Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“Clay!” I snap.
He keeps going, even repeating the words I interrupted more slowly. “She’s concerned that it’s not good timing for you. That what you have going is too good to give up, you know?”
Grandma glances at me and then back at Clay, narrowing her eyes. “And what makes you think she actually wants to live with you in the first place, dear?”
Clay smiles, and I swear the little flicker of confidence from him is enough to fall in love with him all over again. I’m annoyed with his tactics, but this is him. Loud and unbothered and blunt. Unabashedly, this is the guy I love—even when he’s a pain in my ass—and his doing this shouldn’t come as a surprise. “Because she loves me.”
Grandma scoffs. “She loves me too.”
I have to bite my lips to keep myself from spewing humor-filled spit all over Clay’s face, but when the curve of his mouth softens without malice or offense, so does mine.
The way he looks at her.
The way he looks at me.
It’s not very funny at all.
Grandma leans forward, around Clay, to talk directly to me, even as customers start to consume the entire front of the table.
Hilga Hofmyer tries to ask her a question, one candle in each hand, while a burgeoning crowd pushes at her back, but Grandma Rose holds out a hand, palm out. A silent order to shut up.
Her wise eyes study my face closely. “Josie, do you want to live with this young man?”
“Well, yes. I mean, of course. But I also want to live with—”
Grandma swings her silencing hand from Hilga to me, and I stop talking immediately. When Rose Ellis gives you the hand, you obey it. “You’ll move in with him at the end of the month, then.”
“Grandma!”
“That gives us enough time to have some girl time, but it’s like I was telling you in the car, Jose.”
Not ready? That’s just the fear of the unknown talking.
“So, what? This is you giving me a shove across the metaphorical street? What if there’s a car coming?” I ask with a laugh.
She smiles back. “Don’t trip.”
20
Clay
Monday, September 19th
“I just want you to know that if this isn’t a true emergency, I’m going to kill you,” Bennett says as he walks through The Country Club’s door, immediately voicing his displeasure with the call I made to him before dawn this morning.
The front door falls closed behind him, and he steps inside with Summer in her stroller. The braces on her legs don’t distract from the cute outfit featuring a tutu she’s wearing or the brilliant smile on her adorable toddler face.
Her dad, though, is glaring at me. “You better start talking soon.”
Even now, with the sun barely up, I realize what an inconvenience my early morning wake-up call was for a single father with a two-year-old daughter, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed reinforcements, and I needed them now.
“Josie is moving in with me at the end of the month.” I get straight to the point. “And I want to propose to her before she does. I need you to go ring shopping with me today.”
“I’d say congratulations,” Bennett says, pushing the stroller toward me at the counter. “But it’s going to be hard to propose, walk down the aisle, and move in with Josie Ellis if you’re dead, and I’m still going to have to kill you, sooo…”
I chuckle. “Oh, come on, Ben. Love is an emergency. I can’t wait another day or another week or another month. I have to make her mine.”
“La-la-ka-la,” Summer sings from her seat, and Bennett finally breaks into a smile. It’s small, but it’s there, and I choose to believe it’s because his beautiful daughter just reminded him of the power of all-encompassing love. Celine Dion is probably singing in his head at this very moment.
“At least tell me why you got us all trussed up so early. None of the stores are even open right now.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s ’cause I don’t like any of the local stores’ inventories,” I explain with two hands bracing the bar. “And since I don’t want anybody with a big mouth seeing me and spilling the beans before I actually get to propose to the woman of my dreams, I want to drive over to Burlington. Plus, I want to take you to breakfast first, as a friendly gesture of compensation for spending the day helping me find the perfect ring.”
Bennett frowns, back to his natural state. “Pretty sure I need to agree to go first.”
I look down at Summer, who is currently smiling at me with her big blue eyes. “Sum, would you like to eat? Are you hungry, sweet girl?”
Bennett groans, but my sweet little partner in crime grins up at me with a big, toothy smile.
“Sum-mer eat! Hungee!”
I look at her dad, my eyebrows doing all the talking for me as I raise them knowingly at him.