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He grinned at her.“Two years without West.How are you feeling?”
She exhaled slowly, in measured beats.“Better than last year.Better all the time.”
He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t.They’d talked a lot about this day in the past couple of weeks leading up to it, and maybe she’d said all she needed to.
“I don’t want to celebrate this day,” she said.
“That’s not what this is.”
“No, I know,” she said, placing one hand on his chest.She smoothed it around to the back of his neck.“This is you taking care of me on what you know is a hard day.”
“Yes,” he said.“That’s what this is meant to be.”He tilted his head and looked at her.“You’ve been thinking about him all day.”
“Yes,” Cass admitted.“All the good things, like a celebration, and that’s not what I want this day to be.”
Harrison took a few moments to think.“You wouldn’t want to remember the bad things.Or just ignore it, I wouldn’t think.”
“No,” she murmured.
“So just some self-care,” he said.“Which I’m happy to provide for you.”
Cass nodded, her smile back.“Okay, cowboy.Take me to your place, please.”
“There’s more tea in the fridge,” he said as he stepped back.“And cheesecake for later.”
Her face lit up.“Cheesecake?Tell me it’s the blackberry one from Stroud’s.”
He grinned at her.“It’s the blackberry one from Stroud’s.”
“I’m so glad you’re mine,” she whispered just before kissing him again.Hey, he’d take it.If bringing her a cheesecake made her kiss him like this, he’d do it every day.
Harrison was running late,and he hated the anxious, fluttery feeling in his chest.He couldn’t control some aspects of his job, and he’d already texted Cass to let her know that he’d be about a half-hour late to dinner at her house.
Her children were all on-island for Spring Break, and while he’d visited with them over the holidays, they hadn’t been back to South Carolina since Christmas.Three months was a long time, and Harrison didn’t want to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.
It’s okay, Cass said.You’re still getting the buns?
Yep, he sent off quickly, and then he got back to work.Their electrical on this last building had been wired wrong, and he’d been dealing with the rewiring for three days now.
“Done?”he asked Jeff.The man looked up from the dustpan where he’d been sweeping up various bits of colored plastic that had come off the electrical work.“This is it,” he said.
“Perfect.”Harrison sighed in relief.“Thanks for stepping in last-minute.”
“Happy to do it.”Jeff smiled and continued with the clean-up.Harrison had put as many people on electrical—including the clean-up—as he thought he could without being annoying, and tomorrow, they’d get back to their usual duties.
Back to normal.
He hoped.In all honesty, his version of normal changed on a daily basis.
Over the past ten months, the only thing that had been constant was this build.And since September, when Cass had stood up to her children, him and Cass.
He saw her every day.Took her pastries every day.Kissed her every day.Told her he loved her every day.
And tonight, with her family here, he wanted to see if she’d agree to become his wife.
He respected and appreciated that she needed time to come to a place where she was ready to get married again.They’d talked about it off and on over the past five months, more and more in recent weeks.
He’d bought her a plain gold band, because as trendy as Cass wanted to be with her interior designs, she was traditional when it came to weddings and marriage.So not white gold, she’d told him.Regular yellow gold.
