Page 29 of Joy Ride
“Don’t be. We have plenty of time to give each other gifts. Besides, you’ve already given me everything.”
She gives me a double take as if I say that kind of thing to every woman I meet. “Go ahead, open it.” My heart throttles against my rib cage.
“Well, if you insist.” She laughs, ripping off the paper. A gasp escapes her lips when she stares down at the cotton puff snowman and the little yarn-haired angel. “You’re giving these to me?” Eyes twinkling, she asks again, “For me? Really?”
I grin, loving to see her smile again. “Really.”
She holds the snowman and his blonde tangled-haired partner up to the light streaming in through the window. “This is just the most thoughtful present. I’ll always remember the morning you chopped that tree down I saw in the parking lot. You made me cover my eyes—and I was so surprised,” she says softly, blushing. “I thought you dumped me because I was too young for you. Thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Darlin’…” I slip my hand around her waist and turn her, so we’re face to face. “That was before I knew you.” I trail my index finger over the curve of her cheek, to the corner of her pretty smile. “After a few hours of your delightful company, I knew for a fact you needed to be with an older man.”
Her eyes glisten. “Honestly?”
“Completely.” I chuckle, “You would scare the shit out of anyone your age. Hell, I needed to be twenty years older to handle you with all your breaking and entering and karate chops.”
She laughs, clutching the snowman and angel close to her heart. I swallow thickly and rehearse what I’m about to say. Then, I get down on my knees in front of her.
“What are you doing?” She giggles.
“See? You bring me to my knees,” I clear my throat. And finally picking up that I’m trying to be serious, she places her gifts back in the box. I take her hand in mine and disappear in her bright blue eyes. “After my divorce, I thought my last chance at love was over, turns out I just had to wait for you to grow up and find me.”
Stunned, she shifts and comes down on the floor with me. Her velvet hands cradle my cheeks as her sweet lips press against mine for a kiss and another and another…
“I’m going to lose my train of thought if you keep kissing me like that.” I focus, and try again. “What I’m saying is that I think the little snowman should live forever next to his angel.”
She tilts her head not exactly comprehending what I’m asking.
“I’m madly, hopelessly in love with you, Jolene, and I think they should get married.”
“What?” She kisses me, latches on to my shoulders, and tries to push me down on my back.
“Wait, wait,” I say laughing as we roll to the floor and I sprawl on top of her. “You haven’t heard the rest,” I whisper against her pretty lips. “In order for that little snowman and angel to live side by side until their dying days, we should be together too.”
She laughs from her belly. “As chaperones?”
“Say you’ll marry me. We’ll pick out a ring tomorrow and invite them to the wedding.” She gasps, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re perfection, Jolene. The only thing I’d like to change about you is your last name, sweetheart, and I can guarantee you, you won’t be changing it to Woodman.”
Tears stream down her cheeks and I kiss them away, hoping to hear the wordyes, but she doesn’t say it…
“I don’t want to scare you darlin’, but I want to have a family with you and a house full of kids… and to love you twenty-four hours of every day of my life.”
She whispers something I can’t make out.
“I’m set up for us too, financially,” I add.
She whispers again.
“I don’t make it a habit of letting everyone in on my business, but you should know, I don’t owe anyone a cent. I’ve been buying up land left and right, and investing. I have at least four million in the ba—”
“Yes.” She laughs, covering my mouth with her hand. “You can be such a blabbermouth, cowboy.” She teases by gripping my waist and cajoling me to flip over onto my back, and I sure as shit don’t resist. She can be on top of me anytime she wants.
“Another one of your black belt moves?”
She nods, peering down at me as if seeing me for the first time. Her gaze lingers over my eyes, forehead, cheeks, and lips—where she reaches down to kiss me.
“Yes,” she whispers against my mouth swallowing my relieved sigh. “Yes, to loving you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of my life. You had me atI’m madly, hopelessly in love.”
The End
