Speak Now (40 page)

“I like to hear you talk. I like to sit in a room with you, not say a word, and enjoy the sense of satisfaction I get when you know what I’m thinking even when I didn’t say it. I love our wordless conversations, hearing you talk about your day, and that you don’t pressure me to be someone I’m not. I like it.” Silence followed for a few seconds before he lowered his voice and added, “I crave it.”

“If you were here, I’d tell you to shut up and enjoy the silence, but we have things to discuss, so how about next Friday we do that on the way to your home?”

“Sounds great. Hit me with your first question.”

“Did your mom find a photographer? I have a call in to her, but if you know the answer, then I won’t start panicking if she can’t get back to me before my meter runs low.”

“Meter?”

“Panic-o-meter.”

“Mom got a new photographer from Marshfield. He came highly recommended and with an impressive portfolio.
I’ll bet she sent the information to your old email. I’ll give her the new one.”

“So, photographer, check?”

“Check.” Jonathan’s laughter made Cara wish the week away so she could watch him. Watching Jonathan laugh was one of her secret delights. He could say more with a snicker, a chuckle, or a hearty laugh than most men say with a twenty-minute discourse.

“Okay, the Oakes menu options that we like are halibut, chicken breast, pork tenderloin, or the beef tenderloin. We tried to swing the filets, but we just can’t.”

“I could—”

“No, Jonathan, unless the other options are a problem, we’d rather you just picked two and left it at that.”

“Take the halibut and the beef tenderloin then, but promise if there’s even a hint of a wince when you get the bill, that you’ll just forward it to me.”

“I promise. Next, does your mother have a guest list? Trenna needs it by tomorrow.”

She heard keys clicking and surmised that he probably was checking or sending an email. “Well, there isn’t one in my inbox, but I sent Mom an email, and I’ll work on getting a list of everyone that I can think of so it’ll at least help.”

“Trenna said the easiest way to start is with your Christmas card list, if you have one.”

“Well, that’ll make it easy. I’ll send Mom another email.” A muffled sound interrupted them, and then Jonathan said, “Just a minute, Riley had a bad dream.”

As she waited for him to return, Cara prayed for peaceful sleep and pleasanter dreams to envelop Riley for that night and the rest of the nights in her life. Time crawled past as she made out lists of things to pack for a honeymoon, pictures she wanted taken, bridesmaid accessories, and similar things. She prayed for Bryce, Jonathan, their adjustment to the move, and for Verna whom she prayed would consider relocating with them. As almost a substitute grandmother, Cara didn’t want to see her stripped from the children because of her.

“Whew. She hasn’t had one of those in a while…”

“I didn’t know she was prone to bad dreams.”

“Ever since a twit at church told her that she killed her mother by being born, yeah, it’s been a doozy now and then.”

“Seriously? What kind of low-down…”

“I think he was parroting what his parents said. Riley made him mad, so he lashed back. It makes me mad, but I doubt he was unprovoked.”

“What does she dream about?” To Cara, the whole thing sounded like the kind of thing a bully does.

“This time it was about leaving here and not having a place to live. She thought you wouldn’t want to live with us if we didn’t have our nice home.”

“Oh, no! That’s terrible! How do you calm her down?”

“I just talk to her.” He chuckled. “Stop laughing, it’s something a father has to do sometimes. I counter her mind’s fallacies with truth. We will have a home, no matter where we live, you’re coming to live with us, not with our house, and even if something terrible happened, like our house burning down or something, you’d still stay with us.”

“And it works?”

“Well, either that, I’m a good hypnotist, or I’m really boring, because she’s out like a light already.”

“Okay, so back to decisions. Did you decide if Riley can make it down the aisle?”

“Flower girl. Definitely. I got an earful from Mom for even hinting otherwise.”

“If you don’t want—”

“Oh, I want her to; I just started to wonder about her age and everything. Bryce says he’ll force her down if he has to drag her by her dress.”

“Well, there you go. Okay, so you’ve got measurements coming from the groomsmen?”

“Tuxes are already ordered by all but Trevor, who assures me that he will take care of it tomorrow or Monday at the latest.”

“Okay then,” she said finally. “All that’s left is registration. I had no less than twelve calls in the first thirty-six hours of engagement asking where we’re registered. So, I need names of places your family will expect to shop, and oh—” she hesitated. Did she really want to open that can of worms? Carly had made her promise to ask, so she continued. “Carly wants to know if we want a couple’s shower or if we’d prefer she went with a traditional bridal shower. We have until morning and then she’s going to go with a couple’s lingerie shower to teach us a lesson.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.” Cara frowned. “I suppose whenever you’d be available.”

“Unless it’s really important to you, I think you’d better go with bridal. Going back and forth is going to be very old by the time this wedding hits. I’d rather save a trip for when I can just spend it with you and not with fifty of our closest friend couples.”

“Sounds good to me. I’d decline all together, but it’d crush Carly. I’m guessing she’ll go with personal since you’re not there.”

“Maybe I will show up…”

“Goodnight, Jonafan.”

His laughter sent the most unruly butterflies fluttering in her heart. “Goodnight, Cara
mia
.”

A wall of heat and humidity slammed into Cara’s chest as she stepped out of the airport. “Oh, wow! I thought I knew what humidity is, but…”

“It gets pretty intense, but you’ll get used to it.”

“I feel my face melting, and my hair is either going to go completely flat or frizz like there’s no tomorrow. How do Georgian women look so put together all the time?” Cara forced herself not to whine. The heat
stifled her.

“I don’t know, but I bet Verna can help you with that.” After exactly fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds of Cara’s presence, Jonathan couldn’t take it any longer. His hands reached for her. There, in the middle of a parking row too far from his car for comfort, he dropped the handle to her suitcase, wrapped his arms around her, and held her. “I can’t believe you’re here. This was the slowest week of my life.”

Laughing, she stepped back before they held up a line of cars and moved to one side of the aisle. “Just wait until the week of the nineteenth and see how this compares.”

“I’m just relieved that we talked Trenna into that week.
I wouldn’t make it another.”

Desperate to control himself, Jonathan grabbed the suitcase and resumed walking. His free hand refused to show any self-restraint, so he stuffed it in his pocket and switched the subject to safer topics. “How’s the dress coming?”

“The muslin fits well, so I bet Mom will have half of the basic sewing done before I get home.”

“What does a Muslim have to do with it?”

Cara switched her overnight case to her other hand and Jonathan took it. “Oh, I can get it—”

“Well, let’s just say I need the distraction for my hands and leave it at that. Tell me about what Muslims have to do with your dress. If you’re wearing a burka, so help me…”

“Oh, stuff it. A musl
in
is just some sewing term for a mockup of the final thing out of cheaper fabric so you know it’ll fit right. Mom always does it out of something wearable so that it’s not wasted. She finds stuff marked down to a dollar and uses that.”

“Sounds complicated,” Jonathan popped the back of his SUV open from six cars away and added, “Why didn’t you just buy your dress again?”

“Well, first because you can’t get one that fast. Second, remember the short waist?”

As he opened the door for her, Jonathan paused, gazing in to her eyes for what seemed like a muggy age. “You’re really here.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that. You sound like a girl who expected to get stood up for the prom.”

He brushed a tendril from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “That’s exactly what I expected. I kept thinking of a million things that could and probably would go wrong. The stress alone—”

“Not to seem vain or crass, but my face is pooling into my bra, and I can’t breathe in this heat. Could we continue this with the car running?”

With a heart lighter than he’d felt in the last twelve days, Jonathan jogged to his side of the car, jumped in, blasted the air conditioner, and pulled his sticky shirt away from his body as he did. “You have a point…”

“If you think stress is going to get me out of this, you’ve got another thing coming.” She watched him skillfully navigate the airport and glide into the traffic on I-85. “How far is it to your house?”

“About an hour in thi
s traffic—a little less at other times of the day.”

“Why didn’t you bring Riley and Bryson?”

He heard the fatigue in her voice and ignored the question. “Put your seat back a bit and rest. They’re going to attack the minute they get home, so you need all the rest you can get.”

He saw her i
Pod in her purse between them and grabbed it. Plugging it into his USB port, the sounds of Celtic Woman flooded his car. Without opening her eyes, she reached for his hand. “You’re good to me, Jonathan.”

How he wanted to keep it. He felt like David Langston of
The Harvester
, eager to hold and enjoy the touch of his beloved’s hand, but unlike the hero of the Limberlost, he didn’t have the kind of self-restraint necessary to trust himself with her. He squeezed her hand and then gripped the wheel, flipping on his blinker to change lanes as an excuse.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Cara murmured, nearly asleep already. “I understand. Believe me, I understand.”

“It still seems rude…”

“Six more weeks…”

~*~*~*~

Her eyes flew open as Jonathan’s hand shook her shoulders. “We’re here.”

Darkness seemed to envelop her. Wherever
here
was, she couldn’t see. “Where—”

“The garage. It’s not the optimal way to see the house, but hey.”

“Take me down the driveway so I can see it?”

“I thought you were trying to ‘save face,’” he protested.

“Funny. Come on, humor me.”

So, leading her back down his circular drive, he told her to close her eyes until he reached what he insisted was the best angle of the house. “Okay, Cara, open them now.”

“It looks like a huge farmhouse! I had no idea it was so large!” Seeing the garage to the left of the house, she pointed. “Is that where Verna lives?”

“Yep. She has a nice sized apartment up there.”

Staring at the three-car monstrosity before her, Cara muttered, “It’s probably the size of my entire house.”

“Probably,” he agreed, unaware that she didn’t want to hear that answer.

Opening the front door, he encouraged her to look around. “I’ll go get your bags.”

Without Jonathan observing every movement, Cara glanced around the foyer and took a steadying breath. It was one thing to know he’d grown up with wealth, had a wife from one of Rockland’s most premiere families, and had a good salary himself. Those nebulous thoughts didn’t mean much to her when she was with him. She’d seen his childhood home, and yes, it was enormous, but it wasn’t
him
so it hadn’t affected her. This, on the other hand, this signified what he’d expect when he bought a house in Rockland. That thought sent another shockwave through her body. They had nowhere but her townhome to live in until they found a house. She’d have to find out what kind of price range to look for. Awkward.

A large
, curved staircase seemed to make a statement all by itself.
This is the home of someone accustomed to the best.
For a fleeting second, she wondered how she fit into that picture, and then shrugged off the ridiculous idea. Jonathan seemed to have impeccable taste. If that was true of his employees, his design aesthetic, and his first wife, it was true of her, and nothing, not even demons of insecurities past would shake her faith in him.

“Well, you got far,” his voice teased as he carried bags into the house, shutting the door firmly behind him. She started to remind him of rollers, and then looked at the perfectly polished floors. She’d never roll a suitcase across those floors after dragging it over the asphalt at the airport.

“I was admiring the staircase. It’s just the kind of thing I could see Riley walking down in her wedding gown. How will you ever bring yourself to leave this house?”

“Well, it is what I’ve been working toward. This house is just an investment in the future.”