by Cora Kenborn
The last image lingered. A girl on the edge of womanhood, embarking on a new life alone. That girl and I were mirror images in time.
Julian recreated my mother’s strawberry field. Staring straight ahead, an avalanche cascaded down my face. “How? God…h-h-h-how?”
He moved behind me, answering in a low tone. “How did I find a strawberry patch in March?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“This is California, princess. None of that outdoor natural shit here. Everything is organic and hydroponic. It took a few phone calls, that’s all.”
Through the tears, a smile crept across my face. “Why?”
He moved closer, his breath fanning across my neck. “Because this means a lot to you.”
“That was a different time and place, Julian,” I protested, still unable to process the scene before me. “It was between a mother and child.”
His voice hushed. “It still is, princess.”
The words prompted me to turn around. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you get it, Phoebe? It is between a mother and child. The child just doesn’t know it yet.”
With that simple statement, all his reasoning and intention made sense. He’d rekindled the strawberry field tradition, only it was my turn to be the mother. It was a new day, and I finally understood he’d given me a way to keep my mother alive.
He held out his hand, a bucket dangling from his crooked fingertip. “Now, I’m no strawberry picking expert, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to jump into the bucket themselves. Are you ready?”
I nodded. Taking the bucket from his outstretched hand, I walked inside the greenhouse. As a thought entered my head, I stopped abruptly. “Julian, I don’t know if I can do this in front of other people.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“What did you do—rent the whole greenhouse for the day?”
His eyes held me captive in their stare. “Yes.”
“What?”
“I paid the owner to shut it down for the day. No one is here, Phoebe. It’s just you and me.”
“Isn’t that some kind of health code violation? I mean, the producer can’t exactly market his product if we’ve manhandled it.”
He laughed and shrugged unapologetically. “One thing I’ve learned since being in this business, princess—money talks. Trust me, I’ve paid the man enough we could destroy the entire patch and he’d still be in the black.”
“I can’t believe you did this.”
“Why? All I want is my New York Phoebe back. At the beach, I knew you needed this part of your life to be happy.”
I grinned. “You’re pretty proud of yourself, huh?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, baby.” He led me through a row of tangling vines to the middle of the entire greenhouse where a white blanket was spread out on the ground. A basket sat in the middle with two glasses hanging out of it.
“Is that for us?”
The grin on his face answered before he did. “Eventually. We have business to attend to first.”
“Oh?”
“When I said I was no expert strawberry picker, I wasn’t kidding. I’ve never been in a field in my life. You’re the pro here. How about giving me a lesson?”
His grin was infectious. “Well, it’s not that hard. Watch closely.” I pulled him to a crouching level beside me. Pointing to the vine, I reached for the plump red berry in front of me. “You see this?” When he nodded, I clasped my hands around it and pulled. “You pull it and it magically releases. Now wait, here’s the difficult part.” I hovered my hand over the bucket, letting go as it hit the bottom with a thud. “Now seriously, it’s a family secret. You can’t tell anyone.”
He winked and leaned in. “I promise it’ll be our little secret.”
Crinkling up my nose, I dusted my lips against his. “I trust you.”
***
An hour and four red hands later, we sat on the blanket, leaned back on our elbows, soaking in the heat of the noon sun as it filtered through the greenhouse dome. Julian poured the sparkling grape juice into the wine glasses, and we toasted to old and new traditions, when the thought crept back into my head.
“Julian?”
With his head still thrown back, he mumbled a response. “Hmmm?”
“Is this it?”
Opening one eye, he squinted in my direction. “You expected a parade?”
I slapped his arm. “At home, you seemed like we’d be late for something huge. I get you paid for our time here, but what would a few extra minutes have cost us?”
Taking a deep breath, he sat up, and took my hand into his. “Well, I guess this is as a good of a time as any. I have to confess something.”
“Confess isn’t a word I like, Julian.”
Laughing, he lowered his voice. “No, nothing like that. I have to confess that I did, in fact, have ulterior motives in getting you here.”
“Oh?”
“First of all, let me remind you that you did, in fact, agree to marry me.”
“Go on…”
“And because you’ve had contractions twice now, I think it’s a safe bet you’re not making it to your due date.”
“False labor,” she corrected. “What are you getting at?”
He removed his baseball hat and raked a hand through his unruly hair. “Phoebe, I don’t want our baby to be born to parents with different names.”
The gravity of the mood weighed heavily on me, and I desperately needed our banter back to lighten it. I couldn’t make this easy for him, it just wouldn’t be us. “I understand,” I said with a hand on his arm.
He glanced up, surprised at my agreeability. “You do?”
“Of course.” I sat up and rested my hands across my stomach. “Ryan is a solid name. I’m game.”
His eyes widened. “You can’t be fucking serious. No way. Tell me you’re not serious!”
It was impossible to keep a straight face. “Serious about what?”
“The last name, Phoebe.” He rose to his knees, his breathing erratic.
“What is wrong with it?” The incredulous look on his face almost made me crack.
“It’s not Bale, that’s what’s wrong…why are you laughing?”
The emotional arrival, the flood of memories, and the shocked look on his face threw me into a fit of giggles, knocking me off my knees onto the blanket.
“You were fucking with me?” He ran his hand over his face and through his hair. “You think that shit is funny?”
“Aw, don’t be mad,” I soothed. “You’re cute when you’re having a meltdown.”
“I was not. I…” He stopped and grinned. “Okay, that was good. You got me.”
Stretching my arms above my head, I returned his smile. “It feels good to be the victor.”
“And would the victor like a congratulatory kiss?”
I patted my stomach. “It’s the least you could do.” Leaning over, I caught his hands snaking around his back. Fistfuls of strawberries squeezed tightly in his hands, turning his palms full of red mush and juice. “What the…”
“Oh, yes. It’s the very least I could do.” He pinned me down, pressing his hands against the sides of my face. Strong fingers tangled through my hair until the sticky liquid rolled down my temple.
“You did not just do that!”
“You know,” he said, licking his palm, “you’re right. It does feel good to be the victor.”
“Fuck that.” Pushing him over, I dipped into the bucket. Grabbing my own handful of berries, I squeezed them over the top of his head and down the front of his shirt. “You looked hungry. I thought I’d help.”
A wicked gleam hooded his eyes. “That’s it, you’re going down.” He lunged, and I narrowly moved out of his reach. With both of us armed with handfuls of fresh ammunition, we collided as berries buried into hair, mouths, ears, and crevices I’d be digging seeds out of for days.
After the last strawberry had been annihil
ated, we fell onto the blanket. Laughing, I lifted a hand and pulled a clump of red mush out of my hair. “You know I’d never do that, don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Not give the baby your name. That never entered my mind.”
He nodded against the fabric of the blanket. “I surprised myself at how crazy it made me.”
“Julian, just because my name isn’t Bale doesn’t mean I don’t want the baby’s to be.” He had to know that wasn’t where my head or heart had ever gone.
His face lost all humor. “What if it was?” A serious gleam reflected in his eyes. “Right now.”
Chapter Nineteen
Julian
I balanced my elbow on my bended knee to keep from fucking shaking. This didn’t go quite how I’d planned it. If it had, I sure as hell wouldn’t have painted her face and hair with fruit.
Her eyes followed my every move. “Julian, what are you saying?”
“What does it look like I’m saying?”
“You’re not saying anything.”
My heart beat furiously, but not from fear. It beat from relief at finally doing what we’d put off for so long. “I’m saying everything’s here and ready. You just have to say, ‘I do.’”
She moved backward. “What?”
“I realized this morning I never actually proposed to you.” I knew she understood, her mouth opened, then slowly closed, her lips resting in that familiar heart shape. “I love you, Phoebe. I’ll never love anyone else. Loving me hasn’t been easy for you. My job demands a lot, but you’ve always stood by me. There’ve been obstacles…some pretty fucking disastrous and some that required a huge leap of faith. But look where we are, baby. We were meant to be. You belong to me, Phoebe, just like I belong to you.”
Finally breaking her silence, she lifted a hand to her eye in time to catch the succession of tears. “Julian, you don’t have to…”
“I want our child to have as much of a normal life as I can give it. I’ve never been more sure of anything. So, Phoebe Nicole Ryan…will you marry me, right now?”
A tear rolled down her nose and landed on her bottom lip. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“I meant every damn word of it. Now I’m waiting for some words from you. One word, specifically.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. Phoebe never gave in that easily.
“I said yes.” Moving one knee closer, she positioned herself so that our noses almost touched. Her breath fanned against my cheeks. “You’re stuck with me.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack. You know that?”
She shrugged. “I like to play hard to get.”
“Not anymore.”
She shifted her body clumsily, looking over my shoulder. Phoebe knew me too well. She knew I wouldn’t give her a speech unprepared to back it up. “What the hell have you done?”
“Russ?” I called out, never taking my eyes off her. “You can come out now.” A side door opened from the far end of the greenhouse, and an elderly man with weathered skin and deep-set lines around his smiling mouth shuffled in.
“Did she say yes, Mr. Bale?”
Phoebe’s eyes glinted with humor. “Guess I was a sure thing, huh?”
Ignoring her jab, I directed my attention to the greenhouse owner. “She did, Russ. You ready?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, his old eyes crinkling as he took in the sight of us. “Would you two like to clean up first?”
My life had been full of twist and turns and hard choices. This wasn’t one of them. “Nope. This is perfect.”
The old man shrugged indifferently. “Have it your way.”
“Julian?” Phoebe asked, her voice full of questions.
Still on our knees, I took her hand in mine. “This is for us, princess. No one needs to know. After the baby, we can have any kind of ceremony you want—big, small, on a beach, a church, I don’t give a damn. But this is for you and me.”
She nodded once and dipped her chin.
Russ brought a worn-out Bible from behind his back and flipped to a marked page. Clearing his throat, he made a quick disclaimer before continuing. “Just so you know, I’m no real minister. I’m just a simple church-going man. But I’ve tithed my share for fifty-odd years. I got ordained off the internet because Mr. Bale paid me to. I just wanted to clear that up in case the missus wanted a real clergy.” Phoebe stared at him in silence, and Russ continued. “Mr. Bale, do you have something you want to say to Miss Ryan?”
The formality was ruining this for me. “It’s Julian and Phoebe.” I faced her and stared into the azure eyes I’d fallen in love with the moment I’d first gazed into them. “Each time I look at you I can’t believe you’re mine. I constantly wonder what I did right in life to deserve you, and I worry every day I’ll screw it up.”
She ran a finger under her eye. “Julian…”
“Listen to me, princess, I need to say this.” Releasing her hand, I cradled her neck, holding the back of her head in my palm. “I’m not perfect. I’m going to piss you off, and I may screw things up sometimes. But I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy and proud of me.”
“You already make me happy.” She would’ve blushed if her cheeks weren’t already stained with berry juice. “I’ve always been proud of you. I’m not marrying you to change you. I love you just the way you are.”
I sniffed back the volcano of emotion building behind the surface, the words rough in my throat. “I don’t want you ever to regret this. I’ll make sure you don’t.”
Hooking her finger underneath my chin, she forced my gaze on her. “Hey, enough of this. Don’t you think we need to save some of this for the vows?”
My watery chuckle reverberated throughout the greenhouse. “Baby, I write songs for a living. If you think I haven’t had something tucked away up here for a long time, you’re crazy.” Taking my hand from her neck, I tapped my temple with my index finger.
“Okay, so not fair, Bale. How am I supposed to compete with that?”
“You’ll know what to say when the time comes.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then just say, ‘I do.’ That’ll be enough for me.”
“I just want it to be perfect, Julian. It’s already the complete opposite of what I envisioned.”
“What do you mean, opposite?” I didn’t know what the hell else I could’ve done. If she wanted symphonies and flights to Paris, she was marrying the wrong guy.
She ran her hands down the swell of her stomach. “Well, for starters, I never envisioned waddling down the aisle.”
“Good thing we’re sitting,” I joked.
She stared down at herself. “You have to admit, it’s not exactly…well, conventional.”
I cocked my head and conceded to her argument. “Point taken. But honestly, I like that we don’t do things the way everyone else does. Did I imagine marrying you eight months pregnant in a greenhouse with zero chance of a honeymoon? Hell no. I wanted to give you the fucking Cinderella wedding—huge, with a massive church, and bells, and horses.”
She covered her mouth to contain a giggle. “Horses? You, um, you envisioned horses at our wedding? Where did you plan on getting married, the Orange County Steeple Chase?” The harder she laughed the hotter the redness crept up my neck.
“Damn it, you know what I meant. The things all girls dream of when they think of getting married—carriages, horses, and shit.”
“And pumpkins and mice?”
“Smart-ass.” I was sweating bullets and she cracked fucking jokes.
She chuckled again and curled her arms around my neck. “Listen to me, Julian Bale. I’m not Cinderella, and I don’t need a castle or a glass slipper. All I need is you.”
“Mr. uh—Julian?” Russ called out in a supremely uncomfortable voice. “Are we ready to begin?”
Phoebe furrowed her brow. “I thought we were finished.”
I tapped her nose with
the tip of my finger. “Oh, that’s cute. You thought this was symbolic? And here I thought you knew me, Ryan.” Her eyes widened, and I couldn’t contain a laugh at her expense.
“You mean…”
I turned to Russ with a nod. “You may begin.”
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, and solemnly. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
He paused as the silence in the deserted greenhouse negated any inkling otherwise. Shrugging, he continued. I’d tuned out half of what he’d been saying as I concentrated on the red stains streaking Phoebe’s face and hair. This was the way I wanted to remember her.
As Russ paused, he smiled and nodded knowingly in my direction. “At this time, I think there’s something Julian has prepared.”
“More?” she said, shocked.
I’d never been particularly eloquent at expressing myself. Suddenly, the whole thought of serenading her acapella didn’t sound as romantic as it did petrifying. I’d sung in front of thousands of people without accompaniment before, but for some reason, baring my voice in front of her scared the ever-living shit out of me. Maybe it had to do with the fact that this was supposed to be the moment all little girls dreamed of their whole lives. Or maybe I was scared I couldn’t get the words out without fucking breaking down.
Whatever the reason, her wide eyes stared at me, waiting for my next move. Regardless of my male pride, this was happening. Success or failure, she’d know immediately where I stood. So, I did the only thing that’d ever given me confidence. I let my lyrics speak for me as I sang to her.