Page 85 of Where It All Began
But they were all handsome as sin and wore it with an easy confidence. They looked happy, healthy, relaxed. A farmer, a lawyer, and a screenwriter, all running a brewery named after their father.
We did good, John,Phoebe said silently, sending the message up to the heavens.
“Oh, great. She’s drinking already,” Jax joked.
“You try raising three boys in a barn and see if you don’t start drinking,” Phoebe reminded him.
“I’m dealing with an eighteen-year-old, a seven-year-old, and Joey,” Jax said. “I may join you.” He took her glass and gulped it down.
Phoebe laughed, her heart full and light. “That’s why you’re my favorite,” she told him, patting his arm.
Carter leaned down and kissed her on the top of the head. “Happy Birthday, Mom.”
“Thank you, sweetie. Ignore what I said to Jax. You’re my favorite,” she said in a stage whisper.
“Hollywood can’t be the favorite,” Beckett argued. “Neither can Wookiee face here. I’m the lowest maintenance son. That makes me the favorite by default.”
Phoebe gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re absolutely right, Beckett. You’re my favorite. Although, you do know that you have a beard now, too, right?”
“Yeah, who’s the Wookiee face now, Mr. Mayor?” Carter said, giving his brother a shove.
Beckett knocked into the glass bowl of fruit on the counter, arguing about how much better his beard was than Carter’s.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Phoebe cut in. “Take me to lunch before someone goes through the drywall.”
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They took her to Villa Harvest where the hostess led them to a long table under a festive umbrella on the patio where it looked as though half the town was enjoying lunch.
“Happy Birthday, Phoebe,” Mrs. Nordemann, still in her all black mourning gear eight years after the death of Mr. Nordemann, called out cheerily from her table with Bobby from Peace of Pizza. They raised their glasses to her, and Phoebe blew them a kiss.
The greetings were the same at every table. She knew every single person here. Blue Moon had always been that kind of place. The town had accepted her as one of their own and never let her down. Looking around the patio, she realized she was surrounded by people who loved her without biological requirement. They were men and women who cheered next to her at high school track meets, who held her hand and baked her horrible casseroles in the weeks after John passed, who danced at her wedding to Franklin.
People who knew the names of her grandchildren, business owners who had given her bookkeeping work when times were tight on the farm. An entire town of friends who had raised enough money to rescue her own parents—strangers to them—from crippling debt.
Hell, she was going to cry again.
“How did we rate such a big table?” Phoebe asked, taking a seat on the striped cushion.
“Pretty sure the owner has a thing for you, Mom,” Beckett teased.
She picked up the menu on her plate. “Phoebe’s Day Specials,” she read.
“He definitely has a thing for you.” Carter winked over his own menu.
Franklin appeared on the patio, and Phoebe enjoyed the stumble her heart took as it did every time she saw her husband. He wore a new Hawaiian shirt, this one white with red and pink hearts everywhere. He was a bear of a man in size but a teddy bear in character. There was nothing Franklin Merrill wouldn’t do for her or for anyone for that matter. He loved fiercely and was a soft spot to land for anyone who needed one.
“For my favorite stepsons,” Franklin said, whipping a basket of fresh bread sticks and steaming marinara from behind his back. Her sons pounced on it as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“And for my beautiful bride,” Franklin professed. The lunch crowd “awh-ed” as he swept a massive bouquet from behind his back.
Phoebe’s breath caught at the sight of them. At least a dozen sunflowers mixed in with wildflowers of every color.
“Oh, Franklin,” she breathed. Her heart squeezed.
“I saw them in the window at Every Bloomin’ Thing and thought they looked like you—beautiful and just a little wild.”
“Oh,” she said again, sniffling.Sunflowers, of course.
