Chapter 30
30
W atching Grant’s fingers meet Julia’s, Sadie’s heart roller-coaster dropped straight into her stomach. He’d made his choice, and it was stardom at any price. This wasn’t the Grant she thought she knew, but she hadn’t been the Sadie he’d known, either. At least now she could leave the party. She’d shown him the truth, but the lure of instant fame proved too much.
Ronny had tried to save him too, and so, hoping for camaraderie, she glanced his way. Instead of seeing her own disappointment mirrored in his face, a half-smile tugged at his lip. How could he be happy at Julia’s triumph?
But wait…did he just wink at Grant and motion with his head toward the ground?
Grant linked his arm in Julia’s and pulled them both a big step backwards, as if wanting some privacy. “Actually, Julia,” he said, speaking at a normal level. “I don’t know about Hollywood, but back where I’m from, if you dish it out you have to be able to take it. At least, that’s the lesson I learned when I mud wrestled in the cow patty fields.”
“Cow patty what?” Julia said, her triumphant tone now laced with misgiving. “C’mon. We can talk about it in my limo.”
“I mean,” Grant continued as he moved her backward another big step, “that you were right all along. I’ve been hopelessly na?ve, but I’m done being fooled by you or anyone else. Getting your friend to fake a drowning was manipulative and dangerous. That’s not okay with me. I dream about someday becoming a successful actor, but this isn’t the way I’d ever want to do it.”
Julia’s famous lips parted in a sneer as she yanked her arm from Grant’s. She took a stompy step backwards and away from him, bumping into a caterer in yellow coveralls in the process. Rather than apologize, she kept talking. “Successful actor? As if you’ll ever be one now! I laid the red carpet out for you. Too bad you’re not bright enough to walk across it. Andrea wasn’t supposed to wade out that deep, but she still made you into a hero.” She shook her head as she rolled her eyes. “Only a fool would choose being a mudpuppy over a baywatchbabe.”
Grant said simply, “What I'm choosing is to be a decent human being.”
She pushed lightly against his shoulder with her long fingernails. “Go do that, then, in the cow patty fields or whatever. See how that works out for you. Because you’re done in Hollywood, in New York. In Timbuktu. You think I can’t get a thousand guys even better looking than you to grovel at my feet?”
Given Julia’s power and reach, the threat reverberated in the air. Sadie winced on Grant’s behalf, but he showed no concern. “A small price to pay for my self-respect,” Grant said.
Ronny took several steps forward now, straightened his shoulders, and got directly into Julia’s face. She pulled back, but he moved in closer. “Are you leaving, or do I need to call my guards? They’re dressed like Roman soldier mermaids, so it might be worth getting thrown out.”
“And you—” she began to say, but she never finished her sentence. After taking a final step backward, she tripped over Grant’s outstretched foot, strategically placed at the very edge of the pool.
“Whaaa!” Julia’s scream rent the night air.
“Oopsies,” Ronny said.
Neither he nor Grant made any attempt to save her, and so she became a fruit salad blur, her arms cartwheeling like the wings of a featherless bird. Time slowed as Sadie watched her childhood idol splash into the pool and begin to sink, her eyes and mouth scrunched tight against the impending water, her fuchsia talons the last part of her to go under.
By now well-versed in the sound of a fellow partygoer going overboard, the entire gathering, including the band, silenced in an instant and turned to watch.
Through the stillness, a speechless Sadie caught Grant’s eye. “What happens now?” she mouthed. He shrugged in reply, but his handsome face held the happiest, most relaxed smile Sadie had ever seen on him. It warmed her from the toes up.
The answer to Sadie’s question arrived quickly from the crowd as, to her astonishment, party guests began whooping loudly before throwing themselves into the pool too. Within seconds, a dozen had leapt in, their peals of laughter enticing more and more of Ronny’s guests to take the plunge. Some left their shoes on the sand, but others didn’t give their clothing a second thought.
Ronny waggled his substantive eyebrows at Sadie and Grant. “Maybe now you’ll believe me when I say I throw the best parties?” Sadie laughed as a grinning Neptune joined his people in the watery depths.
She stepped toward the edge and peered across the pool. “Where’s Julia?” There were at least fifty people in the water now, and the splashing and flinging of arms made it difficult to pick out any one person.
Grant pointed. “Over there. She’s the only one who looks miserable about getting wet.”
Sadie spotted her doing an angry breaststroke toward the steps. “But why are the guests all jumping in the pool?”
“Because Julia Menlo is in the pool,” Grant said, mimicking the star’s haughty use of the third person. They both laughed.
Grant looked sideways toward her, and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes reminded her of the moment he’d yanked her into the mud pit. She braced herself for a well-deserved tossing, but he took her hand instead. His fingers around hers felt so right, so safe and warm. She closed her eyes for a second to enjoy it. Grant’s touch gave her cozier feels than the first taste of Rick’s coffee with extra cream and three sugars on a Sunday morning.
“Shall we?” he asked, tilting his head toward the water.
“Julia Menlo is doing it,” she said.
He walked them both backwards a few steps so they could get a running start, then waited for an empty space to appear in the deep end. “On three!” he commanded, but as soon as he yelled, “One!” he started them running.
Their happy screams flew toward the darkening sky as together they abandoned solid ground. Grant’s push off from the edge was stronger than hers, but he never let go of her hand. She felt a tug and flew forward on his momentum, splashing in right next to him.
Chlorine stung her nostrils as her feet scrabbled uselessly for the bottom of the pool. She grabbed for Grant’s shoulders, but his strong hands soon wrapped around her waist, holding her afloat. Water dripped steadily from a sodden curl sticking to her forehead, but enjoying the curve of his body under her palms was so much more important than wiping it away. “I can’t touch,” she said, a little out of breath from the water and her closeness to Grant.
“But I can.” He let go of her waist with one hand and pushed the curl back into place, stopping the drips but leaving a trail of electricity in its wake on her skin. He brushed a finger down her cheek, releasing a new set of sparks. “You’ve got fresh scratches. Did you really hide in the bushes?”
“Twice! Underneath this coverall, my arms and legs must look like I lost a battle to a horde of kittens.”
Grant laughed. “Well, thanks for sticking around to clue me in on just how bad Julia is. I mean, I knew she wasn’t great, but I didn’t know I was dealing with Cruella’s evil twin.”
Sadie looked into the undulating water, remembering. “For a minute there, I thought you were making a different choice.”
His face turned serious as he focused his ocean blues on her. “I could never do that. You’re the truest dream I’ve ever had.”
The band eased into “Don’t Worry Baby,” but Sadie barely registered the tune. The happy people bobbing and splashing all around, the lanterns swaying and casting their hues into the water—it all paled in comparison to the long-suppressed joy bursting from her soul. She couldn’t believe she was this close to him, finally, and had no reason to push him away.
Grant’s eyebrows bunched in the middle as if stuck there, as if he’d been about to say something but had stopped himself.
“What is it?” she asked, a red light of worry flickering in her head and threatening to douse her happiness.
“Back at the fountain, you said that when we first met, you had to hate me ‘or else.’ What was that else?”
No words could do justice to that question, and she was barely keeping her lips off his as it was. Now that her emotional walls were gone, desire for him consumed her. “This else,” she said, and went for it. Slipping her hands around the back of his neck, she wriggled upward and pressed her mouth against his for a long-overdue kiss. He didn't immediately return it, and she panicked for a moment. Had she taken liberties? But then his arms wrapped all the way up her back, and he pulled her into him so tightly the zippers on her coveralls must be leaving dents. She deepened the kiss, and he responded in a way that left her both breathless and never wanting to come up for air. He tasted of pool water and champagne, and she felt as light-headed as if she’d drunk an entire swimming pool of the bubbly wine. She was in the deep end in more ways than one.
“Whoa,” he said when their lips finally unlocked. “Really?”
She smiled. “As Neptune is my witness!”
He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes searching hers. “Well, it’s just that…six years I’ve imagined this. How do I know I’m not dreaming?”
“That’s easy,” she said after a moment’s thought. Kicking her legs wildly, she pushed up off his shoulders before pressing down on the top of his head with both hands till he submerged in the choppy blue water. She knew he was indulging her, but he let her hold him under for a good, long dunking.
“I might keep you down there forever, Mister Grant Mason,” she said when he surfaced, sputtering.
“And I might let you,” he said back, before spinning them both around in the waves and kissing her again, his lips sending a delicious shudder down her spine.
But before she could settle fully into the kiss, Grant yanked her to the left, barely saving her from being squashed by an over-enthusiastic guest cannonballing in the pool.
“This is getting a little crazy,” she said, noticing a giant game of chicken forming in the shallow end of the pool.
“Climb on,” he said, motioning toward his back. She wrapped her hands around his neck and held on tight as he swam them both to the nearest steps.
They climbed out, but Sadie instantly missed the water. Not only had it created the perfect excuse to linger in Grant’s arms, but her cotton duck coveralls were lugging half the pool with them.
“Here, let me help you out of that thing,” Grant said, noticing her predicament. He began to unzip her suit.
Releasing the coverall from her shoulders, the sodden fabric landed in a pile around her ankles. Underneath, her ancient white cotton blouse and skort looked like they’d been painted onto her. She felt herself blush as Grant’s eyes raked her body.
“Have I lost my mind or are those the exact same clothes you had on when you stumbled into my dorm room on move-in day?” he asked. “I recognized them when we met at the fountain, but I was too upset at that point to ask.”
Sadie’s eyebrows pulled together in thought as she gave her outfit the once-over. “You know,” she said finally, “I believe they are. I always think I’ve thrown them away, but somehow, they’re always still there in the bottom of my dresser drawer.”
Grant shook his head, a look of happy wonder softening his chiseled jaw. He nodded to himself. “Well, that settles it.”
“Settles what?”
He knelt to pick up her coveralls as she stepped out of them. She expected him to stand right back up, but after balling up and tossing her work uniform to one side, he remained on one knee.
The rest of the party continued in full swing as Grant tilted his face toward hers. It was the simplest of movements, but the sight of him on one knee, his hand held out toward her and his eyes filled with hope, started alarm bells clanging in her heart.
“What are you doing?” she asked through the quick succession of half-breaths that were all her lungs could offer.
“I’m no movie star,” he said, reaching out and taking hold of both her hands. “I can’t promise you red-carpet entrances or a house like this, but I can promise you’ll be my movie star for as long as I live. I know it’s sudden and I want you to take all the time you need. We’ve only been on three dates, and they were fake. But I’ve known in my heart for six years this day would happen. I did doubt it sometimes, but the afternoon you showed up with those sandwiches—and now with you standing here in the exact clothes you had on the first time I saw you—well, I do believe in love at first sight, and I do believe in fate, and I hope you do too. Sadie Heppner, you have stolen my heart forever. Will you marry me?”
Sadie was grateful for the five or six feet separating them from the pool’s edge, because her swirling vision and weak knees might otherwise have toppled her right back into the jostling waves. She’d driven here to apologize and end her Hollywood career and wound up with Grant Mason asking for her hand in marriage. She swallowed hard and would have pinched herself if she’d had use of her hands.
Grant’s expression switched from fervent hope to pained panic. “I’m just letting you know that that’s what I want if it’s what you want. I’ve waited six years, and I’ll wait sixty more. You take all the time you need.”
Sadie needed less than a second to evaluate her heart. His earnest face, sincere words, and really, everything about him, would be so easy to love the rest of her days. No matter what happened with their acting careers, she would be blissfully happy by his side. She only needed one more second to consider the spinster pact. In her mind’s eye, she saw the disappointed looks on Monique and Ginny’s faces—well, really only Monique’s—and the million dollars from Great Aunt Lydia’s estate.
As the band struck up “Little Surfer Girl,” she squeezed Grant’s hands back. “I’ve taken all the time I need, and my answer is yes, with one condition.”