Faithful (41 page)

“Is this going to happen?” Dylan shouts to me and Cooper. “I see the sheriff’s car and a bunch of angry tourists!”

“Imogene?” Cooper says loudly as he hooks his thumbs in his belt loops and takes a casual stance, waiting for me.

“Seventy million big ones,” Jess whispers to herself. Then she takes my purse from me. “Go, Imogene.”

I begin to slowly walk towards him, glancing from side to side at Carson and Dylan as they hold back the growing traffic.

It’s too chilly not to wear a jacket, but Cooper stands before me in his standard black BD T-shirt and jeans with a sexy smile, looking as handsome as ever.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I ask him nervously.

“You said the right man would stop traffic for you.”

“I think I meant it metaphorically.”

“I don’t think so,” he says with a faint smile.

While my insides churn with excitement, making me suddenly glad I didn’t finish that burger, Cooper smiles as he gets down on one knee. He slips a ring from his pocket, and I immediately recognize his mother’s emerald ring.

I hear gasps and giggles from the crowd.

“Finally!” Dylan throws his hands up and turns back to face the cars he’s blocking.

“I don’t understand, Cooper. What changed your mind?”

“You, of course. Being away from you gave me plenty of time to think about what my life is with you and what it would be like if I let you go. You taught me some very important things about myself, that I
do
need my family, and I do love them. The time I spent with my family reminded me how good it can be to have them, especially under the worst circumstances. I hadn’t felt that in a long time, Imogene. And when you showed up at my mother’s house, I felt stronger. It felt good to belong to a family again, but I also want to belong to you.”

“Oh,” I say nervously. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through? Because I will never be one of those people that takes things in stride. Cooper, I’m a mess of emotions all the time.”

“I love you because you are a mess of emotions. You’re overly dramatic, strong willed, incredibly funny, and fiercely loyal and faithful to the people you love. I want to be one of those lucky people to be loved by you.”

“You are.”

“Will you marry me, Imogene?”

He gazes at me expectantly, taking my breath away. I look at the quiet crowd of people watching us with anticipation then turn around to look at Carson behind me. He nods as though I’m getting approval from my big brother.

“Imogene!” Cooper snaps in a friendly tone. “I’m on my knee in the middle of the street. I stopped traffic because of you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you,” I reply with a laugh. “Did you really think I would say no?”

“You have a way of making people work for your attention.” He smiles.

He puts the ring on my finger, and it slides into a hard, pinching stop at the knuckle.

“Kcuf!” I whisper-shout. “My finger is too fat for the ring!”

“We’ll have it sized,” he says, laughing as he puts it on my pinky.

As Cooper stands and kisses me slowly, sweetly, and thoroughly in front of everyone, there’s applause and some cheers from my family and friends. Then Cooper puts his arm around my waist and walks me back towards the diner so Carson and Dylan can let the cars go through.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off to celebrate, and I’ll take care of closing up later?” Anita asks as she wrestles through the crowd to see my ring.

“Excellent idea,” Cooper exclaims.

I agree, and after a few more hugs from friends and family, Cooper drives me back to his home because he says he has another surprise. I’m about to make a crack about ribbons tied on male appendages, but when he walks me through his house, I’m speechless. The kitchen has been completely renovated and is pristine in natural stone and polished concrete with cherry wood cabinets. I selected this color scheme. The slate tile and fixtures in the bathrooms are complete, and the full-season porch is set up and ready for lazy afternoons.

“I brought in Carson’s crew to help get it done,” he says, looking at my amazed expression. “Two years ago, I didn’t know how to use a table saw. Over the last year, these guys brought me up to speed and taught me everything. I worked on the house every day. Lauren told me you’ve been thinking of moving out… I was hoping you’d come here. Unless you want to be married first.”

“We’re engaged, close enough.” I look down at the ring on my pinky.

“She wanted you to have that.” His voice breaks a little. “My mother really liked you, Imogene. She didn’t get to tell you how important it was to her that you came to see her. She told me several times that her ring was meant for you. I guess she expected I would propose eventually. She gave the necklace you made to Greer. I thought you’d like to hear that.”

“I do. It makes me feel closer to your family.”

“So when are we getting married?” he asks.

I snort a laugh. “Are you serious? You proposed thirty minutes ago. We have to decide this minute?”

“I assumed you have some idea of when you want to get married and start a family and buy minivans and all of that other stuff.”

“No, not at all.”

“Huh. Okay, well, can you move in today?” He puts his hands on my waist and looks down at me with an eager grin.

“Wow, you kind of want to do everything at once. I have to pack, and we have to do some planning.”

“Let’s not, just stay here, and we’ll get your stuff next weekend. I’m sick and tired of living with that feeling of missing you. Every day, I’ve missed you. When you would say hi to me in the morning and walk into your office, I missed you. When you would say goodbye to me at night and drive away, I missed you. I’ve been feeling so lousy I actually considered stashing some snakes in your workshop to have an excuse to come spend the day there. I was going to let them slither around, and I’d pretend to catch them so it would take days.”

I laugh. “I missed you, too. Every day. Every minute.”

His hands slide up my back, and he strokes his fingers lightly against my neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I love you when we were arguing at the wedding. With the way you talked about marriage, I realized I wasn’t the person you thought I was. I wasn’t the person who was fully committed to my family, not the way you are. I realized that, before we had our big blow up when you kissed me—at the other wedding last spring—I was missing an important element, something you wouldn’t overlook. You are the reason I went back to be with my mother and family. It was all because of you, Imogene. I wanted to be better.”

“You are. You’re the best.” I step up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “I’m madly in love with you, Cooper.”

“When are we getting married?”

“I haven’t planned past today.”

“Fine. You’re forcing me to bring out the big guns.” Cooper removes his glasses from the inside of his T-shirt collar and slides them on his face.

“Yep. That’ll do it.”

“There’s more. I’ve got Pablo Neruda, hand cuffs, bubble bath, whatever the hell you need,” he says, picking me up and carrying me off to the bedroom.

Epilogue

The video Leo made of the proposal was meant for Lauren since she was bedridden at the time. We had no idea that it would go viral and spark over a million hits along with a bounty of proposals for Cooper. I received my share of messages from strange male admirers; however, it was nothing like the racy videos and explicit handwritten letters and email messages directed to
‘Hunky MacKenzie
.’ Cooper shrugged off the calls from media and fans and put Daisy on gatekeeper duty, junking all emails and disposing the offers of matrimony when packages and flowers were sent directly to the Blackard Designs shop.

I took a different approach. I adored the local and national attention, and when New York TV stations called us to do interviews for their human interest fluff segments, Cooper of course gave a “
hell, no
,” while I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and make as many guest appearances as I could on local and national morning news shows in the city.

I made sure to wear Imogene & Lauren jewelry and hawk it in every interview. Lois and Eleanor were my unintended entourage and acted as my overly zealous, bitchy handlers behind the scenes. Lois declared me the best media whore she has ever witnessed. I admit I was enjoying the attention, having Lauren dress and accessorize me for every appearance, and I practiced using a television voice and mimicking the TV hosts’ body language. Cooper thinks my sarcasm, improvised one-liners, and the ability to ham it up on live television was a major attraction; as a result, my fifteen minutes of fame had a nice two month tail.

We got more clients, more orders, and hired another employee. If I thought I was working hard before, I learned quickly that a growing business means a lot more work, but I embraced it with a new enthusiasm.

Once my big head deflated, Maisie Penelope Adams made her appearance one bright January morning. She came by way of a C-Section and was the pinkest, pinched-faced, tiniest baby I have ever seen. Maisie was born with a large salmon-colored birthmark on the back of her neck and on top of her forehead.

When she was finally swaddled and handed to her mother, Lauren exclaimed, “She’s perfect!” Leo was so happy he cried more than his baby.

Unfortunately, Archie and his new bride Emily missed my glamorous foray into the television publicity circuit and the birth of Maisie. After living more than fifty years without the love of his life, Archie couldn’t wait any longer and certainly couldn’t continue to live vicariously through the rest of us. Therefore, shortly after Cooper proposed to me, Archie and Emily got married at the old farmhouse that Archie had purchased all those decades ago in preparation to propose to his lovely, young Emily. That is, before she went off and married George Weston and had a litter of children. This time, Archie went all out to romance his sweetheart. After their nuptials, he whisked Emily off for a two-month honeymoon in Italy where my mature friends have informed me people of any age will feel young at heart, immersed in the romantic culture and history.

Leading up to our own wedding, Cooper’s house became
our
home, and his housewarming gift to me was a fluffy bunny, Serpico. That was Cooper’s doing. I haven’t seen the movie, but Cooper assures me that our bunny is the spitting image of Al Pacino. Cooper also refuses to put him in a cage. I can’t say I am terribly excited to have a free-range rodent in the house, but Cooper has become attached to him and doesn’t seem to mind the rabbit turds that cunning little furball leaves around the house.

I’m also not the one that jumped into planning our wedding. I left everything up to Cooper. He selected a date in May, and to humor me, he arranged to have the ceremony and party at his family’s bar in Brooklyn to accommodate the whole MacKenzie clan, babies and all, and every friend and relative from Hera.

Gun shy after Lauren’s dress debacle, I wasn’t interested in going down that road again; however, Cooper was pretty sure I could
staple
something together at the last minute. I did him one better. I took the girls out for a day in Manhattan for some much needed spa therapy at Bliss, and then we went shopping and each bought the first
kcuffing
dress we loved and wore it out of the store. Cooper hired a limo to drive us around and bring us back to the bar after all the guests had arrived.

When we walked into the beautifully decorated “Scottish” pub, the first thing I noticed was Lois and Eleanor behind the bar, managing the bartenders and concocting who knows what. The second sight left me speechless and smiling: Cooper, leaning against the bar like a cocky gunslinger, or rather, a groom. He wore a striking, tailored black suit, the perfect cut for his broad shoulders and trim waist. He didn’t blink twice or look dismayed in the least when I appeared in a blood red dress with a plunging neckline in both the front and back. He smiled appreciatively, taking me in slowly from the tall black heels, the red lipstick, and settling on my smoky dark eyes.

With drinks in hand for the guests and food catered from an Italian restaurant owned by one of Cooper’s Brooklyn friends, the wedding ceremony was stress-free. Within minutes of saying our vows in front of the minister, the party started. It was everything I wanted—a celebration without an agenda and the boisterous, unfiltered MacKenzies shaking up the more conservative Hera guests.

As Cooper nestles his lips against the sensitive spot under my ear, his scratchy stubble sends shivers of lust and love through me. I asked him not to shave so I could experience that little thrill during my wedding dance.

“Are you happy, Mrs. MacKenzie?” He has the relaxed baritone of a man who didn’t experience any wedding day jitters.

“I am very happy, Mr. MacKenzie. And you?”

“I’m insanely in love with you. I was expecting some virginal-looking white number, but this dress is spectacular. It’s you.”

“Red is for love, passion, and good luck. And I look awesome in it.”

“Yes, you do.” He kisses me, and I hear Lauren cheer and make everyone clink glasses.

I snuggle in his embrace and sway to the music, amazed that I am now part of this huge family. Instantly, I have become an auntie and cousin to all these toddlers and teenagers ransacking the bar.

While Jess and Carson dance nearby, I notice her reach up and touch Carson’s face as she says something that makes him laugh. Dylan and Emma are slow dancing in their own world, holding on to each other and kissing as if they are alone and blind to the rowdy people around them. Lauren and Leo hold little Maisie between them and dance as one happy family.

“Cooper,” I say, reaching up to hold his face. His eyes open lazily. “Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for being persistent and hounding me to go out with you. I wouldn’t have had the nerve, and we never would have ended up together if you hadn’t seen through my … abrasive side.”

He smiles. “My pleasure. You couldn’t have stopped me from hunting you down. I doubt I could have ever let up. I want to be with you, Imogene MacKenzie.”