Blue Heaven (Blue Lake)
Page 21
He produced a pair of crystal holders, complete with candles already inserted, from a cupboard over the fridge that was way too high for her to reach. She took the candles and asked him to bring in the flowers. The table looked splendid.
Daniel put his arm around her. “You did good, kid.”
“Thanks. I got a spiral cut ham. You think you can cut some onto a platter for us?”
“No problem. Let’s just relax a bit first with the gang.”
“Well, yes, there’s an hour until the roast vegetable are done, so no hurry.”
Her voice must have sounded fretful, because he said, “And that’s why they call it cocktail hour.” Then he kissed her again, this time on the lips. Then they went to join their friends.
Daniel got everyone refills and proposed a toast. “You are here because Eva is here, and we are honored to have you to our very first dinner party.”
The cocktail hour continued until the timer rang for the vegetables. Eva was more at ease after her glass of wine. She found a bowl and serving spoon while Daniel cut the ham. Holly popped the rolls into the oven and Meg lay down in the parlor because her back hurt. “She’ll lie like that five minutes,” Steve said, “and then she’ll be right as rain. You’ll see.”
The rolls were a little too brown on the bottom, and the ham actually could have done with a bit of warming, but everyone loved the potato salad. Just as Steve had predicted, Meg was fine at dinner. Eva beamed at the people around the table. These were her future friends. She knew it, and it made her feel warm inside, despite the overcooked dinner rolls and the under-warmed ham.
Everyone tried to see each other on the other side of the table over the massive arrangement of flowers until Daniel got up and put them in the parlor. Eva brought out the fruit tart and Daniel made coffee when Meg let out a squeak.
“Oh no! I’m afraid we’ll never be invited again. Luke broke a vase. Holly ruined the rolls, and now I’ve gone and broken my water all over your pretty antique chair.” Meg put her hands into her face and sobbed.
“Your water?” Steve jumped up and was at Meg’s side.
“Honey, that’s nature,” Daniel said. “No worries about the chair, please.”
“Oh! The baby’s coming. I feel honored to be present at the moment birth begins.” Eva was thinking about her own babies. She and Daniel had stopped using condoms. He had not asked if she was on the pill. She wasn’t. She should tell him.
“Do you have any huge panties and jeans I might borrow. I think we need to go to the hospital. I was looking forward to that tart, too!”
Eva and Meg went upstairs while the rest of the company closed their eyes on Meg’s pleading insistence. “I’m so happy for you!” Eva said, pulling out a pair of Daniel’s boxers and fairly new sweat pants.
“Your turn next.” Meg grinned.
After seeing the giddy couple off, they were a cozy foursome. They ate the tart and drank the coffee, and Eva had high hopes for Luke and Holly, but they left, each in their own bubble of loneliness, soon after dessert.
Eva and Daniel waved at them out the front door. She couldn’t get over how natural and right it felt to be in Daniel’s house, by his side.
“It didn’t go too bad, did it?” Eva hoped Daniel felt as cozily domestic as she did.
“It was excellent. I had fun. I think we all did.”
“Well, I broke a wine glass that looks like it cost hundreds of dollars and spilled beet juice on the best tablecloth, but other than that, it was all good.”
“Excellent.” Daniel swooped her up and into his arms and started for the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-Four
They picked up Mama and the kittens the next day. Only Salt and Pepa were left, as she’d let her cousins’ kids each have one of the others.
A few days later, while the kittens played with red ribbon, Daniel asked about Christmas.
“I promised my mom I’d come see her at Christmas. I need to meet her boyfriend.” Eva laughed, but her heart was not light at the thought. “I wish we could be together.”
“I can fly Bob down to Sarasota. We’ll rent a condo. Then we’ll all be together. I like living with you.”
“I like it, too.”
****
“What would you think if I stayed here for now?” Eva asked, a few days later, over breakfast. Daniel must have swallowed a crumb of his toast down the wrong pipe, because instead of answering, he did a kind of choking cough. He drank orange juice and then loudly cleared his throat.
“Why?”
Not quite the response she’d hoped for.
“Wanda’s been fielding requests. I’d like to continue to rent the bungalow out on a weekly basis.” That wasn’t the whole story but she had to come at this thing slowly. She had to know if he wanted things to go in the same direction she wanted. “Plus if I wasn’t running Blue Heaven, I could start on the museum.”
“But Blue Heaven was your dream…”
“It was my dad’s dream. It was a way for me to support myself. I realized after living here in town with you for a few days that I like it better than living next to a state park and taking care of vacationers. I can get Wanda some help, and Blue Heaven will still support me, but I don’t have to live there.”
He nodded and pushed his plate of food, only half-finished, away. “I like the idea of starting the museum project now.”
She ran both their plates under water at the sink. “Ow.” The water had gotten too hot. She dropped the breakfast plate. At least it didn’t break. He probably didn’t want her to move in because lots of things seemed to get broken when she was around.
“So how would that work? You’d stay here in this house while I’m in Georgia? Or would you buy your own house here in town?”
She turned from the sink back to him, drying her hands on a dishtowel, her heart repeatedly trying to leap into her throat.
“I don’t like the idea of you being here alone all winter.” He stopped for a minute and she could see his mind tumbling with possible responses. “But I like it better than you staying at Blue Heaven with six vacant cottages.”
“I know. Even having Luke there to keep the snow off the roof tops and Wanda doing a daily check, it still seems like it would be too isolated.” She thought for a minute. “Maybe I could get a house of my own closer to Luke’s or Meg’s place. That way I wouldn’t be so lonely.”
She didn’t mean for Daniel to get upset when she mentioned Luke, but he walked out of the kitchen without another word. Damn. He came back a few minutes later, car keys in hand.
“I’m going into PH for some things.” He didn’t ask her if she wanted to come with him like he normally would.
“Okay.”
Eva didn’t cry easily, but when she heard Daniel’s car fire up, she burst into angry sobs. Or maybe, as her tears began to wind down, they were sad sobs. She sat on the sofa and let it all out. Of course Mama, Salt, and Pepa all came to comfort her.
She cried herself out and must have fallen asleep, because Daniel was there, in the living room, asking her a question. Or saying something.
“Sorry.” She sat up, careful to move Mama from her reclining lap. “What?”
“Have you been crying? Your eyes are all red.”
“Oh, well.” She was silent. Humiliated.
Daniel paced up and down the room, his body full of tension. She’d blown it. He kept raking his hands through his hair and shaking his head. She’d taken a chance on his feelings, and it had been a disaster.
Daniel continued to pace the room. At least he wasn’t asking what she’d cried about.“I’m sorry, but I really don’t want you to stay here this winter.” Daniel finally stopped pacing and sat next to her on the sofa. He took her into his arms, holding her close. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”
She didn’t. “I know you love me, and I love you, but I’m not sure how much.”
“More than anything.”
Her eyes, probably puffy as well as red from the marathon cry ea
rlier, opened wide. She looked at his hand holding hers. Slowly, she moved her gaze upward until their eyes met. Then she threw herself at him in a hug that almost knocked him off the sofa. “I love you more than anything too.”
“We get along.” He was holding her as tightly as she held him.
“We do.” Now she pulled a little bit away and put her head on his shoulder.
“So would you come with me to Georgia? Then we wouldn’t have to be apart.”
She hadn’t let herself think this far ahead. Well, not much anyway. “Yes, I’ll come to Georgia with you.”
“And will you marry me, too?” He let one knee drop to the floor, took a small velvet box from his pocket, opened it. A pink diamond. Several carats, but not too many. It looked vintage. It sparkled in the sun as he removed it from the box. “This was my mother’s ring. I had it sized and cleaned. That’s where I went just now.”
She held out her hand for Daniel to slip it on her finger. “You have to say yes first.”
“I want to, but I need you to agree that we can have children. After we’re married.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Then, yes.”
He slipped the ring on her finger. Perfect fit. They kissed and then he snapped a photo of her ring finger and sent it to all their friends with a message She said Yes!
A word about the author...
In her twenty-year career as an English teacher, Cynthia Harrison published an award-winning writing manual she uses in her popular creative writing classes. She has published hundreds of reviews, features, and short fiction in Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, and Woman's World.
Her first novel with The Wild Rose Press, The Paris Notebook, garnered praise on Amazon and review sites. Cindy has made a free story of two minor characters in The Paris Notebook available free on her website at:
www.cynthiaharrison.com.
Other Books You Might Like
The Paris Notebook by Cynthia Harrison
http://amzn.com/B008MM2JOI
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for award-winning author Cynthia Harrison and
Dedication
I’d like to thank my editor, Dj Hendrickson,
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
A word about the author...
Other Books You Might Like
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.