Page 11 of Wishes at Water's Edge
“But you’re right. I do have it bad. I don’t think the elation I feel when I see her will ever subside.”
Jacob chuckled. “You are clearly head over heels. And if my guess is correct, Rosewood Beach’s finest mechanic is going to do something about that sooner rather than later.”
“Who’s Rosewood Beach’s finest mechanic?” Dean asked, feigning innocence.
“You.” Jacob punched Dean in the shoulder.
“Aww, thank you.”
“So, am I right?”
“About what?”
“Come on, Dean.”
Dean grinned. “Yeah, you’re darn right. I think about proposing to her all the time. I know I want to marry her—if I thought she’d agree to it that suddenly, I’d marry her tomorrow.”
Jacob grinned as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You’d better get to it, then. I would have proposed to Hazel already, but after her first marriage she wants to approach that level of commitment more carefully, which I completely understand. But Noelle wants to get married, I know she does—I’ve overheard her saying as much to Julia when they were talking about wedding planning. So—you should get to it.”
Dean’s face lit up with a wide grin. “I fully intend to.”
Jacob pretended to salute Dean, and the two men parted ways after checking that they would both be at the next Owens family dinner night.
Dean’s imagination was filled with bright images as he continued on his way. The conversation with Jacob had lifted his spirits even further, and it had solidified his resolve. He was going to propose to Noelle, and he felt full of anticipation for that moment, and all the moments that would come after it. He went on his way with a spring in his step, feeling fully confident in what he intended to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hazel stepped up to the door of Jacob’s office energetically, feeling excited to see him. She often dropped by his combination office space and supply closet, either to give him a gift of food or just to swing by to say hello. She’d helped him organize his tool closet once or twice, and earlier that year they’d given the place a good spring cleaning together. She knew it was always going to be a bit dirty and a little messy, since that was the nature of Jacob’s job and the nature of Jacob, but she helped him keep it as neat and as tidy as possible. He was always grateful for her help, since it allowed him to find things more easily.
She stepped inside his tiny office space, which adjoined the larger storage closet, and was surprised to see he wasn’t there. There was a half-finished mug of coffee resting on the corner of his desk, which was somewhat cluttered with papers and a couple of tools. She blinked at his empty desk, wondering what she should do with the bag of lunch that she was holding in her hand.
Should I just leave this here?she wondered.Or is he off somewhere repairing something that will take hours? I don’t want his sandwich to spoil.
She’d prepared Jacob a chicken and bacon ranch sandwich along with homemade sweet potato fries and roasted carrots. She had taken special care with it, and she didn’t want it to spoil sitting on his desk. She hesitated for a moment, biting her lip, and then she remembered the mini fridge that Jacob had bought for himself the month before. She turned around and spotted it in a corner of the room.
“Gotcha,” she murmured, and was just crouching down to put the lunch inside it when the door of Jacob’s office opened.
“Hey!” she said eagerly when she saw her boyfriend step inside the room.
“Hazel!” He froze when he saw her, looking almost startled. “Um, hey.” He retuned the hug she gave him, but as they pulled away from it, she could see that he looked a bit flustered. He glanced at his desk, where his laptop was sitting open next to the mug of coffee. “What’s the occasion?”
“I came to bring you some lunch,” she said, frowning a little as she watched him walk around his desk and close his laptop. She hadn’t been able to see the screen from that side of the office, and she wondered what could be on it that he didn’t want her to see.
He could have just left it,she thought.I wasn’t going to go over there anyway.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said, turning back to her. He was smiling, but he wasn’t quite making eye contact, which showed her that he was distracted by something. Why was he acting so flustered by her surprise appearance? She showed up unexpectedly to see him at his office all the time. “That’s really sweet of you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s a bacon and chicken sandwich, with ranch, and then those roasted carrots and sweet potatoes you like so much.”
“Oh, amazing.” He came back to her and gave her another hug. “You know I love those orange side dishes.”
She didn’t laugh at his quip. “Where were you just now? Coming back from a job?”
He cleared his throat. “I was on the north side of town. I’m glad I got back in time to see you.”
Her brows furrowed as she considered his statement. “I thought you’d said that all of your jobs for the rest of the week were generally close by. What were you doing all the way on the north side of town?”
The north side of Rosewood Beach was mainly a residential area, with many large houses, some of them old mansions dating back to the founding of the little coastal town. It was a beautiful neighborhood, and Jacob usually let her know when he had a job there, since both of them got excited about the neat old houses he got to work on when he was out there.
