Chapter 15 Olivia
“Marry me,” Simon said, and Olivia’s heart seemed to stop as he knelt beside her in the starlight, a small box clasped in his hand.
“You’re going to ruin your trousers.”
He grinned. “I’m fairly certain they’ll wash out.”
“I’m fairly certain you’re wrong.”
“About the trousers or the ring?” he asked.
“The stains on your pants.”
His laughter echoed across the blustery night, and she smiled with him, her heart aflutter.
They’d already celebrated Christmas Eve with dinner and a candlelight service.
After their misunderstanding last month, all had warmed again between Simon and her, but whenever he dared visit, Hattie remained frostier to him than the winter winds, her cold shoulder turning into a raging blizzard at church tonight.
Instead of rebuking Olivia, her aunt was now trying to scare Simon away.
After service, Olivia guided him outside, down to her refuge. But a ring. In this special place. It was the perfect Christmas gift.
He inched the box closer, its contents sparkling in the moonlight. “What do you think?”
Her mind whirled again at the thought of spending the rest of her life with this man who awaited her answer on a brown patch of grass.
“Words seem to escape me.”
He lowered the jewelry box. “Perhaps you need time to capture and write them down.”
She grinned like a schoolgirl. “I’ll have to think on it.”
“I hope you don’t think too long.” Standing, he brushed bits of dead grass off his knees. “I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you.”
And she wanted to spend her remaining years, however many God gave her, with him too.
“We’d have to . . .” She paused. Her novels usually ended with a proposal, the hero and heroine willing to overcome any obstacle that might keep them apart, but hurdles riddled the path to marriage for her and Simon.
Would he move here or would she go to Winfield?
And Hattie—she would be furious. “There are so many details to consider.”
“We’ll work through them together.”
“I worry about my aunt.”
Simon reached for her gloved hand and wrapped it in his. “She thinks I’m the enemy, doesn’t she?”
Would Simon turn stoic again, like he’d done last month when she hadn’t spoken in his defense? “She’s concerned that you’ll take me to Winfield.”
He kissed the top of her hand. “We’ll find a way, Olivia.”
“Perhaps you could teach at a university near here? We could stay in Haven House together.”
“So you’re considering it?”
She smiled at him. “I’m considering my options.”
“You do love this place, don’t you?” he said, glancing up the hill.
She nodded. “Hattie is settled here, and I fear I am equally set in my ways.”
Her heart would be divided in her care for Simon and the pain in leaving both Hattie and this home that she and Graham built. The cemetery that harbored those she loved. Her lake and flowers and church. “My roots go down deep in Catawba.”
He took her hand. “We will grow new roots together.”
“I’d like that.”
“We could sell your house here,” he said slowly as if testing the water.
“My home has a library and plenty of room for you to write. Or we could buy a new place together near Winfield with a separate residence for Hattie. I want you to gain something good in our marriage, not regret giving this up.”
“It would be good, wouldn’t it?”
He pulled her close and kissed her lips for the first time, merely a peck, most proper. Then he paused as if waiting for her to object.
She had no objection.
The years melted between them in his second kiss, two forks of water melding into a river. As he held her, she could think of no other reason why she wouldn’t leave Catawba for a love like this.
“For the rest of our lives, Olivia,” he whispered into her ear.
Those words sounded like paradise as something new awakened inside her.
“I want this to work, Simon. I just have to think. My mind . . . it’s all awhirl.”
And something else squirmed in her gut, unsettled, as Hattie’s doubts rattled in her head. Trying to dampen the joy.
Age wasn’t a factor anymore, not when their hearts had been knitting themselves together. Simon cared for her, enough to drive the six hours across Pennsylvania to visit. Cared enough to buy a dazzling ring and commit to spending the rest of his life with her.
What was wrong with enjoying his company in marriage, something she’d never thought she would experience again after Graham died?
A deeper love would develop between them, she had no doubt.
The kind that came from sharing a bed, certainly, but after her many years of marriage, she had no delusions about that alone uniting a husband and wife.
The deepest love came from sharing the day-to-day woes of growing old together.
A bond from shared jokes and laughter and rejoicing in the daily miracles of a great God.
And, after more than three years, she was ready to share all of this again.
Simon released her slowly, a model of self-control in not stealing another kiss. She almost relented to her own desire, but he stepped back, holding both of her hands.
“I have another idea,” he said.
And she was too worried to ask him about it, afraid he’d retract the proposal. She should have shown more enthusiasm. Something more romantic than discussing the ruination of his trousers.
“We don’t need to make a sudden change,” he proposed. “You can continue writing here in your tower, and I will teach four days a week at Winfield. Then we can spend most of our weekends together and our summer months and the holidays, of course. When we’re not traveling for our work.”
“And we could travel some together,” she suggested, embracing the idea.
He nodded. “To the grandest places, across all forty-eight states. I don’t want to swipe the rug out from under your lovely feet, Olivia. I want to offer you a magic carpet to ride.”
Graham had never referred to their relationship as an adventure, but marriage could be the grandest adventure of all. A trip into the unknown, filled with beauty and the best kind of magic.
“We will make it work together,” he said.
With those words, her worry tumbled off. Other couples kept two residences. Why couldn’t they? Simon with his comfortable house in Winfield, teaching at the college, and her writing from a quiet place shared with Hattie by Ashe Lake.
Even so, she didn’t want to burden him with travel for every visit.
“I’ll take the train to Winfield on some of those weekends.”
“Of course,” he said. “My family will adore you.”
“Your family . . .” She’d almost forgotten it was Christmas Eve. It must be close to the hour of seven now, and he was driving back to Ohio tonight to spend Christmas with his parents and sister. At this rate, it would be morning by the time he arrived.
She turned back toward the house. “You best be on your way.”
“Are you trying to rid yourself of me?”
“I want to make sure the man I’m going to marry arrives home safe.”
“The man you’re marrying?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” she teased. “I have to meet your parents and sister and . . . so many things.”
“In time.” He kissed her forehead. “They will adore you.”
“And Hattie—”
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll find a way to win her over.”
But he might be better off corralling a herd of wild horses.
It would be good for her and Hattie to open their nest a little wider and welcome in the Farrow family. Extended relations for both of them.
If only she could abandon all propriety for the night and join Simon on the journey back to Winfield. Visit the house he’d once shared with Ruthie. Then again, that might be too hard on her heart until after they married. Either way, she’d never leave her aunt alone for Christmas.
Perhaps she and Simon could purchase a new home together, when the time was right. One where they could live and love without so many memories of those who’d once held their hearts. Either way, they would spend next Christmas together.
He escorted her up the hill, twinkling lights radiating from the evergreen tree in her sitting room. As they rounded his car, she stared at the silver rim along his front wheel. “Your fender is crushed.”
“A minor incident involving a deer and a curb.”
“Were you injured?” she asked, alarmed that he’d hit an animal on his drive to Catawba.
“Not even a scrape,” he replied. “Thankfully both animal and driver escaped unharmed.”
The damage didn’t appear minor to her, but Simon, she had no doubt, would fix it soon.
“How long would you have me wait for an answer?” he asked as he escorted her to the front porch.
“In the new year,” she promised. “I’ll talk to Hattie after I return from California.” By then, she hoped, her aunt would see things anew.
“I will eagerly await your yes.” He lingered another moment, as if she might change her mind, but he didn’t press. Instead, he gave her a kiss that would remain on her lips until he returned to Haven House.
“Good night, Olivia.”
Her heart hammered when he stepped away, and her feet—they seemed to lift right off the ground without his arms as an anchor.
Everything within her wanted to cry out for him to wait. She could toss a few things into a satchel and spend the next week with his family. In a perfect world, Hattie would travel west with them. She and Simon could marry in Winfield this weekend, a family celebration.
But she didn’t live in a perfect world.
Her arms folded over her chest, the warmth already fading as Simon started his engine. If he waved goodbye, she didn’t see it in the glow of his taillights.
What was she going to tell her aunt? Hattie would be hurt—angry, even—if she agreed to Simon’s proposal. And how could Olivia marry without her blessing?
Hattie would come around in time, like she had with Graham, but how long must they wait?
She sat in a chair and rocked, remembering her first year of marriage.
Her father had loved Graham from the beginning, pleased that his daughter had chosen a minister who encouraged her to write.
If her father were still alive, he’d like Simon as well for how he urged Olivia to continue growing as a writer.
Simon saw past her work and age and the walls she’d built to hide behind, looking straight into her heart.
It had taken Hattie, her father’s only sister, an entire year to warm up to Graham. Then she’d spent the next twenty years spoiling him with pies and cakes.
It would only be a matter of time, Olivia guessed, before Hattie was baking Simon’s favorites.
An ache seeped from her chest as darkness swallowed his taillights.
She stood slowly, loneliness plaguing her when she turned into the house.
Her coat she hung on the familiar peg that Graham installed by the front door before stashing her boots in the closet.
Every inch of this house was familiar. Comfortable.
It would take her time, months even, before she could entertain leaving.
But Simon hadn’t required it of her. He understood, much more than Hattie, her unsteadiness in trying to navigate the in-between. One wrong move, a misstep, and she would surely tumble. Then where would she land?
Right into Simon’s arms, she hoped, but the doubts still haunted her. Entangled her really. She created similar fears to stop her book characters from pursuing the best things in life. Now she had to overcome her own fears in order to thrive again.
Her fidgety hands kneaded her skirt like it would help clear her mind.
She had to get back to work, continuing on with her fictional professor who’d become trapped in London during a blitzkrieg.
Her heroine would rescue him before Christmas morning, perhaps settling some of Olivia’s own unrest since she didn’t like leaving her characters in such a precarious position.
She avoided Hattie’s bedroom on the way to her office, and as the night hours ticked away, she poured herself into her story, wrapping up her characters’ plight. Finally, the heroine found her man.
On paper, over time and countless cups of tea, she could solve the most difficult of problems. Weave dozens of threads together in perfect time.
God worked things together for good, according to the book of Romans, for those He called, but it was awfully hard sometimes to see how it came together in this life.
He was the author of the greatest story ever told, but sometimes she wondered if the characters He’d created went rogue.
If they—if she—didn’t do exactly as He’d hoped or planned.
Hours later, she glanced up at the window and smiled when she saw snow sticking to the glass. A white Christmas.
After she stumbled downstairs into her bed to sleep, she dreamed of Simon’s arms around her. The delight of waking up next to him on Christmas morning, and, eventually, every morning.
Once she returned from California, once Hattie understood all that was in her heart, Olivia wouldn’t waste another moment considering his question.
Her answer would be yes.