The Practically Romantic Groom (Cobble Creek Romance Book 2)

by Maria Hoagland

  Usually, she looked forward to gardening as her time to unwind. Sacred, personal time away from customers, away from phones, even away from music with only the whisper of wind through the trees and the occasional call of a blue jay. Brooke was of a mind that too much silence would be deafening and claustrophobic, but in small doses, it made a statement as important as a rest in a concerto or the white space on the printed page—a relief, a brief moment to regroup and prepare. Without silence, no one could appreciate hearing what they loved most. Today though, Brooke filled that silence with laughter in joking with Isaac, using abdomen and intellect muscles that had started to atrophy in her loneliness, and the time passed way too quickly.

  As her hands began to smooth sun-warmed clumps of dirt, Brooke asked what had haunted her since the school carnival. “Gemma seems like a great kid.” Granted, she didn’t know much at all, but as far as she could tell, it was true. “Why is she so quiet? It feels more than shy.” She hoped it wasn’t insensitive to ask.

  “Shy? That’s the easiest way to describe it, and what we all thought at first. But somewhere around age four or five, for some reason her shyness grew into something worse. And quickly. Like a cashmere sweater that got washed and dried, the circle of people Gemma would talk to—or even in front of—shrunk almost immediately. In fact, right now, the only people she talks to are me, Danielle, and one friend at school. Period. She won’t even talk to her grandparents anymore.”

  “Oh, wow.” How isolating, how horrible that must be. Brooke gulped back a lump in her throat. “I can’t believe how painful it must be for her.” Isaac gaped at her, his face frozen with surprise, and Brooke felt instantly self-conscious. “Did I say the wrong thing?” She hadn’t meant to offend Isaac or insult Gemma—in fact, she’d been going for empathetic.

  “Not at all.” Isaac blinked and gathered some of the discarded leaves into a pile. “Actually, you’re the first person who really seems to understand.” He worked the leaves into the soil for mulch. “Her own father, believe it or not, left because of it. He blames Danielle for ‘giving in to Gemma’s manipulation.’ I suppose it’s a case of denial, but he insists Gemma was going through a phase, but that she somehow got stuck because Danielle didn’t make her talk.” Isaac’s jaw bulged in indignation, an edge sharpening his words.

  He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “Fear can silence a person. You always hear about fight or flight as if those are only two reactions to stress, but Gemma showed me there’s a third—freeze. With her, it is so painfully obvious, but I’ve been surrounded by that precise reaction pretty much all my life—with my parents, anyway.” He paused, and she hoped he was going to explain that last comment. “If I’m honest with myself, that might have been my tendency as well, but now because of Gemma . . .”

  Isaac allowed the thought to trail off, but Brooke’s mind took off running down the path. Looking back, it made sense, especially in regards to relationship problems. Like between them back in eighth grade. Through a mutual friend, Brooke had heard Isaac was going to break up with her. Her immediate reaction was flight. Before she even checked to find out if it was true, Brooke broke it off first. Isaac’s reaction to their breakup, though, had been to freeze. He didn’t fight her, but he also didn’t fight for her. He didn’t even run away. He just stood there and took it, physically paralyzed and emotionally frozen.

  And yet somehow, here he was with her, and they had both learned a few things about relationships over the years—or so Brooke hoped.

  “Do you know what I love about spring flowers?” Brooke tugged on a clump of dried-up tulip stems. They released easily under the force.

  “That they follow April showers?”

  “Ha ha, smart aleck.” Brooke gave Isaac, who was kneeling next to her, a playful shove, and he bounced back into her shoulder. “Mine are a literal countdown to spring. From the time I see the first of my violet crocuses poking up through the snow, I know I’ve almost made it through the long, cold, lonely winter—”

  “Not a fan of January or February?” Isaac teased, squeezing a smile tight on his lips.

  “How did you guess?” Brooke chuckled dryly. “I’m of the camp that as soon as Christmas is over, it should be April.” She was no scrooge—she liked the white lights, a roaring fireplace, hot cocoa, trees, gifts, and even snow—but she was a huge fan of springtime.

  Isaac laughed politely at her comment but indicated with a nod of his head that she should continue.

  “Anyway, for a week, maybe two, I have the crocuses, then the hyacinths add some more purple. Then when those are dying, the daffodils and narcissus emerge with their happy yellow and white.” She was geeking out but stopped herself from spouting off about the specific varieties. “And just when the daffodils are gone, the tulips are ready to bloom. The orange and yellow ones were gorgeous this year.”

  Brooke clamped her lips shut. So much for quiet. She had hardly stopped talking.

  “You know you lost me at crocuses, right?” A wrinkle of merriment crinkled at the side of Isaac’s soft brown eyes—a tell Brooke was learning meant he was teasing her again.

  “I figured.” More than one guy had told her that, but at least Isaac’s eyes hadn’t glazed over.

  “Just like love.” Isaac held up the last of the limp, brown stems and leaves in the pile.

  Brooke gave him an Are you crazy look, her eyebrows digging into her forehead. “How do you figure?”

  “At first it’s all beautiful, one stage blooming into the next, full of hope and promises, but eventually all love dies.” He straightened his back, feet planted at shoulder width as if nothing she said would change his stance.

  “Wow. Philosophical. And depressing.” She rolled her eyes. He couldn’t possibly mean that. “You sound like a country music song.”

  After depositing the mess into the trash can, Isaac clapped his hands together and dropped to the ground with a satisfied sigh. He lay back on the grass, in no hurry to leave, which pleased Brooke. The long blades of grass were in need of cutting, and Brooke was looking forward to it. Yard work was so much better than shoveling snow, but for now, the grass looked soft and welcoming.

  Brooke removed her gloves and lay behind Isaac, resting her head on his shoulder. As soon as she did so, he lifted his head onto hers—two heads together, feet at opposite ends in a line. Above them, the wispy branches of the Palo Verde tree swayed overhead in the breeze, their tiny green leaves like brush bristles as it painted swaths of blurred color against the bright blue sky.

  “That’s awful about Gemma’s dad. I’m sure his leaving didn’t help matters much, did it?” Brooke spoke softly, entranced by the tree branches. She hadn’t lain in the grass like this for ages.

  Isaac shook his head with the barest of motions that Brooke felt more than she saw. “Danielle is better at explaining the whole selective mutism thing to people than I am, though she doesn’t ever want to call it that in front of Gemma. She tries not to explain it to anyone if she doesn’t have to, because Danielle doesn’t want to give Gemma an excuse not to try. But when it gets too bad, Dani’s got a business card she gives out to especially pushy people that explains Gemma’s condition.”

  Isaac paused, presumably looking into the sky the same way Brooke was. “Gemma drew a self-portrait in class a couple weeks back. It’s a picture of a beautiful girl, except she has a kaleidoscope of butterflies swarming inside her stomach and throat. When we asked her about the butterflies, she said that’s how she feels at school—that her throat is full of butterflies and she can’t breathe, and when she tries to talk, a butterfly comes out instead of words.”

  Brooke allowed the profundity of the seven-year-old’s words to settle into her before she responded. “And yet she talks at home?”

  Isaac laughed, the deep sound reverberating through her collarbone, the sound lightening the feeling of the serious conversation. If he were to turn toward her, they could probably see eye to eye, and she wondered what he thought of their ar
rangement. Had she been too bold to lie like this with him? Yet he seemed perfectly at ease. She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply the cool air, perfumed with grass and warm earth, springtime and Isaac.

  “If it’s just Danielle or me, we can’t keep Gemma quiet. The girl has a set of pipes! She loves to sing—like someone else I used to know.” He turned his head slightly, making it obvious he was looking at her in his periphery, and her stomach swooped, off-balance with the oddness of it—their heads so close, yet upside-down. “Dani says as soon they leave the school parking lot where no one will see them, Gemma’s words come tumbling out, like the levee she’s had in place all day finally overflows.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must be like for her.” Brooke swallowed hard. While she had never had trouble talking to people in general, she did know about the heart-pounding knot public speaking did to her insides. “How does someone so young feel so much fear?”

  Isaac paused so long, Brooke wondered if she’d inadvertently trod on something unspeakable.

  “At first, everyone thought something traumatic must have happened. That’s the assumption we’ve all been led to believe by sensational media. But Danielle started taking Gemma to a psychologist—another thing that made Evan angry—but no one could figure out anything that could have happened to her.” Isaac rolled off Brooke’s shoulder and onto his side, facing Brooke, his arm bent at the elbow, and propping his head in his palm. “Danielle had her checked out by every doctor she could think of. Gemma didn’t have a sore throat and her hearing was perfect. Nothing.”

  Brooke considered it. Not like she was going to figure out anything the family hadn’t already tried, of course. It was just all so new to her. “Does she know she’s doing it?” Feeling silly lying in the grass now that Isaac was looking at her, Brooke rolled to a sitting position, her legs crossed in a knot. From this vantage point, she could observe him better. Isaac was so concerned about his niece; it was a beautiful thing to watch. The man would make a great dad someday.

  “I asked her about it once,” Isaac said. “She told me her voice was stupid.” He swiped a hand over the blades of grass, sending them shivering. “Although I try to understand, and I can see it is sincerely a problem for her, I don’t know how to help. It makes it so hard because deep down, I really don’t get it.”

  Of course he didn’t. The man made his living talking in front of strangers. People judged every word that came out of his mouth and used those words as a basis for a ruling. And yet, somehow he was confident in each word.

  The concept behind the butterfly portrait, however, had spoken to Brooke, and with it, she felt a whisper of understanding. The fifth-grade spelling bee crisis had been the first brick in her wall of self-doubt. Another block had been cemented in one Thanksgiving afternoon a few years later as a preteen. She’d been with the adults instead of the kids, trying to join in their conversation. Although she could no longer remember the opinion she’d offered, Brooke would never forget the abject dismissals she’d received in response. But then last—and worst by far—had been her senior year mock trial team. Through her years on the team, she’d played more of a support role—doing the research, helping with brainstorming, working as a sounding board for the lawyers. Until at the most crucial of junctures, one of the team members got food poisoning, and Brooke had been the only one available to fill in. She knew the material better than anyone else, Isaac had assured her, and whether it was his words or his dashing smile, she’d been convinced she could overpower the fear. Knowing how close to winning her team had been and feeling the pressure to be perfect in the delivery, Brooke had choked. She’d frozen until her white knight and partner, Isaac Murphy, had come to her rescue.

  “I can.” Brooke blew out a long breath, dispelling the memories so insignificant in their commonness. Everyone had a memory or two like that, and she’d long trained herself to forget. “Words people say carry so much weight.” If she hadn’t been teased relentlessly in elementary school or dismissed by her family, she might not have frozen at the mock trial.

  “So does their silence.” Isaac’s response was barely a whisper. He swallowed and looked up at Brooke, all stress and worry erased from his expression. “How about a hand or two of gin rummy like we used to play on the band trips?”

  Brooke allowed the stress of their conversations to roll off her as well. She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What do I get if I win?”

  “Winner springs for movie tickets Friday.”

  Now that she could play for. Either way, it was a sure bet she would win.

  Chapter Eight

  Nooks and Books, the bookstore on Main Street in Cobble Creek, was everything a small-town bookstore should be, and Isaac’s favorite place to hide out after work hours. Two stories sandwiched into a narrow building, the shop was crowded with overstuffed shelves of every genre and cozy in its haphazard organization. Of course, the owner could locate any title in a matter of seconds, so obviously it was organized, but not in any recognizable pattern. But that was some of its charm. In fact, just for fun—though he’d never admit this to anyone because it almost sounded mean—Isaac had put Lily to the test once or twice, asking for an obscure book, only to be amazed at her proficiency at locating it.

  Tonight’s foray into the bookstore, however, had nothing to do with purchasing a book or even perusing the stacks, but rather for inspiration as he tried to write alongside the works of Annie Dillard, John Steinbeck, and Stephen King. Those authors didn’t seem to have any trouble stringing words together in a profound way.

  Isaac scrubbed a hand through his hair and down to the back of his neck, distracting himself with the feel of the short hairs. He was never going to get anywhere writing this novel if he couldn’t keep his mind off Brooke and on his notes.

  After helping her with yard work the other night and beating her in a few hands of gin rummy, he’d won not only a night at the movies with her, but also the popcorn, her treat. Not that he would collect, but the thought made him smile. Sure, he’d be the first to say yes to going to a movie, but he wouldn’t let her pay even if he had crushed her by sixty points. He loved their card games and the bets that kept her going—the woman never backed down from a challenge—and he’d keep going as long as she would let him. Any way to spend more time with Brooke.

  Brooke was funny and sweet and a great sounding board when it came to his concerns about Gemma. While his niece wasn’t his responsibility, the feeling he had of wanting to solve her problems, to help Danielle as much as possible, made it that much harder, because technically, he shouldn’t be stressing about it. If he knew his sister at all, Isaac was aware she would bristle if Danielle realized how much he longed to find a solution to solve all their problems. Which was why he’d needed to talk to Brooke about it. He couldn’t talk to family, and he wasn’t going to take it to anyone he didn’t trust. But Brooke’s sweet interest in the child and her sympathetic heart drew him in, and he found himself telling her everything. More than she probably wanted to know.

  Not being able to turn off the information spout definitely had to do with the fact that he trusted Brooke. Who didn’t trust a childhood friend? When you went back as far as being cast as Professor Harold Hill to her Marian the Librarian in their fifth-grade production, how could he not? And those cool blue eyes like a summer twilight with her blonde hair pulled back in an easy ponytail, wisps of it blowing around her face in the Wyoming spring zephyr . . .

  He shook his head. He did not need this distraction. Not when he had so little time to devote to his writing. Besides, he had no right to be thinking of Brooke the way he had been lately. She deserved more than the likes of him. She deserved someone who believed in love, someone who would romance her off her feet, not someone as bitter as unsweetened cocoa. But even if he gave in to his feelings and pushed beyond their newly revived friendship, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t break her heart, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did that to her. Brooke was a delicate wil
dflower too easily trampled on, and he wanted to be the one to protect her, not the one to squelch her romantic spirit.

  Isaac shuffled through the loose pages of his notes, trying to remember where he’d left off last time. He had a well-developed outline, or so he thought, and ideas occurred to him frequently—especially when he was doing other things—but the story was missing something . . . elemental.

  Words blurred on the pages in front of him as he picked up the faint sound of humming. It was extremely distracting, though beautiful. Someone must be at the table on the other side of a tightly packed shelf. The nooks in this bookstore were varied—everything from comfy reading chairs to window seats to beanbags, but there were only two writing surfaces on the second floor: the one he was currently spread out over and the one obviously being used by the musically preoccupied patron. If he could, he’d pick up and move, but there was nowhere else to go, and if he went home, he would find some other excuse not to work. Best to invest the effort into his writing and the noise would fade into the background.

  Writer’s block. Isaac was convinced there was no such thing but that the difficulty was a by-product of not being prepared enough. Yet here he was, prepared beyond belief. He knew each of his characters, knew what needed to happen to them to get them where he wanted them. He even knew the last line of the book. But for some reason, the words refused to flow. His laptop sat open, the cursor blinking after several lines of unenlightened garbage across the page, yet he’d spent the last few minutes trying to rework his plot flow the old-fashioned way with pen on paper. It wasn’t exactly working. He’d wanted to prove that writer’s block wasn’t actually a thing, but the last few weeks were proving him wrong. Dreadfully, deathly, dismally wrong.

  An unbiased observer might consider the tune floating over the stacks intriguing, but it was starting to drive Isaac insane. The melody was pretty, catchy even, but after the offender hummed the same lines over and over, he was beginning to detest it. Was she listening to it on repeat?