Page 66 of Reuniting with Lucy

“Lucy, I’ve been an idiot,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you in the quad senior year. I want to make up for lost time and spend the rest of my life with you. Starting now. I want to have a family with you. And I want to do it all from this house.”

“You bought the house for me?”

“Well, hopefully, for us.” He smiled and stood, approaching her. “Will you marry me?”

“Oh, Jack.” She put a hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes. “Of course I will. I knew the second your stupid Frisbee almost knocked me out that I loved you. And I always will.”

He slid the shiny two-carat princess-cut diamond onto her finger and hugged her. Cheers erupted from the crowd, and Lucy swiped at a tear. This was a much better reaction than her last engagement. But this one, she knew, would stick. She wasn’t letting Jack get away again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“How’d you know I’d say yes?” Lucy asked her mom. After the proposal pandemonium had died down, they’d all returned to her folks’ house, where her mother had already laid out celebratory drinks and desserts.

“That was a no-brainer,” she said. “I could tell you were in love with him from day one.”

Lucy couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. “Well, thanks for putting all this together.”

Jack came up behind her. “Yes, Sophie, thank you for everything,” he said. “I couldn’t have pulled this off without all of you.”

“Okay,” Lucy said to Jack. “I gotta know. How were you able to buy the house?”

“That was all Kate,” he said. “She really knows how to wheel and deal.”

Kate heard her name and walked over to where they stood. “Wheeling and dealing, my ass. It was your million dollars over the home’s value that made them sell,” Kate said dryly. “He had to make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

Lucy’s jaw dripped. “Do I want to know how much you paid for it?”

“No. No, you do not,” Jack said. “And if you decide you hate it and want to move, tough. We’re living there forever.”

“I guess it’s true that money talks?”

“At least in this case,” he said.

“What about the business?” she asked, turning serious. If Jack was committing to New Bern, what did that mean for his father’s desire for him to take over?

“I’m going to finish the strip mall remodels with Adam, and then we’ll revisit me taking over. My father says he’ll stay on until I’m ready to make the transition. Realistically, I can run it from anywhere. New Bern’s as good a place as any.”

“And your mom’s okay with all this?” Lucy asked, waving her ring finger.

Jack chuckled. “Yes. You won her over. She’s excited abouteverything.”

She took that to mean that “everything” included the baby.

“That reminds me,” she said. “Thank you for not mentioning, you know.” She patted her stomach.

“Lizzie threatened death if I did, so there was incentive to keep my mouth shut.”

Lucy laughed, picturing Lizzie threatening Jack. She needed to tell her family soon. Before someone let it slip. Kate and Adam planned on making their announcement on Christmas Eve. She’d wait a day or two after that and then spill her news.

* * *

Two days later, stuffed from Christmas Eve dinner, everyone filed into the living room for a game of Pictionary. It was a holiday tradition that usually descended into chaos. The last time they played, on Thanksgiving, Dirk had proposed to Emma.

“All right, who wants to start?” Edward asked.

“I’ll go,” Adam said, jumping up. Between Adam’s nervous look and Kate’s relocation to their mother’s side, Lucy figured this was it. They would start with a bang. There was no way they’d finish the game after Kate’s baby news dropped, but no one would care.

At the easel, Adam picked up the big black marker as Kate cheered him on. Lucy kept an eye on her mom. The whole family would be excited, but their mother, especially, had been waiting for this day for quite some time.

---