Chapter 24 #2
The small shard of chocolate between my fingers began to melt. I popped it in my mouth and reached into the picnic basket for a napkin. “My engagement isn’t taboo, Cath. I asked you to marry me so I could keep some land. I don’t think anything will ever be taboo between us.”
“It’s not just ‘some land.’ ”
Those five words were one of the reasons I loved her. She understood that it wasn’t just some fields and a big house.
Instead of waiting for Catherine to ask, I offered what she was curious about. “Her name is Lynn. We met through mutual colleagues, dated, and had a short-lived engagement. I moved into her place, which, in hindsight, made it easier to leave.”
Catherine looked down at the baguette in her hands. “Why did it end?”
“We were incompatible.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You say it so…clinically.”
I shrugged. “It’s what it felt like. It was convenient, but it was never comfortable. Never…” It was never like this. But I didn’t say that part out loud.
“It was her life, and I was just living in it,” I said.
“It was like trying to put puzzle pieces in the wrong place, even if they’re from the same picture.
After I proposed, it became clear that I was trying to force a relationship to work that just…
didn’t. I don’t hold any ill will toward her. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Did you want it to work?” she asked.
I took my time thinking it over, but Catherine never rushed me. She never huffed or looked inconvenienced. She simply waited.
“I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could make it work. That I had the potential to be a good husband. A good partner.” I offered a warped smile and muttered, “She and I disagreed there.”
Catherine’s expression turned sour.
“I was trying to convince myself that I could have what my grandparents had,” I admitted.
“What my parents had. That lifelong love. I wanted to build something together. She wanted different lives under the same roof and same last name. I thought I wanted that, but it just made me feel alone in a relationship. When it ended, I was numb. It was just…over.” I shook my head.
“Anytime I’ve lost someone, they came back in some kind of way.
When we buried my parents in the rose garden, the minister said that grief is the ghost of love.
I was hurt when Lynn gave the ring back, but I wasn’t haunted. ”
Catherine looked down at the ring on her hand. “You might not hold any ill will toward her, but I sure as hell do. And I kind of hate that she got to wear this. It’s too pretty for that kind of ugliness.”
“She never wore that ring.”
Catherine looked up. “What?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t propose to her with that ring. I bought her a different one.”
Her eyes darted down to the heirloom as confusion warped her features. “But…”
I was used to being able to hide and blend into the shadows of life. To float through the day without bringing attention to myself.
I hated that Catherine saw me. That she could read me like a book.
But I also loved it.
There was a distinct intimacy to feeling seen and known. A companionship that superseded the short time we had been together.
Maybe this was what people meant by “love at first sight.”
It wasn’t the seeing. It was the understanding.
I always thought love at first sight was all about the moment you laid eyes on someone. Maybe that was why I always believed it was a crock of shit made to sell movie tickets, flowers, and chocolates.
But it wasn’t the moment that two puzzle pieces clicked together to complete the picture. It was simply realizing that they belonged in the same box.
Nerves pricked at my throat the way sewing needles poked at my fingers when I would play with my grandmother’s pincushion as a child.
“You know…I came back to the estate a few weeks before Granddad died. Hallie called and said she didn’t think he had much time.
She knew even before the hospice nurse did.
” I kicked off my boots and set them in the grass.
“The dogwoods were blooming then. White petals like his hair—or what was left of it. The day he died, I saw him in the flowering trees. I saw him in the clouds. It was just like when my grandma passed. She lives in the roses.”
“The ghosts of love,” Catherine said as she laid her hand on mine.
I nodded. “When I came to live at the estate as a kid after my parents died, they showed up in the peaks.”
I pointed up to where the sun glowed behind the mountains, lighting them in a blaze of glory. Twin summits seemingly arched toward each other, one taller than the other, but bowing in reverence and protection.
“I would listen for the rustle of the trees that coated the mountains. Sometimes it was their applause. Sometimes it was a comforting whisper.” I swallowed.
“It used to hurt to be here. Then it would get better after a while. And then I would lose someone else, and it would hurt again. The pain wouldn’t ease until I found where they lived on.
” My eyes met hers at the confession. “Until I found you.”
“Hayes…”
I shook my head, because I needed to get this off my chest. “I saw you that day—when you were standing outside the kitchen door to avoid the funeral circus. I came out and stood against the wall in the spot where you had been. I looked down and found your eyes in the forget-me-nots that grew beneath your feet.” I tightened my hand around hers.
“Then, I looked up and saw them in the summer sky. Now, they glow in the mountains on the days when the Blue Ridges look exceptionally blue. I see them in the bluebirds when they sing in spite of the rain.” I swallowed.
“And I see them in the rain because you took something somber and made it cleansing. You were the first person I didn’t have to lose to find. ”
Catherine didn’t say a word. Instead, she cupped my jaw and kissed me. My hands found her hips as she slid onto my lap and straddled me.
“Please say something,” I begged in a desperate rasp as fear and discomfort began to creep in between her warm kisses and wandering hands.
Her lips paused, lingering over mine. “Finders keepers.”
I was a stupid man to believe I could keep her, but if I was going to be a fool for anyone, it was Catherine Wilder.
I wrapped my arm around her, keeping her safe against my chest as I flipped us in one swift motion and laid her on the blanket.