Chapter 46
Nic jogged down the sidewalk toward St. Clare Circle. He was still sipping his coffee, but he’d gotten sick of waiting. They’d been up late last night formulating a few new plans for their two businesses.
Felicity had left a highly inadequate note.
GOING OUT.
And sure, some part of him had not fully recovered from the whole seeing-her-get-hit-by-a-giant-flying-table-and-thinking-she-was-dead-for-thirty-minutes thing.
Five months wasn’t enough time.
Five years might not be enough time either.
He walked down the block, stopping briefly to witness an incredibly entertaining Bruce Hogan tantrum.
He must have found out the news that Cynthia had given them an early preview of several months ago.
Nic would allow the insufferable blowhard of a man to feel the full weight of his failure before going in and offering him a lowball check for the empty lot for the sum of money that Nic and Dexter Greene had discussed.
Reasonable enough for Bruce to feel forced to accept it.
Low enough to be slightly insulting. Of course, the bigger insult would come when Bruce found out the land would be irrevocably donated to the city as a public park, with the bur oak Felicity loved given official protections from ever being cut down—no matter how many times Bruce tried to find loopholes.
These happy plans gave Nic an extra pep in his step as he looked for Felicity.
As expected, he found her in the garden. He hadn’t seen her in those overalls since before the tornado. He felt a smile form as he watched her do battle with a dandelion root despite still wearing a brace on her wrist when she worked.
As if she felt his gaze, she whipped around and pulled out her earbuds. She pointed a finger at him, like she’d been imagining his face where the dandelion root was. He was in trouble. “You owe me more apologies.”
“Good morning to you too.” He leaned on the fence and tried his best smolder, but this only seemed to make her angrier. He frowned. “I woke up, and you were gone.”
“Oh, is it disappointing when that happens?”
“Shit.” He grimaced. “Guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” His shoulders slumped. “When did you wake up?”
“At five. I’m still catching up on all the work that needs to be done here. My parents did their best, but they aren’t gardeners, and I decided something.” Her head twitched, and with a start he saw she had brought the box of letters out with her. They were stacked in a neat pile in the box.
“You read them all—”
“Yes, and I think I’m owed a lot more apologies.”
“Ah. Okay.” He was biting the inside of his mouth, his hand tight around the handle of the mug he was holding. “For the lying by omission or for the prose?”
“No.” She dropped her spade into the dirt like a victorious warrior might leave a sword in a smitten enemy and she headed over to the bench to sit next to the box. “For thinking I was so fragile you had to protect me from you. You and Aunt Jeannie thinking I was some stupid girl who was going to—”
“Felicity.” Nic slid the mug onto the bench and knelt beside her, genuine shock pulsing in him.
“What?” She crossed her arms.
He patted the stack of letters. “I think I left some things out of the letters if that’s what you think.”
“I also don’t understand why Aunt Jeannie lied to me. How could she think I was so weak and stupid that I—”
“What do you know about Toby’s father?” He sat on the ground beside her, picking up the mug again. His hands were cold.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It wasn’t for you. She wasn’t lying to protect you.” He didn’t touch her, because he couldn’t decide if she wanted him to. “At least not in the way you think she was trying to protect you.”
“I’m so confused. Can you spell this shit out?”
“Toby’s father was a drug addict like me. Worse because he was better at hiding it.”
“She never told me that. My dad told me Jeannie fell for a ‘scumbag’ married man who didn’t tell her he was married at first, who already had a kid with someone else, and then a few years after they got married, he died after betraying her in every way possible.
I just thought he was a cheater.” Felicity sighed. “Not just, but you know what I mean.”
“When I told her I got clean after that night with you, she thought history was repeating itself.”
“How?”
“I think she fell for him really hard and really fast. She met him for the first time at a wedding. She was the same age you were when we met. He was older. The man was already married and a doctor. He had Toby, and he ended up hooked on narcotics. He met Jeannie, but she found out about the drugs. So he got sober for a while. It stuck long enough for her to wrap her whole life around him. But the sobriety didn’t stick.
He made it really tough for her during her first battle with cancer, but she still loved him. And I’m not sure she ever got over it.”
“She told you all that? Courtney said you used to come visit her all the time.”
“She didn’t tell me everything at once. Mostly she used the word fuckery a lot.” Nic smiled, remembering the cranky look on Jeannie’s face.
“Obviously.” She pulled Nic up to sit next to her. “I’m still mad. At both of you. Which makes me feel guilty, because she’s dead.”
“She’d expect nothing less.”
Felicity sat up a bit straighter. “But I also think we should get married.”
The mug he had been holding fell and shattered on the pavers. “You—”
“It’s better for tax purposes if we really plan on running a garden-to-table place here after the sale from Marshall goes through.”
“Oh—right. I think that makes—uh—”
“And because when I woke up in the hospital, before I even knew any of this, all I could think was that I loved you so much it literally hurts inside. Right here.” She thumped her chest with her fist.
“You had six bruised ribs, Felicity.”
“Immaterial. No pressure or anything, but—”
“Wait.” He pressed a finger to her mouth one hand. “Shush—darlin’.”
And because it was Felicity, she did not shush. She sank her teeth into his finger. Not hard enough to hurt, but not exactly gently either. He pinched her cheeks. “Stop that.”
“Don’t shush me and I won’t bite you.”
“Are you physically incapable of not speaking for six seconds?” He fiddled with the trick latch in the bottom of the box.
“‘Physically capable’ and ‘willing’ are two very different things. And stop breaking my box. It’s mine. You gave it to me. No taksie-backsies.”
“I’m not breaking it. I’m just—shoot.” He probably should have WD-40’ed that sucker at some point. The pawnshop owner had shown him how it worked, saying it was a traveling magician’s box at some point, but the guy probably just wanted to make the sale.
The latch sprang free.
“What is—”
“It’s got a secret compartment.”
“Right, I get that, no, what’s that.”
He pulled out the tiny purple velvet bag it had arrived in.
It came with the rest of the shipment from Brussels.
It wasn’t a diamond. And it probably couldn’t even be considered an engagement ring.
He didn’t know anything about it when it came other than that it looked old.
He had gotten it cleaned before putting it in here in case one of his ancient relatives had died in it or something.
The gold band was thicker than most women wore.
It twisted with two irregularly shaped freshwater pearls on either side of three pear-shaped emeralds.
The ring screamed Felicity when he’d first seen it, so he’d put it in here with the letters.
After all, Courtney had already refused everything Nic had tried to give her, so it wasn’t like he had anything else to do with it other than put it into storage with the rest of the junk he’d need to sort through someday.
Nic took her hand and dropped the ring into her palm.
Felicity burst into tears. Shaking, snotty, wailing sobs.
She wouldn’t let go of the ring, and she wouldn’t let go of Nic.
Finally, after she’d calmed down enough, Nic felt he could speak. “If you hate it, it’s not a big deal. I got it with the rest of the junk from my dad’s family, and it just looked like you. But you could pick whatever you want.”
“You think I’m”—she hiccupped—“crying because I hate this perfect antique ring you’ve had waiting in a box all these years because it reminded you of me?”
“Um—maybe?”
“No, you, you-you—chowderhead.”
“I suggested adding some seasonal soups to the menu. You don’t have to be mean about it.”
“Shhh … I’m c-crying because all our plans are r-ruined.”
“But I thought getting married would solve all our tax-related problems?”
She shook, half with laughter. Half with fresh tears. “I’m crying because I don’t think I can grow our garden-to-table food while wearing that ring because it’s too beautiful and too perfect, and I think once it’s on my finger, I won’t want to take it off ever. It’ll never work.”
He bent forward and kissed her, and she grabbed hold of him, pulling him on top of her.
Nic pushed the hair out of her face. “We can get you some gloves, darlin’.”