“Something’s wrong,” she says and I shake my head, even though she can’t see me.
“Something’s right.”
And if she says yes, everything will finally be just as it should be.
40
SYLVIA
I’m not fooled. It’s weird for Mike to call me at dinnertime on a Monday and something in his voice wasn’t right. I was still in the studio, so I meet him outside the café. He swings out of the truck, his eyes so blue that I know there’s been a storm.
“That’s it,” he says, slamming the truck door hard. “I quit.”
“What?”
He takes a deep breath. “He brought Ethan in, not only to be the operations manager but to be my boss. I just couldn’t stand there and accept it.”
“Of course not.” I wrap my arms around myself, feeling cold. I’m thinking about the money and about Sierra, about our plans and whether any of them can come true without his salary. We’ll work it out, I know it, but I’m shocked and surprised.
“What?” he asks, studying me.
“I never thought you’d do it.”
“Is it a problem?” He steps closer, watching me. “We’d talked about Rupert’s farm.”
“I know. Just give me a minute.” I manage a smile.
“You look terrified,” he says, then puts his hands on my shoulders, leaning in close. I inhale deeply and am reassured, maybe because he smells like tomato vines. “I have enough saved to buy the farm and Rupert is going to give us good terms.”
Us.
“Plus, I’ll be getting my salary through the winter sometime, because I have so many holidays saved up. It might be tight next winter, but we’ll get through it.” His grip tightens. “If we do it together, Sylvia.”
I just wait.
“Marry me,” he urges. “I know I didn’t ask you the way I should have done, but where am I going to take you for dinner when you work at the best place in town?”
I smile at his frustration.
He leans closer, intent and serious. “Move out to Rupert’s with me. Let’s make a home together. You can have a studio there and I can try something new and we’ll be crazy happy for the rest of our lives.”
I want to accept but I can’t, not just yet.
“There’s something I have to tell you, Mike.”
His gaze becomes searching. “More?”
“More,” I agree. “I didn’t want to say it before, because you didn’t believe me about the letters, or my talking to him, and I didn’t want to ask you to choose between your two families.”
“Tell me.” His voice is low and dangerous, his attention complete.
“When you didn’t answer my first letter, I did call the house and talked to your dad.”
Mike’s eyes blaze brilliant blue and his grip tightens on my shoulders. “You told me that.”
“And I wasn’t going to let him bully me. I kept writing andsending pictures. I didn’t call again for a couple of years. I figured you would be graduating from university and you would be home. I was hoping the housekeeper would answer. Well, she did, but it was your dad she called to the phone. And he told me that I was stupid and stubborn, that you were getting married to a suitable girl and that I needed to just vanish from your life forever. He told me that I’d never get anything from you or from him and that I should stop lying about my daughter being your child. He hung up on me and I didn’t have the nerve to call back again.”
I take a breath as Mike’s eyes blaze. “But I kept sending pictures of Sierra anyway. I never heard anything again, and when we came here, I thought you’d be gone, or you’d be married. I never expected that we could have another chance together. But just when it seemed that we might be able to move past the missing letters, your father waited for me here.Righthere.”
