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“I knew you’d like her,” he said drily.
“Jake, all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy,” she said. “I’ve seen a change since she’s been in your life, and I have to say I like it.”
He turned the key to start the engine, happy that his mother approved, happy she was happy for him, and happy that all the pieces of his life seemed to be falling into place.
Lunch was set up outside under an old oak tree. The kids ate on quilts on the lawn while the adults crowded onto two picnic tables pushed together. After lunch, the women showed Elaine around the farm.
When his mother said goodbye to everyone, it was with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He wondered if Ted would ever be able to loosen up that way around these salt-of-the-earth people.
“I really like her,” his mother said on the way to his place. “And her daughter is adorable.”
He smiled. He had never been happier in his life. He’d made a momentous decision that day. He was going to ask Hannah to marry him.
* * *
Routine settled in on the farm.
Hannah took Mae to all the “mommy and me” classes she could find – story hour at the library, baby gymnastics, swimming lessons at the community center. And of course, she made time for Jake almost every day. Sometimes she’d walk Mae down to the ranch, or to the Gunderson barn, where he was almost finished building. Sometimes they’d have lunch, on other days there was just enough time to say hello and ask how his day was going. They almost always had dinner together, and he started talking about the future as if she and Emma were expected to be part of it.
“I want to take you out,” he said one day at lunch.
“Let’s just stay in, it costs so much.” They would be alone that night. Emma had a sleepover, and she was looking forward to just being alone with him.
“Hannah, I don’t work this hard to not be able to spend some money on my girlfriend.”
Girlfriend. She couldn’t hold back her smile. Still, the idea of going out in public as a couple made her nervous. “People will start talking.”
“Let them talk.”
Troy’s mother had a lot to say when she heard about them simply sitting together in church. “What if it all comes back on Emma?”
“That her mother is happy?”
“You know what I mean. The things Marie is saying.” Horrible things she couldn’t repeat.
“No one cares what Marie Higgins is saying.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
He kissed her, then went back to work. “I’ll pick you up tonight at six.”
By six, her stomach was fluttering with as much excitement as trepidation. She’d never been on this kind of dinner date.
Jake looked handsome in a pair of dress slacks and shiny cowboy boots, his hair perfectly gelled and combed, his beard trimmed, and his eyes smoldering the second he laid eyes on her.
This was it. That feeling she’d only read about before. A feeling of absolute bliss. She was in love.
“Shall we?”
He drove the back roads along the river, playing classic country on the radio.
“My mother would like you to come over for dinner,” he said.
Hannah had really come to like Jake’s mother. She now understood that Elaine had meant no harm in offering her a job. She marveled at how much had changed in such a short time.
“That sounds great,” she said.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t know how my stepfather will behave. He can be… difficult.”
