“Mad?” Ava hadn’t been mad at him for at least a few days. Her grief cycle had spun past mad in a hurry and landed in a holding pattern on confused and sorrowful.
“That I didn’t call you that next day. I tried, but there was a problem, and I ended up back in the bush country of Alaska. One of my guys, an old prospector, fell in an abandoned mine shaft, and we had to jet up there. I got distracted. Can you forgive me?”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. It’s a miracle, really. We got him out. Then all he’d lost was his hat. But he was hopping mad about that. It was his favorite hat. I had to shimmy down in there on ropes, then dive into horrid, putrid, freezing water at the bottom of a mine shaft in my scuba gear and fish out that,” he used an expletive here, “hat for him.”
“Well, I hope he appreciated it.”
“He did. A lot. He even showed me where his version of a ‘Glory Hole’ is. He’s been keeping it a secret for sixty years, but since he figures he’s dying, he’d better tell someone he trusts.”
“So you’re going to have another gold mine now?”
“Looks like it.” Kellen brought Ava out of the hallway and into where the room opened up for viewing Niagara. Across the floor was spread a blanket covered with a picnic of meats and cheeses and grapes and different kinds of bread. Around the room were a hundred candles (the fake kind, since an open flame would be just wrong in here) of all different heights, illuminating the room in a soft glow. The one other light was a spotlight on Niagara, in all its eight-foot glory.
“Kellen,” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”
“I know. Can you see why I wanted to wait and take our time to look at it when no one else was around?”
Mr. Phelps. He’d known about this. He set her up.
Kellen led her over to a bearskin rug—which must have been the bearskin rug. He handed her a goblet to drink from and sat down beside her. He fed her a grape.
“I love how he added in human figures there on the American side to show perspective of just how enormous it is.” Kellen pointed out the tiny men Church had painted. “We’ll look like that when we go.” He pressed a soft kiss on the back of her hand, another on her shoulder. They healed something inside her, and worry and fear lifted like a dirigible taking off never to return.
“We’re going?” Ava’s mood had metamorphosed into an almost dreamlike state, with the dim lights and the delicious food and the warmth of Kellen’s occasional kisses. “To Niagara Falls?”
“I thought we’d talked this all out.” His lips moved to her jaw line and rested there.
Ava pulled back and looked in his face, puzzled.
“Come on, remember? I asked you almost the first day we met. And I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not a guy who sits around hemming and hawing about stuff when I want it. And it doesn’t take me any hemming or hawing to know what I want.”
Ava thought back on that article she’d read from the ex-girlfriend. And on the instant kiss Kellen had planted on her the minute she first saw him.
“Look, Ava Young. Before we met in person, I knew there was something special about you. I could hear it in your voice.”
“I had a terrible head cold.”
“Aside from that. Although I did kind of fall for that husky, raspy thing—and don’t knock it. When you get sick someday again, I will stay right by your side to take care of you just so I can hear that voice over and over.” He kissed her mouth. For a while.
That was sweet. Odd reasoning, but she’d take it. Especially since it was accompanied by some rather nice kisses. He’d picked up with kissing her like he hadn’t had any break.
But for Ava, who’d been six times through the Ferris Wheel of grief over him, some wariness caused her to keep a tiny bit of herself reserved. It wasn’t long before Kellen sensed it.
“You okay?” He ran his hand through the long strands of her hair, holding a lock of them up to his face.
“It’s just you’re talking about the future with me, trips across the country, taking care of me when I get the flu, and it’s just a lot to take in. After all, we haven’t known each other very long at all. You haven’t even met my parents yet.”
Kellen dismissed her reservations with a wave of the hand. “Please. People used to make long term plans without even meeting each other, and then they led happily married lives. It happened all the time back in the day.” He shrugged and popped a grape in his mouth. “Look at my parents. Look at your parents and grandparents. They didn’t need all this time together sorting each other out. They got a gut feeling, and then they jumped in with faith.” The word faith hung in the air. Marriage. It really was an act of faith. He was right. “And, actually, I have met them.”
“Riiiight.” She prolonged the syllable. This guy really was a throwback, like his ex said. Not modern at all. Of course, when she first saw the words “modern man” in that old-fashioned book, she couldn’t at all envision one of today’s video-game-playing, never move out of the house and still have mom do his laundry guys anyway. That milquetoast seemed more representative of today’s modern man.
And she didn’t want that type.
That book’s title actually made her dream up a 1950s guy—probably a guy with a high powered corporate job (which Kellen had), who looked as at ease in a suit (Kellen looked sharp in that tux) as he did in jeans and a helicopter (which is the perfect fashion combo for a male, as far as Ava was concerned.) The guy she inadvertently dreamed up was the kind of guy who still let her be a lady—not just a woman. He was completely independent and didn’t mind admitting he was going after the woman he wanted. He was the kind who could fight off a bear and dig a hole and scuba dive for an old man’s hat and perform CPR and arrange a really romantic picnic in a museum, and the kind who could forgive a childhood friend who disappointed him greatly.
He was Kellen.
And unless she was mistaken, Ava had snared him—before she even meant to.
Her insides got all melty.
“Wait. What did you say?” The last thing he’d said finally rattled into place in her head. “You’ve met my parents? What are you talking about?”
“Well, when I was out and about—” Kellen sported a Canadian accent here, pronouncing it oot and aboot, “I got in touch with them. They let me stop by.”
“You went to Laveen.”
“It’s not that far away. Only about forty-five minutes, even in traffic.” He shrugged. “Less in the Aston Martin.” And when all Ava could do was stare at him with her mouth gaping like a codfish, he continued. “They were very nice. Your mom made me cinnamon rolls. She said you have her recipe.”
“I do. It’s very good.” Ava’s skin buzzed. Something big was about to happen. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “What kind of things did you talk about with them, Kellen?”
“Oh, idle chit-chat. Some other stuff.”
“Like what other stuff?” She dangled in suspense, barely able to breathe.
“Let me talk to you about that in a bit, okay?” But he relented when she insisted with her eyes. “Your father and I had some things to discuss.”
Heat traveled through Ava from the bottoms of her feet up to where it flamed in her cheeks. She sat beside him thinking for a while saying nothing but feeling everything.
“I think you’re right. I think I have been holding back.” She traced the veins on the back of his hand while he played with her hair.
“But why? Have I ever given you reason to doubt my sincerity?” He tipped her chin upward to look into her eyes with his intense blues. “Because I have meant every single word I’ve said to you. Every word.” He frowned. “Well, maybe not every word. That first conversation. I was a complete dork. You made me so nervous with that husky voice, and I turned into a motor-mouth, using words like ‘buckarooneys’ and quizzing you about the moon landing. But you didn’t hang up on me.”
No, she hadn’t. But she’d thought he was completely weird. In an endearing w
ay.
“Other than that kickoff conversation where I was being a wacko, I meant every word.”
He had? “Really? I mean, I thought you were so experienced and had all these women after you, and you’d just been around the block so many times you knew the right things to say. I guess I didn’t believe you could mean them if you said them to me.”
Kellen ran a hand through his own hair and cocked his head to the side. “But I’ve never said them to anyone but you. You’re special, Ava. You’re different. I could tell that you hadn’t been around the block so many times.”
“It was that obvious?” Maybe by the way she kissed when he first laid one on her that day. She seriously had no idea how to kiss back. Not that she thought it took her long to figure it out…
“Not in any negative meaning of that. No, what I meant was you didn’t have that huntress look in your eye when you saw me. Or that hunted look that so many gorgeous girls have. They’re either out to get their hooks into a guy, or else they’re terrified of getting into a relationship. Everything about you was refreshing. I could tell you were different.”
“You could?” She was a parrot now. Had she no intelligent conversation of her own? But she needed him to explain himself. She’d had things so backward for so long.
“Maybe it was simply the fact that you turned me down when I was begging to meet you.” Kellen shrugged, then he kissed her forehead. “Forgive me for sounding cocky, but women didn’t ever do that. Not single women, anyway.” He kissed her mouth.
“And why should they? You’re a handsome, rugged, kind billionaire.”
“Right? So that’s what I wanted to know. Why would a single girl working at a museum turn me down, and then avoid me for weeks, with some fake excuse about the flu? At first I was intrigued, but then I went from intrigued, to bruised in the ego, to desperate to figure out what was so incredible about you that made you think I might not be worthy of you. The longer it went on, the more sure I became that I was the right guy for you.”
Really? So he had decided he was into her before she ever realized it. And she had, inadvertently, snared this “modern” man with all her unwitting tactics.
“And then, when you saw me?”
“That solidified it. I was all in. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I had my people look into you a bit before we met. Check out your background and stuff, just to see that you weren’t some psychopath. I have to be careful, you know. For the company and the employees’ sake. Due diligence.”
“Of course,” Ava said, but she got a rising tide of sickness inside. If he’d looked into her background, he’d seen photographs of her. What made him still determine he had any interest in her? Completely hard to believe. She hated to even ask, but unless she did, she’d forever wonder what he was thinking.
Oh, wait, did she just put Kellen and “forever” in the same sentence? He was winning her over. Snap.
“Can I ask, uh, did you have some kind of photograph of me before we met?” Because, timeline-wise, Ava didn’t get that mean kick in the teeth from Enzio and his Jerk Friend until the day she got sick, which was the first phone conversation day with Kellen. And she watched all that TV while she was out, and that’s when she decided to make her drastic changes. Any photos Kellen might have from before her illness would, actually, look really like “before” pictures.
“Just a few. Enough to see that your features have the Golden Ratio.” He traced her eyes, her nose, her mouth, with his fingertip. “To be honest, I never really thought I’d go for a blonde, so I was surprised when we first met, because I generally like light brown hair, but you smelled like baked goods and fresh flowers, and you had this smile that just turned me into a complete wolfman—I shouldn’t have grabbed you and kissed you at first sight, but I couldn’t exactly explain what happened. You did something to me, Ava. You made me into this submissive creature. From our conversation at The Cold Toad where you teased me about the ugly Mustang, from the first kiss, I was yours.”
He kissed her some more then, and she kissed back, in amongst trying to collect her thoughts for her next line of questioning. It took kind of a while. And then they ate some more of their picnic, and then she had to kiss him again for a bit before she could think again. It wasn’t efficient, but it didn’t seem to matter. Time had stopped.
“I’m actually starting to believe you, Kell.”
“I like when you call me Kell. And of course you are. Because you should. And then will you think some more about what I asked?”
“What’s that?”
“About Niagara.”
“What about it?”
“Going there. With me. Soon-ish.”
“I like seeing waterfalls in person with you. What does soon-ish mean, though?” She’d been on the receiving end of soon-ish before. It nearly drove her insane. “Because I’m afraid they’ll need me to stay around to give testimony at the trial. They might insist.”
“They can’t do that. You can go wherever you want. And I want you to come to Niagara with me.”
Ava got very serious. “Listen, Kellen. I would love to. Very much. Seeing Niagara Falls with you would be the highlight of my existence thus far. It might even eclipse going to Havasupai, and that would take a lot. But…”
“But what?”
She gulped. She was going to have to admit to a lot of things right now. And he might not like them. “But I can’t be spending that much time with you, day and night, and kissing you, and feeling the way I feel about you—both emotionally and, uh, you know, um, physically—and be the kind of girl I am.” This was coming out all awkward and schoolgirl-sounding. It was lame. She was lame. But she forged on. “I might try to pass myself off as some kind of modern woman. But I’m not. I’m a total throwback. I’m from an earlier generation. It probably won’t surprise you to find out that…you’re the first man I ever kissed. Ever.”
Kellen got a goofy grin. It wasn’t a bad grin. Not a grin where he was mocking her or pitying her. It was like a cat-who-got-the-canary grin.
“I want to be true to one man. Ever and only.”
“Can it be me? Can it? Please, please, please?”
“Oh, Kellen. Quit it. Quit making fun of me. You can’t toy with me. I’m not someone who has much experience with dating or men or anything. I bruise easily.”
“I’ll never hurt you. And why, still, won’t you believe I’m sincere? I’m dead serious. I have been begging you to go with me to Niagara because I thought you understood I want to run off and marry you. Do I have to spell it out? Ni-a-gara Falls. Elopement HQ. People used to do it all the time. You see it in all the old movies. It’s romantic. You’re a romantic, right?” He was right. Mostly. “We’ll be like my parents. Like yours. Like our grandparents. We’ll choose each other and then just leap with both feet and go for it. We’ll make it work. You’re a good person. So am I. We can struggle together. It’ll be good for us. I already know I love you.”
He did? All the breath went out of her lungs at hearing it.
“And I strongly suspect you love me too. Or you will. As soon as you let yourself.” He looked so strong and in charge. Like someone she could depend on. Always. “So, soonish? Can we?”
“But my parents. I’m their only child. I can’t just leave them out of a wedding. It would break their hearts.” She would have to put the brakes on—just a little. She’d always dreamed of a small ceremony with her parents and family there supporting her, wearing her grandmother’s dress and with her hair done just right. It was the right way to start off something big, like their new union, their new family. Surely, Kellen wouldn’t mind doing it the old fashioned way.
Kellen took both her hands in his. “That’s what I talked to your father about. Your father gave his blessing—on the condition that you were on board with it.” Kellen’s eyes went from playful to pleading. She couldn’t dream of resisting pleading eyes like those. She’d be putty in his hands for all eternity if he used them on her anytime he wanted something
from her. “You are on board with it, aren’t you?”
Ava’s head still spun. He loved her. She’d known she loved him for a while now. He was true and brave and manly and kind. He would take care of her. He’d let her keep working here or sweep her away if she liked. She could be a patroness of the arts, not just a curator. She’d be Mrs. Kellen McMullen. She would have time to paint.
It felt good. Very good.
Slowly she began to nod, and with a whisper, she said, “As long as it’s soonish.”
And then he took her face in his hands, cupping her jaw in his palms, and he kissed her.
And soonish was soon enough.
The End
Acknowledgements
This book would not have happened without the encouragement of several good friends. Louise Tolman has been a great help to me ever since I got the vague idea in my head that I could write fiction. She’s given me nudges to keep going whenever I needed them, including reminding me that this particular book had languished in my writing “slag heap” for a few years without being finished. Thank you, Louise. I’m so glad we’re friends.
Louise’s daughter, Laura Tolman, created the wonderful cover. Thank you, Laura! You’re a wizard.
The ladies in my writers group are forever and ever the best. All of you, just mmmwah. Seriously.
A big thank you to my beta readers and editors (and cheerleaders) for this novel, Donna Hatch, Rebecca Jamison, Megan Oliphant. You’re all writers whose work I adore and whose opinions I respect immensely. Thank you so much for taking time to help Ava Young get out of her frump slump.
Of course, I could never write a single novel without the help and continued encouragement of my dear muse, Gary. He’s the ultimate, super, fabulous, best guy in the world. He may not have a billion dollars, but he’s got everything else.
A Note from the Author
The Lost Art: A Romantic Comedy Page 24
