Read Hope Springs - 05 - Wedding Cake for Free Online Page A

bank before coming here so I don’t know how long that will take. Just bring our drinks and when you see her, put our orders in.” Louise handed her menu to the waitress.
    “He asked me to marry him,” Louise said to Jessie, who was still waiting for more information.
    Jessie knew that George was visiting Louise, and she had been as curious as anybody about his reasons for coming to Hope Springs. “Has he lost his mind?” she asked, and then realized how harsh the question sounded. She waved her hand in front of her. “I didn’t mean it like that, Lou. You would make a fine wife. I just meant, that, uh …” Jessie fumbled for words.
    “I understand what you meant. I know because I asked him the same thing. What on earth would make him want to marry me?”
    The waitress brought over three glasses of tea and set them before the women. Louise and Jessie both took a sip.
    “But he’s sick.” Louise unwrapped a straw and stuck it in her glass.
    “And he wants you to be his nurse?” Jessie asked. “That’s degrading for him to ask of you.”
    Louise shook his head. “He’s not asking for anything like that. He wants me to be his power of attorney, his health care proxy, and he wants me to get all of his money, all of his and Roxie’s money, when he dies.”
    “Why wouldn’t he want his girls to get anything?”
    Louise dropped her hands in her lap. “Ruby married a loser who will gamble it away and Laura has too much money to care. I don’tthink either of them has much to do with George. I think they’ve been estranged since Roxie died.”
    Jessie waited. She was still trying to understand what this unexpected marriage proposal meant. “Well, what happened to the woman he left Roxie for? Why aren’t they still married?”
    “They never got married.”
    Jessie sighed. “So, I still don’t get any of this. Did he suddenly realize after all of these years that he was actually madly in love with you?”
    Louise laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s the reason behind this crazy notion.”
    “Then what?” Jessie asked again. “I just don’t understand what made him drive all the way down here and ask this question if he didn’t expect something in return from you.” She glanced out the window. Beatrice was standing outside waving at the two of them. She waved back. “You hadn’t heard from him in years, right?” Jessie asked.
    “Right,” Louise answered. She noticed Beatrice too. She looked over and got the attention of the waitress, who saw Beatrice as she walked in the front door.
    The server reached into her pocket and pulled out the order ticket and placed it in line with the other tickets.
    “I don’t know really,” Louise added. “He seems to think it’s just karma or something. He was looking through old photo albums and remembering all of our old times together, me and him and Roxie, and he just decided that I was meant to have his inheritance, that Roxie would have wanted that. He seems to think us getting married would make amends to Roxie for his affair, for the fact that he left her.”
    “And he wants to marry you even though he knows you’re notinterested in …” Jessie cleared her throat, struggling to find the right words.
    “Even though I’m gay?” Louise asked.
    “It is kind of an important matter, don’t you think?”
    Louise waved at Beatrice as she started walking toward them. “I thought it was but he didn’t seem to.”
    Jessie sighed and shook her head. The news from Louise had completely shocked her.
    Beatrice made her way to the booth where the two friends were waiting. “I tell you what, if Dick Witherspoon wasn’t my husband and we didn’t have a joint account, I would take all of my money out of that bank and put it in a coffee can and bury it. We might as well be taking it down to the dog track as to let them keep investing it for us!” She huffed and sat down next to Jessie. She pulled the scarf from around her neck and placed it in her purse.