Page 86 of The Party Line

He kissed me on the top of my head. “If it ever quits beating, you’ll have to take the blame for breaking it.”

“I would never, ever . . . ,” I promised.

“Then you aren’t upset that I didn’t tell you earlier that Grandpa was retiring and I was stepping into his shoes?” he asked.

I leaned back so I could see his eyes. “Darlin’, we’ve both been testing each other to be sure that we’re ready to commit.”

The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “You really do speak your mind.”

“You’ve known that from the beginning. Look!” I pointed to the sky.

“What?”

“A falling star,” I said.

“Then we get to make a wish, right?” he asked. “I’ll go first. I wish that when Gina Lou leaves in August, we could move in together. You can choose which house we live in.”

I snuggled in closer to him. “I thought we were taking things slow.”

“We are,” he assured me with a kiss on the forehead. “I love you, and I’m ready to commit, but there have been so many changes in our lives to get used to that we don’t need to try to live together with someone else in the house. How about September 1?”

“Why that date?” I asked.

“Because that’s six months from the day we met.” His thumb made little circles on my arm and turned up my internal heat to the scalding-hot level. “And then maybe we’ll have a Christmas wedding? We can’t get married in October because we’ll be knee deep in your first harvest. November won’t work, since we’ll be planning Jasper’s birthday party.”

“I’m not easy to live with. I speak my mind and I don’t like to cook,” I whispered, and then gasped. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”

“No, ma’am, I did not,” he answered. “When I do, you won’t have to wonder about whether I did or not. I just said that maybe we would have a December wedding.”

“Can you tell me two reasons why you want to marry me or even live with me?” I asked.

He held up one finger. “Because I’ve fallen in love with you.” Another finger joined the first one. “And two, because I’ve fallen in love with you, Lila Matthews. Now, you tell me two reasons why you would say yes to living with me or marrying me.”

“One, because you make me happy, and two, because I love you.”

Epilogue

March, ten years later

Aconversation in the next aisle of the grocery store stopped me in my tracks on the Saturday morning before Easter. Two ladies were talking about which wine to buy for dinner the next day.

The one with a nasal twang said, “Well, I’m picking up three bottles of Strawberry Grace. It sells out within days of them stocking it here.”

“Can I help you ladies?” a stock boy asked.

“We were just talking about this strawberry wine,” the one with a smoker’s voice said.

“I just put out a case this morning,” he said. “That was twelve bottles, and there’s only six left.”

“Not anymore,” Smoker said. “I’m taking the last three. You best go get another case.”

“Can’t.” His voice faded as he walked away, but I heard, “We could only get one this season. The big cities have found it, and they preorder as much as they can get.”

“Mama, why did you stop?” my nine-year-old daughter asked. “Daddy will be waiting for us.”

I tucked her red hair behind her ear. “I was thinking about how neat it is that your daddy and daughter dance next weekend is right at the end of the spring strawberry season.”

She seemed to float on air as she walked along beside me. “I’m so happy that he’s going shopping with us to find my dress. Jasper is jealous because I get Daddy all to myself, and he can’t go.”

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