Proposing to Preston: The Winslow Brothers #2 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 8) (21 page)

“Preston?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you from, Preston?”

“Pennsylvania, sir.”

“Ah! We know many faithful in Pennsylvania.”

“I’m not Mennonite, sir.”

“No? No. You don’t look simple.”

“I’m Lutheran.”

“Lutheran. Humph.”

Elise’s oldest sister, Abby, who’d been watching this unusual introduction, stepped off the porch and tapped her father on the shoulder. “The Lutherans and Mennonites have reconciled,
Datt
.”

Elise watched as her father—somewhat cautiously—held out his hand and offered Preston a firm handshake.

“Take Elise to your Lutheran Church with you. She is too long away from
Gott
.”

“I’ll do my best for her, sir,” said Preston, reaching for Elise’s hand and lacing their fingers together.

Stepping forward onto the porch, Elise introduced him to her sisters and their husbands, and the many neighbors and church members visiting.

The rest of the day was full of stories about her mother, tearful prayers, and finding room in the farm house refrigerator for the dozens of casseroles that arrived in a never-ending stream. Like Elise, her sisters drifted seamlessly between tears and laughter, remembering the many sayings of their mother, swapping stories and reminding each other of almost-forgotten laugh out loud moments.

As the sun started to set, Elise helped her sisters, Caitlyn and Lillian, straighten up the kitchen, giggling as Caitlyn swatted Lillian on the butt while she swept the floor.

“Elise,” called Abby from the doorway.

She turned to look at her sister.

“Come with me.”

Elise placed her dishtowel on the counter and followed Abby through the living room and up the stairs to their mother’s room. It had been years since Elise had entered her mother’s room and her eyes burned as she inhaled deeply, smelling her mother, picturing her here, even hearing her hum one of her favorite hymns as she got ready for church on a Sunday morning.

Abby sat down on the bed, and patted the simple, handmade bedspread. “Sit with me.”

Sitting beside her sister, Elise wondered what was going on.

Reaching under their mother’s pillow, Abby pulled out a binder and placed it gently in her younger sister’s lap.

Elise searched her sister’s face, but finding no answers, she opened the three-ring binder, surprised to find a New York Times clipping about her very first show at Tisch carefully glued to a plain piece of white paper. Flipping the page, she found another clipping and another with a picture of Elise as Cordelia in
King Lear.
She found a Playbill from
Ethan Frome
, and a small article from USA Today about
The Awakening
. Her vision was blurred from tears, so she closed the binder carefully as she looked up at Abby.

“She was so proud of you,” said her sister, placing one hand on top of the binder, and swiping away tears with another. “She just didn’t know how…”

“She followed my whole career. She knew everything I was doing. She…She…”

“She loved you,” said Abby, smiling through tears. “Her littlest. Her
Liebling
.”

“Oh, Abby,” wailed Elise, reaching for her sister, and clasping her as tightly as she could. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know…”

They held each other for a long time, crying on each other’s shoulders, united in grief, surrounded by the love of a mother who couldn’t share her approval in life, but had left behind the evidence that would assure her
Liebling
peace when she was gone.

As Preston drove Elise back to the motel, he sensed a difference in her, and he suspected it had something to do with the simple black binder on her lap. But she would share it with him when she was ready. He was finished pushing and pressuring her. One thing he had learned about his wife…when he pushed, she ran. When he gave her space, she’d come and find him. He just wished he’d learned that lesson two years ago.

“I liked your family,” he said. “They weren’t what I expected.”

She turned to him, a tired, but contented smile playing on her face. “What did you expect?”

“I think I expected them to be more…I don’t know. Disapproving. Strict and cold.”

“That’s because of how I talked about them,” she said softly. “I led you to believe that.”

He didn’t argue with her and she knew she was right.

“I was so desperate to break away. I was so frightened of anything or anyone standing in my way. I went about it badly,” she said, and Preston saw clearly that what she was describing had happened twice in her life: once with her family and again with him. “My mother kept this binder, Pres. It’s clippings about the shows I was in at Tisch, and off-off Broadway.
Ethan Frome
and the movies I shot in Hollywood. She was following my career the whole time. Abby said she was proud of me.”

Preston turned into the motel parking lot and cut the engine. “Of course she was.”

“But I truly
thought
she was disapproving, strict, and cold. Why couldn’t she have
told
me she was proud of me? Why couldn’t she have supported me?”

“I don’t know,” said Preston. “I didn’t know her.”

“It would have meant the world to me.” She paused, smoothing her hands over the plain black binder cover. “And yet, I’m so grateful to know it now. I never believed I’d find closure, Pres. I thought I’d grieve her forever, and you know? I will, but at least I know she loved me. At least I know she was proud of me. At least I know she was watching.”

“I’m glad for that,” he said, reaching out to cup her cheek.

“You made today bearable,” she said, leaning into his hand. “Thank you for being here with me.”

She was so beautiful, her eyes wide and open as they stared back at him with a world-weariness and maturity that seemed so much deeper than the girl he’d met in an off-off Broadway dressing room two years ago. She had changed a lot, and though it frightened him to hope, he couldn’t help the words that tumbled from his mouth as he stared at her.

“I don’t want a divorce.”

“Neither do I,” she said, shaking her head, her smile suddenly brilliant. “I never did.”

“Really?”

“Really. I came back east to reconcile with you, Pres. I never wanted to let you go. I just needed time.”

She sniffled and he swiped at an escaping tear with his thumb. He tried to hold on to his smile, but it faded as he furrowed his brows together. “But I still don’t know how to be married to you. I don’t know how to make us work.”

“If I tell you that we’ll figure it out this time, will you believe me?”

“I want to,” he said.

“Anything’s possible,” she said, “where there’s love.”

“There’s love here,” he said, holding her eyes, feeling the risk of saying more and silencing the declaration that threatened to break free.

She smiled at him, covering his hand with hers. “Come lie down with me?”

He nodded, letting his hand linger on her face for an extra moment before dropping it, leaving the car and following her into the motel room.

As he closed the door behind them, Elise turned to look at him. “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded as he unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves and removing his watch.

“I won’t blame you, and I won’t judge you. I just need to know…”

“Anything,” he said, placing the watch on the table by the door and slipping out of his shoes. He was tired and holding her as they fell asleep sounded like the perfect way to end a long day.

She swallowed, dropping his eyes, her chest heaving as her breathing became faster and more shallow. His first instinct was to reach for her, but it was more important to give her the space she needed to stay and move, to speak and be silent, to live at her own pace, not at his.

When she lifted her eyes, they were clear but cautious, and still he waited, patient, though increasingly anxious.

“How many…” She paused, taking a deep breath before beginning again. “How many women have you been with since you were with me?”

His eyes widened for a moment before his shoulders relaxed and with a smile that held all the love in his heart, he answered, “None.”

She gasped. “None?”

“None,” he confirmed. He leaned his neck to the side, smiling at her tenderly. “I’m married.”

“M-Me too,” she said as tears slicked down her face. “I haven’t been with anyone but you.”

He took a step toward her. “I missed you.”

“I missed you so much, it felt like dying,” she said, taking a step toward him.

“Like thirst and hunger,” he said, reaching for her. “All the time.”

“Like frost. Like ice. Like there was no warmth on the earth,” she said, stepping into his arms.

“Like eternal winter,” he agreed, pulling her tightly against him.

“Like happiness was a fairytale. Like joy was a myth. Like love…”

“…was impossible,” he finished.

Elise leaned her head back, her eyes dark and wide in the dim light of the motel room. “You’re here with me.”

“I’m here with my wife.”

He’d dreamed of this moment so many times, and yet nothing he’d fantasized could compare to Elise’s upturned face telling him that she didn’t want a divorce and never had. She still wanted him, still needed him, still loved him.

Skimming his hands up her arms, their breath mingled hot and sweet between them, and Preston cradled her neck between his palms, her throbbing pulse under his thumb. He took his time leaning down, his lips moving closer and closer to hers until they touched the sweet softness that he’d missed so desperately, and he sealed his mouth over hers.

What started soft and gentle, however, turned fierce immediately. Elise’s hands, which had been flattened against his chest, skated up and wound around his neck, pulling him down to her, and Preston’s hands slid higher, into her hair. Plunging his tongue into her mouth, he swallowed her deep moan, dropping his hands to her waist and turning so he could push her against the motel room door. Her fingers untwined from his neck, gliding down his shoulders and unbuttoning his shirt, which he shrugged off his shoulders. He took her hands and raised them over her head, holding her wrists against the door with one hand as Elise arched into him, pressing against his straining erection, whimpering for more. Sucking her tongue into his mouth, he reached down for the hem of her T-shirt, pushing it up over her head and over the tips of her fingers until it dropped to the floor.

Sliding his hands down to her ass, he lifted her up and into his arms, her back still against the door, her ankles locking around his waist. He stepped back toward the bed, savoring the feeling of her wrapped around him, moaning, whimpering, kissing him like she’d never get enough of him. And he’d never, ever get enough of her: of the way she tasted, of the way she felt in his arms, pressed against his body, the thin, sheer fabric of her bra the only thing keeping her bare chest from colliding with his. Lowering them both to the bed, he fell on top of her, bracing his weight on his elbows as she leaned her head back into the pillow and plunged her hands into his hair to pull him back down to her.

He trailed his lips along her jawline, gliding down the soft, warm skin of her throat, then slid to her ear lobe, which he bit gently, eliciting a hotter-than-fuck “ahh” sound from his wife, who arched off the bed and razed his scalp with her fingernails, demanding his lips again.

He kissed her as he’d dreamed for two long years apart from her, his body hardening to the point of pain, as it always had, wanting her, remembering how they fit together, how it felt to be inside of her, and how they’d moved as one. He wanted her. Fuck, he wanted her so bad.

And yet…

He drew back, panting, resting his forehead against hers as he tried to catch his breath. She leaned up, trying to catch his lips with hers, trying to kiss him again.

“Elise…Wait, sweetheart. Wait…”

One of her hands fell from his hair, and she bent her arm over her head, the pose decadent and so sexy, he could almost convince himself to take what she was definitely offering and deal with the consequences tomorrow.

Except…

“Pres…,” she moaned, pushing her breasts against his chest as she looked up at him with dark eyes and glistening lips.

“Oh, God,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you right now, Elise, but the timing…”

She sighed—a huffing, frustrated sound, and nodded, panting as she unlocked her ankles and slid her legs down the back of his. “…is shit.”

He rolled off of her to lie beside her, placing his hands over his chest and staring up at the ceiling. Her side pressed into his, hot and damp, despite the air conditioned room. He leaned up on his elbow, looking down at her.

“I can’t lose you again.”

She reached up and caressed his cheek. “You won’t.”

“It almost destroyed me,” he said, clenching his jaw as he held her eyes. “I barely made it out alive, Elise.”

Tears sprang into her eyes, and her thumb gently rubbed the stubble along his jaw. “I didn’t know.”

“It was bad. I missed you. I loved you. I’d been rejected by you,” he said, scoffing a little in self-deprecation. It sounded so pathetic when it was laid out like that.

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, starting to draw her hand away.

He reached for it, pressing it back against his cheek, then turned his neck slightly until his lips were pressed to her palm. Sighing against her skin, he said, “We jumped into it last time, hoping everything would work itself out. We need to do it right this time.”

She nodded in agreement.

“How about we get some sleep? We can talk more after this weekend, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward to kiss his lips softly before flipping onto her side.

Preston bent his knees and pulled her against him, her back to his front, his nose in her hair, his lips pressed to the back of her neck, her barely-covered breasts spilling over his arm.

“I love you, Preston,” she whispered, on the verge of sleep. “I’ll never hurt you like that…not ever again.”

Tell her you love her. I love you, too. I love you, too. I love you…

Instead of answering her, he held her tighter…and prayed that he could find the strength to trust her with his whole heart once again.

***

One of Sarah Klassan’s favorite expressions had been, “Love is a verb.”

And even if Preston was unable or unwilling to return Elise’s “I love you” verbally, the next day, he managed to return it in countless, heart-clenching, hope-giving ways. Standing beside her, he helped her greet the many visitors who arrived in an endless stream on Friday, taking casseroles to the refrigerator and freezer, helping old Mr. Sanders to the men’s room, and jumpstarting Mrs. Schneider’s ancient Chevy truck when it wouldn’t turn over. He was everywhere at once—beside her, behind her, before her—in her head, in her heart, as organic as her own self, as necessary as air to breathe and she knew why L.A. had felt so terribly wrong: because after having Preston
in
her life, her life was empty with him
out
of it.

In the late-afternoon, when there was a lull in the number of visitors, Abby found them on the back porch swing together rocking slowly, Elise tucked into the nook of Preston’s arm. She encouraged them to get away for a bit and take a walk.

“
Datt
is napping,
Liebling
. Why don’t you and Preston take a walk? You’ve been sitting on this porch all afternoon. Get some fresh air. Show your husband the farm.”

Abby had a quiet calm, and the tender way she mothered her two small children and shared not-quite-covert, intimate gazes with her husband, Ethan, made Elise long for what her sister had. She seemed satisfied and settled, yet still vital, stepping into the shoes of matriarch with a gentleness that Elise and her sisters needed.

Taking Preston’s hand, she led them away from the tidy farmhouse toward the barn, bypassing it for a rolling green field just beyond where two dozen black and white cows stood grazing. Resting their forearms on a white split-rail fence, Preston and Elise gazed out over the meadow together.

“They’re Holsteins,” she said.

“Is that a baby?” he asked, pointing to a smaller one.

She nodded. “About three months old.”

“They’re so calm.”

“They’re happy here.”

“I can see why. It’s very beautiful. Fresh air, green grass, plenty to eat, safe place to sleep…what more could a cow want?”