Chapter 26
“Good afternoon, Ms. Smith,” a voice said from Muriel’s classroom door.
She turned around to see Oliver leaning in the doorway. He had already changed into his hiking clothes. At school, her handsome boyfriend wore tailored suits, shiny shoes, and his hair always stayed in place even after a full day’s work. But now, he looked like a lumberjack in a flannel shirt and hiking boots.
Muriel, on the other hand, usually lost control of her appearance by lunch. Today, she’d put her hair up after indoor recess when little Andrew threw a pencil at Isla, who’d punched him square in the face. Indoor recess never ended well.
“How was your day?” he asked, walking over to her.
“Good, you?” she said, suddenly forgetting all about Andrew and Isla as Oliver came closer.
“Great.” He smiled at her, which roused every cell in her body.
She wished she could reach out and kiss him. They didn’t hide their relationship at work, but they tried to stay extremely professional. But sometimes all she wanted to do was kiss him when he stood in her classroom like that.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” he asked.
“Yeah, just give me one minute.” She went to her desk and shuffled papers together, then stuffed them into a work folder on her desk. She had a ton of grading she needed to get done, but it would have to wait. Tonight, they were going on a hike before it got dark. “I’m ready.”
She glanced out the window. The fall day had been cool and rainy, but now the sky was a bright blue. The weather in Blueberry Bay had quickly shifted to autumn right after the Blueberry Festival. The trees had started to change color, the birds were starting to fly south, even the waves came to shore harder.
Oliver turned off her lights, and they walked out of the classroom together. “You have your hiking shoes?”
“Yup.” She couldn’t wait to see what the colors looked like from their spot on the island. “When will you have to take your boat out of the water?”
“This weekend,” he said. “October is usually when everyone brings the seasonal boats out.”
“I’m going to miss going over there,” she said as he opened the door to leave the building.
“Good night, you guys,” the secretary, Marianna, said from the front desk window.
“Have a nice night, Mrs. Taylor,” Oliver said.
“Will I see you at the meeting?” Marianna asked Muriel.
“You know I wouldn’t miss a Queen Bees’ meeting,” Muriel said to her new friend.
“I’ll see you there then.” Marianna waved goodbye.
“See ya.” Muriel grabbed hold of Oliver’s hand the second they stepped out of the building. She felt like it was okay, even though they were technically on school grounds. Oliver didn’t care about what anyone thought about their relationship. He told the students she was his girlfriend. He talked to the secretaries about their dates and asked advice about where to take her. He would stop in to say hello with flowers while she taught her second graders, which frazzled her but also dazzled her and amazed her class.
Oliver was the one she had been dreaming about since she was a little girl. The man who wanted nothing but to be with her. Who put Muriel before himself and she did the same with him. Their relationship just worked…perfectly. She didn’t question anything about their timeline, their status, nothing. She was all in and so was he, and that was all that mattered.
They walked down to the harbor from the school, cutting through the gardens, and passing by her grandmother’s statue. Muriel set the flowers Oliver had given her that day on the base of the statue.
“You look like your grandmother,” Oliver said, holding his arm around Muriel’s shoulder.
“She was fantastic,” Muriel said, placing her hand on his as they stared at her grandmother as a mermaid. “Ready?”
Oliver squeezed her shoulder and led the way to his boat, then helped her get in.
“What’s this?” she asked, noticing a bag already placed inside the boat.
“I came prepared for the weather,” he said. “It’ll be cold out in the middle of the bay.”
She smiled at the gesture. She was always cold, and Oliver made sure to have extra blankets and sweatshirts on hand for her wherever they were. He always thought of her. She couldn’t have been happier. And here she was in a boat in the middle of Blueberry Bay, going to hike on an island, up to a lighthouse, with a handsome man who loved her.
Life couldn’t get any better.
“Smile!” She held out her phone and took a selfie of the two of them.
Oliver drove slowly through the bay as Muriel used her grandfather’s binoculars to look at the birds and the landscape from the water. She loved looking at the cottage and the house. It was truly magical being out on the water, looking in.
After Oliver docked, they began their ascent to the lighthouse right away. Muriel knew the trail like the back of her hand at this point. She loved going there with Oliver.
As they hiked along the path, they walked silently. Every once in a while, they’d tell a story of their day or they’d stop to take in the view or see something interesting. But as Muriel looked out at the water, she saw a whale way off in the distance.
“Is that really a whale?” she asked, giving the binoculars to Oliver. She could see it breach just above the water.
“Two!” he said, pointing at the water spouting out of the surface.
They stood there watching, waiting for them to reappear, when suddenly she saw another one rise to the surface.
“There’s another!” she exclaimed.
Oliver took her hand in his as they stood side by side watching for the whales. She had never been happier than in that moment.
By the time they reached the lighthouse, they only had a little time left before the autumn sun would set.
She went to walk past the lighthouse, when Oliver grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Wait. I have a surprise.”
He pulled out a key from inside his pocket and held it up. “It turns out Fred Kimball is friends with my grandfather.”
Muriel laughed at the brass key. She suspected it was a little bit more complicated than that, but she enjoyed the surprise either way. “I can’t believe we’ll finally get to go inside.”
He handed it to her. “Here, you open it.”
They walked to the door, and Muriel slipped the key into the lock and twisted it open. Muriel stepped inside, not knowing what to expect. She had never been in a lighthouse before. She opened the door and stepped into a cool, dark space. A musty scent mixed with the sea air lingered. There was only a metal staircase and a huge electrical box. Other than that, the place was one big empty room.
“Come with me.” Oliver tugged Muriel’s hand toward the stairs and began climbing up the spiral steps.
Muriel kept her hand in his as she followed him up staircase all the way to the top. When they reached the beacon, she had to take a minute for herself as she looked out at the view. She had a 360-degree view of the whole village of Blueberry Bay. It felt surreal and magical. She could see the top of the mountains, the far coves of lower Maine, and the tips of Canada’s coast.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, walking over to the glass and looking out.
“Find the red flag between your mom’s cottage and my grandfather’s house,” he said, pointing her in the direction. He handed her the binoculars.
She smiled. “There’s a red flag?”
He nodded. “Yup, and I want you to find it.”
She looked out and, waving in the wind, just along the shoreline, she found the red flag. She pointed to it. “There.” She handed back the binoculars. “What’s the red flag?”
“That’s the piece of property I’m buying from my grandfather,” Oliver said.
Muriel put down the binoculars and faced Oliver. “You’re buying land from your grandfather?”
“Well.” He shrugged. “Let’s say he’s giving it to me at a generous price.”
Oliver’s hand slipped away from hers. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small velvet box.
She looked back at him as he held out the jewelry box and dropped down on one knee. “I know it’s only been a short time since we’ve started dating, but I don’t want another moment to pass by without you. I keep thinking I should wait until some big moment, but this is what I want. I want to build a house between our families. I want to create our own family, and I don’t want to wait any?—”
“Yes,” she said right away. No hesitation at all. “Yes, I will marry you!”
Oliver stood up and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her long and passionately, holding her close to him and not letting go.
“You’ve just made me the happiest man on earth,” Oliver said, then he kissed her again.
The ring fit perfectly, and the whole way back, Muriel couldn’t help but look down at it on her finger. It was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen.
“If you don’t like the ring, we can find something you want,” Oliver said. “But it’s my grandmother’s from my grandfather.”
The unique yellow diamond looked too grand on her petite finger, but she loved it and wouldn’t change it for the world. “It’s perfect.”
When they got on the boat, Muriel kept her hand in Oliver’s the whole way back to the harbor, replaying every single second of the day in her head.
“Did you ask my mom?” she said, wondering if he had been that thoughtful.
“Yes, and I talked to your dad,” he said.
“Were they cool?” She wondered about the short timeline and her mother’s own situation with Quinn. She wasn’t engaged or in a rush to get engaged, yet here Muriel was getting engaged weeks into her relationship.
Oliver looked at her, a smile on his face. “They were surprised, let’s just say that.”
She smiled back. “Who doesn’t love a good surprise?”
When they reached the dock, she could see her mother’s car and her grandfather’s truck parked by the market.
“Surprise,” he said as everyone Muriel knew came out of the market.
She saw her aunt Remy and her family, then Kyle and Quinn, and even Cora and Ryan stood off in the distance with a man who she could see right away. “Wait, is that my dad?”
She got out of the boat and waited for Oliver before heading over to the crowd standing on the market’s front porch.
She saw Katie and Megan, the Queen Bees, and her principal and friends from work.
“This is incredible,” she said. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”
Before they headed over to the crowd, Oliver pulled her to him one last time and kissed her. “I’d do anything for you.”