Red Rose Bouquet: A Contemporary Christian Novel (Grace Revealed Book 2)

by Jennifer Rodewald

  He propped up on one elbow, his head leaning against his hand, and ran the fingers of his other hand over her hair again. “Is it something you’ve told other people?”

  “Well…no.”

  She bit her bottom lip, drawing his attention to it. The tightness in his chest cinched harder, and his mouth began to tingle. Their kiss at the wedding seeped into his memory, and heat spilled through his veins. How easy it would be to lean down, to draw her beautiful face close, to taste those sweet lips…

  That was what she expected from men.

  He withdrew his hand and rolled to his back again. “So tell me. One thing you wish.”

  “Roses.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “Roses?”

  “Yeah. I wish someone would give me a bouquet of red roses.”

  Was she being serious? Or just dropping hints? “Roses?” His voice hiked with suspicion.

  “Okay, forget it, buddy. You asked. I answered. Let it go.”

  “No, wait. Are you serious?”

  She looked at him, long and steady. She was serious, and he’d just made her feel stupid.

  Wrong move.

  “No one’s ever given you roses?” That seemed farfetched. The woman commanded men’s attention. No doubt she could snag a date whenever she wanted. Men would fall all over themselves to gain her notice. Flowers were pretty cliché in that scenario.

  “No.”

  “No?” Relax, dude. This was getting stupid.

  She rolled her eyes and turned to look back up at the endless blue sky. Brock turned his attention heavenward too, still dumbfounded. How was that even possible? Giving a girl flowers, that was standard dating practice, wasn’t it? Maybe not for him, but for most guys.

  Huh.

  “Why red?” he asked, still mulling over the fact that he’d never given a woman flowers. That was an interesting twist.

  She shifted again, and he felt her eyes on him for the space of a breath before she plucked a blade of grass near her hip. Bringing it up to her line of sight, she began peeling the long stem into curly, thin strips.

  “Red roses say I love you.”

  Her voice had hushed over the last three words, barely touching them as if they were fragile and rare.

  She wanted to be loved.

  Brock lifted his hand and reached for hers, brushing her fingertips until she let what remained of the shredded blade of grass fall to her chest. He wove his fingers loosely with hers. Together their hands floated to the space in between them, and they stayed there, soaking in the warm rays and the peace of the valley.

  She wanted to be loved.

  Love her.

  The thought seemed to come from outside of himself, and it carried the weight of a divine command. Love Cheryl? He wasn’t there yet. These things took time. Cultivation. And Cheryl was…complicated. Not that he didn’t want to get to know her, and maybe they’d fall in love and then…

  Love her.

  He swallowed, squinting at the sky overhead. Was he nuts? Imagining things? He couldn’t just force love. Look what happened the last time he’d tried…

  The last time had been different. Very different. He’d done his own thing, as he had been doing for several years, in all aspects of his life, and he’d just expected to be blessed because he was Brock Kelly, King of the Slopes.

  Love Cheryl? Could a guy really love when he was commanded to love?

  God, are You really telling me…

  Love her.

  Thoughts swirled with emotions as Brock shut his eyes against the confusion and budding fear. If he was supposed to love her, how would that look? Did he start right now? Tell her he heard a “voice” and that she needed to start rearranging her life?

  Wait. That was not how love worked.

  Here they’d been having an awesome day, and it had gone and gotten all complicated.

  Beside him, Cheryl drew in a long breath and released it slowly. Brock opened his eyes and tilted his head to see her. She lay still against the blanket of cool green, her face tipped toward the source of warmth and light, and a small smile rested on her lips.

  Complications rolled away as he studied her content expression, and a strong surge of tender warmth settled over him, like a gentle hand had just wrapped around his being.

  He tipped his head closer to hers and whispered, “Want to know a secret?”

  Her eyes didn’t flutter open, but her smile grew. “That’d only be fair.”

  The hand he still held twisted in his, and he brushed her knuckles as if to whisper stay with me in the silence. Her fingers relaxed and then threaded with his again. She turned her face toward his and blinked twice. Those soft-blue blossoms settled on him, and his chest seemed to cave.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  That I might could love you? That I think I’m supposed to? No. That wasn’t the secret.

  “I’ve never given a woman roses.”

  Her small body moved with a gentle quake of laughter. “Not true. I saw you give your mom one at your last home basketball game your senior year.”

  “Doesn’t count.”

  “Why not?”

  “It wasn’t my idea, and I didn’t buy the rose.”

  Her gaze rested on him for two more heartbeats, and then her lids slid shut. The soft smile, the countenance of peace, however, didn’t lift from her face.

  Maybe someday he’d tell her the other secret. Maybe it’d be sooner than he’d ever imagined.

  You held my hand as we lay quiet in the summer sun.

  No one had done that before. I drifted into that surreal place between sleep and awake, floating, it seemed, on a memory of something that never was.

  I ached in the beauty of that rest, yearning for it to last. If only I hadn’t… Maybe this would have been. The years since that day I have wrestled, writhed, pushed away, and cut off…and all the while this had been in the waiting, in the future.

  If I’d only known.

  I wanted to stay in that place of pretend magic and imagine it could last. Behind the golden glow of my closed lids, I could see your eyes as you took me in…and you saw beneath the presentation I carefully maintained. You knew I loved hot dogs without me telling you. You also knew why I didn’t eat them, or cinnamon knots, or drink full-calorie lattes. Why, until that day, I never wore my hair in a scraped-up, messy, untamed ponytail. Why my face was always touched to perfection. These are the things I can control.

  You saw me, and you knew.

  It made my soul tremble. I can’t control you—what you see, the layers you peel away. I’ve worked too hard to bury what I did not want to remember, but you, with every brush of our skin, every moment of eye contact, every seemingly innocent exchange between us, you were excavating, even if you didn’t know what or why.

  I didn’t want you to know.

  ~16~

  “Something came for you today.”

  Brock’s deep voice smiled to Cheryl over the phone.

  “Came for me? To the ranch?”

  She was supposed to be making other phone calls—ones about Nana and about her leaving. But the morning slipped away while she relived their kayaking trip yesterday, and she’d dozed off while she lay flat on the floor, imagining the cool earth at her back and the soft-blue blanket of sky overhead.

  “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I ordered it for you. Now it’s here.”

  She was there again, lying in the grass beside him, her fingers in a feathery dance with his. It had been the closest to a perfect day that she could remember. And every time she summoned the memory of Brock’s fingers capturing hers, her stomach fluttered and her heart gave a pain-pleasure-filled squeeze.

  She didn’t want to face reality. One more day of pretending…

  Couldn’t hurt, could it?

  “Hello, Sherbert?”

  She breathed a soft laugh. “You’re quite proud of yourself that you can get away with calling me that, aren’t you?”
r />   “Shouldn’t I be?”

  Her heart began that odd little compression, and he wasn’t even in the room.

  Brock spoke again before she could dissect the implications of her reaction. “Are you coming out, or do I have to come get you?”

  “I thought you had kids arriving tonight.”

  “We do. I can take a small break though.”

  She swallowed. She hadn’t been pursued like this since college. Brock’s relentlessness filled her heart with delight and her head with confusion. Where was he going with all of it?

  “Okay, fine,” Brock said. “I’ll come get you, drag your stubborn bones out here, and then you can figure out your own way home tonight.”

  “What?”

  See, this was what was off with this man. That kind of proposition was the perfect setup for the intimacy all men aimed for, and yet Brock added that last clause—that she’d go home tonight. Cheryl was pretty certain that was very intentional. Should have maybe struck her as sweet, except she knew he wasn’t “saving himself for marriage.” He’d already flushed that one, if it had ever been his intention in the first place.

  So why’d he continue to pursue her and yet keep the bedroom door closed? Men, as she knew them, didn’t function that way.

  “I’m getting in the truck, so you’d better be ready, but I’m telling you, Sherbert, it’s a long hike back.”

  “Okay, okay.” She laughed, in spite of her whirling thoughts. “Stay put. I’ll head out in a few minutes.”

  The smack of a car door shutting popped in her ear. Huh. He’d been serious. Which begged the question…if she’d let that one play out, would he have sent her home?

  Maybe she should have let that scene roll. The sooner he brought this arrangement to the inevitable conclusion, the sooner they’d go their separate ways, and her life could move on.

  Not really what she wanted. But the deeper he forged into her heart, the harder it was going to be when it was over.

  And the one thing she’d learned for certain about men was that these things always ended.

  Always.

  ~*~

  Brock rubbed his hands together, glancing from his spot at the large picture window to the piano on the opposite wall.

  It was like Christmas morning when he was ten. Except there was a piano instead of a tree, and the present wasn’t wrapped, and it wasn’t for him. But she would smile. That’d be for him. He couldn’t wait.

  Crazy how it had taken him less than twenty-four hours to completely embrace the words he’d felt pressed into his heart the day before. Love Cheryl.

  Done. Now what?

  Could it really be that easy? He felt ridiculously giddy, like he had when he realized he’d won his first race at age seven. But he’d felt this way before. A couple times with Kayla, but mostly on a mountain, after a killer ride. Adrenaline. That was all it was—chemistry gone crazy that made his heart pound and his head float.

  That was a rush, a high. It wasn’t love. But for today, it was there, and he’d ride it.

  The crunch of rocks under the weight of tires drew his attention down the driveway. Sherbert cometh. Hallelujah. He toyed with the idea of asking her to stay, to see the kids and to witness what this ranch was about. Because then maybe she’d be impressed—proud of him and the man that he was becoming. And the high would just keep on soaring.

  She climbed out of her Hot Wheels car and moved toward his house across the way. He’d intercept her, pull her back to the dining hall. As he passed the tables, already set for the twelve kids who were coming that week, he conjured an image of her at his side, working with him. Loving these kids, advocating for them long after they’d left the ranch. Cheryl was a lawyer—she could be a massive asset to Kelly’s Ranch.

  Picture perfect.

  He pushed through the door and stepped onto the lodge’s deck. “Sherbert.”

  She paused and turned, her loose hair fanning around her shoulders. Man, what a bonus that God pushed him to such a beautiful woman. Although, she could definitely stand to eat some more hot dogs. The winters up here would freeze her bones within three seconds. No wonder she was cold all the time.

  “What’s this all about, Brock Kelly?” She grinned even as her hands came to her hips. “I have things to do, you know.”

  “Did you bring me some cinnamon knots?”

  “No. Nana sold out by nine this morning.” She moved up the small hill toward the lodge.

  Brock waited for her, admiring the view while he leaned against the railing. Cheryl bounced up the three steps to the deck and walked toward him. Smiling.

  She was happy. Air filled his lungs and threatened to burst his chest.

  “So, where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Whatever you called me out here for.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

  Pink brushed across her cheeks, and Brock reached for her hand. He didn’t have to tug very hard for her to lean against his chest. That heady-floating feeling filled him as he wrapped both arms around her. Breathing deep, he inhaled the scent of cranberries.

  “Did you steal my soap?”

  He felt her chuckle against him. “You don’t use it.”

  “How do you know?”

  She buried her nose into him and inhaled, then tipped her chin up and looked at him with a raised brow. “What are you doing with girly soap in your home anyway?”

  “A counselor left it in the women’s washroom a few weeks back. Finders keepers.”

  One perfectly arched brow lifted higher. She believed him, didn’t she? She didn’t think…

  Moving against him, she raised up on her toes and brushed her mouth against his. His thoughts tipped sideways as warmth rushed over him. Her lips lingered, and he moved one hand to cradle her head and the other to the small of her back, pulling her against him.

  He hadn’t kissed her yesterday. Not out in the field. Not on the water. Not when they’d come back to the ranch and he’d told her how much he liked having her along. She’d looked at him before she left—the look—the one that said she’d expected him to. That she was waiting for it. But he’d needed to think straight, so he hadn’t.

  Thinking had just blurred. This feeling…it could be love, right? Falling, floating, giving, wanting. It could be…

  Or it could just be chemistry. Not the same thing.

  Leaning his head against her forehead, he broke the kiss and drew in a cleansing breath. With her eyes closed and her heart strumming against his, he soaked in the moment. She looked happy.

  His heart soared.

  “So…” She didn’t open her eyes as she spoke. “You just wanted to see me?”

  “Oh, I wanted to see you.” He moved for one more short kiss and then leaned away. “Because something came for you.”

  “That’s what you said the first time. Which is it?”

  “Not which. Where. And it’s this way.” He turned her toward the door and took her hand. Together they swept through the entry and past the tables to the piano. With a flourish of one hand, Brock indicated a small package waiting on the music shelf above the keys. “Ta-da.”

  “Mail? You’re giving me your mail? This isn’t a trick to get me to look at a lawsuit or something, is it?”

  “You’re so cute.”

  “No I’m not.”

  Really, she was. “Just open it.”

  “It’s addressed to you. That’s a federal offense.”

  “Not when I told you to do it, smarty pants.”

  She stuck out her tongue. Bet no one else had seen her do that. Ever. Brock loved it.

  ~*~

  The manila envelope floated away as Cheryl stared at the soft, thin book. It’d been years since she’d held one, looked at one. She traced the image of a feather floating against a faded-blue background.

  She knew every song inside. Once upon a time, she’d known them by heart and hadn’t needed the music to play them.

  “What do you think?
” Brock brushed her elbow with one knuckle. “I know it’s likely not the one you used to use…but maybe—”

  “It’s the exact book I played from.”

  That was amazing. How did he do it? Did he actually remember the book? Maybe he’d done more than listen to her play all those years before.

  “I thought I remembered you playing most of those songs, so I hoped it was the one.”

  “Very impressive, Brock Kelly.”

  She looked up at him, and he grinned. There was power in his look, like he thought something about her was precious. It made her insides uncurl like a blossom that had been balled up against the chilly night and had just been grazed by the warm morning sun. A battle cracked that beautiful moment. This couldn’t last, and she’d been bound to tell him that she was leaving. He was only infatuated with the girl he remembered anyway. He really didn’t want the woman she’d become.

  “Sit.” The weight of his hands rested on her shoulders and squeezed. “Play.”

  She opened the music book and let her eyes filter over the titles. “All of Me,” “Somewhere in Time,” “Neverland,” the “Feather Theme”… Her attention drifted down the list and landed on the last song. “Theme from Sabrina.” The blossom inside shriveled, and she trembled.

  “You okay?”

  With a quick intake of breath, Cheryl pushed down the darkness clawing its way up and over her being and glanced at him. “Fine.”

  “Cold?”

  Didn’t even begin to describe…

  He stepped behind her and secured both arms around her frame. “You should own a sweatshirt, Sherbert. You’re always cold.”

  Sweatshirts, wool sweaters, heavy blankets—none ever warmed the frosty night in her heart. But there was no way to explain that. Cheryl leaned against the solid chest at her back and drew in two deep breaths. Here there was warmth, and it was so tempting to stay. She could play the charade, and maybe if she filled the role long enough, they would both believe it was the truth. He would never have to know. And maybe finally, finally the claws of the past would turn her loose.

  With him, maybe she would be free.

  His hands brushed over her arms, and he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Warm yet?”

  “Better.”