by L. B. Dunbar
“I’m so excited for you, Jess. This is so great.” He knows I mean it. The inventor in him needed to share what he’d done and prove he didn’t need a fancy workspace or a big city employer to be discovered.
Jess quickly dismisses my praise and removes another item from the picnic basket.
Chocolate cake on a paper plate.
I smile at him, but his face grows serious.
“I’ve done so many things wrong with regard to us,” he says, and my expression falters. We both did a thing or two that could have been handled better. “Do you remember the conversation we had on my birthday where you asked me what I wanted? What I’d wish for?”
I nod although I’m not certain where this line of questioning will lead.
“I wished for you, Emily. You were what I wanted, even when I knew I couldn’t have you and I should’ve stayed away.”
“Jess.” I sigh and reach for his jaw. “I want you, too.”
“I find myself wishing again. Wanting more for us.” He sits up straight, and I’m becoming concerned as his jaw clenches. “I didn’t believe in all your fairy-tale stuff, a happily ever after and all that, but it’s happening, right? You make me want all that magic to happen for us.”
He reaches into the basket, pulls out a small item, and sets a square box before me.
“We’ve talked about silence. How hard it was for me to live without Katie’s voice. How painful it was not to know what happened to her.” He pauses, and we both focus on the box. “I don’t want silence between us. I don’t want there to be any question that I want you forever. My heart speaks, and it says only your name. I pick you, Emily. Pick me, too. Will you be my wife?”
He opens the box and presents me with a diamond solitaire. It’s perfect. Simple. Refined. The smile on my face is so large I can’t speak. Forever. With this man.
I giggle through my tears. “Yes, I pick you. Yes, I want to be your wife.”
Almost immediately, he’s on top of me, pressing me back against the blanket. His mouth seeks mine, and we kiss under the sunshine until he realizes the ring isn’t on my finger. He leans back to pull the ring from the box and slips it on me.
“In all the gardens, of all the roses, I pick you. Even though my girl prefers daisies.”
I laugh. He knows me well, and he returns to kissing me until the welcome stir between my thighs becomes a fire.
“The neighbors are going to talk,” I mumble against his mouth. I am eager and hungry for him.
“They’re already talking,” he mutters before he covers my lips again.
We decide to move inside and ignore Jess’s efforts at lunch until after we “celebrate in style,” as he puts it. Eventually, we eat on the screened-in porch, touching each other in every place we can while discussing all the possibilities in our future until it’s time for him to pick Katie up from school.
Be happy, Emily. I hear Nana’s voice whispering in the house.
I am, Nana. I so am.
I shower while he’s gone, and he calls me downstairs when they return. As much as I enjoy my work time, I love it when Katie comes home every day.
When I hit the last stair, I see Jess seated on one of Nana’s sofas with Katie standing between his knees. We plan to replace the furniture in this room eventually, but we’re in no rush to wipe away her memory. Jess whispers to her, and Katie nods at her father before walking over to me. My eyes meet his first, questioning him, and I find the passion from our afternoon together still lingering in his gaze.
We hadn’t discussed telling Katie about his proposal, so I’m caught off guard when she reaches for my left hand and pulls it forward. My eyes leap back to his, but his smile tells me he knows what’s happening. I glance back at Katie to find her holding another square box. My vision blurs with happy tears, as if my heart knows what she will say before my ears hear anything.
I look up at Jess one more time as Katie stares at the diamond on my finger. His jaw doesn’t clench, nor do his lips smirk. In fact, he looks rather pleased with himself. His eyes still hold an all-knowing gleam.
“I’d like to ask if you could please be my mama?” Katie softly inquires as she holds up the box. Her fingers still hold my left hand, and my right hand trembles as I reach for this second gift. Another ring rests inside—a band of chip diamonds—which is a complement to the ring I now wear on my left hand. Tears immediately spill from my eyes, and I choke on my words.
“I would love to be your mommy, Katie bug,” I say. I drop to my knees to embrace her. The ring box smashes between us, and I giggle when I pull back and ask Katie if she’ll place the ring on my finger next to the one from her daddy. As the new band presses up against the first one, my heart is full to bursting. When we’re married in a few months, a third band will join the other two. Three rings for the three of us.
My dream of having my own little family will finally come true.
+ + +
“I’m so happy for you,” my sister says through the phone when I call her later in the evening to share my news. I hear little Ben gurgle in the background. My sister had baby number five a month ago, and I’m so happy for her.
“You better not be pregnant when I need a maid of honor,” I tease her.
Grace laughs. “I’ll let Mark know, and we’ll plan accordingly.” I’d like to think my sister’s teasing, but sometimes, I worry they’ve moved from wanting a basketball team to producing the front line of a football team.
“Tell me again what Jess said,” she demands dreamily, and I repeat the key things.
He picks me. I pick him.
“It’s going to be wonderful, Em. Everything you deserve and more.”
I smile even though she can’t see me.
“I’ll be sending you the first payment soon,” I say, switching subjects and reminding her of our agreement. I’m buying the house from Grace through a payment plan over the course of the next year.
“You just worry about keeping that brooding man from brooding,” she jokes.
“He’s the one who’ll need to keep me out of trouble.” I’m not the most coordinated when it comes to home improvement projects, and on the occasions when I’ve tried to help, I’ve made a mess of things. The kitchen was renovated, as Jess had suggested, without much assistance from me.
“I think you need to stick to pulling weeds,” he’d mocked.
My eyes wander out to the garden as I stand inside the screened-in porch. The yard is still beautiful, healthy and lush, and now also free of weeds. Nana would be so proud.
I’m living my life, Nana. I’m doing it now.
I hear the front door open.
“Grace, I gotta go. They’re back from getting ice cream.” After dinner, Jess took Katie out for a special father-daughter ice cream treat.
“Love you, Emily.
“Love you, too.”
I’ll be hanging out in my office later tonight, after time with Katie and before bed with Jess. Estelle Prescott approved my outline for Nana’s book, giving me free rein to make decisions on layout and design. The biography will include my grandmother’s journey as a female columnist during an era when women didn’t work outside the home, as well as snippets of her old articles. The research is interesting and exciting, and I’m so proud of who my grandmother was and what she represented.
And she made me keep the column, a syndicate that shares books with meaning and explains why they’re important and relevant today.
After my permanent return to Elk Lake City, Jess and Katie drove back to Chicago with me to pack up my condo. We spent a long weekend in the city exploring all the kid-friendly places and included a special stop at the American Girl store for Katie’s birthday. I’d worried Katie would search for her mother around every corner, but Jess assured me the only mother she’ll need is me.
Nana would be so happy to have a little girl in the family. She’d be thrilled to have children playing in the playhouse again. Jess made it a priority to clean it up, performed a struc
tural inspection to ensure it was safe, and gave it a new roof and fresh paint. He’s a daddy who looks after his girl.
I’m taking a page out of Nana’s final column. The advice isn’t far off from what she told me on her deathbed. She wanted me to love more than her, and I do.
And she wanted me to stop looking at the past or searching for the future and just enjoy the present.
Live for the now.
And I plan to do that every day, as that was Nana’s best advice.
+ + +
Thank you for reading.
Up next in the Heart Collection: Read With Your Heart.
Like Emily’s sister, Grace? Consider reading more about her in:
Silver Player
Want to stay up to date on all things L.B. Dunbar: Love Notes
+ + +
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More by L.B. Dunbar
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Turn the page for an excerpt of Read With Your Heart.
Excerpt
Read With Your Heart – Book 2 in the Heart Collection.
Lesson 1
New Beginnings
[Tricia]
Single white female seeks freedom.
If I were to take out a personal ad looking for a date, this might be the headline, but I’m not looking to date. Soon, I’ll be looking for a roommate.
“Tell me again why you need a house?” My sister, Pam, stands before me inside the two-story home on Birch Street. It’s more house than I need, but it could be all mine. Someday.
“Because I never had a home with Trent, and I want my own place.”
My sister stares back at me. We aren’t particularly close as sisters go, but I see the concern in her eyes. My family doesn’t know everything that happened within my marriage to Trent Walker. They don’t know how difficult the past few years have been with my soon-to-be ex-husband.
Ex-husband has a nice ring to it, when I consider who Trent is and who I thought he was.
“Are you going to run an ad for a roommate?” Pam asks. My older sister is opposite me in every way. She’s short while I’m tallish. She’s curvy and voluptuous. I’m cut like a box and built like a boy with no hips, long legs, and small breasts. Athletic, people like to say about me. Pam is also blond to my dark, but despite our appearance, she’s the one who likes the darker things in life while I’ve always wanted a fairy tale.
Funny how life dealt me the opposite.
“Yes. I can’t afford this place on my own yet, and I don’t want to buy it outright before the divorce is final because it would be considered a shared asset. A roommate could help me build some collateral for an eventual purchase.” I want a place of my own. The idea sounds nice. I’d traded one house for another but had never had a place that felt like my own. I’d left my parents’ home for college and upon graduation, returned to Elk Lake City to marry my hometown honey whom I’d linked up with my junior year of college. We’d moved into a cabin on the back of his family’s property, and even after a decade of marriage, it felt more like a bachelor’s hunting hangout than a home.
I’d never lived alone, but I’m ready for this adventure.
You got this, girl, my father’s voice whispers through my head. He’d be proud of me finally standing up for myself. Finally leaving Trent. My father never approved of him. Too bad Dad passed away before he could see this moment.
Pam’s head turns to inspect the inside of the living room, and I try not to see it through her eyes. It isn’t beautiful. In fact, it’s downright ugly with shag carpeting, a velour material couch, and lamps so outdated I’m not certain they use light bulbs.
“I hope Mrs. Drummond gave you a deal,” she mutters. My new landlord offered me a rent-to-own option. She’s a former librarian, a town busybody, and growing older. She owns the double lot where this home stands with a sister house beside it. The two are twins but mirror opposites in layout. One downside of the homes is that they butt up to the alley behind the main street of our harbor town on the shores of Lake Michigan, but there are worse places to live, and right now, this home feels like a castle.
And all mine. Soon.
Another pitfall is the shared driveway, which has just come to life with the rumble of a motorcycle.
Pam steps into the dining room where windows on the left side of the room look out on the drive. She brushes back the ancient lace curtains, making it obvious she’s checking out my neighbor.
“Who’s that?” she whispers as I step up behind her, easily peering over her shoulder because of our height differences. A man dressed in head-to-toe black sits upon a large motorcycle, the engine revving between his firm thighs while long arms hold the roaring machine upright. He isn’t wearing a helmet, which I don’t think is legal in Michigan, so we have a clear view of his midnight hair, cut close to his head, and the deep tan of his exposed skin reminds me of a worn horse saddle. His T-shirt pulls against solid back muscles. Something in me stirs even without the full view of him. Those arms. Those legs. That back.
I shake the thought and immediately note two additional things.
First, he isn’t from around here. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’d recognize a man like him.
Second, I have no interest in a dangerous man like that. I’ve already been down the dark route, and I have no desire to ride that road again.
As Pam and I both follow my neighbor’s retreat from the driveway, we pause a moment as if collectively catching our breaths.
“Well,” Pam says, causing me to flinch out of my stupor. “We should celebrate you
r new beginning. Let’s head to the Tavern.” She chuckles, and I understand her laughter. The Town Tavern is a local favorite and quite literally in my backyard, across the alley.
My own yard. I like the sound of that. A yard where I can do what I wish. Plant some flowers. Have a vegetable garden. Keep it clear of man toys and junk.
Pam leads the way through my outdated kitchen and out the back door of my new place. We cross the small yard and enter the alley. It’s Thursday night and going to the Tavern has become an unspoken tradition for our family. We were typical siblings—fighting and loving—but we pulled together after the death of our father, and this ritual seems to be a reminder to appreciate one another, even if we don’t always get along. Family is important. We’ve always believed that in our own way.
For me, it used to mean a husband and babies.
The latter never happened. The former I’m happy to be rid of.
“How you holding up?” my older brother, Jess, asks as I take a seat next to him at the bar. My brother looks like a rock star with his chin-length blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and intense blue eyes. He’s suspicious of my divorce, having been through his own, but he hasn’t asked me outright what happened with Trent. Jess is reserved like that, hoping I’ll tell him when I’m ready. Only I don’t want anyone in my family to know what happened. I’m too embarrassed.
“I’m fabulous,” I say, and it isn’t a total lie. The divorce, the house . . . It’s going to be a good year. As a teacher, I measure the year from September to June, not from January to December, so my year is about to begin. I report to work on Monday to attend planning meetings and set up my classroom even though school won’t start for more than a week. This gives me the weekend to settle into my new home.