“Okay.”
I did as she asked and then got to work washing and dicing the vegetables. As my hands got busy, my mind wandered. Upon moving to Crystal Brook, I suppose I had been thinking about having a family one day. But two years ago, that idea itself had been so far down the line…
“Maybe I did it out of habit,” I announced.
“What?” Grace turned around from where she was setting plates on the table. Junebug crawled out from between the chairs, having just picked up on one of the signs meaning dinnertime wasn’t far away. She sat patiently in the middle of the floor, looking from me to Grace to see if either one of us would drop a piece of food.
“I think I just bought the house out of habit,” I explained.
“What do you mean?” she laughed. “I don’t get what you’re saying. You’re used to buying things? Isn’t that the first house you’ve bought?”
“Yeah, it is. But what I mean is, I didn’t even consider looking for anything smaller. I’m used to living in such a big space. Even if I don’t use it.”
I arranged the diced vegetables into a neat little pile on the cutting board and stared down at them, wondering why on Earth I hadn’t had this realization about myself sooner.
“Well, now you’ll have me there,” Grace said, going to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of salad dressing. I looked at the wall, something still not sitting right with me — although I couldn’t figure out what the problem was.
“What?” Grace asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just… it seems so silly now, buying that big house. Even with the two of us there, it’s still a lot of space. We could add everything from this house into it, and there would still be empty rooms.”
“Yeah,” Grace slowly said, setting the dressing bottle on the table. “So let’s just stay here.”
“In your house?”
“Yeah… why are you making that face?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. It’s just that this place is… so…”
“So what?” She came forward and wrapped her arms around me. “So small? So cozy? So perfect for two people and their German Shepard?”
I smiled down at Grace, unable to fight anything she was saying when her eyes sparkled up at me like that. She could have asked me for the moon at that moment, and I would have died trying to find a way to get ownership of it for her.
With the love of my life pressed close against me, and my faithful dog thumping her tail on the floor and smiling goofily up at her two humans, the very idea of downsizing began to suddenly become appealing.
What did I need all that space for anyway? I’d never so much as thrown a party there. When guests did come to stay overnight, it was never more than one or two of them.
And there was something else about Grace’s little place that was extremely comforting. You couldn’t be inside of her house without knowing exactly where everyone else was. With its old walls and creaky boards, I could stand in the kitchen and know that Grace was in the bedroom, and Junebug was sneaking up on the living room couch.
At my house, it was nothing like that. Sometimes, I had to walk around the whole bottom floor and then halfway up the stairs yelling for Grace before discovering she was up in the game room watching TV.
“You’re right,” I said, my nodding gaining momentum as I did it. “But we have to do something with that house.”
“You mean sell it?”
“I was thinking something else… and it only now just occurred to me, so it’s a rough idea, all right?”
“Okay,” she agreed, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Crystal Brook has two food pantries now.”
“Thanks to my hunky and amazing boyfriend.”
I inclined my head. “I’ll accept that compliment.”
She grinned and waited for me to continue.
“But there’s more we can do,” I said. “What if… what if we turned my house into some kind of center?”
“Like what? A community center? I don’t think it would work for that…”
“No, not that. Like, a place to help people.”
“A halfway house?”
“Maybe.” I ran my hand over my jaw.
Grace twisted her mouth and looked to the right, making the face she often did when thinking hard about something.
“What if it was something to help single parents out?” she suggested. “If Tracey could have had access to something like that when her husband left, it would have changed everything for her.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “It could be a temporary boarding house for single mothers and their kids. A place where they can go to get on their feet. They’ll know that they have a safe place to come home to at the end of the day. A place where there’s everything they need… food, electricity. They can just focus on building their lives back up.”
Grace’s eyes danced. “Oh my God, Luke,” she gasped. “This is such a great idea!”
“It’s going to be complicated, of course. There will be all sorts of federal and maybe state requirements and regulations, I’m sure. It will be a while before we even get the place open.”
“Then we’ll get started tonight,” Grace said. “After dinner. I’ll start researching.”
I looked skeptically at her. “Don’t you have homework to do?”
She shrugged. “I’ll stay up till it’s all done.”
A massive tidal wave of appreciation filled me. I could hardly believe the woman in my arms was there. After everything we’d been through in life — both separately and together — it seemed almost crazy to be standing in the place we were.
“You know you’re the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” I whispered to her.
Her eyes went soft. “And you’re the exact same to me.” She blinked fast, looking close to tears. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.”
I pulled her closer. “I love you, Grace.”
She gazed up at me. “You don’t even have to say that. I feel it every time you look at me.”
I smiled and trailed the back of my hand along her face. Out of the blue, a memory from months before flashed across my mind.
“Do you remember when I said your name was ironic?”
Her nose wrinkled up, and she laughed. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”
“It’s anything but. In fact, it fits you more perfectly than it could anyone else.”
She tilted her face up even more. “Why do you say that?”
“Because of what grace is. It’s the love we don’t have to do anything to earn. It’s what everyone inherently deserves.” My throat constricted, and I swallowed hard to keep it together. It felt like my heart was cracking open, all of the emotions from the last few months spilling out of it. “You give people that. You see that everyone is deserving.”
Grace’s eyes glazed over. “Only because you showed me that.”
I held her even tighter then. So tight she became a part of me.
And I’d never let her go.
The End
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Blake is the author of the hot alpha billionaire romance series, “The Billionaire Prisoner,” along with her friend Alice Ward. Since she was a young college girl reading and writing romance was what she loved the most and she enjoys entertaining her fans through her books. Living in Miami, she likes to sit by the pool with her laptop and write her next hot romance. However, when she is not reading or writing romance, she also enjoys being with her beautiful family.
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COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Jessica Blake
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
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