Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Garrett stood on his ladder, fiddling with the latch that held the hanging sign outside Sandy Paws Pet Shop.
He’d gotten a call that morning that the sign had fallen off its hinges and was hanging crookedly.
Since Garrett had been the one to install the sign, perhaps seven or eight years ago now, he’d been the owner’s first call when something went awry.
He’d eagerly accepted the job, feeling pretty desperate for something to take his mind off this ongoing… whatever the situation was with Eleanor. Was it a fight? It didn’t really feel like a fight. They hadn’t gotten angry with one another. They hadn’t exchanged harsh words or anything like that.
His frustration at the situation doubled whenever he considered that he didn’t know at all what was going on.
He would apologize if he knew what he was apologizing for.
But he didn’t even know if he should be apologizing, because he didn’t know what in the heck that he had done that had upset his girlfriend so much.
If she even still is my girlfriend anymore, he thought with a pang.
But they couldn’t be broken up, could they?
Oh, Garrett knew that just vanishing on a partner was something that happened.
Something about ghosts? He didn’t know the current terminology, since he hadn’t dated for a decade before Eleanor, and he wasn’t exactly hip with the kids’ lingo.
He could have asked his nieces, but he hadn’t dared.
For one, he didn’t even want to entertain the thought.
For another, he didn’t want to hear what questions his nieces, or worse, his sister, would have about such an inquiry.
Besides, Eleanor was way too classy to do such a thing.
Not to mention that it was much too small a town for things like that to work without extreme awkwardness.
For goodness’ sake, Garrett and Eleanor had gotten together in the first place largely in part because they hadn’t been able to avoid one another even when he’d been trying to do so!
He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. He wasn’t getting anywhere with these thoughts, just like he hadn’t gotten anywhere with them in the days that they’d been running around his brain.
He forced himself to refocus on the hinge.
It was bent but not exactly broken. If he could bend it back into place, it would hang right again.
That would save the expense of replacing it, and Garrett always believed in fixing something when it could be repaired, instead of defaulting to purchasing a new one.
Besides, if he recalled correctly, these hinges had been special ordered.
Who even knew if the manufacturer was still making this exact model?
If he couldn’t fix this one, he’d have to send out for a new one, possibly a new set, and that would leave the sign hanging crooked for a while.
He thought he could get it back in place. He just had to be careful not to break the thing further with his fiddling…
Garrett had been so successful at making himself focus on the repair job that he didn’t initially notice when a very small voice called his name.
“Um, Garrett?”
His brain finally caught up with his ears, and he looked down to see…
Eleanor.
He jolted so hard that he nearly fell off the ladder.
Garrett’s instincts told him to race down the ladder as fast as his feet could carry him, almost as if something deep inside him feared that, if he blinked, she would prove a mirage and be gone.
But he forced himself to carefully put down his tools and then, just as carefully, climb down the rungs.
The last thing this whole mess of a situation needed was for him to break his leg too.
When he got to the ground, he saw that Eleanor looked sheepish. She was winding and unwinding her fingers, clenching both hands together nervously. The sight of her nerves made Garrett feel anxious too. He didn’t know how to read this mood in her.
“What can I do for you, Eleanor?”
Inwardly, he winced at the stiffness of his words.
He wasn’t trying to hurt her. Of course he wasn’t.
But he would be lying if he didn’t admit that she had hurt him with this strange disappearing act.
And maybe it wasn’t only his feelings that were hurt.
It might have been his pride a little bit too.
He wasn’t necessarily proud of it, but there it was.
She didn’t answer right away, instead just shuffling her feet against the pavement. He let out a slow breath through his nose. He didn’t know what to make of this situation, but he obviously wasn’t going to force her to talk to him or be with him.
He just wished he understood.
“Okay,” he said when the silence stretched. “Listen. I’d like to have this resolved, but maybe you don’t want that. And since I’m a little busy at the moment…”
He turned and began climbing again. He’d only gotten halfway up when her blurted words stopped him in his tracks.
“I got scared.”
Garrett turned slowly to look down at her. Her cheeks were bright red, but she had her mouth set in a determined sort of way.
“I… don’t understand. Why on earth would you be afraid? Afraid of me?” The mere thought was horrifying, so he was glad to see her eyes go wide with genuine surprise. She shook her head so furiously that her ponytail lost a few strands of hair.
“Gosh, no,” she said. “Never. No. I just…” She took a steadying breath.
“I got scared that learning that I have… intense, big-picture feelings for you might, you know.” Another quick shuffle during which her eyes darted to the side.
He could tell that she had to force herself to look back at him.
“That you’d get scared away. Or think that it’s too much. That I’m too much.”
“Oh,” Garrett said, his mind racing.
Oh, goodness, his poor sweet Eleanor! When she said it outright, he could understand why she might think that, but he never would have gotten to this conclusion himself.
“Ellie,” he said, his heart twisting in his chest as he looked down at her. For the first time in days, however, it was twisting with happiness instead of misery. “The idea literally never even occurred to me.”
“It didn’t?” she asked, a thin note of hope in her voice.
“Honey, no,” he said firmly. She had been brave, and now it was his turn. “Sweetheart, when your brother accidentally told me that you were thinking about our future, do you know what I felt?”
She shook her head.
“Relieved,” he told her. “I felt relieved and happy, because I’d been thinking more and more about how I couldn’t picture a life where I could live without you. But I didn’t want to say anything to you yet, because I was the one who was afraid of scaring you off.”
“Really?” The hope was stronger now than it had been before.
“Really. I was all in on you from the start. A man doesn’t give up his decade-long no dating streak just for anyone, you know. Pretty much as soon as we got together, I knew that you were it for me.”
“I… didn’t know,” she said. She sounded as though she was witnessing something wondrous for the first time.
Garrett scolded himself inwardly. This whole mess felt a lot more understandable now that he knew where she had been coming from. He wouldn’t necessarily say that she’d handled it exceptionally, but maybe he hadn’t done his part either. Maybe he could stand to be a little more effusive with her.
“Well, let me say it to you clearly, then,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Eleanor Ridley, I love you!”
As far as romantic declarations went, it wasn’t bad. Garrett complimented himself that much, at least. He did have to admit, however, that the overall effect was somewhat undercut when the ladder wobbled beneath him and he fell right off.
Eleanor shrieked, but some spirit of balance was on his side that day, for Garrett landed as nimbly on his feet as he had ever managed.
This put him right in front of Eleanor, right in front of the woman he loved, who had her hands pressed to her mouth in shock and horror.
As soon as she saw that he was okay though, she threw her arms around his neck.
“Don’t scare me like that!” she cried, peppering his cheeks with kisses.
“But Eleanor,” he said, giddy with the relief of admitting his feelings at long last, not to mention the disappeared stress of their spat finally being over, “does that mean that you don’t want me to fall for you?”
She groaned at his dumb joke, pressing her hand and then her forehead to her chest. She rested like that for a moment, and Garrett wondered if she could hear the racing of his heart against her palm.
It raced even harder when she looked up and smiled at him. “You know I love you too, right?”
“Thinking about getting married did kind of imply it, but it’s still very nice to hear anyway.” He couldn’t resist teasing her. It was impossible when he was feeling the happiest he’d been in the whole of his life.
She slapped a hand over her face with a groan.
“Oh, no, we’re not ready to joke about it yet,” she said. “It’s so embarrassing. I was acting so crazy.”
“Honey,” he said consolingly, “the last time I had women troubles, I didn’t date for a decade. You freaked out for a couple of days. You’re still way, way in the lead, there.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“But,” he said, still in that same light, happy tone, “if you wanted to make it up to me…”
She scowled playfully. “Oh yeah?”
He tapped his cheek. “I wouldn’t object to another kiss.”
She looked as joyous as he felt. “I can do you one better,” she said.
And then they sealed their declaration of love with a kiss.