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Marcus noticed Hannah’s face first, and whipped around to see what she was looking at that had caused that expression, Everett following his lead. Kennon, along with his wife, Rosabella, and his sons, six-year-old Brian and five-year-old Brandon, was walking across Snowdrift Springs Park toward them. Kennon called out, “I decided it didn’t matter how similar the park in Kansas was to this one if I didn’t have you two with me.”
As the three of them hugged as “birthday brothers” and said hello to Rosabella and Marcus swung Brian and Brandon in circles, he thought about how happy it made him that Kennon was able to come home for his and Everett’s birthday. Almost immediately, a longing settled in right beside the happiness. He, Everett, and Kennon used to be inseparable. Then Kennon went to study engineering at the University of Kansas and continued living there, and it was mostly him and Everett doing everything together.
The last time they had all been together was exactly a year ago. But having all three of them together, along with both of their wives and all four of their kids, didn’t make Marcus feel like all the missing pieces were finally back together— it made him feel the pain his own missing piece was causing him.
He realized that hedidhave that feeling of everything being complete whenever he and Joselyn were in Nestled Hollow together. That was when everything felt right. Both Marcus and Joselyn were in Nestled Hollow right now for the birthday celebration, but he hadn’t been over to the Zimmermans to see her in person yet.
“Do Mom and Dad know you’re here?” Everett asked.
Kennon shook his head. “What do you say we get our swing jumps in and then go surprise them?”
Marcus couldn’t agree quickly enough.
* * *
Today was the first time since the Fire and Ice Festival almost two months ago that Marcus had been at the Zimmerman family home, and he was having flashbacks to his senior year when he and Joselyn were secretly dating and he had to pretend they weren’t. They weren’t secretly dating now, but trying to keep his feelings hidden was proving difficult.
After all the excitement of Kennon’s unannounced visit, then the even bigger news that Kennon and Rosabella were moving back to Nestled Hollow and were meeting with an architect to design a home in their corner of the Zimmerman plot, things went from a trip-to-the-carnival excitement level to something more resembling a trip-to-Disneyland excitement level.
When he came back up from the cold storage in the basement, his arms loaded full of sparkling cider, or “celebration juice” as Momma Z liked to call it, he put all the glass bottles on the kitchen counter as he watched Joselyn across the room. She was playing some kind of clapping game with the younger nieces and nephews and they were all laughing. She wasn’t just trying to keep them entertained—it was clear that she was enjoying it as much as they were, and he stopped for a moment and imagined what it might be like if it was their own kids she was playing with. It made him want to go over to her even more.
Maybe it was the party atmosphere. Maybe it was spending the morning with the family he loved but wasn’t the family of his own that he longed for. Maybe it was the massive amount of time that he had spent with Joselyn over the past two months. Or the gratitude he constantly felt for her as she helped him get his business started. Or the realization that when he and Joselyn were both in Nestled Hollow, the feeling of home was more strong than anywhere he’d experienced.
Whatever it was, it made him want to walk over to her, pull her to her feet, and wrap his arms around her. He wanted to laugh with her right along with all her happy siblings. He wanted to whisper into her ear about how amazing and beautiful and brilliant she was. He wanted to tell her that she was exactly everything he wanted, needed, and ever could hope for. He wanted to kiss those smiling lips. He wanted to shout to this whole family— to the whole world— that he loved her.
But he couldn’t. The longing for her to be by his side as more than a business consultant was so great he didn’t know how he was ever going to be able to handle all the Zimmerman family get-togethers now that his feelings for her were so strong.
As he helped to pour the sparkling cider into clear plastic cups for this large, varied-in-age group, Joselyn looked over at him, her face lit with joy, and neither of them hurried to look away. She paused, studying him, and he wanted to know so badly what was running through her mind. She cocked her head ever so slightly like she was trying to figure something out or decide something. The way she looked at him made him feel as though she could see him with perfect clarity.
As he studied her right back, emotion played across her face and he could see her just as clearly. Shock hit him as he realized that she felt the same way about him that he felt about her.
Everett, Kennon, Mr. Z— the reason they were so concerned about the two of them dating was because of what would happen to the family if they ever broke up. He had always worried that if he dated Joselyn, he would lose both her and the Zimmermans, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was possible to have both the woman he’d loved for the past decade and this crazy, big, chaotic family.
A smile spread across Joselyn’s face. A smile meant only for him, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed. He hadn’t ever seen that smile on her before, but he instantly knew what it was. It was a smile that felt exactly like possibility.
eleven
JOSELYN
Joselyn stabbed a piece of General Tso’s chicken from the carton and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly as she studied her spreadsheet. Her phone sat beside her keyboard, on speaker, where her sister Macie told her about the latest failed date she had.
She swallowed her bite. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Macie. You’ve got a lot of tenacity to keep searching for Mr. Right when you’ve found so many Mr. Wrongs lately.” She clicked on another tab in her spreadsheet, this one for a dress shop she’d worked at six years ago.
“It’s the only way to find that needle in a haystack. And having tenacity is better thandoing nothing.”
“Hey,” Joselyn said. “I don’t do nothing. I even went on a date recently.”
“You go on dates now and then when people ask. Name one thing you’ve personally done lately to find your own Mr. Right.”
As he had so frequently in the past several weeks that it could probably be considered “constantly” now, Marcus came to mind. She glanced at the clock. Eight more minutes and he would be here.
She and Marcus didn’t work on business plans on Sundays— they both went to their own neighborhood churches with their own group of friends. She didn’t know if it was because she had gotten so used to seeing Marcus daily or if it was because of the understanding that had passed between them on Saturday at her parents, but not seeing him yesterday had been almost painful.
Or at least she thought an understanding had passed between them. Once Kennon showed up at the house, things had been so crazy that she and Marcus hadn’t had a chance to chat. Before they knew it, it was dinner time, and then cake and ice cream, and then it was time for Marcus, Everett, and Kennon to take off for their annual Campfire in the Snow while she headed back to Denver. But he was working one of his rare day shifts today and was coming over to do some paperwork with her. She wondered how things would go between them when she saw him again.
“The same answer as always,” Joselyn said. “I’ll work on finding Mr. Right when I’ve gotten the job side of my life figured out.” Macie was the one person that Joselyn had confided in when she and Marcus dated in high school. And if she and Marcusdidstart to date again, she would probably confide in Macie again. But they weren’t, and her feelings toward Marcus were still so confusing that she wasn’t ready to share them yet.
Joselyn clicked on another tab and half-heartedly glanced at all the info she had entered when she worked at a pet store. “I’ve just enjoyed helping Marcus start his business so much. For the first time, things feel like they’re falling into place in my life, and I find myself waking up happy before I even remember why.”
