Page 48 of Through the Snow Globe
“At loving kids?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, so would you. You just don’t know it yet.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “One day. We have all the time in the world.”
She tilted her head. “I thought you said forever was a myth.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “When did I say that?”
“Last night.”
“Hmm. My grandfather used to say that.” He grinned lopsidedly at her. “Forever might be a myth to some, but not us.”
Warmness oozed over her. “That sounds even more poetic.”
They both turned to the sound of the little boy crying on the next aisle. He was no doubt upset that tomorrow wasn’t really Christmas. Or maybe his foster mom had hurt him. She’d had a death grip on his little arm a few minutes ago.
“You never did tell me why you’re here. Is everything okay?” Linus pulled her attention back to him.
“Yeah. I just had drinks with Rochelle and since I had time, I decided to stop in.”
“You’ve been drinking and driving?” Linus asked, brows dipping over suddenly concerned eyes.
“No. I didn’t even finish one drink. I’m fine. Good enough to drive you home.” She forced a smile, hoping he’d agree.
“That’s not necessary. I have my bicycle.”
“I know, but it’s not safe.” Diana was beginning to feel like a broken record.
Linus laughed. “Since when?”
“Since it’s cold and icy and it’ll be dark when you close,” she explained. Why couldn’t he just take her word for it this time?
Linus shook his head. “You’re acting quite strangely today. Are you sure you only had one drink with Rochelle?”
“Less than that. I’m fine.”
The bell at the counter rang and he turned his attention toward the register. “I’ve got customers. Go home and I’ll be there in a little bit. We can discuss how today went for you. I want to hear all about it.”
“I’m not leaving. I’ll stay,” Diana told him as he walked away.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Suit yourself.” He lowered his voice. “You can practice talking to the kids some more. It’s an acquired talent,” he said with a wink.
Diana actually did want to talk some more to Dustin. She wandered around the store, looking for him again, but he and the woman had already gone. She perused the aisles, willing time to tick by. Mr. Powell had been right on that first December 4th when he’d said that time was relative. It was true. Diana felt like she was always either wishing it away or begging it to slow down.
When she grew tired of looking at the latest toys, she wandered into the back room and plopped down on a stool. She and Linus had made out in here once when they were first dating. She’d fallen so hard and so fast for him, and no one was more taken off guard than she was. She was most surprised at the fact that he was as into her as she was him.
They’d moved into an apartment together after just seven weeks of dating, and it had all felt like a whirlwind romance. This past summer he’d proposed. She’d met his parents, of course, but somehow Diana had managed to dodge his huge extended family until a couple weeks ago at Thanksgiving, when Linus had insisted on bringing her to his parents’ home.
“We don’t want everyone to meet you for the first time at our wedding,” he’d teased.
She’d agreed because he was right, but she’d had no idea what she was walking into that Thursday afternoon. Linus had told her he had a “good-sized” family, but his family was so large that they had to eat in three different rooms of his parents’ house. There were aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. Diana’s Thanksgivings had always been just her and Grandma Denny eating turkey sandwiches and watching reruns of Denny’s favorite westerns.
Diana’s mind had been spinning after she’d gone home to the apartment she and Linus shared that night.
“My family loved you,”he’d said, clueless that she was having a silent panic attack. It wasn’t his fault. She didn’t tell him how freaked out she was inside. Something about the engagement hadn’t felt real until Thanksgiving with the entire Grant gang. His family would be her family. All those people would have the potential to let her down in a huge way. What was she thinking? She didn’t know how to exist in Linus’s world. The tiny world they’d made together, yes, but not his other world—the one with thirty people all talking at once and wanting Diana to hug them at every turn.
Thanksgiving weekend was when Linus had started pressing the wedding date issue.“Why wait? It doesn’t have to be big,”he’d said. But he hadn’t thought that Thanksgiving at his home was big either.
