Chapter 15 #2
“Oh my goodness,” Linda said. “No wonder Grace is so upset.”
“That’s a tough spot you’re in, son,” Big Mac said.
“No kidding. There’s a lot to think about to be sure. Listen, before Grace comes back, this isn’t why we invited you to lunch. We have some other news we wanted to share with you—good news, or at least I hope you’ll think so.”
“Am I going to be a grandmother again?”
“No,” Evan said, laughing. “At least not because of me.”
“I still haven’t recovered from the latest delivery,” Big Mac said.
“Because it was so hard on you?” Evan asked, amused as always by his dad.
“Exactly.”
“We heard earlier today that Mac and Maddie are expecting again,” Linda said. “Your father is upset enough about that news.”
“Only because of what happened the last time,” Big Mac said, “but Mac assured me there’s no chance of that again.”
“I sure hope not. Once was enough.” Evan was about to go check on Grace when she appeared at the top of the stairs and made her way across the room to them. He stood to hold her chair and waited until she was settled and then bent to place his lips against her ear. “Okay?”
She nodded and smiled up at him.
When Evan was seated again, he took her hand. “You want to share the good news?”
“You don’t want to?”
“You can.”
“Someone needs to tell us what’s going on,” Linda said.
“Evan and I have set a wedding date.”
“Yes!” Big Mac said. “That’ll be twenty bucks, please, my love.”
“Wait, you guys bet on what we had to tell you?” Evan asked his parents.
“Your mother had twenty on a baby.”
“Well, I’m glad I could help you score an easy twenty,” Evan said, amused.
“And I get to gloat, too.”
“Of course you do.”
“Shush and let them talk,” Linda said to her husband. “When and where?”
“January eighteenth in Turks and Caicos.”
“Ohhh, how fun! A destination wedding with beach time in the dead of winter!”
“We were hoping you’d approve.” Though she seemed pleased by his mother’s reaction, Grace’s smile wasn’t as potent as usual.
“Everyone’s going,” Big Mac announced. “I’m paying. Get tickets and rooms for all of them, and I’ll take it from there.”
“Really, Dad, no one expects you to do that.”
“So what? I can do what I want. Just try to stop me.”
“Don’t try, honey,” Linda said, patting Evan’s hand across the table. “You know how he can be when he gets something in his head.”
“Yes, you know how I can be,” Big Mac said with a satisfied smile.
Grace laughed, and the sound filled Evan’s heart to overflowing. He loved to hear her laugh as much as he hated to see her cry. He took hold of her hand. “See what you’re marrying into?”
“I know exactly what I’m marrying into, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
“We couldn’t be happier either,” Linda assured her future daughter-in-law. “You two are a perfect fit, and we have no doubt that you’re going to have a long and happy life together.”
Evan would do everything within his power to make sure they had exactly that and nothing less.
Elated after her lunch date with Alex, Jenny went back to the lighthouse to shower and change.
When she’d offered to bring him lunch, she hadn’t pictured an enchanted garden or sex outside in broad daylight.
Earlier in the summer, when she told her friends she was ready to shake things up a bit, she’d never imagined shaking things up to the extent she had since she met Alex.
Part of her—the part concerned with self-preservation—wanted to take a step back and slow things down a bit.
But the other part—the part that had missed being half of a couple, the part that had missed the connection she’d had with Toby—wanted to dive into what she was feeling for Alex without reservation.
Being with him was exciting, and Jenny felt more alive with him than she had since her life was shattered.
And he’d said and done all the right things when she told him about Toby.
He’d reacted with the perfect amount of distress on her behalf but hadn’t overreacted the way so many people had before him.
Jenny appreciated that and would tell him so when she saw him later for their date.
She couldn’t wait. She felt like a teenager in the throes of first love, a thought that made her giggle, since she was hardly a teenager and this was hardly first love.
Hell, she’d be hard-pressed to call it love, but it was definitely something.
Her entire body tingled with awareness every time he was close by.
All he had to do to get her motor running was look at her with eyes full of sexy intent, and she was his.
Completely and absolutely his. She wondered if he had any idea how ridiculously gone over him she was.
“Probably better that he doesn’t know, or he’ll run for his life from the crazy lady in the lighthouse,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Her cell phone rang in the bedroom, and she ran to answer the call from Sydney.
“How’d it go? Tell me everything and leave out nothing.”
Jenny laughed. She so enjoyed her Gansett friends and the way they talked about everything. “It was a smashing success. Thanks for the brilliant idea.”
“It was a rather brilliant idea, wasn’t it?”
“You have no idea how brilliant.”
“Jenny Wilks! Did you have sex outside?”
“I’m not telling.”
“Oh my God! You did!”
“Well, there was this garden, you see, surrounded on four sides by very tall hedges. And then there was this hot gardener with abs like you read about. What was a girl to do?”
“I love it! Did this happen before or after you told him about Toby?”
“After.”
“So I take that to mean the conversation went well?”
“It went as well as I could’ve hoped for. He was perfect, and he wasn’t different or weird afterward, because I told him not to be. He seemed to appreciate the guidance.”
“You live and you learn, don’t you? What’s wrong with saying, ‘After I tell you this huge thing, this is what I need from you’?”