Package Deal (78 page)

She nodded and blew her nose, and nodded again.

“Nonverbal responses from an English major will not do,” he teased.

“Yes,” she said
through her tears
.
“Yes, I will marry you.”

He clapped his hands. “Great! Now, we have to call Cecelia. I promised her I would let her know your answer as soon as you gave it to me.”

She dried her tears. “You two have been pl
ott
ing this, haven’t you?”

“Of course! It took the two of us to pull it off. Why do you think Sam
wanted Cece to sleep over tonight
? We had to enlist
her
help so you wouldn’t have to get a babysitter.” He
smirk
ed
lopsidedly at her.
“
I think your daugh
ter has the makings of an
FBI agent. She got that all arranged without ever telli
ng Joan or Sam what I was up to.
”

Amanda laughed. “Well, then, I guess we should open the champagne.”

“Not until we call her. I promised.”

“Ok
ay
.” She picked up the champagne bucket and he brought in her overnight bag. They
punch
ed the phone
together
.

Marcus pointed to
it
.
“You better tell her—so she knows it’s for real.”

“Joan, hello. It’s Amanda. No, everything is fine. May I speak
to
Cecelia for a minute?
”

Amanda clicked on the speaker phone so Marcus could hear, too.
“
Cece.Marcus asked me and I said yes.”

A cheer
erupted from the phone. “Mom, can I tell Sam? Or do I need to keep it a secret?”

Marcus took the phone from Amanda. “Snookums—how about you just tell Sam that we are having a great party at my house.Your mother and I need to make some other plans before you spread the news.Can you keep our secret a little while longer?”

“Ok
ay
.
See you tomorrow. Marcus, could you put Mom back on?”

He handed the phone back to Amanda.

“Yes, dear.”

“Sam and I are going horseback riding tomorrow. Her mom is taking us. Please do
n’t come get me until at least five
.
”

“Ok
ay
. I’ll call first.
Will
that work?”

“Perfectly. I love you, Mo
m.” She paused, then whispered,
“A
nd Marcus, too.
”

“Me, too, darling. See you tomorrow.” She
closed
the phone
and turned to Marcus
. “She’s happy.”

“Of course
,
she’s happy,
because you’re happy.
And, w
e have
dinner waiting for us and champagne all ready for a toast.”

They sat down to a formally dressed
table
.
Marcus
poured the champagne into
two
flute
s
and handed
one
to her. “To us.” H
e clicked his glass with hers.

“To us,” she repeated.

“Are you ready to eat?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s have at it.” H
e handed her the covered dish with the
grilled
salmon steaks inside.

As
she ate and sipped her champagne,
he drank
from his glass whenever she sipped hers.

Somewhere between the second helping of asparagus and
after
he
’d
handed her a sourdough roll, hot from the oven, something clicked on her tooth when she upended her glass. She looked
inside
.
A
diamond r
ing wink
ed
at her.

“Oh, Marcus.
”
She
got up from the table and g
ave him a hug. “It’s beautiful!
Will you put it on my finger?”

“It will be my pleasure.” He slipped the ring onto her finger and punctuated the action with another kiss.
“Cece helped me with
the ring, too.
”

“
Tell me
—
while I spoon up
the
dessert. Tiramisu, right?”

He nodded. “
Are you r
eady
for the story
?”

“Tell me.”

“Okay. Here goes—o
nce
upon a time, there was this handsome prince who promised to wait until Crown Princess Cecelia had graduated from high school
before
they could tie the knot.
It
soon
became clear that the crown p
rincess
felt
the handsome prince was way too old for her, so she ditched him
,
just like that
.He was very sad
and cried a lot
and started
calling her Snookums to get back at her. Then
the crown p
rincess
told him she knew of a beautiful queen who loved him from afar. So, Snookums and the prince went to the local jeweler with an old ring the quee
n used to wear, and the jeweler,
being
a
very
wise
man
,
used the old ring to correctly guess the size of the queen’s finger. And to make sure everything would be to the queen’s liking, the jeweler said that this ring could be exchanged for anything else in the store that the queen liked better.” He kissed her. “What do you think of that
story
?”

“I love it
.
Cece
never breathed a word to me. When did you
two
see the jeweler?”

“The other day when you were
out
shopping for Thanksgiving. Remember when Cecelia said she had homework to do and didn’t want to go with you
,
and that she would stay at
Janet’s while you were gone
?”

She nodded.

“Cece called the butcher at the store where you ordered the turkey and told them to, and I quote, ‘have trouble finding the bird’ so we would have plenty of time.
She
told
Janet
we were going out for something special
and t
he minute you left the house, she ran up the back to the alley,
where
I was waiting for her to whisk her off
on
our secret
mission
. We did our work and then I got her back
to Janet’s
before you returned.”

“I wondered about that. It seemed to take forever for them to bring out the
turkey
—even though I
’d
ordered it ahead of time. You two were very sneaky.”

“All in a day’s work for
this
intrepid reporter and his FBI
pal.” H
e
smil
ed
broadly
.

“I’m almost
afraid to ask if you have any more
surprises up your sleeve.” She looked around.

“That’s about it. In fact, I’m completely worn out. I think I’m
going to have to go to bed soon.” H
e
made an exaggerated
yawn.
“Since I’m still recovering
from my grievous wounds
, and all
.”

She laughed. “
Yes, of course
,
though I have an
other
idea why you
might
want to go to bed.Let’s clean up the d
ishes
together
. I’ll be
happy to tuck you in after that.” S
he smiled.

Less than an hour later, he opened the door to the bedroom. The
big
four-poster was surrounded by
lit
candles and strewn with rose petals. Amanda
sucked in her breath
as she looked around her.

“You are a born romantic, Marcus Dunbar. I’ll bet none of your students has a clue how you think.”

“How I think is because of you, Amanda. It’s for you. And, I have to admit,
I had help. Evelyn suggested some of this
.” He grinned. “I hope you don’t mind
that I picked the br
ain of another very smart woman,
my brother’s wife
.”

“
I don’t mind.
If
you’ll give me a minute, I need to get into something a bit more comfortable.”

“Be my guest.”He left her in the bedroom. When he returned, she was in a shimmery silk nightgown, the same color as the rose petals.

“Hm
m
,” he said, sliding his hands down the silk. “How did you happen to pick this color?”

“Just luck, I guess. I had no idea your bed was going to
have rose petals on it
. But I d
o
want to ask you a question.”

“What might that be?” He
reach
ed
for
her.

“How long do you think it will take for you to get this nightgown off?”

“How long do you want it to take?” He
sat down
next to her on the bed.

“
I have a better idea. Let m
e help you out of your clothes. T
he doctor said you should
n’t
do anything strenuous
for at least a couple of months
. Then
we’ll see what we can do that won’t hurt your
incision
,
” she murm
ured,
as she
wrapped
her arms around him
.

“I’m all yours.
”

###

Thank you for reading this book.
My
characters reflect the
life experiences of people I know. Perhaps also, people you know! If you enjoyed this story,
please post a brief review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. And,
check out
my
series, CEDAR ISLAND TALES, the cluster of stories ON GENEVA SHORES, and
another of my single title novels, DREAM CHASER

Here’s what two different readers had to say about it:

A real page turner that is very well worth reading. – Sue Cox

The story how these two found happiness is exciting and compelling! A delightful read! – M. Dunham

About the Author

Kate Vale lives in the beautiful Fourth Corner of Washington State and enjoys revisiting all the places she’s lived, through the adventures of her characters, several of whom share the same foibles as she.Some geographic place names have been changed to protect the innocent.

First announcements of new titles appear on her webpage:
http://katevale.com
.

Contact Kate…

[email protected]
,

http://twitter.com/katevalewriter
.

www.facebook.com/#!/katevale.127

Published by North Cascades Press

Copyright 2012 Kathleen Auerbach

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