Page 7 of Sugarplum Dreams
How could he just now be thinking about that? Wait, did he need a ring? He wasn’t really thinking that this would be a realmarriage. Well, a real marriage as in lifetime commitment, yes, but…they weren’t starting it the way normal people did.
But he wasn’t going to have time to explain all that to her. He figured he would probably be doing well if he managed to get the proposal out without being interrupted.
“Mommy, I want another color!” The girl who had opened the door for him stood in the opening to the kitchen, a container of playdough in her hands as she waved it in front of Charity’s face.
“Did you clean it all up and put it back in the container?” Charity asked, sounding a lot more calm than what he felt.
“I did!”
“All right. I’ll get you a new color, and then you’re going to have to play quietly with it until I’m done talking to Mr. Wilson, okay?”
The girl nodded, glancing at Wilson before she looked back at her mom.
“Excuse me for just one second, please,” Charity said, taking the playdough and giving him an apologetic smile before standing up with a child in both arms still.
“I can hold one of those kids for you if you want me to,” he offered, realizing that he probably should have offered before she got up.
“I think I have it,” she said, already taking two steps toward the door.
“All right,” he said, sitting back down from where he’d gotten up in a half crouch.
Several minutes later, she came back into the kitchen.
“Maybe this time, we’ll have enough time for you to get it out,” she said, laughing a little.
“At least you’re not crazy yet. I’ve been sitting here thinking I would probably be insane with all of this chaos.”
“There are days I feel like it,” she said.
“Mom, my head doesn’t hurt anymore. Can I go play?” The boy who had been bleeding walked into the kitchen, his hand at the back of his head holding a bloodied tissue to it.
“Just sit down and color for a little bit so we don’t start that bleeding again.”
“I feel fine. I want to take this off.” He ripped the tissue off the back of his head, and while it didn’t look like it was gushing, there were copious amounts of blood on it. In Wilson’s experience, it took a little while before a cut that was bleeding that bad stopped completely.
“Oh goodness, I think you’re bleeding again,” Charity said as he stood with his back toward her.
“Can you hold the baby, please?” she asked, looking at Wilson. “I’m so sorry.”
“Of course, and don’t apologize,” he said.
She didn’t answer but hurried to grab a tissue and guide her son into the other room.
It was a few moments before she came back out, apologizing for leaving him so long. The little boy on his lap was doing just fine, and Wilson said, “Maybe you could tell me his name. I’ve asked him a couple of times, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. If we’re going to be spending so much time together, I should know what to call him at least.”
“That’s Evans,” Charity said, smiling and appearing relieved that he wasn’t upset.
She’d no sooner settled herself than the little girl with the playdough was back asking for a different color. This time, Charity sent her back into the room without getting her a new one.
“If you want to talk to me, you better spit it out fast.”
“Will you marry me?”
Chapter Four
Charity blinked at the man sitting across from her. He’d been very patient for the last hour while she dealt with her children and he waited for an opportunity to say what was on his mind.
She had never in a million years dreamed that those were the words that were going to come out of his mouth. Honestly, if she thought about it at all, she would have figured that she would never hear those words again. After all, she had five small children and her first husband had considered her to be such a terrible wife and mother that he grabbed his girlfriend and fled to a different country on the other side of the globe. It didn’t get much worse than that.
