Before It's Love

by Michelle Pennington

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Lauren

  Everything had changed. Ever since Jake left the night before, I’d felt lost. Hurt, anger, and worry crashed over me one after the other as my thoughts cycled between Nick pounding on my door, Natalie kicking me out, our long-time friendship being over, the looming stress of finals, and worry about my relationship with Jake.

  Irma fed me breakfast, talking cheerfully through it the whole time, until she apparently lost patience. “Okay, get yourself up and into the studio.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you need to figure a few things out.”

  She pulled at my hand with a surprisingly strong grip, and when an elderly lady is trying to manhandle you into obeying her, you give in as gracefully as you can. She shepherded me into the studio and led me over to the stool in front of her easel. With quick fingers, she removed her canvas, carefully laying it on a table so the wet paint wouldn’t smudge. Then she picked up a new canvas to replace it.

  I stared at the pristine, alluring rectangle of white before me, practically drooling.

  “What has you looking like your dog died this morning?” she asked.

  I watched as she squeezed out an array of acrylic paints on a palette board. They were the expensive kind that I’d only dreamed of trying someday. “Did I make a mistake in coming here?”

  “Are your feelings for my grandson a mistake?”

  “No,” I hurried to answer.

  She put the palette, a jar of water, rags, and a selection of clean brushes on a rolling table, which she positioned nearby. “Okay, so then everything else was worth it. Go on, get busy.”

  “What am I painting?”

  “How should I know? Go on,” she said, sitting on a cushioned chair nearby.

  Looking at her dear, ornery face, I dipped my brush and started mixing colors. “Irma, I prayed so hard before I came out here, but nothing turned out like I thought it would. Nothing!”

  “And what a blessing that was! Think about it.”

  “But so many people are hurting.”

  She shrugged. “Who? Nick and Natalie? They could stand a few hurts if you ask me.”

  “And Renee.”

  “I don’t know her, of course, but if she thought so highly of Nick Spencer, it was about time she got a good look at what he’s really like.”

  I nodded slowly. Painting quickly, I moved my arm freely like I did when I worked with charcoal. “But Irma, I’m going to get an awful grade in my painting class. I’m barely turning in anything, even though I worked on projects all week, and most of them are terrible.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with anything? Believe me, a grade won’t make a spec of difference to what you’ve learned this semester, and won’t matter the rest of your life. The only thing that matters is that you keep going.”

  “You’re making it sound like all my problems are trivial.”

  “No, not trivial. But you’re a strong girl. You can work through them.”

  “And then there’s the problem with Jake dating me since I’m a student.”

  Irma sighed. “Let me ask you something. What do you think love is?”

  Blushing, I kept focused on my painting. “That’s kind of a tricky question to answer.”

  “Not when you’re nearly eighty. Listen, child. You might think that giddy feeling you have inside is love, but those are just feelings. But before it can be love, it must be tested and proven time and again. Only time can do that—time and sacrifice. You have to be willing to choose him every day.”

  “I think I chose him a long time ago. I just couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “No, you choose him by putting his happiness first, over everyone else’s. You haven’t been doing that, have you?”

  My shoulders sagged. “No, I haven’t.”

  Movement in the doorway caught my attention just as I heard Jake say, “There are my two favorite ladies.”

  “Jake.” I dropped my brush and ran over to him. I was about to hug him, but stopped when I considered his clean t-shirt. “Oh, dang it,” I said, looking around for a clean rag.

  Irma handed me one and said, “Now, would you look at this.”

  Looking up from cleaning my hands, I saw that she was looking at my painting. I’d only worked on it for a few minutes, but thanks to my intense study all semester in both of my classes, I’d managed to brush on a remarkable, vibrant representation of my feisty mentor. I hadn’t seen just how good it was till I stood back.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I’d say,” Jake murmured next to me.

  Irma focused her eyes on me. “Look what happens when you stop thinking so hard about everything and follow your instincts.” She turned to Jake. “I’m going to leave you two alone to sort things out. I hope for your sake you inherited your grandpa’s charm. I doubt it though.”

  Jake laughed, “You can be sure I didn’t inherit yours. You don’t have any.” Then as Irma left, he took the rag out of my hand and lifted my arms up until I clasped them behind his neck.

  I leaned against him, thrilled by the currents of attraction racing through me as he pulled me against him. “I’ve been trying all night to figure this out,” I said to him.

  “Figure what out?” He asked, pressing a kiss beneath my ear.

  Losing my train of thought for a moment, I didn’t answer immediately. Only when he drew back and looked at me with raised eyebrows did I say, “How you and I are going to date? I’d feel terrible if you lost your job because of me.”

  “Well, I’d feel terrible if I lost you because of my job.”

  I tilted my head and felt a smile tugging at my lips. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before.”

  “I know. You’re always thinking in the short term.” He dropped his arms to rest his hands on my hips. “Fortunately, I figured out the solution weeks ago.”

  “You did? What is it?”

  “We just need to get married before next semester starts.”

  My mouth dropped open and he gently closed it with one finger under my chin. “What?” I asked.

  Tipping down his forehead to rest against mine, he said, “I was trying to come up with some romantic way to propose, but this seems fitting for us.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box.

  “Nuh, uh,” I said, my heart throbbing with excitement.

  “I told you I had some stuff to do for today. Don’t worry, I didn’t buy the first diamond I saw. I’ve been looking at them for weeks.”

  His words blurred as he opened the box. There, winking at me, was hard proof that he really did want to marry me. “You’re serious,” I said.

  Laughing, he took the ring out. “I had a feeling you might be hard to convince. But it turns out, not only can my wife take classes, but she gets free tuition. Of course, those are just all the logical reasons to do it quickly. The biggest reason is I don’t think I can wait very long to make you mine.”

  “We haven’t even gone on a date!”

  “Lauren, we know each other better than most people do after months of dating. More than that, we love each other. Why shouldn’t we?”

  “Because my mother will kill me if I ask her to plan a wedding in a matter of weeks.”

  Jake grinned. “A simple reception sounds like a bonus to me.” Then, he took my hand and looked deep into my eyes. “Lauren West, you’ve tortured me by only being my friend, but I want so much more than that. Will you please also be my wife?”

  “Yes,” I said, not even hesitating. But my answer was almost drowned out by a squeal from the doorway.

  I turned sharply to see Beth doing some kind of celebratory dance, though it looked like she was having a seizure. “Oh my gosh! I knew it.” She ran over and launched herself at us. “I knew it from the first time I saw you two together.”

  Jake looked at her with ill-concealed annoyance. “Would you mind if I put this ring on my fiancée’s finger?”

  “No, sorry. G
o ahead.”

  Beth stepped back and I held out my left hand to Jake. As he slid the ring on my finger, he saw Beth was filming and shook his head in resignation.

  He held a hand up to block her and kissed me. As he did a thorough job of it, I melted inside to think I had a whole lifetime of this ahead of me. When he pulled back, he punctuated the moment with one hard, quick kiss, then turned to Beth, “Okay, what are you doing?”

  She was stretched out on the green couch with her fingers flying over her phone. “Oh, I came over to console Lauren, but you beat me to it.”

  “No, what are you doing on your phone.”

  She grinned up at him. “Oh, just texting that video to Melanie.”

  “You’re sending it to my sister? Holy cow, Beth. What’s wrong with you?” Jake turned to me, looking just shy of frantic. “I have to call my parents before Melanie tells them. Do you care?”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ll call mine too.”

  We held hands while we made our calls, and Jake played with the diamond that sparkled on my hand. When my mom answered, I didn’t even bother to say hello. “Mom, remember when you said God’s plan might be different than mine? Well, I’ve figured out what that plan is and I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  Epilogue

  Lauren and I stood facing the sunrise, the early morning sun too pale to do anything to warm us in the frigid December morning.

  “I told you it was beautiful out here,” she said.

  The soft smile on her lips made me want to kiss her, and if our week-long honeymoon had proven anything, it was that I’d have a hard time stopping there. We had to get on the road back to Arkansas as soon as we could. “I have to admit—New Mexico is now one of my favorite places. But let’s get going. We don’t have much time.”

  “Right,” she said, tugging my hand. “This way.”

  She clambered over the rocks like a mountain goat, and I did my manly best not to be put to shame as I followed behind her. It wasn’t far though. She led me into a shallow, natural cave, and let go of my hand.

  “Here, I’ll hold that so you can look around.”

  Without a word, I handed her the canvas I’d carried up here for her and walked closer to the walls. Dark brown and red figures had been painted on all the walls centuries ago. Some of them were recognizable as people and animals, but most were just symbols whose meaning was lost to time. “This is amazing.”

  “Right? And I always figured, if their art has been safe here for so long, mine would be too.”

  She pulled me over to one wall and showed me a child’s clumsy drawing on the rock. “This was my first attempt. I brought a marker out here when I was nine and tried to do my own cave drawings.”

  I chuckled, but my heart warmed at the thought of the little girl my wife had once been, her soul already on fire with a dream. “Very much in your style,” I teased her.

  She rolled her eyes and pulled me along. “It gets better. I think.”

  I stood beside her, my eyes sweeping along the row of canvases. Her gallery was a scrapbook of her growing talent, from her early attempts to her latest, incredible works of art. I put my arm around her waist and tugged her against me. “For someone who barely scraped a C in Painting 101, this is incredible.”

  She laughed and reached up to pinch my arm. “Easy. I still haven’t recovered from the shame of it.”

  Turning toward her, I framed her beautiful face with my hands. I looked deep into her eyes, just as I’d done at our wedding eight days ago, and felt the strength of my love for her surge in my heart. “You know you’re an incredible artist. I can’t wait to see where you go from here.”

  She smiled and lifted on her toes for a kiss. I happily obliged, because even though it was completely private out here, it was cold as the dickens. I’d have to bring her back here when we visited in the summer sometime. The thought made me grin, interrupting our kiss.

  She stepped back, smiling. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’d better not tell you.”

  “I have a pretty good suspicion,” she said, turning away from me. She walked over to the end of the row, where her glorious desert landscapes leaned against the rock wall. With a reverence that spoke more clearly than words how she felt, she placed the canvas she’d brought at the end. This one was a painting she’d done of Grams’ backyard. The lush green leaves, verdant grass and vivid flowers were quite the contrast against the stark, rugged beauty of the others.

  “There, now all of me is here,” she said softly.

  “For now,” I agreed. “But someday, when we have kids, you’ll have to bring their artwork out here too.”

  She spun around, her eyes glowing bright. “That would be awesome! What a great idea.”

  “That’s me, the man with the great ideas.”

  “Yeah, well, my mom is only just starting to forgive you for your last big idea.”

  “Hey, I thought we pulled off the quick wedding pretty smoothly.”

  “Yeah. All you had to do was show up and say a few words.”

  “The most important words I’ll ever say.”

  She threaded her arms around my neck. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “After meeting your dad and three brothers? I wouldn’t dare. Your mom kind of scares me too.”

  “Oh stop it,” she said, pulling me back toward the ATV’s we’d left parked in the dry creek bed “You know she loves you. Why else do you think she’s back at the house making you a huge breakfast?”

  “Because she wants to get rid of me?”

  She ignored my teasing. “You know what she said to me last night? She said she was glad I ignored all her good advice and moved to Arkansas.”

  “Not as glad as I am, Mrs. Cooper.”

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my family, as always, for their love and support.

  Also, thanks to my cover designer, Lynn Lee, for not strangling me.

  To my incredible Beta Readers, Editors, and Proof Readers, you are the best ever!

  Debbie Jo Harvey

  Christina Tarbet

  Hannah Lanman

  Amy Meyer

  Jenny Flake Rabe

  Carol Malone

  Julie Spencer

  Jessica Randall

  Cara Seger

  Victorine Lieske

  Lori Johnson

  Misty Sutton

  Rachel John

  Jen Geigle Johnson

  Kat Medill

  Thanks to all the great feedback and support from my author friends at

  LDS Beta Readers and Clean Indie Reads

  And a BIG SHOUT OUT to my own roommates from long ago:

  Melissa Payne

  Amanda Wood

  Diana Brickell

  Tiffany Anderson

  Eugenè Duffin Baird

  Did anyone else live with us? It was hard to keep track! I promise I only drew from vague concepts of our time together. I left out all the real stuff, because that belongs to us alone!

  Thank you for reading my book. Please consider leaving a review! This is the best way to support an author, and I read all of mine! Thank you! Review "Before It's Love" Here!

  About Michelle Pennington

  Michelle Pennington spends her days quoting movies with her husband, making messes faster than her four kids, and generally tolerating General Lee, their autocratic cat. She only puts up with him because apparently, it’s a thing for authors to have a cat. She loves to make magic by stringing words together, but she also creates designer sugar cookies, sings loud in church, and reads fiction like it’s her last day on earth.

  For information about Michelle Pennington’s other titles, or to contact her, go to:

  http://www.michelle-pennington.com

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  It's Love