Indulgence (56 page)

We walked with my right hand tucked in the back pocket of
her skinny jeans. Lord only knew why she referred to them as such. She had a
slight body with curves in all the right places. Weren’t all jeans considered
skinny jeans on someone who was her size? Women’s clothing just didn’t make
sense.

“Hank, this has been the best day,” she beamed. Before I
could respond, she was rushing over to a booth covered in navy blue curtains
with white stars imprinted on them. The sign boasted “Fortune Teller” in fancy
cursive lettering. “Let’s do it!” She practically jumped up and down with
excitement. I couldn’t deny a purdy little thing like her.

“Whatever you wish. And I bet she says that, too!” I added
as she tugged me into the dark space. We were ushered through to a woman who
sat at a round table with a crystal ball dead center of the space. She had a
candy apple red scarf around her long black hair and bright lipstick on to
match. She had flowing glittery clothes on and long purple nails. She gave me
the creeps. She cocked her head to the side.

“You,” she pointed a long purple-nail-tipped finger at me.
“You’re a nonbeliever. You sit over there!” She pointed to a chair off to the
side. Apparently I wasn’t going to get a reading today.
Better be half price
then.

She ushered Aspen to sit in front of her. She held her hands
and petted the inside of her palm with one of those long nails. Made me shiver.
It was weird that she didn’t ask what service she wanted, nor did she offer
payment information up front. She was probably a swindler. She was going to
charge us out the ass after the services were rendered and we’d have no choice
but to pay. I was about to speak when she pointed one of those fingers at me
again.

“Don’t speak.” I held my tongue only because she was wicked
strange and had my girl’s hand in hers. Aspen seemed completely taken with the
odd woman.

“Angel,” she whispered and Aspen gasped. “Your true love
will call you that. It’s important somehow.”

I tried to think back to whether or not I’d addressed her
since we entered. I knew I hadn’t.

“You have a lot to offer the world. Not only are you smart,
you’re creative and you do well in business. Better than most I’d say, looking
at how long your success line is here.” She continued to inspect Aspen’s hand.
“See this line? It’s your life line. You will live a long, happy life.”

She started to cluck her tongue. “Ah, but you see your Line
of Heart, it has some breaks in it. You will or have had a couple heartbreaks
already. But there is one, the one of your true love, it breaks for a short
distance here, then comes back and follows you to the end of your days.” She
smiles. “You must hold out for your true love. You’ll know it, Angel,” she
whispered.

Aspen nodded and smiled, risking a quick peek in my
direction. Her shy smile was as sweet as the molasses I put on my biscuit in
the mornings.

The gypsy fortune teller continued. Shared some additional,
surprisingly accurate information that even had me believing in her psychic
ability for half a second. She talked about a man in her life who was destined
to walk alongside her but was not her true love or her lover. Just a kindred
spirit. She suggested that Aspen never forsake that relationship because it
would get her through important milestones throughout her life. The things that
her true love was unable to comprehend.

As we were leaving, the woman grabbed Aspen’s arm and turned
her around. She smiled widely. “Your aura, it’s white and sparkling.
Congratulations are in order. If not now, then soon.” The woman hugged Aspen
tight. “Come back, pretty Angel, but leave the nonbeliever at home next time.”
She glared at me.

I handed the woman a couple twenties and she tucked them
into her bra. “Goodbye, Hank,” she said and turned on her heel and left.

“How did you know my name?” I called to her but she
continued walking and waved her hand over her shoulder. We were clearly
dismissed.

“That was incredible, Hank. You should have had an open
mind.” Aspen pouted but hugged her giant tiger. Best money spent on that tiger,
not the psychic. At least she could cuddle up to it and remember me.

“I don’t believe in all that hocus pocus.”

“She called me Angel. She knew your name. And she knew some
pretty crazy stuff about my life. You know what she told me?”

“I don’t know. I kind of spaced out through some of it.”

“She told me that big things were about to happen in my love
life and to take the bull by its horns. She said that. The bull. You know, like
cattle!”

“Oh, don’t listen to that hunk of horse manure. She’s
joshin’ ya. She could read you like a Bible on Sunday in church.”

“Not funny, Hank. She really did know some things. And what
was up with that congratulations stuff? What do you think she was talking about
when she said my aura was sparkling and white?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she took too many hits to the head from
pissed off customers or was dropped on her head as a baby. Don’t put too much
thought into it.” I gripped her around the waist and pulled her to me. “’Sides,
the only congratulations that are in order will be when we are both sayin’ ‘I
do’ in front of God and everybody.” She kissed me softly. “So, when you think
I’m gonna be able to make an honest woman out of ya?” I asked nervous about her
answer, but needed to know how long it was gonna take.

Her face fell a bit. “It’s not that I don’t want you. I love
you. I’ve never loved a man the way I love you. And for the first time in my
life, it actually feels like forever.” She smiled and her eyes twinkled as they
sought mine. “But we just got back together. I don’t want to rush it,” she
admitted.

“We got nothin’ but time, Angel. It’s me and you against all
odds.”

“I love you, Hank. All your pieces,” she said. I’d heard her
say that to Oliver and her sister once before.

“What does that mean?”

She smiled and searched my face then settled those
clear-water blues to mine. “It means that no matter what, I love everything
about you. Good, bad, and everything in between. All your pieces.”

“I love all your pieces, too, Angel.”

It was October and we were closing in on the holidays fast.
Hank and I had spent the last three months really getting to know one another
on a level outside of the physical. He had received a clean bill of health from
the doctor who performed his surgery. We were warned that he should still take
it easy and work up to lifting heavier amounts week by week, building back up
to the couple hundred pounds he was bench pressing prior to the accident. I
added more weights to our home gym so that he could build up, and hired us both
a personal trainer.

Hank wasn’t thrilled with having what he said was a
“half-naked” man working out with me, but all it took was letting him bend me
over every piece of equipment in the gym for him to get comfortable with the
idea. He said it helped him believe I’d be thinking of what we did on that
equipment when the trainer was having me use a particular piece. Such a wacko.

Hank’s business was booming as well. He said he had more
work in New York than he’d ever had back in Texas. Mac was running the Texas
branch and enjoying being at home with his family. A few of the single guys
chose to stay in New York, preferring the big city life over the country
living. Hank offered to pay them quite a bit more per hour to fit the cost of
living and average pay for men that did that type of work here in the city.
With Ollie’s help, Hank hired a receptionist, office administrator, and a few
other needed positions, including a dozen new crew members to serve on the jobs
out in the field. According to Ollie, he was going to need to double the size
of his staff within a year’s time due to the jobs he was turning down even
after he’d won the bid. We discussed my concerns that he was underselling his
work. He felt it appropriate to make good money for a decent day’s work, which
kept him beating out all the bids. More bids were approved than he was able to
handle, but it was a good problem to have in the grand scheme of things.

Bright Magazine was knee-deep in preparations for the
January 1
^st
launch. The buzz was big, and I felt confident that the
team we’d hired and the first sets of interviews, photo-shoots, and columns
would intrigue the public to take a chance on a new magazine. Plus, we had one
of the hottest celebrities in the market half-naked on the cover. You couldn’t
go wrong with a beautiful man to get the average woman’s attention, as well as
the married and at-home-mom demographics.

My only complaint was that I constantly felt like crap. The
last few weeks had been filled with headaches, loss of appetite, then ravenous
hunger, exhaustion, crazy bursts of energy, and the feeling that I just wasn’t
myself. I knew my body. It was freaking out over the Hank proposal issue. The symptoms
were on and off, and corresponded with Hank’s demand that I request his hand in
marriage and not the other way around. The problem was, I didn’t know how or
when to do it, or whether or not I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Hank
more than anything else in my life. He was definitely the only man I could ever
imagine being in my future, and the only person I’d ever considered marrying.

Then what is your problem?
I actually went to the
jewelry store a couple times and browsed for rings. Once, Oliver dragged me and
demanded I pick one out. Wouldn’t leave until I’d done the deed.

The next day I returned the ring. It wasn’t that the ring
didn’t fit Hank. He wouldn’t care one iota what the ring looked like, only that
making the leap meant I was ready for more, ready for our forever. He’d been
incredible about giving me space, too. He seemed perfectly comfortable with
living together and enjoying the last three months, but I knew it was on his
mind.

When we’d see couples getting married on TV, in a movie, or
receive a wedding invite, Hank would get this wistful look in his eyes. It
broke my heart to see his desire, knowing that I could so easily give him
everything he ever wished for. But would it last?

My parents’ marriage was not one built on love, trust, and
passion. It was a marriage of convenience, a business negotiation. Last week
when I was feeling pretty down and out about my lack of ability to give Hank
what he wanted—namely, me—I visited my father and asked about their marriage.

“Darling, your mother and I were from the same world. Our
families had been acquainted for years. The mutual appreciation between her
family and ours went a long way toward our decision to be together. The
situation just fit,” he’d said.

“But did you love Mom?”

His eyes searched mine, but held no sparkle, no fond stories
about falling madly in love with my mother and sweeping her off her feet so
that he would never be without her. “Darling, I learned to love your mother
very much. And besides, she gave me the three best things I’d ever created.
You, London, and Rio.” He smiled and pulled me in for a hug.

“What would you say if I told you that Hank wanted to marry
me?”

He grinned. “I’d say I’m surprised he waited this long. The
boy is taken with you, darling. You know he already asked for your hand.” He
said it as if he’d asked me to pass the sugar for the tea.

“He asked you? When?”

“Two or three months ago. Said he was going to win you back,
and when he did he was going to marry you. Wanted to make sure I was okay with
his intentions. I told him that I’d be honored to welcome him into the family.
Then I gave him some contacts for his business expansion to look into.”

I shook my head and thought about all that my dad had
expounded. “Why didn’t you tell me? That was months ago.”

“Well, I had expected that you would come over and announce
your engagement, but since you hadn’t, I didn’t want to pry or ruin the
surprise for you. Just a couple weeks ago, though, I got curious and called him
to check on his intentions.” He laughed deep in his throat. “He told me he’d
turned over the reins on that plan to you. Said he wanted you to be certain you
were ready to saddle up with him. His words, not mine.” He laughed and steepled
his fingers under his chin. “What are you waiting for, darling?”

“Honestly, Dad, I don’t know. Oliver is beside himself. Dean
will hardly look at me. London practically cries every time we speak, and now I
find out you’re having secret conversations with my boyfriend behind my back.”
I grinned but it turned into a sigh. “And I just haven’t been feeling well. I
don’t know. One moment I’m fine, the next I’m ready to crawl into bed and close
out the world. Both Hank and I have had long days in the office.” It was the
most plausible explanation.

“How’s that going? The expansion?”

“Wonderful. Hank is incredibly smart. Turns out he has an
architectural and business degree from the University of Texas.”

“Proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.” He winked
at me and sipped his tea. “If you’re not ready to become Hank’s wife, then
don’t rush into it. If the man wants you, he’ll wait. And if he loves you, he
won’t push you to do something that’s not right for you.”

“No, I know, Dad. He really hasn’t. He’s only brought it up
a couple of times over the past three months, hasn’t pushed or prodded at me,
but I know he’s ready. Knowing that you approve of him helps. I love you, Dad.”
I got up and hugged him.

“He’s a good man and he loves you a great deal. Remember
that as you consider your options. Oh, and don’t tell your mother. Maybe just
elope.” He laughed. “And can you please visit the doctor and have a checkup?
You’ve complained quite often of not feeling well.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I will. Oliver made an appointment for
tomorrow, actually.”

The evening had flown by and I’d fallen asleep before Hank
even made it home from a dinner meeting. The next morning I slipped out of bed
and met Ollie in the spare room that I’d had renovated into a closet and vanity
area after Hank moved in. Hank’s closet was now the one off the master bath.