Page 57 of Suddenly Single
Someone behind him cooed with delight.
Jenny stopped walking.She turned halfway back, her lips parted with surprise.
“I donna know how it will work, you and I—but I know that I canna let you get on that train without asking you to stay and at least see what happens between us.”
The announcement that a train was approaching the station flooded Edan with panic.Had he said all that he needed to say? Was it enough? Had he said the right things? He moved close enough to her now that he could catch her hand.He squeezed her fingers, laced his with hers. “I’m asking you, from the bottom of my heart, to stay and see if this magic between us is real.”
Her eyes lit, but still she did not speak.
Edan groaned.“Why do you no’speak?”
“Because what you’re saying is sobeautiful, I don’t want to ruin it,” she said, and then smiled with the force of a thousand suns. “I’ll stay, Edan, are you kidding me? You need me so bad.” She threw her arms around his neck, then planted her luscious lips on his.“And I need you, too,” she said into his ear.
Edan kissed her with all that he was feeling in the middle of that train station.He didn’t care that people were gawking.He didn’t care when one old man admonished them to take their inappropriate behavior to a private room.He only cared that Jenny was in his arms, and she was kissing him.And he couldn’t wait to get her home, he couldn’t wait to make love to her again, he couldn’t wait to see how far they could go together.
He sincerely hoped he didn’t have to express that in words.But there seemed to be no danger, for Jenny was suddenly talking about whale pods, something about how they stuck together through storms and calm seas.
Get on with it, Edan.
Epilogue
Six months later
Everyone had come for the groundbreaking of the new spa and farm shop at the Cassian Inn, made possible by a generous loan from Jenny’s father.This was just the beginning—they had grand plans, Jenny and Edan, beginning with a wedding that would take place in the summer.
“So soon?” Bethany asked.She had come along with Vanessa and Brooke for the party.
“Why not?” Jenny asked. “We’re going to do it here, in the new salon.” After much discussion, and a desire not to live where Edan had once lived with Audra, Edan and Jenny had taken the cottage up on the hill and had turned the private quarters into a premiere suite and a new, larger salon.They’d hung crystal chandeliers, had painted the paneling a soft gray, and had replaced the carpets and furnishings.
The best part of their work so far was the addition of a small bar in the new salon.It was now Jenny’s favorite room in the old mansion.
“Did I tell you about the woman who is going to marry us?” she said to her friends.“She’s a mystic.She read our cards and she said—”
“You’ve told me, like, one hundred times,” Bethany said, and smiled at the others. Jenny supposed that look was because she hadn’t stopped talking since they’d arrived.Could they blame her? She was deliriously happy.
She glanced at her watch—the ceremony would begin shortly.“I’ve got to get out there and greet people.You know how Edan is,” she said with a warm smile. “He’ll say hello and think he’s done.I’ll probably have to carry the whole event.”
“Thank God you’re so good at this sort of thing,” Vanessa said with a laugh.
The four women walked out of the inn and around to the first tee, which, to the consternation of the four seniors who met every Saturday to play, was being used today for the groundbreaking ceremony.The crowd was thick—people around Lake Haven and from East Beach had come to have a look at the plans and witness the ribbon cutting, arriving on the shuttle Jenny had negotiated with the village of East Beach.A shuttle that ran all around the lake had proven so popular that the village was going to expand the service from two to three trips a day during the high season.
After the short ceremony, there would be a reception to showcase the things that would be available in the new farm shop.Who knew that Sandra had been desperate to open one? Edan hadn’t realized it, but Jenny had.Sandra was in her element and had baked so many cakes that Jenny had been haunted by the scent of chocolate all week.
A pregnant Rosalyn and Hugh were in attendance. They’d decided to give the inn another year before deciding if they’d move to the city.Jenny and Rosalyn had become very good friends, and Jenny was certain they would stay. Ned and Sandra had come, the two old friends who still shared the farmhouse.It seemed Ned was not ready to retire just yet, and Sandra had not wanted to leave the spot where Clara was buried.Edan had arranged for Mr. Finlay to be brought down from the senior home. “I donna know what he recognizes, but he was as much a part of the inn as anyone,” he’d told Jenny.The old man didn’t know where he was, but he was enchanted with Wilbur and Boz, they, in turn, were enchanted with his attention to them.
Jenny’s father had come with Cathy and her teenage son, who skulked around Vanessa and Brooke most of the time.Even Lorenzo had come back for the ribbon cutting.Not with his one and only true love, Elizabetta, but with his new one and only true love, the doe-eyed, slinky Tatyana.“She is the love of my life, this girl,” he’d whispered to Jenny.
Jenny walked up to Edan, who was reviewing some note cards.He looked magnificent in his formal kilt.“How do I look?” he asked as he took her hand and kissed her cheek.
“Sexy,” she said.“Sosexy.You should wear that to bed.”
He frowned.“I hoped to appear a bit mayoral.”
“That’s totally what I meant,” she said with a laugh.“Are you ready, Mr. Mackenzie? People are dying for champagne and nutballs.”
“Och,donna talk dirty to me now, love,” he said.With a squeeze of her hand, they walked to the little platform Ned had put up and signaled that the ceremony was to begin.
“I’ll start,” Edan whispered to her.
