by Katie Lane
“Yes, ma’am.” Boone hurried to hold open the door for her. It was dark outside, and he didn’t see a car parked in the alley. “Do you need me to drive you home, Miss Gertie?”
“No, Lucas is waiting for me out front in his truck. He’s taking me two-stepping at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s.”
Boone smiled. A woman who could still two-step wasn’t going to be leaving this earth any time soon. He risked getting scratched to lean down and hug her. “Thank you, Miss Gertie.”
She patted his back. “No need to thank me. I didn’t do anything but steer you in the right direction. You would’ve gotten there eventually.”
He drew back and arched an eyebrow. “Because love conquers all?”
She winked. “Darn tootin’ it does.”
Chapter Twenty
The signs weren’t working.
Emma had declared her love for Boone everywhere she could possibly think of, and Boone hadn’t responded. Not with a text, an email, or even a wave from his window. In fact, the blinds of his house were all closed tight.
“That stubborn man.” She lowered the binoculars and set them back on the windowsill before she turned to the dog sleeping on her bed. Using soup bones she’d gotten from the butcher shop, she had bribed Romeo into coming over to her house every day and staying until dark. She’d hoped kidnapping his dog would bring Boone around, but it hadn’t.
Although Romeo had turned out to be good company.
“It looks like we’re going to have to move to Plan B, Rome.” She scratched the dog’s fat belly. The words written in permanent marker across Romeo’s speckled tummy made her feel slightly guilty. Hopefully, Emma Loves Boone would come off in the dog’s next bath. “Come on, you mangy mutt.” She scooped him off the bed and set him on the floor. “We’ve got some work to do. If your master thinks I’m going to give up easily, he’s got another think coming.”
With Romeo trailing behind her, she went out to her garage and got the toolbox her father had given her for her fourteenth birthday and carried it into the kitchen. If a flooded kitchen had worked to get her parents back together, she figured it might work on Boone. The man loved fixing things.
She opened the red metal box and stared at the tools. That was if she could figure out how to take apart a water pipe. Did water pipes have screws? Since everything else seemed to, she took out a screwdriver and opened the cupboard beneath her sink. There were no screws. Or bolts. Or nuts. She was still looking for some way to disconnect the pipe when her phone rang. She quickly crawled out from beneath the sink and made a mad dash for the phone.
Please be Boone. Please be Boone.
“Hello?”
“Emma?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Hi, Jolene.”
“You need to come into town.”
She set the screwdriver back in the toolbox and picked up the hammer. Maybe she could just beat it off. “I’m sorry, but I’m kind of busy right now. How about if I meet you tomorrow for lunch?”
“It’s not about me wanting to see you,” Jolene said. “It’s about something that you need to see.”
She set the hammer down. “What is it? Don’t tell me Luanne has come up with another way for me to get my message across to Boone. I appreciated the help, but the t-shirts and bracelets were a little over the top.” Of course, she didn’t have much room to talk about going over the top. She glanced down at Romeo, who was snoozing under the table with permanent marker on his belly.
“It’s not Luanne,” Jolene said in a breathless, excited voice. “It’s something else.”
Since Jolene rarely got excited, Emma grew concerned. “Are you okay? Is it your father? Did he find out about the loans?”
“No. It’s not anything bad. In fact, it’s something wonderful. You just need to come into town and see for yourself.”
“Umm . . . okay. I’ll be there in a minute.” She hung up, completely baffled about what could have Jolene so flustered. She glanced at Romeo. “Flooding the kitchen will have to wait. But as soon as I get back, we’re going to get Boone over here. Or I’m not Emma Johansen.”
She went to grab her car keys, but then decided to take her bike. She could use the exercise. It didn’t take her long to pedal into town. Since it was Sunday and most of the businesses were closed, she didn’t expect to see a lot of people on the street. So she was surprised to see a crowd gathered in front of the hardware store. But as she drew closer, she saw that it wasn’t the hardware store people were clustered around. It was the empty space next door. Everyone was standing there looking up at a man on a ladder.
Not just any man, but Boone Murphy. He had on a cowboy hat, but Emma would know that blue-jeaned butt anywhere. What in the world was he doing? It looked like he was hanging a large sign. The words that were carved in the rich plank of wood made her heart skip a beat.
To The Moon Bookstore.
She blinked. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. But then she read the smaller words beneath: Emma Johansen, proprietor. Her heart felt like it might swell right out of her chest. She would’ve started crying right then and there . . . if she hadn’t run into the curb and gone flying.
But not even the pain of hitting the sidewalk and scraping her knees could take away the pure joy and happiness she felt. She rolled onto her back and lay there smiling at the blue summer sky as the entire town starting yelling her name. The only voice she cared about was Boone’s.
“Em!” He knelt down beside her and gently brushed her hair back from her face. “Can you hear me? Talk to me, Sweetheart.”
“You knew.” She sighed.
“What did she say?” Luanne leaned over Emma and Boone. She wore one of her Emma Loves Boone t-shirts and a wrist-full of bracelets that no doubt said the same thing.
“I think she said YouTube.” Raynelle appeared next to her friend. “Don’t worry, Emma, no one videoed your fall. You won’t end up on social media like my cousin Ed, who rode his bike off his roof into his daughter’s kiddie pool and broke his leg.”
“She didn’t say YouTube,” Cheyenne clarified. “She said, you knew.”
“Well, that makes no sense to say after a bad fall,” Luanne said. “Obviously, she has knocked herself silly and we need to call an ambulance. And it looks like Boone has lost it too. Why in the world would he want to open a bookstore when he has a hardware store? He doesn’t even belong to our book club.”
“The bookstore’s not for him,” Jolene said. “Didn’t you read the sign? It’s Emma’s.”
Emma sat up. She felt a little lightheaded, but it had nothing to do with her injuries and everything to do with what Boone had given her. “How did you know?”
Boone released his breath and pulled her into his arms. “Jesus, Em. You scared the life out of me.” He drew back. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Now answer the question. How did you know I wanted a bookstore?”
His eyes softened to a meadow green that she would gladly live in forever. “Because I know you, Emma Johansen. I know you love running through the sprinklers on hot summer nights and cozying up to a fire on cold winter ones. I know you say you hate to be tickled, but you really love it. And I know you work at a hardware store but don’t know a nut from a screw. Because you don’t love hardware. You love books, Em. You’ve always loved books. And when I was trying to figure out what to give you to let you know how much I love you, I figured I’d give you what I always give you to make you smile. A book.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears. “A bookstore is a lot of books, Boone.”
“I have a lot of years of taking away that smile to make up for.” He cradled her face in his hands. “I’m sorry I left, Em, but I never stopped loving you. I thought of you every second of every day I was away.”
“I thought of you too,” she whispered. “And when you finally showed up, I guess I was just too angry to admit that I’d been waiting for you. I’ll always wait for you, Boone.”
“Hand me a tissue, Ray.” Luanne sniffed.
“I’m smearing my makeup.”
“You and me both, Lulu,” Raynelle sobbed.
Miss Gertie snorted and pulled two tissues out of her sleeve and handed them to Raynelle and Luanne. “Stop your sniveling. I can’t hear.”
Boone continued. “Can you forgive me, Em?”
“Of course she can, Mr. Murphy,” Cheyenne said. “A girl doesn’t put signs all over town declaring her love if she hasn’t forgiven you.”
“She’s right,” Luanne said. “The question is can Boone forgive Emma for pushing him off the roof and trying to kill him?”
Emma cringed. “Thank you, Luanne, for reminding us.”
“You bet.”
A smile tickled the corners of Boone’s mouth. “There is that. I guess you trying to kill me makes us almost even.”
Emma bit back her smile and shrugged. “I guess it does.” There was a long stretch of silence where they just looked at each other, then Raynelle spoke.
“What are you waiting for, Boone? Ask her.”
Boone kept looking at Emma. “Ask her what?”
Luanne jumped in. “To marry you! That’s what all these signs have been about, haven’t they? Emma wanted you to know that she loves you. And you put up that bookstore sign to tell her that you love her. Now the only thing left to do is to propose. And believe you me, this town has waited long enough for that proposal.”
Emma couldn’t have said it better herself. She released her smile and waited for Boone to say the words she’d wanted to hear for most her life. He didn’t say what she expected.
“I’m not going to ask Emma to marry me.”
Her smile faded. “What?”
“We’re not ready for marriage, Em. You need time. Time to learn to trust me again. And I’m going to give you that time. I’m going to give you all the time you need.”
She had thought the bookstore meant something. Obviously, she’d been wrong. “Time? You’re going to give me more time. You’ve gotten my entire life, Boone Murphy. And that’s about as much time as you’re gonna get.” She jumped up and picked up her bicycle. She would’ve hopped it on it and ridden off if Boone hadn’t grabbed the handlebars.
“Now wait just one second, Em. I’m not going to let you ride a bike when you’re injured. In fact, I’m not going to let you ride a bike ever again. You obviously don’t look where you’re going.”
She poked him in the chest with her finger. “Don’t you tell me what I can and cannot do. If I want to ride a bike, I’ll ride a bike. And if I want to marry you, I’ll marry you. And I want to marry you!”
He blinked. “But . . . you just turned my proposal down not more than two weeks ago.”
“Because you didn’t ask me. You told me. A woman wants to be asked. Not told, Boone.”
Boone rubbed a hand over his face. “Lord help me to understand women.”
Raynelle and Luanne spoke in unison. “Amen to that.”
“Okay. Fine.” Boone lowered his hand and looked at Emma. “I’ll ask you to marry me. But can I buy a ring first?”
“We already have a ring.” Emma unclasped the chain around her neck and slid the ring off.
Boone shook his head. “No, Em. I want to give you a better ring than that cheap thing.”
“Don’t you ever call it cheap, Boone Murphy. It’s not what the ring is made of that counts. It’s what it represents. And this ring,” she held it up, “not only represents our love, it represents our friendship. You’re my friend, Boone. You’ve always been my friend—even when we were fighting and fussing with each other. I want you to be my friend for the rest of my life. Now are you going to marry me or not?”
“Damn it, Em! I thought you wanted me to ask you.”
“Then quit beating around the bush and ask!”
“Stubborn woman.” He angrily pushed the bike out of the way and it clattered to the pavement, before he grabbed the ring and got down on one knee. He took her hand. Suddenly, the anger left his eyes and was replaced with something that made her heart melt . . . almost as much as his words. Because Boone didn’t choose just any old words to ask her to marry him. He chose words from their song.
“Marry me, Em. I’ll talk to your dad and help you pick out a white dress. This is our love story. Baby, please say ‘yes.’”
Emma, along with the entire town of Simple, said . . . “Yes!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Boone Murphy and Emma Johansen were married on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in late August with every person in Simple, Texas, in attendance. By the time Boone and Emma said their “I dos,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the First Baptist Church. After the wedding, bets were settled up. But the folks who bet against the two tying the knot weren’t upset about losing their money. Not when the town’s childhood sweethearts had finally found their happily-ever-after.
When everyone arrived at the reception at Boone’s grandparents’ place, not one person was surprised to see the new pink heart interlocked with the one already painted on the side of the yellow barn.
Everyone knew that Boone Loves Emma as much as Emma Loves Boone.
“I want you to notice that my heart is bigger than yours,” Boone teased as he pulled his truck up to the barn. He glanced over at his bride. Emma took his breath away—just like she had when she’d walked down the aisle less than an hour earlier. She wore her mother’s lace wedding gown and her hair was a riot of light blond curls encircled with a halo of flowers. But it wasn’t her gown or her hair that held him spellbound. It was the happiness he saw in her eyes when she turned to him. Happiness he wanted to keep there forever.
“Your heart might be bigger,” she said. “But my LOVE is twice the size of yours.”
He laughed. His Emma would always challenge him.
“Then I guess we’re even.” He leaned over the console and kissed her. He had kissed her a lot in the last few months trying to make up for lost time. When he drew back, she smiled softly.
“Thank you for the heart . . . and the words inside,” she said. “When did you do it?”
“Last night.”
“I thought you were at your bachelor party at Cotton-Eyed Joe’s.”
“The bachelor party was just a decoy to throw you off track.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “So no beer and strippers?”
“Nope. Besides Cal, there were just a big bunch of lovesick married men who would rather paint a barn and talk about their women than watch a stripper take off her clothes.” He sent her a wolfish look. “Although later, I intend to watch you strip off yours. Unless you want to sneak into my grandparents’ house now.”
She cradled his face in her hands and kissed him tenderly before drawing back. “I’d like nothing more. Unfortunately, we have a reception we need to attend. And too many people have contributed to make this day special. We can’t disappoint them by not enjoying the celebration to the fullest.”
It was true. Almost everyone in town had contributed something to the reception.
The Double Diamond boys and Cal had helped set up tables and chairs in the yellow barn. Reba had contributed the flowers from the boardinghouse garden for the center of those tables. Evie and Val had baked the wedding cake. The Simple Book Club ladies had made the food. And even Miss Gertie had contributed something.
A few days after he and Emma got engaged, Boone had called the old woman to tell her that he’d finished the wooden cross and could drop it by the boardinghouse. She had merely snorted.
“I think you need to keep it as a reminder that love does conquer all. You can make me another one when my time comes.”
So Boone had kept the cross and placed it right over the door of the barn. His and Emma’s barn. They’d decided not to sell his grandparents’ house. Instead, they would renovate the big farmhouse with its five bedrooms—plenty for four children. Until then, they would live in Emma’s pink house. Boone had already moved in. He no longer had to watch Emma’s life through a pair of binoculars. From now on, he would share it.
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br /> He gave her a quick kiss filled with all the happiness he felt. “Then let’s get to celebrating.”
Everyone did celebrate. Bud Riddell had a few too many beers and grabbed the microphone from the DJ to serenade Luanne with Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful.” Dale Buford took Raynelle Coffman to his truck that he’d parked behind the barn and let her talk on Bitsy’s CB. They stayed gone from the reception for a suspiciously long time. Miss Gertie and Lucas cleared the dance floor with a spry two-step that made everyone smile and applaud. And Jolene Applegate, who looked quite pretty in her maid-of-honor dress, surprised everyone by getting a little tipsy and dancing to “Single Ladies,” then beating all the other single ladies out for the bouquet.
At that point, Boone would’ve taken his bride home if his parents and the Johansens hadn’t stopped him and Emma on the way to his truck.
“We have a gift for you,” his father said as he handed Emma an envelope. “Something we wanted you both to have for a long time.” When Emma opened it, they discovered the paperwork that would give her and Boone the hardware store free and clear.
Boone shook his head. “We can’t accept this, Dad. We’ll find a way to buy the store. You’ll need the money for your retirement in South Padre.”
His mother smiled. “We’ve all decided that the occasional trip to South Padre is fun, but Simple is the only place we want to live.”
Gina hooked arms with her best friend. “We want to be close to all those grandkids you’re going to be giving us. So we’ve taken our houses off the market.”
His parents staying in Simple was the best gift they could’ve given him. And he was thrilled the Johansens were staying too. Not just for Emma. But also for himself. He loved Gina and Michael as much as he loved his own parents. He had forgiven Michael long before Emma had told him the entire story behind Michael and his mother’s kiss. Boone felt like a complete idiot for having guarded a secret for so long that didn’t need to be guarded. One day, he would tell Emma about walking in on Michael and DeeDee’s kiss. But not now. Now was the time to release the past and celebrate the present.