Never Been Kissed (39 page)

Too much,
she thought as tears filled her eyes. This was too much happiness for one person; her instinct to hoard was overrun and she had to just let it be.

She had to let her love and her happiness sit right there in his hands, because she no longer had control of it.

“That works out pretty well,” she said, reaching up to touch his beautiful, beloved face; he closed his eyes and leaned into her palm. “Because I am yours.”

He crushed her to him and she crushed him back and their kiss was a promise of forever. It was a vow of faith and hope.

“I love you so much,” she breathed across his lips and he breathed the same across hers.

He leaned back and stroked her hair, the silly big curls that made her feel like a Barbie. “You look beautiful.”

“I look like I’m playing dress-up.”

He glanced down at her suit, the red heels.

He turned his head sideways, still looking at the shoes.

“You like those?” She cocked her heel, showing them off. The skin of his neck turned red and he nodded.

“Let’s go.” Thinking of the fastest way up to her suite and the big king-size bed there, she grabbed his hand but he didn’t move. “Brody?”

“I’m here, honey,” he said. “I’ll always be here. But you’re building something today. From scratch. And you made a promise to your family.” He pointed toward the ballroom and all the people in there ready to give their money to Harrison’s campaign.

Brody’s pride, his belief in her was immutable and the only way to accept such a compliment was to be worthy of it.

“Come with me,” she whispered.

“Where else would I go? You’re my ride home.” He tucked her hand into his elbow and pushed open the door.

“You have two hours,” he whispered into her ear, his breath lighting her up from the inside. “And then I’m taking you upstairs and making a mess of you.”

“Well, Earl …” Ashley tucked her phone into her shoulder and handed Brody more white lights. Their breath fogged in the December air. “… that’s fantastic news.”

“I thought you’d like to hear.”

“I appreciate it,” she said. “Go enjoy the holiday with your family.” Ashley hung up and tucked the phone in her pocket.

“What happened?” Brody asked. He was using a staple gun to attach the fabric to the cedar of the gazebo he’d finished building just in time for the Christmas celebrations.

It was built and dedicated to the memory of Linda Baxter.

“We’ve got donations to get vans and drivers in three more cities. And the mobile clinic has been approved in, wait for it …”

“New Orleans?”

“New Orleans.”

Brody jumped down from the ladder onto the hardwood floor he’d put down with his own two hands and pulled her in for a kiss. “Congratulations, honey.”

“Well, Earl did it, really.”

“Yeah, because you haven’t racked up the frequent flier miles going down to talk to Public Health in New Orleans.”

“The mobile clinic idea was yours,” she said, hugging him as hard as she could.

“You would have had it sooner or later.” He kissed her cheek and then, evidently not finding that satisfying enough, cupped her cheeks and pressed a long, slow, sweet kiss to her lips.

“Get a room!” Sean yelled as he stepped into the gazebo and dropped a box of fake cedar garland on the floor. “Or at least make it legal,” he said and winked as he walked back out to go help Cora work on the holiday decorations outside her café.

“They made up?” Brody asked as they both watched Sean cross the road.

“They’re working it out,” Ashley said. “Their first big fight was bound to be a doozy. She’s independent.”

“And he’s a hardheaded son of a bitch,” Brody said. “I just hope he doesn’t ruin it.”

“He hasn’t so far, and she
has
agreed to move in.”

“That’s a step,” Brody said. “What about you?”

“What about me what?” she asked, pulling giant armfuls of red ribbons from a box. “What the hell are we supposed to be decorating? This is enough to cover City Hall.”

“Hey,” Wyatt Svenson, Brody’s new employee, stepped up to the gazebo. He had to duck under the rafters he was so tall. In secret and never to Brody and Sean, she and Cora called him “the Hot Viking.” He had long blond hair that he wore in a stubby ponytail at the back of his neck and every time he turned his bright blue eyes toward Ashley she felt silly. “What’s next?” he asked, his southern accent giving him a kind of Cajun appeal.

Honestly, the man was potent.

“Head on over to City Hall,” Brody said. “They need some help setting up the mile markers for the 5k race.”

Wyatt nodded and winked at Ashley, who tried very hard not to giggle.

“Do you have a crush on my employee?” Brody asked when Wyatt walked away.

“No,” she told him with a straight face.

“You’re lying.”

“I am.”

He tugged on her hand, pulling her into his arms. “It’s a good thing I know you’re mine.”

“Good thing,” she said, kissing the skin just above his collar.

“But …” He sighed. “I’m thinking I need to make it more official.”

She stilled—the blood in her veins, the thoughts in her head, everything stopped. This was it. The proposal.

Reading her expression, he frowned. “Did Dad tell you—”

“No. No. Just … do the whole thing, whatever you were planning.”

“My father can’t keep a secret—”

“Brody!” she shrieked and pinched him.

“I want to build a home and I looked into that land by the river …”

“Where you and Sean built the pier?” He nodded and she felt tears filling her eyes. This was happening, it was really happening.

“It’s for sale.”

She gasped. “Buy it!”

“I figured you’d say that so I did.” His grin was boyish and sweet and she couldn’t love him more. She was bursting with it right now. She had to bounce on her toes just so she wouldn’t start screaming,
Yes! Yes!
at the top of her lungs.

“You going to let me do this?” he asked, knowing her so well.

“Hurry,” she breathed. “I’m freaking out.”

He reached into his back pocket and she groaned
with excitement. Flapping her hands in front of her face, to stop the tears. She wanted to see everything.

“Dad gave this to me last week,” he said and opened his hand. “It was my mom’s.”

Oh, she was going to pass out. Through tears, she couldn’t wave away, she watched him go down on one knee and no part of that felt right so she went down on her knees, too.

“I’m trying to propose here, Ash.”

“I know. I know. Let’s just do it this way.”

His smile was tender and indulgent and happy.

“Marry me,” he whispered. “Please.”

“Yes. Of course. Yes.”

The gold was hot as it slipped over her finger, as if it was adding its voice to the celebration, and the small diamond winked in the sunlight.

“It’s not much but I thought you’d like—”

She shut him up with her lips, tackling him to the ground. “It’s perfect,” she whispered. “It’s the most perfect thing in the world.”

“No, honey,” he said, holding her, “we are.”

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Never Been Kissed

Shelby Monroe was not having a very good morning.

Last night, her new neighbor—a motorcycle enthusiast apparently with insomnia and a hearing problem—didn’t stop revving his engine until nearly dawn. Then Mom put the coffeepot on the stove thinking it was the kettle and it shattered when it got too hot.

So here she was for her first day of classes after the Christmas break at Bishop Elementary, frazzled and without coffee.

Which was no way to deal with Colleen.

“Welcome back!” Colleen, the school secretary, stood up from behind her desk and for a moment seemed as if, in the three-week break, she’d forgotten that Shelby wasn’t a hugger.

Thank God it came back to her at the last moment and instead of throwing her arms around Shelby like they were old friends, she turned to the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet and yanked it open. Shelby dropped her phone and purse in it. There was no office for the part-time staff, so she made do with Colleen’s bottom drawer. She shrugged out of her
winter jacket and hung it on the coat hook with her scarf, then tucked her gloves in her coat sleeves.

“How are you doing?” Colleen asked.

“First day back. It’s always a good day.”

“You must be the only teacher in the world who thinks that.”

Shelby laughed. That was probably true. Her first days back in the schools after winter break were her favorite of the whole year. All the hard work of getting to know the kids, understanding them, and getting their attention and respect was done. And now they were recharged. The next two months would undoubtedly be her most productive with the kids, before spring fever hit.

She just needed to shake off this bad morning she’d had.

“Coffee’s fresh.”

“You’re a saint.” She grabbed a mug from the cupboard above the coffee area and waited for the machine to belch and steam before she poured herself a cup. Colleen went nuts if you robbed the pot, and no one wanted to get on Colleen’s bad side.

In her years as a part-time employee for the school district, Shelby had come to know one thing for certain: principals did not run schools; the secretaries did. And Colleen’s desk was like the bridge of a giant spaceship. A phone system with a gazillion lights and buttons. Color-coded Post-its. The sign-in book, which she guarded like the Holy Grail. The first-aid kit, the small fridge with ice packs. Printer, computer, jars with pens. One drawer had hard candy, the other a box of Triscuits. There was a heat lamp at her feet.
A fan at her back. Two different sweaters over her chair and a small hot plate for her coffee cup.

Colleen could survive the zombie apocalypse at her desk.

“How is your mom doing?” Colleen asked.

“Fine,” Shelby said, because she had to say something and that was the sort of answer people expected. Colleen didn’t want to hear how her mom had spent the night pacing the hallway looking for her mother’s old cookbooks.

“It’s nice to see her at church again.”

Why was everyone so scared of silence? Shelby wondered, contemplating the drip of the coffee machine.

Shelby loved silence. And everyone from the woman behind the cash register at the grocery store to Colleen wanted to force her into conversation because her silence made them uncomfortable.

“Shelby?”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” She poured coffee into one of the spare mugs; this one had a sleeping cat on it. There were a thousand cat mugs on that shelf.

“I said it’s real nice to see you both in church again. It’s been a long time.”

“Well, it’s a comfort,” she lied, glancing at the big clock over the door. She had five minutes before the bell. “I’m starting in Mrs. Jordal’s class?”

Colleen swiveled in her chair to face Shelby. “There’s a new student in there,” she said. “He’s a handful.”

Shelby smiled. Perhaps she was in the minority, or maybe it was only because she was part time and in the classes she taught out in the Art Barn in the summer
and after school the kids wanted to be there, but she would take a kid who was a handful every day of the week.

The quiet, studious boys and the girls who were so eager to please all too clearly reminded her of herself and she wanted to scream at them to get a backbone, to stand up for themselves. To take a lesson from the kids who caused problems, whom no one could overlook. Because waiting to be seen, to be noticed, only led to midlife crises and psychotic breaks that tore apart your world.

At least that was her experience.

But that was probably a little heavy for an elementary school art class.

“We’ve been back for a week and he’s been in the office almost every day,” Colleen said, lifting her own mug—no cats to be seen—from the hot plate. “Fighting, mouthy, stealing from classmates.” She turned her giant chair back around to face the door and the computer, her kingdom. “And his father is a piece of work, clearly the apple doesn’t fall far from that particular tree. Mark my words: that boy is nothing but trouble.”

Mrs. Jordal taught fifth grade and had for about a hundred years. There wasn’t a problem or a type of kid she hadn’t seen a dozen times before. And Shelby really liked the fact that her class, no matter how many handful kids she had, was always calm. The kids were respectful.

It was tough at the beginning of every new year
because something happened to kids between fourth and fifth grade. Some hormonal surge that made them all short-circuit. But by Thanksgiving, Mrs. Jordal had those kids in line.

Christmas break, however, caused some regression.

Shelby took a deep breath, girding her loins, before she walked in.

“Hello, class,” she said as she entered the room. All the kids looked up from the free reading they’d been doing and some of them answered her. Some waved. Scott and John whispered behind their hands. One boy in the back with shaggy red hair blinked, owly and worried-seeming.