Susan, and him having a burning itch to see her? A burning itch that…let me guess, here…he likely wants Susan to scratch?”
    “You’re getting carried away again. For heaven’s sakes, Susan could be his sister!”
    Kip set down his glass and stared at her. “The Reeds lived beside us for years. You know very well Robert’s sister’s name is Teresa.”
    She sighed and sat on the porch swing beside him. “Be that as it may, what you have here is nothing more than idle speculation—over a conversation you weren’t even supposed to have overheard.”
    “Precisely what makes it so damning.”
    “Or—on the other hand—totally misunderstood.”
    Kip grunted and refilled his glass.
    “I need you to promise me something.” Her face was lined with concern. “Promise you won’t breathe a word of this to Isabel.”
    “What? Why?”
    “Because, darling,” she said calmly, “you don’t even know for a fact what’s going on. Honestly? Do you want to get Isabel’s feelings all stirred up over what could possibly be nothing?”
    But if it was nothing, then why did Kip’s gut tell him that is was something ? Something not so good… It was just as he’d suspected all along. Robert Reed wasn’t totally what he said he was. Something