Chapter 27
For most of the next week, I do my best not to stare at the ring on my finger. It’s not a showy, gaudy bauble of a piece. The diamond is bright and glittery but a smaller stone. As I dive right into the hustle of starting over on Lauren’s dress, I appreciate its modest size. If I wore a larger rock or had to suffer with a sharp-edged setting, I would fear the ring snagging on the fabric and thread. It doesn’t, and before long, it becomes second nature to trust that this ring is undoubtedly a perfect fit for a woman who works with her hands and deals with delicate materials prone to tears.
With the new sewing machine and the upgraded storage solutions for my things at the cabin, I’m able to work faster on the gown. I have a zest in my life. My dreams and goals aren’t as distant now. Guilt pricks at me when I remember that Sawyer is offering me the shop space out of some obligation he feels toward me, maybe a sense of wanting to be a hero for the sake of playing that role. I don’t know why he would go so far as to pretend to have an engagement with me, but I suppose it’s not costing him anything. It’s just a fake role. It can’t mean anything to him, but still, a sliver of hope burns inside my heart as I wish this were a real thing, that he wasn’t making this grand gesture out of pity to spare me from my mother’s wishes.
He doesn’t pull away like he did before, but we’re both so busy that I don’t have the time to focus on him. I am determined to sit down and talk with him, to truly communicate about where he’s coming from with all of these plans to help me, but he’s busy with work. One of his crew leaders was injured, and he’s putting more hours in than usual. And I’m not available or idle, investing double the time to make Lauren’s dress a complete garment on time after my mother’s destruction of the first one.
The one night we managed to find a few hours together, we fell into bed, sleeping with each other with a rabid need to come close, but he snuck out in the middle of the night, alerted to one of his crews needing help super early at the construction warehouse where he stored his equipment. Sooner or later, we will have to sit down and really talk, because the longer this fake engagement drags on with my emotions in limbo, I feel like I might combust.
Lauren and Aubrey stop over to check on my progress on the dress, and it seems all they want to talk about is precisely what I wish I could chat about with Sawyer.
“It’s beautiful!” Lauren gushes, wiping tears from her eyes.
Aubrey drapes her arms around both of our shoulders as we stand in a line facing the dress. “It really is.” Then she claps my back and wheels Lauren to face me. “Now. What is the meaning of this.” She takes my hand, and they both stare at the ring Sawyer gave me.
“I, uh…” I smile, but I hold back on joining in their enthusiasm. “Sawyer came up with an idea to help me out.” I knew I would have to spill the beans to them, but I have yet to know what to say.
“Sawyer actually proposed?” Aubrey gawks at me and shakes her head.
“I knew he would!” Lauren giggles.
Aubrey and I both frown at her. “You knew?” I ask.
“No, I mean it like a figure of speech. I figured he would,” Lauren replies. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“As…?”
“The woman he loves!” She hugs me. “Oh, how exciting!”
“But they just met,” Aubrey argues.
“And he didn’t actually propose,” I add.
They deadpan at me. “I think we need more details,” Aubrey says.
I fill them in on what I came home to after they took me to the chalet in Vail. The sewing machine, which I point out, then the shelving and how he tidied up.
“Then he drove me downtown to this building he owns on the main street.”
“Oh, yeah.” Aubrey squints in concentration. “I think I remember Kevin mentioning that one building before. That their dad bought it a long time ago.”
“Kevin didn’t want it?” I’m suddenly curious. He doesn’t have that same interest in construction like Jason and Sawyer do, but that downtown building could serve many purposes.
“No. I think he didn’t want the hassle of being a landlord or anything.”
“Well, he gave me the storefront for a shop. If my mother balks at us being engaged and refuses to give me my funds, then I’ll at least have the shop. One day, I’ll save up enough to make it the place of my dreams.”
“And…” Aubrey furrows her brow at my ring. “And he’s willing to go so far with this fake thing just to help you?”
I nod, wishing I felt more confident about it.
“You’re not actually going to get married?” Lauren asks.
“If we need to, to get my mother off my back, then we will.”
Aubrey snorts. “If you need to? That’s no way to consider marriage!”
“She means with the money.” Lauren glances at me. “Unless you two really do want to marry?”
I rub my hands down my face. “I don’t know!”
We sit, and they both wait for me to figure out how to explain it.
“I’m falling in love with him. I think.”
Aubrey raises her brows. “You don’t know?”
“I haven’t experienced much love in my life to know. I think I am. I’m falling for him.” If I haven’t already. “But I don’t understand his behavior. He kisses me, then pulls away. He sleeps with me, then gets all distant.”
“Hot and cold, huh?” Aubrey rolls her eyes.
“Maybe,” Lauren says without Aubrey’s snark, “you should tell him how you really feel.”
I pick at the pins for her dress, unable to sit and be idle when I could work on the dress.
“But then she’s putting herself out in the open, being vulnerable,” Aubrey argues.
“No, she would be honest.” Lauren points around the room. “And maybe he’s already beaten her to it. He’s made himself vulnerable first, not telling her how he feels about her but showing her. He did all the cleanup. He installed the shelving. He bought that fancy sewing machine…”
“That’s worth nearly fifteen grand,” I admit sheepishly while stroking the top of it.
Aubrey’s eyes go wide, and Lauren whistles.
Everything she says makes sense, but still, I glance at Aubrey and wonder if she’s right to be protective and skeptical. I always have been, but Sawyer’s affection challenges my way of thinking.
“Maybe Sawyer’s way of telling you how much he cares about you is by acts of service instead of words,” Lauren concludes.
Aubrey shrugs. “Hell, he did buy you an expensive piece of equipment after your mother ruined your first dress design.”
Lauren snaps her fingers and points at me. “And he bought you shoes so you wouldn’t keep tripping in the gravel.”
“And,” Aubrey says with a smile as she lifts my hand, “he’s not afraid to not propose with his mother’s ring, something I bet all three men in that family value highly…”
I sigh and consider their wisdom, wishing I could draw strength from them.
Clearly, they’ve found their happiness after some struggles.
I wish I could rely on their advice and know I could have my own happily ever after, too.
A real one, not a sham to spare me from my mother’s control.