Jaded (36 page)

He’d started taking groups of kids on snowshoe, cross-country skiing, and rock-climbing trips, and loved every minute of it. She loved seeing him back in the sports that meant so much to him. They’d both come back refreshed and ready for the next set of challenges.

“With the grand opening over, you’re due for a climbing trip,” he reminded her.

“You can take the girl out of the library, but sending her up a rock face isn’t a good idea,” Alana said with a laugh.

“I’ll be your anchor,” he said.

“I just might do it, then,” she said.

Duke sat at their feet and looked at them expectantly.

“What’s that all about?” she asked.

Lucas tipped his head toward the kitchen window. She followed his glance and saw the bud vase on the shelf. A single pale pink rose bloom leaned against the edge.

“The first bloom! I thought it might open today, with the sunshine and nice weather.” She reached for the clear vase. Lucas turned her so she leaned back against his hard chest, and he bent to nuzzle in her hair as she examined the flower. “It’s perfect,” she murmured as she turned it in the small vase. “The new fertilizer really . . .”

Her voice trailed away when she saw the single loop of green wire wrapped around gleaming gold. Lucas’s arms tightened at her waist as she carefully unwrapped the wire. A ring dropped into her palm. It was an old-fashioned setting updated for the modern era, a center diamond surrounded by tiny diamonds that winked in the twilight.

Or maybe it was the tears in her eyes. She turned to face him, her heart pounding in her chest.

“Marry me?” he said quietly.

She looked out the window at the backyard, at the promise of spring in the greening grass and the rosebushes bursting out of the cold winter earth toward the sun. She looked at Duke. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

He shifted on his haunches and looked at her, ears perked expectantly.
Of course I did! Say yes!

She lifted her gaze to Lucas, to the man who’d opened his heart and life to her when he’d thought he’d never feel again, who’d given her the thing she’d wanted most. She held her palm open to him, offering him the ring. He picked it up. She held her left hand out in front of her.

“Yes,” she said, and watched as he slid the ring onto her ring finger. “Always yes.”

He kissed her, slow and sweet. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back.

Familiar female voices sounded in the driveway. “Look at the sky. Really look at it. Have you ever seen anything that spectacular in your life?”

“Mother, when have you not seen a spectacular sky? The sky is, by definition, spectacular.”

Alana peered up at Lucas. “That sounds like—”

A delighted squeal shocked Alana nearly out of her skin. Freddie hauled open the kitchen door, tears in her eyes, her hands clasped together under her chin. Her mother stood slightly behind Freddie. Tears gleamed in her eyes as she watched Freddie leap across the kitchen and engulf Alana in a huge hug.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Dublin!” Alana said as she automatically hugged her sister.

“It’s a surprise! You didn’t think we’d miss the Walkers Ford Spring Fling Carnival and library grand reopening, did you? You did,” Freddie said, answering her own question.

“There was a conference,” Alana protested. “I booked hotel rooms. I booked plane tickets. I researched the impact of economic austerity programs on poverty.”

“The conference is going on without us,” Freddie said. “I lied about the rest of it. You aren’t the only person who can book plane tickets.”

Lucas stifled a laugh. “I won’t forget that,” Alana said, regaining her footing. “You knew about this,” she said to her fiancé.

He gave her a smug smile as he loosened his tie. “I picked them up in Sioux Falls on my way back from court.”

“Hello, Mother,” Alana said, leaning forward to kiss her mother’s cheek. “I hope you had a good flight.”

Her mother lifted Alana’s left hand and looked at the engagement ring. “Congratulations, darling,” she said quietly.

Not exactly the enthusiastic response she hoped for, but Freddie was more than making up for it, and genuinely, too. “It’s beautiful. Perfect for you,” she said, turning Alana’s hand so the diamond caught the light.

“I’m going to get changed,” Lucas said, edging away from the all-girl reunion. Duke followed him.

“I want to take them on a tour of the library,” Alana said. “Meet us at the beer garden.”

“Hallelujah,” Freddie said. “My two favorite words. Beer garden.”

“I thought your two favorite words were on-time departure,” Alana said.

“Nope,” Freddie said. “Beer garden ties for first with cheese curds, funnel cake, and corn dog, courtesy of all of those campaign stops at the Illinois State Fair.”

Alana poked her. “Where are you staying?”

“We’re staying out at that huge house on the prairie. Brookhaven. Chloe had space, and my God, it’s gorgeous. The sunset through those windows . . . unbelievable. You know the former owner, right? She renovated the house herself? I want to talk to her. We’ve got our eye on a town house in Chelsea but it will need to be gutted to the rafters. Coming, Mother?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” her mother said. “I want to look at those roses.”

Freddie brought her up to speed on the gossip from home as they strolled toward the street fair. “Nate’s divorce will be final in a few weeks,” she said confidentially. “They just never recovered from him being gone for so long. His wife—what’s her name—”

“Miranda,” Alana supplied.

“—says he isn’t the same since he came back.”

“Nate seemed the same to me, but she sees him more than I do, obviously. Post-traumatic stress disorder?”

Freddie shrugged. “If that’s the case, no one’s talking about it, not even Miranda.”

Alana peeked over her shoulder and found her mother studying the houses, the gardens beginning to bloom, the sky. “What does Mother think about all of this?”

“Ask her yourself,” Freddie said with a smile.

The sound of laughter and music reached them well before they crossed Main Street. Alana gave them the tour, mildly amused at the way her sister switched off Freddie and turned on Frederica Wentworth to ask questions about the architecture, the renovation project, the number of people served, the budget, and the mural. “That’s quite good,” she said absently. “I love the lines. It’s surprisingly sophisticated and unsentimental, given his age.”

“He’s got so much talent,” Alana agreed. “He just needed a way to express it.”

Freddie wandered off to examine the framed pictures from the historical society. Her mother joined her in front of Cody’s mural. “Very nice,” she said.

“Nice.” Wounded, Alana turned to look at her. “I know it’s not what you imagined for me,” she said quietly. “But I love it here. I’m happy. For the first time in my life, I’ve found where I belong.”

“That makes me a little sad, dear,” her mother said.

Her heart sank. “I won’t apologize.”

“Nor should you.” Her mother’s eyes followed the subtle swirling motion of the mural, spiraling from the edge of the prairie to the library at the center of the painting. Alana stood there, with Lucas at her side. “I’m disappointed in myself. A mother shouldn’t fit her children into a mold. I wanted the wrong things for you. I wanted my dreams and Freddie’s dreams for you. I should have been thinking about what you wanted. I kept you on the periphery of Frederica’s life, rather than helping you find your own center. I’m glad you found this, despite me.”

Alana blinked. “It wasn’t despite you,” she said valiantly.

Her mother’s lips curved in a smile. “It certainly was, Alana. I promise not to make the same mistakes going forward. Where will the wedding be?”

No hesitating. No waiting for someone else to weigh in. “In the backyard,” Alana said. “Next June when the roses are blooming. Family and close friends only. If she’s got time, a local seamstress will make the dress. I’ll have to ask Lucas about all of this, but I can’t imagine he’ll mind.”

“Perfect,” her mother said without batting an eyelash. “That’s absolutely perfect. It will be exactly right for you.”

“Why don’t I have a corn dog in my hand?” Freddie asked from the foyer, where she was looking at pictures of the town circa 1908. “I smell fried food in every variation, and yet I have none. No corn dogs, no funnel cakes, no cheese curds. It’s tragic.”

Alana laughed.

“What? I live for cheese curds,” Freddie said.

“I desperately want a beer,” her mother added fervently, which made Alana laugh even harder.

“Let’s eat,” she said.

They stopped to load up on fair food, then found seats in the beer garden, where Freddie picked up three cups brimming with a local microbrewery’s spring ale.

“Oh, that’s good,” her mother said, then took another sip. “That’s very good. Hand me a corn dog, Freddie.”

The band was on a break when Lucas, dressed in jeans, boots, and a long-sleeve policeman’s polo shirt, slid onto the picnic bench beside Alana and snitched a cheese curd. Tanya sat down next to him, still wearing her Bureau of Land Management uniform. Her eyes were clear, her skin tanned, her grandmother’s engagement ring on her right hand. She’d been out of rehab and drug-free for almost a year, and she’d quickly become one of Alana’s close friends. Before long, Cody and his starstruck girlfriend joined them, but Freddie’s status rose from celebrity to goddess with every question she asked Cody about the mural and his art.

“Scoot over, Cody,” Mrs. Battle said imperiously.

Cody obeyed, making space between him and Alana. They helped her distribute paper plates laden with funnel cakes to the table. Mrs. Battle sat down next to Alana, did a double take at the ring on her hand, then looked at Lucas. “It’s about time,” she said.

The news spread quickly once Mayor Turner got hold of the band’s microphone; before long she and Lucas were shaking hands and giving hugs. Freddie was working on her second funnel cake while the band warmed up for their second set. “The town’s chief of police getting engaged to the town’s librarian is a big deal,” Freddie noted. “It’s kind of a cliché, you know.”

“We are nothing of the sort,” Alana said firmly. “We’re a once-in-a-lifetime love.”

“That you are,” Freddie said, shaking extra powdered sugar onto the funnel cake.

“You have to fit into an Alexander McQueen dress in three weeks,” Alana reminded her.

“That’s why you’re eating half of this.”

“I’m not eating another funnel cake. I have to fit into an Alexander McQueen dress in three weeks, too.”

Cody snitched half of the cake and took a huge bite. “Problem solved,” he said to laughter.

Lucas shook his head, then held out his hand to Alana. “Dance with me?”

The band started their second set with a cover from The Band Perry. She took his hand and followed him onto the dance floor. It was such a relief to settle her head against his shoulder and close her eyes.

“This is nice,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We’re getting married next June in the backyard.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Let’s wait to take our honeymoon. Go somewhere warm in January. Last winter was horrible.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t care?”

“I’d go anywhere with you. Live anywhere to be with you,” he said.

“That’s a lovely sentiment, but this is home. So we’ll travel, but we’ll always come back here.”

“Home,” he murmured into her hair. Alana closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his shoulder as they turned in a slow circle. “We’ll always come home.”