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“Which is why I was nervously cleaning and worked up,” she admitted. “You mean the world to me, and I want things to be perfect – but they aren’t.”
“What we have together is perfect… and everything else is just a bonus,” he said tenderly. “And they are boarding now. Please don’t worry,mon Coeur. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
Ending the call, she realized her hands were trembling, and she was just as nervous now as she was a few days ago when she’d taken her pregnancy test… except now she had the sonogram photos to prove it.
* * *
Three hours later,Emily was waiting at baggage claim for John to arrive, standing there, feeling her stomach sour with anxiety every time she heard the luggage carousel buzz, alerting others that it was about to start moving slowly.
Looking up, she saw John’s bright smile… and felt her heart stagger in her chest as he walked in her direction, his bag slung over his shoulder. Within seconds, she was in his arms, hugging him.
“Hey…” he whispered, smoothing a hand down her back as she hugged him fiercely. “Hey, look at me, Em…”
She raised her head from his shoulder and met his eyes nervously, feeling them water as she bit her tongue.
“Are you okay? Your lips are so pale, and you’ve lost weight. You’ve got to take care of yourself, my love…” he whispered tenderly, brushing her hair back from her face.
“I’m fine.”
“Gosh, you are a sight for sore eyes…” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her tenderly as her hands clung to his sides, holding him close. “Let’s go home, so you can show me the striped wallpaper and those mysterious pink towels,” he teased softly against her lips.
She nodded, smiling nervously.
* * *
Twenty minutes later,she was watching John’s expression as she pulled up to the little building she’d purchased. The house had a small parking lot in front and had been a grocery at some point during the history of it. There was a sign in front that had been replaced, that now said, ‘Masden Accounting’.
“Now there’s two words I never thought would be strung together,” he teased but there was a proud gleam in his eye. “I love the new sign.”
“It’s much more eye-catching and a little larger than the last one,” she replied, feeling herself relax a bit. She could talk about work easily, but when it came to personal stuff with John – she was a mess. “We own the entire building and three acres. There’s a little pond out back where I intended to put a small dock someday and…”
“You’ve got three acres?”
“We,” she stressed pointedly. “We have three acres, and it included a pond, this building, the parking lot, and everything you see all the way back to the old telephone poles in the distance.”
“This is incredible… I’m really impressed,” he whispered, staring, before looking at her. “I mean that sincerely.”
“Really?”
“Emily, this is gorgeous… and you own it?”
“Weown it outright,” she corrected again. “I’ve been investing my earnings and watching every penny for several years now, and paid it off outright about two years ago. My office is the bottom floor, and the apartment is the entire top floor.”
He looked so shocked, so stunned, that she immediately realized that this was probably nicer than anything he’d ever grown up with as a boy – and besides that, and his bunk in the Air Force barracks? He had nothing to compare it to.
To her, the place was a little dated and needed some up-keeping. She really needed to yank down that accursed wallpaper and paint. The bathroom tile was okay, but the bathtub was the cast iron tub from the early seventies when the building was converted from a grocery to a residence. It had character, charm, and all the flaws that came with time… yet in John’s face, she realized that he saw none of it.
“C’mon inside,” she invited quietly, digging out her keys from her pocket – and immediately removing the extra keys she had made for him. “These are your copy.”
“Mine?” he choked out emotionally, and looked away. “Wow. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little taken aback by all of this. I just… I don’t know what to say…”
“Well,” she smiled, holding open the glass door and walking in, realizing that she was glad she’d picked up and put away some of the files. Her little magnolia was on the corner of the counter that hid her desk from sight. “I guess you can just spit out whatever bounces off your mind as we walk through…”
“I marriedup…” John said bluntly, looking around, before his wide eyes settled on her. “I really marriedwaaaayabove my league and…”
Flattered, amused, and relieved didn’t even begin to describe what was going through her own mind right now.
