Page 8 of Sugarplum Dreams
“I’m sorry. I must have heard you wrong. Could you repeat that?” she said, knowing that he could not possibly have said what she thought he did, but wondering why her brain had clipped his words into something so…crazy.
“Would you marry me? That’s as short as I can make it.”
“I guess I did ask for short. But it sounded to me like you were asking me to marry you, and I know that can’t be what you’re saying.” She laughed, although it was forced. What in theworld could he possibly have said? Her brain wouldn’t make the words into anything but a proposal of marriage.
“Well, that’s why it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to make it short, but you had a good point with us being interrupted.”
“Okay,” she said, uncertainly. Was he serious? Didn’t he know that she was in this predicament because of getting married to some idiot man? Would he know she was never considering the idea of doing that again? There was no way she was getting married again.
“So, I know that things are kind of hard for you, and I had a big speech all planned out, but I’ve mostly forgotten it.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t suppose you expected to have to wait an hour to get to talk to me.”
“I didn’t mind. But in that time, there were a lot of thoughts going through my head, and I wasn’t practicing my speech.”
“So I guess my biggest question is why? What would make you ask me something like that?”
“It seems to me that you could use a protector. A provider. Someone to help you. I mean, I feel like the town has rallied around you, but there’s only so much they can do.” Evans was squirming in his lap, and absentmindedly, Charity said, “You can put him down if you want to.”
“I think he might be wet.”
“All right. I’ll change him, but…maybe we should finish talking first?”
“Sure. I just… I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do. I was trying to think of ways I could help, and it just seemed like God brought this answer into my head.”
“Don’t you want to get married to someone you love? I mean, I don’t know you very well, but you’ve never been married before, have you?” Maybe he had a whole passel of kids he wanted her to take care of. Although, if she were applying forthat job, she didn’t do a very good job of showing how well she could handle things today.
“No. I’ve never been married. I have had a couple of failed relationships over the years, things that didn’t last very long, but… I just never found someone that I thought would want to spend the rest of their life with me.”
She noticed that he didn’t say he never found anyone that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with. That made her think that maybe there was someone else there that he loved, but who loved someone else, so maybe he was just settling for her, since he could never have the one that he really loved.
The thought didn’t give her any comfort at all.
“So… You’re going to settle for me?” She didn’t know how to answer him. She might have five children and not know what she was going to do…
What was she thinking? She had five children, and she didn’t know what to do! And here was Wilson, an outstanding, respected man in the community, offering to give her an out. To marry her, to give her kids a father, to give her a husband and a provider and a protector, and she was going to get her feelings all twisted and be upset that she wasn’t his first choice?
She should be on her knees grateful, begging him to marry her this second before he changed his mind!
“No. I’m not settling. There’s no one I found that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and I just kind of came to the conclusion that I’m not the kind of man who gets all mushy about that kind of thing. So, I looked around and tried to think of something that I could do, and God brought this to my attention.”
“Just like that?” she asked, her eyes narrowed. Maybe he was a child molester and he had his eyes on her and her daughters.
“Yeah. Just like that.”
“Do you have references? And do you have clearances from the state?”
There. That should tell her if he was a serial child molester, although it was no guarantee he wouldn’t start.
“You can talk to my mom. You can talk to my siblings. I watch my nieces and nephews. There have never been any complaints. But no, I’ve never had any reason to get clearances, although I suppose I could. If that’s what you want. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
This was crazy. This man could not be for real. This was just…too wild.
“What would this be called? A marriage of convenience, would you say?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a convenience thing for the two of us. Where each of us gets something out of it.”
“What are you getting out of it?” she asked immediately, jumping on his statement. There had to be something that he was getting, although she couldn’t picture a thing.
