I wince as I get the door shut and turn to head for the trail across the street from my house. There’s a diamond engagement ring jammed in my sock and it’s currently digging into my ankle. Betsy would have absolutely noticed if I had a ring box in my pocket, so I’ll endure the chafing of my ankle to surprise her. She never did cash that ten-thousand-dollar bonus check, so I put those funds toward a gorgeous engagement ring. I just want her to have that money in some way or another.
The trees have all lost their leaves, just barren sticks awaiting springtime to look lively again. The grassy yards of my neighbors have turned a dormant light brown, mostly hidden under the pile of fallen leaves. Pine straw covers every single flower bed. Birds are chirping and, despite what Betsy says about it, the chill air makes me feel alive.
“I think I can see my breath,” Betsy murmurs as we hit the trailhead and enter the forested greenway that has been preserved instead of developed into housing.
I roll my eyes and snag her hand in mine. Her fingers are cold, but she’s being dramatic. “You complain about the heat and humidity. I figured you’d love the cold winters.”
Betsy grins up at me. “I do love them. I just like to complain when you force me to engage in physical activity.”
I waggle my eyebrows. “Oh, really?Allphysical activity?”
Her ears go pink, and I’m not sure if it’s from the cold or remembering how heavy she was breathing in my bed last night. The path comes to a Y and I steer us toward the left, which heads down to a manmade lake. Betsy chatters on about a lady who came into the boutique yesterday and asked if we sold our clothing online. That’s something Betsy’s been looking into, but we haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.
“She said she uses this particular platform on her website to sell her artwork. Said she’d walk me through it if I wanted her to.” Betsy leaps over a stick and then walks backward, which makes me nervous. She’s adventurous but doesn’t always have the coordination to back it up. Case in point: diving through my rack of clothing the first day I met her.
“I think I want her to!”
I smile and then turn her back around to face forward just in time to navigate a hole in the dirt without twisting an ankle. “I think that’s a great idea. Gives us time to get it up and running before the fall busy season hits again. If it works out, we may have to hire another employee just for online fulfillment.”
We make it around a bend and get our first visual of the pond. Not a soul is at the wooden dock, which is perfect. Betsy doesn’t like an audience, especially once she sees what we’re about to do.
“Hey, what’s all that?” Betsy points to an elaborate setup that’s taken me days to get right, let alone the weeks it took to build the damn thing with my father’s help.
Yeah, that’s right, he and I have had a bit of a rekindling of our relationship. We’ll never see eye to eye, and I’ll never forget that he cheated on Mama, but I can accept that he’s human. He ain’t perfect, and neither am I. That doesn’t preclude us from having a relationship though.
“Football season is over for our Angels, but I thought we could keep the competitive spirit alive.” I grab her hand again and race her toward the game.
She laughs trailing behind me, running as fast as she can to keep up. I stop when I get to the trough of footballs. Four wooden stations are set up twenty feet away from the trough. Each of the stations has a hoop in front of it.
“What the hell is all this?” Betsy shields her eyes with her hand.
I grab a football and hand it to her. “You mean, what theheavenis all this?”
She rolls her eyes at me, but takes the football, folding it into her palm the way I’ve showed her, fingers on the laces. It’s taken quite a bit of practice to show her how to throw the football, but I haven’t given up on her. She can’t live here in the South and not know how to throw a dang football. It’s just not natural.
I wave toward the stations. “You have thirty footballs in front of you.”
Betsy’s mouth drops open.
She’s so dang cute. Honestly, why am I making her jump through hoops when I want to drop to my knee and beg her to marry me right freaking now? Oh yeah, that’s right. I want to make this memorable for her. You only get engaged once and I want it to be special.
“Four stations. You’ll start with station one, throwing the football. If you get it through the hoop, you get a prize. And you get to move on to station two. And so on, until you get the ultimate prize after station four.”
Betsy’s gaze comes back to me, eyes twinkling in the morning sunshine. She slowly runs the tip of the football down my chest. “Is the ultimate prize you taking off those gray sweatpants and letting me have my way with you?”
I grit my teeth and stay focused. “Not quite.”
“Oh, sorry. That wasn’t very Southernly of me.” Betsy drawls in an over-the-top accent. “You can take a girl to the South but you can’t make her Southern.”
I grip her hips and push her toward the trough of footballs. If she keeps being sassy, I’m liable to push her into the copse of trees behind us and give her exactly what she wants.
“Just save all that fire for your throwing arm, huh?”
Betsy rolls her bottom lip into a pout but quickly embraces the challenge in front of her. There’s very little in life that Betsy can’t do once she sets her mind to it. She rotates her right arm a few times in an exaggerated warmup, then eyes the first hoop. She gets her feet set, cocks her elbow back, and lets the first ball fly. It hits the side of the hoop and falls to the ground.
“Ah, man,” she whines, already grabbing another ball. I heave a relieved sigh that the station is holding up okay. The first time Dad and I tried it out, the football broke the hula hoop. We had to reinforce everything, which took an extra day of construction.
Betsy throws again and this time the football goes right through the hoop and hits the bullseye behind it. Exactly as I rigged the station, confetti sprays up into the air and rains down on station number one, along with everything in a fifty-yard radius. Betsy squeals, jumping around in the confetti, a few pieces lodging themselves in her hair.
