Chapter 20 #2
This afternoon, Ryder headed to Ella’s for a late lunch and an optimistic order of fifty chicken baskets. Since the fire, the TWRA wanted all departments to focus on fire-safety education. Ryder was teaching at the Kids Theater every Wednesday after school.
As he circled Gardenia Park, he heard music coming from the small amphitheater. Buck Mathews, home from a summer tour, was playing tonight for his hometown.
Last time he was in the park, Ryder had just ordered chicken baskets from Ella’s and stared into Elizabeth Dorsey’s blue eyes. But he’d put those days and memories behind him.
Dad’s advice to go with his gut was a bust. Granted, a voicemail marriage proposal might have been a bit much, but Elizabeth never responded until about a month ago.
She’d called at midnight. When he answered, she hung up. He tried to call back, but her voicemail picked up. He tried a few more times, but again, voicemail. So, he left it alone. Took the hint.
Inside Ella’s, a late lunch crowd conversation buzzed around the dining room. Ryder sat at the counter, ordering a sandwich for himself and chicken baskets for the fire-safety class.
He was reviewing his notes when Tina came from the kitchen with his lunch and her iPad. When he’d signed for the chicken basket order, she passed over the mustard and ketchup.
“So,” she said, “have you heard from Elizabeth?”
“Nope.”
“No one else has heard from her either.” Tina gave him one of those arched-brow, how-do-you-like-them-apples looks.
“What do you mean, no one else?”
“Betty, Matt. Her cousins. Me. I mean, I know school is important and she has a lot on her plate, but surely she has a moment to say hello. You hear stories about people losing it in grad school, but I didn’t think she’d be one.”
“She’s moved on, Tina.” Ryder bit into his sandwich. It needed some mustard. He didn’t want to talk about Elizabeth Dorsey. She was the past. “We should too.”
“Betty called her parents, who said—” Tina gasped, staring toward the door. “Sake’s alive, I don’t believe it.”
Ryder glanced over his shoulder to see Elizabeth standing in the light falling through large-pane windows. She wore jeans, sneakers, and a puff jacket. Soft strands of curls escaped the loose knot atop her head.
“Ryder Donovan.” She all but shouted. “I need to talk to you.”
Ryder led her through the kitchen, out to the small parking lot behind Ella’s. Elizabeth felt like she might implode. There were moments on the drive from Philadelphia to Hearts Bend she couldn’t remember, only that she’d arrived with her heart and her head barely following.
She shouldn’t have left school. But she did because she couldn’t stay. She was a woman with an overwhelming dilemma. No one could help her. The answer was within.
When the exit door to the kitchen closed, she turned to Ryder. “I can’t eat. Think. Sleep. I’ve tried to put it out of my mind, but I can’t.”
“Elizabeth, what are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here? Your message, Ryder. Your message. ‘Will you marry me?’ Remember? Did you mean it? Were you of sound mind?”
“Yes, I meant it. Yes, I was of sound mind. But—”
“You’ve changed your mind?” The air in the parking lot behind the diner was warm with the stench of a car engine and an overflowing dumpster. But she’d rather be here than anywhere else. “I’m too late?”
“Beth, you hung up on me. Never answered my calls.”
“I know, I know. Because I was scared.” They circled each other, fighters in a ring.
“Of me?”
“Of my answer.” She glanced toward a noise to see Tina, Lucy, and D’Angelo stacked up, watching through a crack in the door. “So,” she said to Ryder, “did you mean it?”
“Of course I meant it,” he said. “Is that why you’re here?”
Elizabeth broke the tension with a light laugh and leaned against Tina’s car. “Ridiculous, right? I ignore you for two months, then bam, I show up loaded for bear, demanding to know if you meant it.”
“Then bam, I’m here for it.” He leaned against the hood of Tina’s SUV. “Talk to me, Dorsey.”
Elizabeth sighed as she pulled the tie from her hair so her curls fell free. She raised her gaze toward the October sky.
“First-year students had to write a paper analyzing a work situation we experienced before arriving at Wharton. I chose the TWRA fraud. Man, I was going to knock out the assignment in a week. I dove into research, listened to the lectures, studied coursework, sat in discussions.” She peered at Ryder.
“I didn’t listen to your message for several days.
I didn’t want to be distracted. Didn’t want the pull of your voice, of Hearts Bend.
I didn’t want the pull of you. I’d made it to Wharton, and I loved it.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Then, when curiosity got the better of me, I listened.
You asked me to marry you, and from that point on, I couldn’t…
I wasn’t…me. I bought a bridal magazine from a newspaper stand, Ryder.
A bridal magazine. I’ve never even been remotely interested in bridal magazines. ”
“Did you see anything you liked?”
Many, many things. “Then I started reading engagement stories online. I could write a book, I read so many. I daydreamed about proposals and weddings during my classes.” She looked over at him.
“What other women received a romantic voicemail proposal like me? I tried to forget, put it all behind me. My professor loved my paper on the TWRA fraud case, so I doubled down on my commitment. Until one day, when I was at lunch with my fellow students and one of them asked about my plans after Wharton, I said, ‘Um, what?’ I wasn’t even listening to the conversation.
I was thinking about a gown I really loved in Brides magazine. ”
“Elizabeth, do you want to marry me?” Ryder slipped his hand into hers.
“Yes, Ryder, as much as it pains me to say.” She squeezed his hand, grinning. But he remained somber.
“Don’t joke. I’m serious. If you want to finish school, I’ll wait. I’ll go where your career goes. I can get a job easily enough.”
“That’s just it, Ryder, I don’t want to finish school.
” She peered into his eyes, so intense yet serene.
“Last week I was heading home after class—it was a beautiful fall day—and instead of thinking about the lecture and discussion, or what work I needed to do that night, or even what to have for dinner, I was thinking of Dorsey Furniture and the new accounting system, writing an email to Will in my head on things to set up and how to do it. I was thinking of Granny and her homey kitchen. Above all, I was thinking of you, the fire tower, and that kiss.” Sigh.
“That one amazing kiss and dreading my next class. Dreading the projects and reading ahead. All the feels from my summer visit were gone. I had no motivation for school. The two years I was sick, all I wanted was to get on with my life and finish my education. Which I did. And in that space, I equated living with education and the acclaim of letters behind my name. Ryder, I do want to get on with my life.” She glanced down at the pavement and kicked at a small stone.
“With you. If you’ll have me.” There. She’d poured out her heart and—
He snatched her in his arms. “I’m going to kiss you, infection or not.”
“I’m not infectious. I had a test before classes started.” She pulled a white note from her pocket. “The doctor gave me—”
Ryder’s loud and joyful laugh filled her up.
“I love you, Elizabeth Dorsey.” His kiss started on her forehead, then down to her cheek and chin, arriving at her lips with such a burning force she couldn’t feel the ends of her fingers or toes.
He tasted a bit of spearmint and bacon, and his skin radiated a warm hint of soap.
Elizabeth held onto his thick shoulders, then slipped one hand to the soft skin on the back of his neck and kissed him back.
Her first real kiss was with the man she’d love forever.
When the kissing finally gave way, he whispered, “Meet me at the fire tower. Six o’clock.”