Bloom of love, p.20
Bloom of Love, page 20
Clearly casting about for a different topic, Iris asked brightly, “So! Are you two getting married?”
Carla tried not to openly wince. If possible, this was an even worse topic than Christian’s living situation.
“He hasn’t…well, he hasn’t asked yet.” Like the pendulum on a clock, her emotions immediately veered from ecstatic to depressed. Dammit! She didn’t used to be an emotional wreck. She was definitely blaming pregnancy hormones for this new delightful personality quirk. “I’m sure he’s just trying to come up with the right words,” she rushed on. “It’s a lot, you know? Bucko here wasn’t on purpose.” She rubbed her stomach. “I don’t know—”
Iris put her hand on Carla’s arm, and she stopped her insane babbling.
“Christian’s a good guy,” Iris said softly. “You two will get it figured out, I’m sure. And,” she said, brightening up, “with Christian working for Stetson, and Declan being Stetson’s older – and he’d definitely say better-looking brother,” she winked, “you’re practically one of the sister-in-laws now. We’ll invite you over for our commiserating parties, where we drink bottles of wine and complain to each other about how the Miller brothers never seem to manage to get their dirty socks into the hamper. And, none of them know how to cook worth a damn. Luckily for Jennifer, she has Carmelita so she doesn’t have to cook either, but Abby and I…” She let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s damn good they’re such good-lookin’ guys. That’s all I’m saying.”
Carla laughed at that. She knew Iris was deeply and completely in love with Declan, dirty clothes on the floor or not.
“Well,” Carla said with a regretful sigh, pushing away from the kitchen counter and heading for the door, “I need to go shut down the shop. Merry Christmas, my dear.” They hugged, and then Carla opened up the front door, sucking in a lungful of freezing air that set off a round of coughing.
Winter in Idaho. Why do I live here again?
She crunched down the sidewalk and to her turquoise van, waving back towards the house one more time before sliding inside. She turned the key and sat waiting for a minute for the engine to warm up.
Almost noon. She’d told herself that she’d keep the shop open until two, but now…the two hours stretched bleakly out in front of her.
She shifted the van into gear and crunched forward over the frozen tracks of ice and snow that would cling to the streets of Sawyer until spring.
It was time to go back to the shop and while she counted down the two remaining hours, she’d figure out what to eat for dinner. Somehow, they’d overlooked discussing Christmas Eve before now, and after he’d practically ran out of her apartment last night like his ass was on fire, she wasn’t particularly inclined to beg him for a dinner date.
But to spend Christmas Eve by herself? Her parents had invited her and Christian over, of course, but she’d turned them down, telling them that she and Christian had plans.
She didn’t want to call them back and admit the truth.
When she got into the shop, she dropped onto the beat-up couch in the back room and began petting Leo, the dim afternoon lighting of a wintry day the only illumination.
Faith. She needed to have faith in Christian.
She snuffled a little, trying to hold back the tears.
Unfortunately, faith was a little scarce on the ground at the moment.
Chapter 32
Christian
And as they reached for each other— Nah, it’s kissing again. You don’t want to hear that.
~Grandfather in The Princess Bride
Throw up or let out a whoop of excitement.
Those were his options, and as far as he could tell, he was on a razor-thin blade between the two of them.
“Good luck!” Jennifer called down the hallway of the old Miller homestead as he headed for the front door, and he could’ve sworn he heard laughter in her voice. Somewhere in the depths of his soul – way deep down – he could vaguely appreciate how someone on the outside might consider what he was about to do to be cute. Adorable. Something to cheer about.
From his point of view, though…
He white-knuckled the steering wheel all the way back to town, and not just because of the icy roads. Hell. He’d lived in Sawyer, Idaho all his life. Icy roads didn’t make him hold onto the steering wheel as if it was his only lifeline.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
It was going to be fine. Carla loved him. She loved their baby. She wanted to be with him. Just because this baby wasn’t planned didn’t mean it wasn’t wanted.
“Don’t screw this up, big brother.” It’d been the parting words of Yesenia last night. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
As if that was news to him. He already knew Carla was so far out of his league, they might as well be in different galaxies, but somehow, she hadn’t figured that out yet and from what he could tell, wasn’t prone to thinking that way.
Which he considered to be nothing short of a minor miracle.
He crunched through the ice and snow to a stop in front of Happy Petals, relieved to see Autumn’s little Toyota sitting there.
She’d remembered. Autumn had said she wouldn’t miss this for the world, but still…Seeing her car there allowed Christian to suck in his first full breath in days.
Things were coming together…whether into a nuclear explosion or a fireworks display of happiness was still up for debate.
A coin toss, honestly.
He reached over into the passenger seat and grabbed the paperback copy of As You Wish, a behind-the-scenes book written by the guy who’d played Westley in The Princess Bride, and stuffed it into the console to hide it. He’d talk Yesenia into wrapping it up with a pretty bow for him tonight. His wrapping skills were…lacking, to say the least. He was crossing his fingers that Carla had never read the book; at least, he’d never seen a copy of the book anywhere and had never heard her refer to it. If she already owned five copies of it, he’d be shit outta luck.
He pulled open the front door to Happy Petals, the warmth and sweet floral smell filling his nostrils, calming him just a little.
He was home.
Carla looked up, her perfunctory greeting dying on her lips. “¡Bebé!” she called out, the joy clear in her voice. She shoved the pen she’d been writing with into the bun on top of her head along with her reading glasses, and hurried over to him. “I didn’t know if…”
She trailed off as she got within arm’s reach of him, eyes huge and shadowed with worry as she nibbled uncertainly on her bottom lip. He gently tugged her forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and snuggling her curves against him.
Oh, she felt amazing. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath, feeling like a homeless man walking into a shelter after years of wandering out in the bitter cold. He wondered if he’d ever grow tired of pulling her against his body after a long day’s work.
He couldn’t see how.
“You didn’t know if…?” he murmured huskily as he placed a trail of kisses at her temple and down her neck.
“You…you didn’t text me this morning,” she said in a breathy whisper as she tilted her neck further, begging without words for his touch. “After last night, I didn’t know…”
He stopped for just a moment, the pain in his heart a searing jab that made him gasp for air.
He was such a bastard. He’d let Carla worry all night, and all of today just for some ill-conceived attempt to make what he was about to do more romantic.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck and let out a sigh. “You’re worth ten of me, you know that?” he murmured against her skin. “I have a whole lifetime to learn how not to be quite such a douche canoe, but I’m afraid I’ve got—”
“A douche what?” Carla asked, pulling back and bursting out into laughter. Her hazel eyes, ever shifting between blue and green, were sparkling with light, the shadows he’d spotted when he’d first came in already fading away.
“Nieves taught me that one,” he said dryly. “Apparently, calling someone a douche canoe is all the rage at Sawyer High School right now.”
Her shoulders began to shake as she shook her head. “There isn’t enough money in the world to make me agree to be a teenager again,” she said baldly.
“Agreed.” He looked past Carla and into the depths of the store. “Autumn, you got this?” he hollered.
Carla shot him a disapproving look, no doubt wondering where his manners were at, but Autumn appeared in the doorway to her closet-cum-office, curls bouncing as she shot him a go-get-’em grin. “Yuppers. I’ll man the joint until two o’clock straight up, and then I’m heading to the Kingsley place. I’m spending the evening with Kimber, Rex, and their baby Iris. If I’m real lucky, I might get a goober kiss from Iris on the cheek.”
“What about Johnny?” Carla asked, and Autumn shrugged.
“He’s doing his own thing,” she said cryptically.
Carla turned in Christian’s arms to look back up at him. “Why, pray tell, is Autumn watching over the store for another hour? And when was anyone going to ask me what my thoughts were on the topic?”
“Right about never or so. You can’t ask someone if they’d like to be surprised by you. It rather takes out the ‘surprise’ part of things.”
Carla shot him a skeptical look, and then let out a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose…if you put it like that…” She turned back to Autumn. “Merry Christmas, my friend. Tell the Kingsley family a Merry Christmas to them too. Is Mike joining you guys?”
“Pshaw,” she scoffed. “You think that man would miss his granddaughter’s second Christmas Eve? I’ve never seen a man so thoroughly wrapped around the pinky of a little girl before. She just has to bat her baby blues, and he’s jumping right to it.”
As Christian helped Carla into her thick winter coat and scarf, he wondered for the hundredth time if they were going to have a little girl or a little boy. If his own family was anything to judge by, he was gonna be wrapped around the pinkies of a whole lot of little baby girls over the coming years.
That was, if everything went to plan, and the nuclear explosion didn’t happen instead.
He swallowed hard. It’d be fine. Everything would be fine.
He gripped Carla’s elbow tightly in his hand, his other arm around her waist, as they crossed over to his truck. He really needed to come spread more salt on the sidewalks. This ice and snow was not okay for his Carla to be walking on.
After he got her settled in, he hurried around and got the truck started, waiting for a moment for it to warm up. The skies were a dark, ominous gray, and Christian was sure the weather forecast was spot on for once. He could feel it in his bones – this was going to be a hell of a storm. He’d better get Carla out and back again before things got really nuts.
As he backed out into the street, Carla spoke up. “So, good news!” she said brightly. “Do you remember that time we were up in the mountains and I told you about the couple who couldn’t get pregnant?”
“Oh, I remember that,” Christian said with a lustful laugh. “I will never forget that.”
“Not the part where we had sex,” Carla said, laughing and slapping at his arm as he rolled to a stop, checked both ways, and turned right. They were out of town now, and well on their way to the Miller farm. If she kept talking, maybe she wouldn’t notice where they were going, and that’d make up for him forgetting to find a blindfold for the drive.
“Well, anyway, she’s pregnant!” she said triumphantly. “Her husband called me and asked me to deliver the biggest bouquet in the history of ever, so I drove it over this morning. I love that part of my job. More than anything else, sharing in that…” She sent him a joyful smile, so beautiful his heart hurt.
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “This is why you’re everyone’s favorite florist,” he said, taking another right. Almost there… “You genuinely care about other people. Do you know how rare that is?”
She shrugged, running her fingers up his arm idly as they talked. “It’s not hard to do. I don’t know how not to care,” she said. “I’d have to be turned to stone.”
Typical Carla. She’d acknowledge that she was unique – special and kind and amazing – right about the time she chopped off her nose. That was okay. He had the rest of his life to keep telling her.
They passed the main farmhouse but instead of continuing to the back of the property where the single-wide trailers were lined up, Christian took a right down a two-track dirt road, the ruts jerking the steering wheel out of his hands. He pulled his right hand away from Carla with a sigh and white-knuckled both hands on the steering wheel instead. Job number one: Fix this damn road.
“What are we…” she got out, half-shouting in an attempt to be heard as they bounced from one rut to another. “Where are we going?” He didn’t blame her for asking. The view at the moment wasn’t inspiring – icy and frozen; in the grip of winter. A few scattered pine trees added a dull green to the view, but it was otherwise only bare trunks and limbs of deciduous trees stark against the sky – a jungle of tans, browns, grays, and white as far as the eye could see.
“We’re almost there,” Christian called back over the rattling. This wasn’t an answer to her question at all, of course, but he wasn’t ready to tell her quite yet. “The road turns here…”
The ruts made a large grand swoop to the left, opening up the view to a meadow. It was beautiful here during the summertime – Christian had chased plenty of cows through it to know how green and lush and gorgeous it would be in about five months.
He pulled to a stop and put the truck into park, but didn’t cut the engine. He wanted the heat running.
“Jennifer and Stetson are giving this to us,” he said softly. “As our wedding present.”
Carla whipped her head around so fast to stare at him, eyes huge with shock, she was probably going to need a visit to the chiropractor after this.
“Giving…wedding present…” she whispered.
He pulled the simple gold band out of the pocket of his shirt. “Carla Grahame, will you marry me?” he asked, his nerves on fire. Now was the nuclear explosion…
Or the fireworks display.
“Yes!” she shouted, launching herself across the console at him, raining kisses, tears streaming down her face. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” she sobbed, veering wildly between tears and laughter.
It took a moment – or maybe a year – for her words to register.
She said yes.
She said yes!
The fireworks exploding, he poured his heart into his kisses, trying to show her without words how much she meant to him. How much he loved her. How she completed him.
Slowly, he forced himself to pull back. He wanted to see it on her finger.
“Can I?” he whispered, holding the gold band between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not what you deserve – you should have a 10-carat diamond—”
“Shhhh…” she said, pressing her finger against his lips. “I love jewelry – you know I do. But we have so many important things to focus on right now. A gaudy ring that will just get caught on everything? Not at the top of that list. I couldn’t wear a huge diamond ring at work anyway. Can you imagine the cleaning regimen? I’d have to scrub the prongs every night to get the dead and slimy leaves out of it.”
He laughed even as his hands trembled, trying to slide the ring onto her finger. She took pity on him and slid it the rest of the way onto her finger herself.
“I borrowed one of your rings,” he admitted with a guilty twinge, digging the costume jewelry out of his pocket. It’d been a ring she’d worn often on their dates – although never while at work – so he’d known when he’d pocketed it that it was a ring that actually fit her.
“There it is!” she gasped, her eyes lighting up with relief. “I’ve been blaming Bella for knocking it underneath the bed or something. You owe Bella an apology,” she scolded him. “I’ve been telling her what a bad kitty she is for weeks now.”
He reached out and stroked his hand against her soft cheek. “I’ll bring her a can of tuna to make up for it,” he promised. “Are you ready to see Jennifer and Stetson’s wedding present to us?”
“Oh!” she squealed. “I forgot! Someone,” she tapped him on the chest, “proposed marriage to me, and I plain forgot about the rest.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said with a weak laugh. Now that she’d said yes, his limbs felt rubbery, like he was trying to keep himself upright with muscles that hadn’t been used in years. He turned the truck off. “Let’s go for a little walk.”
He helped her out of the truck and then pulled her against his side – a warmth he’d never get enough of spreading through him at the simple touch – as they followed a little deer trail through the center of the clearing.
“I know it’s dead and brown right now,” he said, his breath coming out in puffs that encircled his head, “but come spring, it’s beautiful here. Stetson told me that he’d always thought this piece of property deserved to be sold off and enjoyed by someone, or maybe he’d build a summerhouse here, but it didn’t make sense to spend a bunch of money to build a house less than a mile away from his own, and he was worried about selling it to someone who’d be a shitty neighbor. His grandfather bought this parcel years and years ago when it came up for sale so he could keep people from building a house out here.”
They turned in a slow circle so Carla could take it in fully.
“Whoa,” she whispered. “How much land is there?”
“A little over two acres. Most of it is overgrown and unaccessible, but we can build paths through it if we’d like.”
“But…where are we going to live?” Carla asked. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful!” she hurried on. “It’s so sweet of them to give us this property, but there isn’t a house—”
“I’ve talked to Georgia over at the credit union.” He gave her a huge grin. If possible, this was the best part of his news. “If we own this land free and clear – and we will because Jennifer and Stetson will give it to us as our wedding present – then we can borrow against the equity in the land to build a house. It’ll be a simple house – not any more fancy than this ring.” He pulled her left hand up to his mouth and kissed it. His ring on her finger – there was a sight he’d never grow tired of. “But it’ll be ours.”
