Page 44 of Wishes at Water's Edge
“Make sure you be more careful while playing at school, Micah,” she told him. “Buildings are for going into, not for climbing on. Okay?”
Micah nodded emphatically, implying that he had indeed learned his lesson. Hazel smiled and gave the boy’s mother an encouraging wink.
Micah and his mother left the doctor’s office, and Hazel grinned as she heard his mother promising him a cheeseburger for dinner.
She and the nurse exchanged a wave before the other woman went back toward the hallway that led to the examination rooms. Hazel had just sat back down at her desk and begun to rifle through some paperwork when the front doors of the doctor’s office opened again.
She looked up with a polite smile, ready to greet the incoming patient. Her face lit up with an expression of surprise a moment later.
“Jacob!” she said eagerly. “What are you?—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before Jacob had raced across the lobby and placed his lips on hers in an exuberant kiss.
“What on earth?” She laughed as he pulled her to her feet. “What happened?”
He hurried around her desk and thew his arms around her. The people waiting in the lobby laughed good-naturedly over his gleeful behavior.
“Why are you making a scene?” Hazel whispered, which only made the people in the lobby chuckle even more.
“We have a house!” Jacob exclaimed, beginning to dance with her behind the desk. “I just got the call. Our offer was accepted on the house.”
Hazel gasped. A few days before, she and Jacob had put in an offer on a beautiful old farmhouse near the edge of town. It already had a beautiful yard and a charming interior, but it had fallen into slight disrepair, making it the perfect home for an energetic young couple who wanted to fix up a house together.
Hazel let out a shriek of excitement and then covered her mouth when she realized how loud she’d been. For a moment she did her best to compose herself, but then she threw her arms around him, giggling and rocking him back and forth. The people sitting in the lobby cheered and applauded, and Hazel and Jacob laughed.
“I’m so excited to go on this journey with you,” she whispered in Jacob’s ear. They stepped back from their embrace and shared a kiss.
“I’m so excited too, sweetheart,” he told her. “I’m the luckiest man around, without a doubt.”
For a moment, they stood there looking into each other’s eyes, and she was filled with joy over the prospect of starting a new life in a new house with the man she loved.
“I’ll let you get back to work.” Jacob gave her another kiss and walked out from behind the desk. “See you later?”
“See you later.” She waved goodbye to him, grinning from ear to ear. She sat back down at her desk and stared down at the paperwork in front of her without seeing it at all. After a few moments, she shook her head at herself. She felt sure she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate due to the joy overflowing inside of her.
Good thing none of his paperwork is urgent,she thought with a chuckle.I’ll do what I can, but I have a feeling I’m going to be finishing most of my work tomorrow.
A few minutes later, she was staring into space, totally lost in thought. Her mind was filled with beautiful imaginings of her and Jacob turning the charming old house into a home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Alexis scrunched up her face as she tried to repress another massive yawn, but a moment later she couldn’t hold it back. She yawned like a lion and then laughed when she heard the sound of cooing.
She looked down at Cash, who was lying in his crib with his toes in the air. She’d just put him into a cute new pair of little overalls over a little green sweater, and he looked even more adorable than usual. On top of that, he was smiling and giggling at her in a way that made her heart melt.
“Aren’t you just the cutest little buddy?” she said, leaning over and nuzzling his nose with hers. He laughed again and grabbed at her hair with his little fingers. “Oh, no thank you, I’m going to keep my hair where it is.” She detangled her hair from Cash’s fingers and he chortled gleefully. “Time for your socks, young man,” she said, picking up the pair of little yellow socks that she’d set aside. “And then we’re going to put on your little, tiny work boots that Grandma got you and everybody is going to agree that you are the very cutest man in town.”
Alexis yawned again as she wiggled the tiny boots onto Cash’s feet. It had been another night with hardly any sleep, but she was still in a wonderful mood. Vivian had given her the overalls andthe boots that Cash was wearing, and she couldn’t wait to show him off to her.
She kissed his chubby little cheek and tickled his belly. “I’ll be right back, young man,” she told him. “I need to finish getting ready to leave.”
She handed him a plushy octopus to play with and made her way downstairs. The moment she stepped into her kitchen, she shook her head with a wry smile. The kitchen floor was still smattered with baby food after the chaos of breakfast. She wondered how old Cash would have to be before she could feed himaftershe put him into his outfit of the day.
She surveyed the sink full of dirty dishes and sighed. She wanted to clean up at least a little bit before leaving the house, but the extent of the mess in front of her felt overwhelming.
She opened the dishwasher and smiled as she saw that Grayson had unloaded the clean dishes from it earlier that morning. She breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude. She remembered how she’d told him once that having an open space to start putting away dirty dishes always made the task of kitchen clean-up feel more possible. He must have remembered her words and taken the time to unload the dishwasher for her that morning.
She loved the way she and Grayson were managing to create a rhythm in the midst of the chaos of their lives.
