“But what about not being able to have a child, CiCi?” he asked, edging toward her. “You told me in the creek—”
“I didn’t lie to you about being infertile,” she snapped. “I thought I was. I probably am, the way the doctor described it.” She explained the pregnancy was ectopic and there was no way it could have successfully continued. “And so while I’m trying to get my stupid head together and get through work, I end up having a miscarriage in a very public and painful way. I lose the baby, feel like I’m going to die—and now you show up all pissed off because I hadn’t figured out what the fuck I was going to tell you—how I was going to work through that fear.”
“Fear?”
She nodded. “First it was the fear that you were still in love with Jana. That was stupid and silly, I know. And I was getting over that, moving beyond that stupidity. It was hard, but I was getting there. But then I learned I was pregnant, and the fear became something much worse: that you’d reject me like Jana because you wouldn’t believe me, that you wouldn’t trust me. The fear… that I’d lose you forever,” she whispered but managed not to cry.
“But—but—” he stammered, “it’s not like that—Jana was different.”
“No? Just moments ago it sounded to me like you thought I’d misled you about my infertility and that I had kept something wrongfully from you—those sound like lies, doncha think? I saw that look on your face when you saw me just now—it was the very same look you gave Jana the first time I saw you both together at the distillery—that sad, soulless, vacant look. The complete loss of trust—bordering on hate.”
“I—”
“You do understand that I only confirmed the pregnancy about a week ago, right? Do you get that? And that I’d been working my ass off leading up to the miscarriage? And can you see how I might have been rather upset, reeling, unable to even fucking think? And now you come here to my own home, call my honesty into question, and demand answers when I’ve barely had time to think about what’s happened to me?”
She was shaking and felt so completely infuriated she had half a mind to try to pick him up and physically throw him out of her house.
“So this hasn’t been all about you, Walker,” she snapped and took several steps toward him. “And I’m not Jana, and I didn’t lie or keep something from you.”
“I’m sorry,” was his feeble response.
She turned away from him and walked to the windows. “Please leave,” she said in a hoarse voice.
“CiCi, no,” he said, nearing her.
“Go,” she said firmly, her back still to him.
He stopped in front of the couch before he reached her. “You’re right. I should’ve trusted you. And I love you. That’s what I wanted to tell you today.”
Further enraged, she spun to face him. “I don’t seem to remember hearing that when you first opened your damned mouth a few minutes ago.”
“And that was the wrong choice. I’m sorry,” he said, his apology a plea.
They were still yards apart.
“We all make stupid choices,” she said. “They litter our lives.”
“There’s one choice I will never regret, because it was the best one I’ve ever made.”
“What’s that?”
“Falling in love with you.”
They stood looking at each other for several seconds before he left through the front door.
CiCi turned to the windows, looking out at her backyard, wishing that she could see Walker there, trotting through the dew-covered grass on his way home as though nothing had changed between them.
34
Forgive me
Wear garnet
That’s all I ask
That was the only communication he had sent CiCi in the past weeks—a simple text message—but he prayed she knew exactly what it meant.
It was a Saturday afternoon in early September, and Lila had asked him as well as Bo, Goose, and CiCi to accompany her on a hike along Old Crow Creek to pinpoint a few spots along the waterway which were reputed to be the proposal sites. Although the weather had been slightly cooler than usual for late summer in Kentucky, this meant it felt merely hot instead of hotter than the devil’s own trousers, the colorful phrase Hannah sometimes used which made Walker wonder whether his boss was channeling an eighteenth-century Scotsman.
Walker had been dreading the hike because of the memories one particular spot held. And because CiCi was going to be there.
Since their disastrous reunion at her house, Walker had constantly rebuked himself for giving in to his anger that day instead of leading with love. He’d failed to see CiCi’s struggle or at least give her the chance to explain herself. In the following painful days, he’d been unable to forgive himself for his arrogance, which he feared had cost him the love of his life.
So he had challenged her: wear garnet.
Tell me that you can forgive me and love me.
It was not a marriage proposal. He had tried to make that clear in his message so as not to freak her out. But if she wore the deep red color he longed to see, he would know there was a chance for such a proposal some day.
And if she didn’t wear it?
He would seriously consider leaving Old Garnet.
Walker loved his job, and the Davenports were now like family. But without CiCi, work meant nothing to him. He couldn’t imagine staying in Bourbon Springs without her in his life and living in the ruins of what once was a happy, hopeful situation. It no longer felt like home.
Goose and Bo were coming along on the creekside trek. Bo had some knowledge about where the alleged proposal sites were, lore and stories passed down from his father. Hannah and Kyle would not be with them as they were on a short beach vacation, a much-deserved break after a long, busy summer for them both.
And Goose was coming along because he was the new heritage director. Jana had quit.
After living with Hannah and Kyle for about a week, Jana had moved out and gone back to her own place. But she had never returned to Old Garnet, and Walker hadn’t seen her in weeks. Hannah said that Jana had told her that she was moving to Louisville and was going to get a job there. She couldn’t work at Old Garnet any longer, she had said, although Jana hadn’t provided any reasons for her sudden departure.
Walker admittedly felt a sense of relief that his ex was finally out of his life. Now he had to get CiCi back into it.
But when he saw her early that Saturday morning at the visitors’ center, CiCi wasn’t wearing garnet.
Over her khaki hiking shorts, CiCi was wearing a baggy, oversized gray T-shirt with the University of Kentucky Wildcats logo on it. Not a scrap of red on the thing. Even her small backpack was blue.
He felt sick to his stomach and seriously contemplated begging off. But he didn’t want to look like a wimp, and the weather was fine, so he didn’t have any excuse to abandon the group except to say I don’t wanna. He’d dressed for the occasion in hiking boots, shorts, and the ubiquitous Old Garnet polo shirt. He was up to owning three now. If he left the distillery, he knew he’d get rid of them at once. Too many memories.
Despite his best efforts, he kept looking at CiCi, his eyes drawn to her form, her face, and those crazy curls on top of her head. Not surprisingly, she looked a lot better than the last time he’d seen her. Her color was wonderful, and she didn’t seem tired. Did that mean she was over him? And was she shooting him glances, or was that his hopeful and irrational imagination?
The group had chosen to meet at eight, before the tours began, and since the weather was more temperate, the conditions were nearly perfect for a walk along the creek. Lila and Goose led the way, each holding a map and trying to precisely mark the rumored proposal spots. After conversations with Bo, they had expanded the list of sites to five instead of the suspected three or four.
Bo and CiCi walked behind Goose and Lila with Bo pointing to various spots and CiCi taking notes. Walker brought up the rear, and his designated job was to take pictures, which he did with m
inimal comment and interaction with anyone.
The last site they reached was the waterfall.
“Dad always said that this was the spot,” Bo declared as he stood on the bank overlooking the falls. “Can’t remember why he insisted this was it, but he said it was.”
Lila joined Bo, and she slipped her arm around her fiancé’s waist. She talked about how several sources she’d seen tended to indicate that this was indeed The Spot, but it was still hard to determine. “It’s still such a wonderful story,” she said and put her head against Bo’s chest. “I think I love it even more because it is a myth, that we don’t know what the truth really is.”
“Why’s that?” CiCi asked.
“Because we get to make up our own story,” Lila said. “And that’s fun.”
“Walker, can you get some pictures?” Goose asked. He was carrying a handheld GPS and taking measurements.
Walker moved to the bank and took a number of shots as CiCi held back and seemed content to watch the group. After he had finished, Walker stood and gazed at the waterfall and the pool. Even though he was sure the others could see his melancholy, he knew CiCi was the only one who could fathom its depths.
“Well, let’s get back,” Lila declared. She turned around to look at the rest of the gang.
“I… um… need to go,” CiCi declared, pointing to a thickly wooded spot at the edge of the clearing. “Now,” she said, exchanging a knowing look with Lila.
“Go on,” Lila said exasperatedly and pointed to the trees.
CiCi moved into the woods and out of sight.
“Walker, stay here and wait for her,” Lila said once CiCi was gone. “The rest of us need to get back to the Old House because a bourbon expert is coming today to appraise that Booker’s Baby you found.”
“But—”
“She won’t bite, you know,” Lila said, frowning. “Just make sure she comes out of the woods, okay?”
The others left, heading south along the same path they had taken to the clearing.
Walker sensed a setup—but for what?
He walked around the clearing, full of energy and his mind buzzing with what to say to her, what to ask her when he had her alone.
Is it over?
Is that why you didn’t wear garnet?
Or would she talk to him at all? CiCi hadn’t said a thing to him on the entire hike—not that he’d tried to engage her in conversation, either.
But he knew he had to take advantage of this opportunity, contrived or not. And he suspected Lila’s hand in how they’d been left alone. Just like that day in the spring when Lila had gone on her picnic and left him alone, at his polite request, with the charming Ms. Summers. Strange how things had come full circle, it seemed.
Yet what he was going to say to CiCi once she emerged from those woods was still beyond his grasp as he heard a rustling noise from behind.
Walker spun around to face her, hoping she’d at least be willing to talk, and maybe even be wearing a smile.
She wasn’t wearing a smile.
In fact, she wasn’t wearing the clothes she’d had on when she entered the woods.
CiCi slowly picked her way through the underbrush, dodging a few low-hanging limbs and watching where she trod. She missed several branches but one scraped her bare shoulder, causing her to flinch and momentarily arrest her progress toward Walker as she grabbed the branch and moved it out of the way.
A sharp twig had drawn blood, and Walker could see the red line bloom across her pale skin.
A blood-red line—the color of a garnet.
The same color as the shimmering, plunging satin gown she was wearing.
CiCi hitched it up a little as she left the woods, keeping the hem from catching and snagging on the twigs, leaves, and rocks underfoot. But once she reached the grassy flat area of the clearing, she released the gown from her grasp and allowed it to fall around her in a liquid flash of deepest crimson.
Walker gently dropped the camera to the ground and approached her.
There was a thin gloss of perspiration across her face, but that only brightened her look. The tops and a good portion of the sides of her breasts were revealed by the gown, and her nipples were pert and taut underneath the fabric.
CiCi held out her hand to him, and he took it.
“Sorry for making you wait,” she said, and he took both of her hands in his. “But I thought you’d like this answer. In this place. In this color.”
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His own jewel, his own treasure, a glittering garnet in the woods.
And she had forgiven him.
He pulled her hands to his chest and looked down at her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, tears shining in her eyes.
He kissed her and felt her against him for the first time in weeks. Had the last time he had held her like this been on her couch? He realized with a shock that when they’d made love that last time, that could have been when she’d conceived.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rough voice.
“I am too.”
“So—now what?” he asked as he drank in the sight of her in that luscious gown. The only thing she had under it had to be those clunky boots.
He felt giddy, light-headed, and completely ecstatic.
He was in love, and he knew that she loved him.
“Are you suggesting a dip in the creek?” Her eyes darted to the water and back to him. “I don’t think so. It’s broad daylight.”
“Not what I had in mind.” He held her out at arm’s length. “I love you, Catherine Charlotte Summers,” Walker said in a decided yet happy voice.
“And I love you,” she whispered, happily confused at his formality.
He dropped to one knee.
“Marry me.”
“Walker… I didn’t… I mean… I thought—”
“I know,” he said. “I asked you to wear garnet to tell me you’d forgiven me, and you did. I’m not assuming that by wearing that gown you were giving me an answer to a proposal I hadn’t made. But now I am making it. I have to propose, here, now, at this special spot, with you in that gown. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
In the next second, Walker was on his feet, kissing and holding her.
He’d been right—she had nothing on underneath. Damn, what a temptation! His hands slid over the flowing fabric, and all he wanted to do was get his hands on her bare body. But the gown was so long that he couldn’t easily pull it up—and it was for the better, considering where they were.
How soon could they get out of there and to one of their houses? Where the hell was her backpack? He’d probably have to turn his head as she got dressed he was already so aroused.
Impatient, he broke the kiss and urged their immediate departure. She directed him to the spot in the woods where she’d left the backpack (she didn’t want to go back into the woods wearing the gown). She slipped into her clothes as quickly as possible while Walker went to the bank of the creek and enjoyed watching and listening to the falls. CiCi soon joined him and took his hand before they started back on the trail toward the distillery and the visitors’ center.
“Did Lila know what you were up to?” Walker asked.
“Not really. I only said I wanted to be alone with you. That was it.”
“They’re gonna ask what happened back there, you know,” he said, nodding over his shoulder toward the waterfall and the clearing they had just left. “Especially after we tell them we’re engaged.”
CiCi gave a little squee when Walker said engaged.
“I guess we will have to tell them, won’t we? We just re-wrote Old Garnet history. We now know for a fact that there’s been a proposal back at the waterfall—and that it was accepted.”
“I don’t mind telling them we’re engaged, but I don’t know if I ever want to tell anyone exactly when, where, and how you agreed to marry me. That’s much too special to share, CiCi.”
She stopped
, put her hands on his cheeks, and kissed him. “You’re right. Our special secret. Besides, we don’t want to burst Lila’s bubble, do we?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, she said she’d rather not know the truth. That making up the story is the fun part,” CiCi said, and they started to walk again.
“She’s right,” he said, squeezing her hand, “and we’ve got the rest of our lives to choose how we make up the rest of our story.”
Epilogue
Not him.
Not again.
Harriet took the call from Hannah and pretended to be perfectly cheerful and happy with the news that Goose Davenport had been named the new heritage director for Old Garnet.
And Hannah had a task for her.
“I need you to work with Goose on our application to be declared a National Historic Landmark,” she said.
Goose was nice. Easy on the eyes. Very easy, in fact, as well as most agreeable to other parts of her anatomy. Harriet had discovered that fact a long time ago, although that wasn’t something she had ever shared with anyone. And she was continually surprised and grateful that Goose had kept his mouth shut on precisely how she knew that.
“With him? But how?”
“Well, Goose knows a lot about Old Garnet. That’s why he’s got Jana’s old job. In fact, I had no clue how much he knew until he started filling in for her. Learned so much history from his grandfather. That’s why you’ll be working with him,” Hannah said.
“Very well.”
“I want you to come over this week and meet with us to go over where we are and what we need to do next. Besides, I need to talk to you about some of the planning for Rachel’s baby shower as well as Lila’s bridal shower. We can eat out on the porch overlooking the creek. It’s still so warm in early October. It’ll be great.”
No avoiding those Davenports, Harriet realized. They were clients and friends, and they all lived in a small town together.
But what exactly was Goose?
Not exactly a professional colleague, that was for damn sure, but that was how she was going to have to play it. She was a professional, had to act like one. They’d both maintained that image for the past five years: a nod to each other in the courthouse halls, sharing a table at Over a Barrel during a busy lunchtime, laughing together at one of CiCi’s jokes in the clerk’s office, dropping off documents at the sheriff’s office and exchanging hellos. Harriet didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she realized that she’d seen Goose more in the past few months than her own fiancé.
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