The Fifty-Cent Groom
Page 20
“Mr. West was very annoyed before I left.”
“He’ll be really upset when he finds out you’re out here working with Ben.”
The butler almost smiled. “He isn’t much of a sport, is he?”
“No. Not much of a sport at all.” With a wave that was far more lighthearted than she felt, Sara walked to the car. “Will it be all right to let Cleo run loose for a few minutes?” She turned the question to Arthur, but when she looked back, the door was closed and she was on her own.
Cleo bounded out of the car as if she’d been confined half her life, and by the time Sara followed her around the corner of the house, the dog was out of sight. Chasing butterflies, probably. Sara only wished she could hand over the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She shouldn’t have come here. She should have called first. Or written. Given him a chance to say he never wanted to see her again. Too late now. Arthur knew she was here, and he’d tell. And she couldn’t leave without Cleo. And…
Ben was here.
She looked up and saw him, standing in front of an open bay in a garage with several spaces. He stood very still, wiping his hands on a rag as he watched her approach. Sara’s heart hammered in her rib cage with a frantic kathunk, kathunk, kathunk. What if he’d fallen in love at first sight with someone else? It had been three weeks since she’d told him he didn’t fit in with her plans. He could have found someone else and married her on the spot.
“You’re a long way from home, Mrs. Ridgeman.”
At his words, Sara’s fears melted into an impulse that sent her rushing into his arms with such force that she knocked him off his feet and fell with him to the ground. When they stopped rolling, he was on top and she took the opportunity to enjoy a little wiggle of familiarity.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s the idea?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did.”
“That’s it?” she asked. “No lectures on safety? No advice on the right way to fall?”
His eyes darkened and he pushed up, bracing his weight on his hands. “I doubt your husband would approve.”
“Forget about him.” She wrapped her hands around his neck. “I have. He doesn’t even exist.”
“The invisible husband. How convenient.” He peeled her hands from his neck and got to his feet. She lay looking up at him, thinking his hair was lighter, his eyes a deeper green, his body more solid, his face so handsome she wanted to kiss every inch of it.
“I suppose the two of you are out here to persuade Arthur to return to the fold.” Ben slapped at the grease on his faded blue jeans. “I’ll warn you that he’s already making twice the salary you can afford.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, considering that I’m in debt up to the end of my nose. In fact—” she sat up and dug into the pocket of her grass-stained khaki shorts “—I came to give you this.” Holding out her hand, she offered him a single, shiny quarter.
He took it from her, and just the brush of his fingertips across her palm sent her pulse into overtime, set her nerve endings on fire. “Where’s the rest of it?” he asked. “As I recall, you owe me fifty cents.”
“I’m keeping the other quarter, Ben. If you want it, you’re going to have to twinkle at me.”
“Sara…”
He seemed to be lost for words, so she helped him out. “You should have been at the wedding. I planned it so perfectly, right down to the last detail. And then all my plans fell apart.”
“All of them?”
She nodded. “I jumped the gun and tore my dress, then I tore Gypsy’s dress, then Cleo snatched my bouquet and the minister knocked over the candelabrum and nearly set the church on fire and people were stomping around, West was yelling, the dogs were barking. It was quite a spectacle.”
“Sorry I missed it.”
“I laughed until I cried.”
A familiar gleam of humor appeared in his eyes. “Did someone use reverse psychology on you?”
“No. I just changed my mind.”
“About?”
“Getting married.” She put her hand to her forehead to shade her eyes from the sun, and maybe from Ben, as well. “I finally realized you were right all along. No matter how well I plan, life is going to be unpredictable. So I left West at the altar and rushed off to track you here…By the way, your credit-card company is sending you a new unexpired card this week. Be sure to switch it as soon as you get it, and… What was I saying?”
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You were about to explain why you’re here.”
“I wanted to find out if I could fall in love at first sight…even if I wasn’t under the spell of a magic wedding dress.”
His smile curved with tender amusement. “I never delivered the dress,” he said. “It’s inside the house right now—just in case you want to put it on.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Her lips fairly ached with the need to feel his kiss. “There’s a convincing twinkle in your eyes and…I’m sorry, but if you don’t kiss me right now, I’m going to die.”
“It’ll cost you a quarter.”
“I’ll pay you on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, and not a moment before. Now, pucker up.” She went up on tiptoe, looping her arms around his neck and pulling his head down to hers.
The kiss was as good as anything she had ever experienced in California—or anywhere else in the world. When he lifted his head and cupped her chin in his hands, she got lost in his eyes, drowned in the love she found there. “Will you marry me?” she asked.
“Right now?”
“Whenever you say. Just don’t ask me to plan a wedding.”
“Deal.”
She sighed with happiness. “Did I mention that I’m desperately in love with you?”
“No.”
“I am. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me and Cleo, for better or worse.”
“Well, you’ll be stuck with Arthur, so I think it’s an even trade.”
“You mean you got a steady job here?” The future glowed suddenly and then dimmed. “You’ll have to quit, Ben. At Your Service is just beginning to show a profit…which right now will have to go toward the purchase of a sprinkler system and a new van, but maybe in a couple of years, we can afford for you to go to architectural school. But I can’t abandon my business and move out here. You’ll have to go back with me. I’ll find something for you to do.”
“You could move At Your Service to California. Or you could let Jason take it over.”
“He’s in charge right now. You wouldn’t believe the change that’s come over him in the last three weeks. At the rate he’s taken charge of the business, I’ll probably be obsolete when I get back.”
“So there’s your answer. Let Jason take care of the business and let me take care of you.”
“I wouldn’t be good at that and you know it. I like to take care of myself and I have this impulsive need to do things my way.” She sighed, concerned by this blemish on her plans. “So if you won’t leave your job and I can’t leave my business, what will we do? Commute?”
“I’ll teach you to fly.”
“I already know how. I buy a ticket.”
He laughed. “Don’t tell me a risk taker like you doesn’t want to learn how to fly an airplane, like that.” He pointed across the lawn to an airstrip and a small, twin-engine plane. “It’s not quite as exciting as riding the Harley, but I think you’ll like it.”
She looked from the plane to the house to him. “What kind of job is this?”
“I live here, Sara. This is my home.”
Her mouth fell open. “You own this?”
Ben shrugged. “I never said I needed a job.”
“But you told me you were down on your luck, that you didn’t have fifty cents to call your own.”
“No, that’s what you told me. I did warn you not to rely too heavily on your intuition.”
“I…This is quite a surprise.” She hesitated. “Maybe I could move the busine
ss out here.”
“Maybe I’ll think about studying architecture.”
“Ben?”
“Yes?”
“Do you still want to marry me?”
“It’s the one thing I’m planning on, Sara.”
She stood on tiptoe to taste his kiss once more. “Guess what?” she said. “There just happens to be a wedding chapel fifteen miles from here, and the minister said he’d be there until seven-thirty.”
“Sara,” he said in mock dismay. “Don’t tell me you’ve been making plans again. I’m surprised at you.”
“You’re going to be even more surprised when you find out what else I have planned for you.”
“It’s good to be us.”
“It’s perfect,” she said as he gathered her into his arms. “I just love it when a plan comes together.”
eISBN 978-14592-7487-7
THE FIFTY-CENT GROOM
Copyright © 1996 by Karen Toiler Whittenburg.
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