Ch. 1-Texas Wildflowers

							                      Introduction

Everything’s Coming Up Rosy
When Rosy McBride is left at the altar on her wedding
day, she’s devastated. She heads back to her hometown of
Galveston, thinking she’s going to collapse from sorrow. But
her family has another plan: set her up with an old friend,
Larson. As he reveals his feelings, Rosy pulls back, but he is
determined to help her find her way again—in love, in life, and
in all that matters most.

Forget Me Not Lily
Lily McBride opens a counseling business, but since she
knows little about her chosen field, she breaks all the standard
rules of therapy and instead relies on her quirky common sense
and God’s wisdom to help her clients. From the beginning,
though, she knows she’ll have to break the most solemn of
counselor/patient vows—the one that says she cannot fall in
love with Rubin McCall, her most eccentric and impossibly
irresistible patient.

For the Love of Violet
Even though Violet McBride owns a business called Romantic
Images, which teaches people how to live romantically, her
own life has become colorless and lonely. That is, until Morgan
Jones, a geek who’s maddeningly outspoken, suddenly shows
up at her front door. In spite of Morgan’s ecentric ways, Violet
discovers the real meaning of romance—and love.

Dreaming of Heather
After Heather McBride’s perfect life comes undone, she finds
herself on an unexpected date with free-spirited Evan Finch,
who not only reawakens her artistic passions, but gives her
courage to fall in love without a day-planner.
   Texas
WildfloWers
 four-in-one collecTion




      anita Higman
© 2012 by Anita Higman

Print ISBN 978-1-61626-595-3

eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-550-2
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-549-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in
printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International
Version®. niv®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,
Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely
coincidental.

Cover design: Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design

Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville,
Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering
exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

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Printed in the United States of America.
                      Dedication
        To my son, Scott, and my daughter, Hillary.
You were each a miracle when you were born, and you still are.
        Life has been made richer and more joyous
              because you’re both a part of it.
          Never forget how much you are loved. . .




                Acknowledgments
Praise goes to my editor, Becky Germany, at Barbour
Publishing, for her expertise and support. And to Ellen Tarver,
for helping to make these stories a finer read.
    And much gratitude goes to my agent, Sandra Bishop,
who believed in my work and who faithfully cheers me on.


          The course of true love never did run smooth.
                   William Shakespeare
 everyTHing’s
coming up rosy
                       Chapter 1


I
       ’m going to kill Henry.
          I stood at the back of the church, trembling beneath
     my wedding gown, while the guests sat poised for that
one moment—that storybook moment a girl dreams of her
whole life.
    The ceremony was about to begin, and my groom was
nowhere in sight. I crushed my gown between my fingers
as my insides squeezed the life out of me. Henry, my love.
Where are you? This sort of thing happened to other people.
Right? Friends of friends. Strangers.
    I glanced at the front door of the church for the thousandth
time. The door teased and tortured me with hints of light
around the edges, giving me imaginings of frantic late arrivals
and apologies. And yet the door might as well have been
sealed shut with nails and tar. Henry wasn’t coming. God, help
me not to hate him. He’d done the unthinkable. Henry had
turned my storybook moment into make-believe.
    “Rosy, we can wait a little longer,” Mom whispered.
“Maybe he just got delayed. You know how absentminded
Henry can be.” She straightened my veil and smoothed my
gown. Then she took a tissue and dabbed at the perspiration
on her face. Poor Mom.

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              Texas WildfloWers
     Henry’s best man, Ken, made his way down one of the
side aisles and walked toward me as if he were carrying a
thousand pounds on his back. He leaned over and said in a
low voice, “Henry texted me just now.”
     “Yes? What is it? Where is he?”
     Ken touched my shoulder. “He’s not coming.”
     Mom gasped.
     A few guests shot some nervous glances back at us.
     Ken’s three words, He’s not coming, poured over me like
water over an umbrella. Even though I had guessed the truth,
my spirit couldn’t fully absorb it. A strange hollow roar filled
my head as if I were holding a seashell to my ears. A scary
little dizziness buzzed around in my brain, but I refused to
pass out. Henry was not coming. The door would never open
now. Breathe, Rosy.
     “This is so. . .I’ve never seen. . .honestly, I don’t know
what to say, Rosy, except I would never have agreed to be
Henry’s best man had I known that he was capable of. . .that
he could. . .” Ken lowered his gaze. “I’m so sorry.”
     “But why isn’t Henry coming?” I tugged on the sleeve of
Ken’s tux as if I were a small child tugging on her mother’s
apron. “Do you know? Did he say? Please tell me.”
     “He didn’t say. But you deserve to know.” Ken gave my
hand a squeeze. “Listen, Henry’s down in his basement if you
want to ask him.”
     So, Henry was in his basement on our wedding day—
the same place he always hid out on a Saturday. Just another
day to him. The harpist played my favorite song, “Amazing
Grace,” but now it seemed absurd in light of my new reality.

                               10
     everyTHing’s coming up rosy
Mocking this holy day, this promise of forever love. Mocking
the lyrics of “a life of joy and peace.” Why had Henry changed
his mind? Did he no longer love me?
    I pulled myself out of the mess in my head and turned
to Mom, who’d busied herself wringing her purse strap.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Tell Daddy I’m sorry, too. There’ll be no
wedding after all.” I fingered the seed pearls on my vintage
gown one last time as a bride-to-be and sighed that sigh that
comes when you know your life will now waft and wander
like a helium balloon bobbing aimlessly in the breeze. I
would never say the vows that would make us man and wife
or know the whirling joy of our reception and honeymoon
or live the happily-ever-after. It was over. I removed my
cathedral train and handed it to Mom. “Have Matilda make
the announcement. I’m leaving.”
    “But, darling, don’t you want to eat dinner with us? Have
some of the cake, or. . . ” Mom’s voice faded into sad resignation.
“I understand. I’ll tell your sisters, but they’ll be—”
    “Shocked, I know. And furious with Henry.” I kissed her
cheek. “I love you, Mom.”
    “Love you, too.”
    I took one more glance back at the jittery guests and
strode out of the church before anyone else found out what
had happened. Feeling more angry than sad, I would now
home in on Henry like a guided missile ready to detonate.
    I crammed myself and my meringue-like gown into
my MINI Cooper and sped so fast through the streets of
Houston I bumped a plastic trash can along the way. How
apropos. After arriving at my fiancé’s house, I unstuffed

                               11
             Texas WildfloWers
myself from the car, picked up my bouquet from the car seat
in case I needed something to throw at him, and then headed
up the stone walkway.
    I opened a small side door—the one Henry always
forgot to lock—and tromped down the steps into the musty
basement. Dust rose, coating my finery, but I no longer cared.
The hem of my gown caught on a nail, and when the material
wouldn’t give way to my tugs I yanked it off, ripping the
delicate fabric. “Henry?” My voice was just below a scream.
“Henry!”
    “Yes,” came the weak reply of a mouse—maybe I should
say rat.
    Standing on the last step, I could see Henry slumped
over a vial of something blue and bubbly, surrounded by
brick walls and two rectangular windows, which only allowed
enough light in to keep him from going as blind as one of
those albino cave salamanders.
    Henry looked up at me. He wore his laboratory coveralls,
not his wedding tux.
    I took in enough extra breaths to make myself light-
headed. “What do you think you’re doing? You missed our
wedding! How could you do such—”
    “I know.”
    I calmed myself. “What happened, Henry. . .to us?”
    Except for the ticking of a clock, silence engulfed the
cellar. I was drowning, and time was audacious enough to
continue on.
    “I’ve never been smart enough for you, have I? I know I’m
clever, but not in a brainy sort of way. My parents probably

                              12
    everyTHing’s coming up rosy
didn’t give me any stimulation in my crib. Or feed me enough
blueberries. Or—”
     “Don’t be silly, Rose. You have a higher IQ than most
women I know.”
     “What then?” I took the last step into the cellar and
walked toward him.
     Henry set his vial down and backed away as if I might
throttle him. It had crossed my mind.
     “I found the answer to the problem,” he said, pointing to
some kind of diagram on his laptop.
     “Problem?”
     “I did it. I finally invented an odorless spray to make the
photos last even longer in your mother’s scrapbooks. I’ll need
a patent, of course, and a way to market it. But then I might
sell the idea to—”
     “Henry. . .I appreciate the fact that you want to be a part
of my scrapbooking family. But I needed your commitment
of love today, not your odorless spray!” I lifted my bridal
bouquet and smashed it against the wooden chair in front
of me. The flowers fell to the floor, bruised and broken. The
sight looked so pitiful I knelt down and tried to put some
of the pieces back together. It was impossible, of course. A
single teardrop trolled its way down my cheek. No more
came out. I would save them for later, since crying in front
of Henry would now seem like throwing pearls before swine.
     “I’m sorry, Rose.” Henry’s arms made a feeble attempt to
reach out to me, then they drooped back to his side. “I just
don’t love you enough.”


                             13