Cherie and Reese sat on the porch, watching the sun sink lower and lower toward the horizon before it disappeared altogether, leaving streaks of orange and purple hues across the darkening sky. “I can’t believe I took two weeks off from my job and I haven’t been able to spend one full day with my mother.”
“Does it bother you that she has been spending so much time with Parker?”
“Yes and no,” she replied. “My mother and I haven’t been particularly close for a while, and I thought having her visit with me would improve that. But I had no idea your cousin would take off from his job to occupy all her time.”
Reese stretched out his legs, crossing his feet at the ankles. “When I asked Parker about him and Edwina, he said he found her fascinating, and that she was the first woman whom he thought of as a friend.”
“A friend or girlfriend?” Cherie questioned.
“He said friend, Cherie. And I left it at that.”
Parker had usually come to the house early in the morning to pick up Edwina and drove her back later that night, most times after Cherie had gone to bed. She knew she had no right to question her mother about her comings and goings, because Edwina was an adult capable of making her own decisions, and it had been apparent she enjoyed Parker’s company enough to see him every day. The chief had even volunteered to drive Edwina to the Wilmington airport for her return flight.
Cherie closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, and hoped she hadn’t overreacted when it came to her mother. If she’d changed since moving to Coates Island, so had Edwina during her brief stay. Edwina had hinted that there was a possibility she was considering leaving Connecticut. Cherie didn’t want to read more into Edwina’s statement, and then realized it wasn’t her daughter, but a man that was influencing the older woman’s decision.
She didn’t know Parker, and her initial interaction with him hadn’t been positive when he’d attempted to insinuate himself into her relationship with Reese. However, he did apologize, which she’d accepted. Now he was at it again, this time with her relationship with her mother.
“You promised we would talk about our future after your mother left.”
Cherie opened her eyes and smiled. “Yes, we did. What do you want to know?”
“I love you, Cherie, and I want to marry you, so I need to know if this is what you also want.”
“I want the same thing you want, but I need time to take in everything.”
Reese leaned forward. “Time for what?”
“I’d like for us to continue to see each other before announcing an engagement.”
“When do you want that to happen?”
Cherie bit her lip, counting back to when she first saw Reese. “June.”
Reese flashed a white-tooth smile. “That sounds reasonable. What about marriage?”
A beat passed. “Next year on Valentine’s Day.”
He nodded. “That’s also doable.”
She exhaled an audible breath. “There’s something else we need to discuss.”
“What’s that?”
“Where we’re going to live after we’re married. I just bought this house, and I don’t want to sell it.”
Reese reached out and covered her hand resting on the arm of the rocker next to his. “You don’t have to sell your house. I can move in here with you.”
“What are you going to do with your home?”
He smiled. “I’ll ask Parker if he’s willing to move in. Right now, he’s renting a small house on the mainland.”
“Do you think he wouldn’t mind moving?”
“Are you kidding? Parker and his family used to come to our house every week for Sunday dinner and family reunions. I was still a young kid, but I remember that, whenever Parker came home on leave, we would have a fish fry in his honor, because there was a time when Parker would only eat fish. Gram said she wanted to call him Shrimp, but he was too large for that moniker, so he became Crab.”
Cherie sighed in relief. She and Reese had solved the dilemma of where they would live as a married couple. She still was in awe of how smoothly her relationship with Reese was going. This is not to say they agreed on everything, but when they didn’t, they were able to discuss it rationally. They’d settled when they would announce their engagement and had confirmed a wedding date and where they would cohabitate. The only issue left was children—if or when they would start a family.
Cherie knew she also had to select a college from a list she’d researched and forward the necessary transcripts for acceptance. She had a lot on her plate for the coming year: engagement, marriage, and college.
