by Karen Booth
He held on to me tighter. I leaned into him. The brush of his skin, his body heat, was so enticing it made me dizzy. “I know. I want that too.” I was so ready to give in, fling my pajamas across the room and rid him of his boxer shorts, except that I couldn’t. My flight. The interview. “You have no idea how badly I want you right now.” I sucked in a deep breath. “But I have to finish packing.”
He stopped every wonderful thing he was doing to me, sighing deeply. “Your father is waiting for me downstairs.”
“My dad. Right.” My shoulders slumped. Back to reality. “Sam’s probably up too. Are we telling people?”
“We have to tell Samantha and your dad.”
“Of course.” I nodded.
“We should do that this morning.” He hoisted my suitcase from the chair in the corner and plopped it down onto the bed. “Otherwise, they’ll feel left out. After that, Graham and Angie.”
Right. Chris’s best friend and his wife would need to be told right away.
“My mum,” he continued. “My sisters. Your sister.”
One simple question, one suitably simple answer, and two minutes later the weight was on the accelerator from sheer inertia. We’re getting married. “Wow. It’s a lot of people to think about.”
“The rest of the world can wait for a little while. I don’t want this turning into a circus, although we can’t keep people from finding out forever. It’ll get out eventually. Very soon if we aren’t careful.”
“You know I’m not comfortable being in those magazines. I hate the feeling of not having any privacy.”
“We can’t control what people decide to write about or take a picture of. It’s only a matter of time before your dad slips and tells one of the guys at the hardware store. That’ll be the end of it.”
“I know. You’re right.” I flipped through the clothes in my closet until I found the two tops I wanted to take to New York. “I shouldn’t be such a control freak.” I turned and looked up at him. His hair was so adorably squirrelly in the morning, so drop-dead sexy. “You know what my dad’s going to say about this?”
“Run, Claire, before it’s too late?”
I slugged him in the arm, prompting an irresistible smile. “Stop it. My dad loves you.”
“Richard is warming to me. I’ll give him that much.”
“He’s going to ask where the ring is, Penman.” I smirked. “He’s an old fashioned guy.”
“This is awful, but I don’t have a ring for you yet.” He grasped my elbow. His eyebrows drew together. “Or do I?”
He bounded to the dresser and tugged open the sticky bottom drawer and began rifling through a stack of t-shirts. When he turned, he held a wooden box, the size of a paperback book. He flipped the lid, revealing a green felt-lined compartment.
“These are some of my dad’s things. His dog tags from when he was in the British army, a few photos of him when he was a boy, and…here we go. This is what I was looking for.” With a flip of his fingers, a man’s gold wedding band appeared in his palm. He reached for the hem of my t-shirt, giving the ring a quick polish. “May I?”
I watched as he took my left hand in his and slipped the ring on to my finger. My entire body tingled. “It’s a little big, but I love it.” I held out my hand, fingers splayed.
“It’s just a placeholder, darling, until we can buy you a proper ring.”
“So it was your dad’s?”
“It was. My mum couldn’t bear to let it go when he died. She gave it to me to wear when I got married.”
My stomach sank, thinking about eight-year-old Chris losing his dad to a heart attack. It still haunted him and was a big part of why he was desperate to have a child. That wasn’t the only thing that dulled the shine of the moment.
“You wore this when you were married to Elise?”
“Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“You never wore a wedding band when you were married?”
“I did. Just not this one. I bought something. Something generic and expensive.”
“Huh.”
“It never felt right. I can’t really explain it any more than that.” He took my hand and twirled the ring on my finger. “Perhaps some part of me knew I was waiting for you.”
Goosebumps crept along my arms. “You always find the perfect thing to say.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“That’s part of it.” I kissed him on the cheek. “We should probably head downstairs before my dad has a heart attack about the fact that you’re making him wait.”
One of Chris’s looks crossed his face. “What in the world am I doing?”
I cocked my head. “Flirting with disaster if you put my dad off his schedule.”
“I asked you to marry me, there’s no time for proper post-proposal sex, and I’m letting you get on a plane to New York with a man’s wedding band that’s three sizes too big.” He plucked his jeans from the floor. “I’m coming with you.”
“Today? Now?”
“Yes.” He finished the button-fly on his jeans, an act that made me inexplicably hot and bothered. “You and I are going to Tiffany’s to buy you a ring.”
“Really?” I rattled the Tiffany bracelet around my wrist, the one he’d given me soon after we’d started our romance.
“Yeah, of course.” He wrestled on his favorite gray t-shirt. “Let’s go tell your dad and Sam.”
Hand in hand, we traipsed down the hall. The sound of Sam and my dad chattering away became clearer as we reached the top of the stairs and started down. No wonder my dad hadn’t noticed Chris had put him behind. He could get lost in conversation with his beloved granddaughter for hours.
“Morning,” Chris quipped, patting Samantha’s shoulder. “What are you lot up to?”
“Breakfast,” Sam answered. “Sorry, but we’re out of bacon.”
“Bloody hell. A bacon famine.”
My dad tapped his watch. “Geez, Louise, Chris. We’re going to be late to make that run to the lumber yard before you take Claire to the airport.”
Chris looked at me conspiratorially. “About that. Claire and I have news.” With a wag of his fingers, he beckoned me, although I was drawn to him anyway, so the gesture was superfluous.
I took his hand and looked at Sam. The questions on her face caused a lump in my throat. It had been the two of us for her entire life, seventeen years. Now everything was about to change—a good change, a happy change, but change nonetheless.
“News?” Dad asked.
I couldn’t tear my sights from Sam. She knows. I know she knows. Her lip jutted out and I saw her as a three year-old, running around this very kitchen in footy pajamas, giggling, me in hot pursuit and laughing just as hard.
“Chris and I are getting married.”
The waterworks came for both Sam and I at the same time.
Her cheeks pinked. “Oh my God. You guys.” She smiled through tears, swiping them away. “You’re getting married?”
I threw my arms around her, holding her tight, rocking her back and forth. “You’re happy?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for Chris to get off his butt and ask you.”
“Off my butt?” There was a hand on my back and I knew immediately that it was Chris. “Listen you two, can I get in on the group hug?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he pulled Sam and I snug against his chest.
My dad cleared his throat loudly across the room.
“Dad.” I freed my head from Chris’s embrace. “You haven’t said anything.”
He stood up from the kitchen table with something he rarely showed the world—unguarded happiness. “Ladybug, the only thing that would make this news any better would be if your mom was here to witness it.”
Just when I’d managed to stop crying after hugging Sam, my dad had to pry it back out of me. “I know.” I nodded, easing closer to him, watching him fight the tears that he never, ever, allowed himself to shed, at least not in front of anyone. “But
I think she’s here. In spirit.”
I actually felt her there, could hear her telling me that she was happy and how I shouldn’t pick out a wedding dress that made me look like a lemon meringue pie. To this day, my dad didn’t know that my mom and I carried on a conversation in my head. No one knew.
He took my hand. “I’m as happy as a fly at a picnic. And I’m pleased that you and Chris finally got some sense and realized this was the only way to do it.”
“Do what, exactly?” Chris asked.
“Well, life, of course. I don’t know what you two were thinking when you decided you’d have a baby before you got married.”
* * *
I buckled the dark blue seat belt across my lap. “I can’t believe you spent two grand on a plane ticket so you could take me shopping for an engagement ring.”
Chris patted my hand, flipping through the in-flight magazine. “It was for more than that. Don’t forget the hotel sex.”
The flight attendant had impeccable timing, arriving in time for “hotel sex”. “Anything to drink before we take off?” she asked, screwing up her lips while she waited for an answer.
“Just water.” I stifled a giggle.
“Perfect,” Chris added, layering his British accent with extra sexiness.
“How do you manage to do that and not get the slightest bit embarrassed?”
He snickered. “Years of sticking my foot in my mouth. I’m a professional.”
I shook my head. “You’re a professional all right. A professional goof.”
“And very soon, my darling, you will be Mrs. Goof.”
Mrs. Goof. I smiled so hard that my cheeks hurt again. There’s something really fun about being a giddy twit. “I can’t wait for that.”
The flight attendant brought miniature bottles of water. After a short delay, we were airborne.
I turned Chris’s dad’s ring on my finger. I’d wrapped some bandage tape around one part of it to keep it from falling off, but it was still loose. “I was wondering, what did you do with your ring when you got divorced?”
“I went to the house in St. Barts and threw it in the ocean.”
“Never to be seen again?”
“That was the idea. It seemed like a fitting end to that chapter of my life.”
I pictured Chris on a pristine white sand beach near his villa in St. Barts, possibly the beach at Colombier, which can only be reached on foot or by boat. With his long arms and a motion much like the one you make skipping a rock, I could see him flinging that ring into the waves. When his marriage to Elise had finally ended, he was as eager to rid himself of all evidence of the hell she’d put him through—her drug addiction, infidelity, and unwillingness to have a child with him. The loss of the pregnancy that came from their marriage had been the worst of it. There was no coming back from that.
Chris took my hand, rubbing the tips of my fingers in tiny circles with his thumb. He’d done it hundreds of times, but something about it always felt so reassuring, like an inside joke, something we didn’t need to talk about.
“Did you ever come close to getting married?” he asked. “Was there a guy who you thought you would end up with? I mean, before me, of course.” He focused on our joined hands, not making eye contact.
Chris’s love life, his checkered romantic past, was common knowledge to anyone who’d read any 80s teen-idol magazine or grocery store tabloid. My history in that department was likewise rarely discussed. I didn’t like to think about him with other women and he’d proven more than once that he had a jealous streak that was sometimes difficult to control.
“If you’re wondering if anyone ever asked me, then no. I was never engaged.” I cleared my throat, bracing to bring up the ex-boyfriend of mine that Chris abhorred. “I thought Kevin might ask me, but that never happened.”
His eyes were quickly drawn to mine, the green that always stole at least a little of my breath. “Kevin? Tosser Kevin? Would you have said yes if he’d asked?”
A rush of air escaped my lips. As much as I’d been stubborn when it came to men, it had never occurred to me that saying “no” to a marriage proposal was an option. “I don’t know what I would’ve said. I was in love with him at one point. At least I thought I was.”
His eyes narrowed, his endlessly expressive eyebrows drew together. “In love. With Kevin.”
“I said I thought I was. It’s not like it is with you. Not even close. But at the time, it felt more real than any other relationship I’d ever been in.”
“So you would have said yes.” His eyes held a rare sadness.
“I don’t know why it matters. He didn’t ask me, and now I wish that he’d move to Borneo or at least lose my phone number.” I dropped my head, wanting eye contact. “Chris, honey, don’t let this bother you. It’s ancient history and nothing ever came of it. Really.”
He smiled and squeezed my hand harder. “I know. I just, well…” His lips seemed to struggle for the words. “I think about fate, about the circumstances that brought us together. I still haven’t completely gotten past the idea that I could’ve lost you a few months ago and it would’ve been my fault. Hell, I could’ve lost you to Kevin and not even known it. I would’ve just been left feeling empty, without a clue how to fix it.”
“But that didn’t happen. We’re together. Forever. I’m going to be Mrs. Goof soon.”
He grinned and leaned over for a kiss, a soft and tender meeting of our lips that made my knees feel like jelly. “I love you Mrs. Goof. I really, really love you.”
I leaned on the armrest and snuggled closer to him. The only downside of being in First Class was the massive console between the seats, an obstacle good for nothing more than drawing my ire. Still, things weren’t going to get much better than this—cozied up with my dream man, my prince, on my way to New York to interview Amanda Carlton, the sort of assignment I’d long dreamt of.
Ms. Carlton was more than one of the most beautiful women in the world; she was the Hollywood starlet who could demand any salary, director, and leading man. She’d left for Hollywood at seventeen and waitressed until her big break, which, as luck would have it, came for her after only four months. Surely aided by her beauty, she caught the eye of an executive producer and landed a supporting role in the action film franchise “Fightin’ Army V: The Battle for Planet Earth”, the highest grossing installment.
My personal stakes with the Amanda interview were high. Sure, the Rolling Stone article I’d written about Chris had landed me other high profile assignments, but now that our relationship was public knowledge, I needed to prove to every skeptical editor than my journalistic chops were real.
“You okay?” Chris asked.
I nodded, looking up at him and catching a glimpse of his stunning green eyes. “Yep. Just thinking about the interview.”
“Don’t worry, darling. You’ll do great.”
* * *
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