“Yes, I do,” he insisted. “I have never spoken to a woman the way I spoke to you. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for how I treated you back in Arizona. I’ll never forgive myself for sending you away the way I did.”
“I stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong,” she said.
“Don’t make excuses for me. You were trying to make me see what I was too stubborn to see for myself. You were trying to give me my family back.”
Phil nodded. She couldn’t speak even if she tried.
“You were right.” After a beat, he said, “I talked to my father.”
Instant tears sprang to Phil’s eyes, her throat clogging with emotion.
Jamal gave a slight shrug. “We didn’t instantly hug it out and put the past behind us, but things…they’re better. We’re going to work on our relationship.”
“Oh, Jamal, I’m so happy for you,” Phil said. She pulled her trembling lips between her teeth, trying her hardest to rein in her emotion. “That’s all I wanted for you,” she continued. “I swear I wasn’t trying to intrude or force you to do something you didn’t want to do. I just didn’t want you to live with the same regrets I live with every day.”
“I know,” he said, taking her hands and placing a kiss upon her fingers. “And because of you, I won’t. Because of you, I’m moving forward and not wasting another minute hiding from my future. I bought the house on Saint Charles Avenue. J. Johnson Architectural Design will open its doors by the spring.”
She grabbed his face between her hands and pulled it toward her. “I am so proud of you,” she whispered against his lips. “It’s going to be amazing. Just wait.”
“I know it will,” he said. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. “Thank you for not giving up on this house, or on me. Thank you for challenging me to be a better man.”
Her eyes slid shut, the love pouring through her suffocating in its intensity. “I love you so much, Jamal,” Phil said.
“Not as much as I love you,” he returned. “I never thought this kind of love was possible, Phylicia. And it wasn’t, not until I found you.”
Epilogue
Using her footto slide open the pocket door that led to Belle Maison’s dining room, Phil carried in another batch of homemade biscuits and a pot of steaming coffee, replenishing the cups of the ten guests seated around the large table. The bed-and-breakfast had been open only for a week, but already it felt like a warm, inviting home that had never been unoccupied.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked one of the women, part of a trio of friends from Pensacola.
“You can get me about five jars of these strawberry preserves,” the woman answered.
“Sorry,” Phil said with a laugh. “It’s not for sale.”
“Well, it should be,” the woman said. “It’s one of the best I’ve ever had. You should package this and sell it. You’d make a killing.”
“Thank you.” Phil beamed. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. She used to make it right here in the kitchen of Belle Maison. I’ll bring out more, along with some of the honey. It’s also made here in Gauthier.”
“I just love this little town,” the woman said.
“There’s a lot to love about it,” Phil said, pride blossoming in her chest.
She cleared the plates of several of the guests and carried them back into the kitchen, depositing the dirty dishes in the dishwasher—one of her concessions to modernizing the Victorian. If the reservations continued to pour in the way they had over the past couple of weeks, Belle Maison’s new caretaker, who was scheduled to arrive next week, would have enough on her hands without adding hand-washing dirty dishes to her plate.
A part of Phil resented the thought of someone else coming in to run the B&B. This week had been challenging, but she couldn’t deny that she’d enjoyed it. Seeing the faces of the guests as they took in all of the nuances of her family’s home was so satisfying. She’d loved giving tours this week, imparting anecdotes about what it was like to grow up here.
She’d even enjoyed the cooking, something she hadn’t done in a long time.
Jamal came up behind her and buried his face against her neck, pressing a quick kiss to the sensitive spot under her ear. “I had no idea you knew your way around the kitchen,” he said. “I think it’s sexy.”
“Sexy, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. He nibbled her ear. “You know what would be even sexier? If you were wearing those denim overalls you work in. But just the overalls. No shirt underneath.”
“Um, that would leave me pretty exposed.” Phil laughed even as a seductive little tremor of need raced across her skin.
“That’s the point.”
