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“Excellent choice.” The snooty clerk who had mostly been ignoring them since they walked in finally deigned to approach them.
“You think so?” Greg asked. “We’re celebrating a big occasion.”
“You won’t be disappointed, I assure you. What else can I he
lp you find?”
Sometime later—and with considerably lightened wallets—the two of them carried two magnums of champagne and two bottles of wine out to Josh’s car.
“I, uh, need to make one last quick stop,” he said after pulling into traffic. “Do you mind waiting?”
“No problem. The party doesn’t start for another two hours. We’ve got plenty of time.”
When Josh pulled up in front of an assuming storefront a few moments later, Greg looked at the sign above the door then back at him with eyebrows raised. “Wow. Seriously? Tonight? I thought Abby was jumping the gun when she said she suspected you were close to proposing. She’s always right, that beautiful wife of mine. Don’t tell her I said that.”
Josh shifted, uncomfortably aware his fingers were shaking a little as he undid his seatbelt. “I bought the ring two weeks ago. When the jeweler told me it would be ready today, I figured that was a sign.”
“You’re a brave man to pick a ring out without her.”
Panic clutched at his gut again, but he took a deep breath and pushed it away. He wanted to make his proposal perfect. Part of that, to his mind, was the element of surprise.
“I found a bridal magazine at Melissa’s apartment kind of hidden under a stack of books and she had the page folded down on this ring. I snapped a quick picture with my phone and took that in to the jeweler.”
“Nice.” Greg’s admiring look settled his stomach a little.
“I figure, if she doesn’t like it, we can always reset the stone, right?”
“So when are you going to pop the question?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I thought maybe when I take her home after the party tonight, we might drive up to that overlook above town.”
“That could work.”
“What about you? How did you propose to Abby?”
“Nothing very original, I’m afraid. I took her to dinner at La Maison Marie. She loves that place. Personally, I think you’re only paying for overpriced sauce, but what can you do? Anyway, after dinner, she kept acting like she was expecting something. I did take her along to shop for rings a few weeks earlier but hadn’t said anything to her since. She seemed kind of disappointed when the dessert came and no big proposal. So we were walking around on the grounds after dinner and we walked past this waterfall and pond she liked. I pretended I tripped over something and did a stupid little magician sleight of hand and pulled out the ring box.”
“Did you do the whole drop-to-your-knee thing?”
“Yeah. It seemed important to Abby. Women remember that kind of thing.”
“I hope I don’t forget that part.”
“Don’t sweat it. When the moment comes, whatever you do will be right for the two of you, I promise.”
“I hope so.”
The depth of his love for Melissa still took him by surprise. He loved her with everything inside him and wanted to give her all the hearts and flowers and romance she could ever want.
“It will be,” Greg said. “Anyway, look at how lousy Frank and Diane’s marriage started out. Their honeymoon sounded like a nightmare but thirty years later they can still laugh about it.”
That was what he wanted with Melissa. Thirty years—and more—of laughter and joy and love.
He just had to get through the proposal first.
Chapter Two
by Christine Rimmer
