“Is that a yes?” Grady asked.
“It’s an acknowledgment that the space meets the requirements outlined in my original analysis.” He paused, his mouth twitching into a smile. “So, yes.”
The fourth bedroom was a perfect guest room for Grady’s sister and her family or my parents. That thought sobered me somewhat. A visit from my parents? Where they were staying day and night with us? However, there was an inn not far from here, perfectly suitable for my mother.
We went back downstairs and out through French doors to the back deck. The garden sloped gently downward through raised beds and stone walls and a path someone had laid with care. The apple tree was enormous and old, its branches reaching wide. A wooden swing hung from the thickest limb, weathered but sturdy, swaying slightly in the breeze.
Madison ran straight for it. Within seconds she was swinging, pumping her legs, her hair flying behind her. Trevor circled beneath her, barking once, then settling into the grass to watch.
Robbie stood at the edge of the garden, hands in his pockets, looking out at the ocean. The wind ruffled his hair, and he looked like just a sweet kid, not a genius, or caretaker, or a boy worried about child support and a mortgage. Just a fourteen-year-old boy, standing in a garden, looking at the sea, dreaming his dreams.
Grady came to stand beside me on the deck. Lila had tactfully wandered back inside, phone pressed to her ear, giving us the moment.
Madison continued to swing, singing a made-up song about apples and birds while Trevor looked at her with adoring eyes. Robbie was bent over, examining a dormant rose bush.
This house had a soul. This was home. I felt it in my bones. I pressed my face into his chest, happier than I’d ever thought possible. “I can finally host our weekly dinners.”
“Absolutely you can. Any time of the year.”
“Should we make an offer today?” Grady asked.
“Yes. Before someone else gets it,” I said.
“We’ll tell Lila to contact her realtor friend right away. We don’t want to wait.”
Regardless, for a few minutes, we remained on the deck, watching the waves crash to shore, breathing the crisp, salty air and dreaming our dreams.
I wantedto be married before we moved into the Driftwood Lane house. Call me old-fashioned, but it mattered to me that, when we walked through that front door as a family, it was official. We were a family.
We’d decided to keep it simple. Just us and the kids, down at the county clerk’s office on a Tuesday morning. No fanfare, no guests, not even any flowers. We’d have the real celebration in spring, when the garden was in bloom and we could fill our new backyard with everyone we loved. But that was months away. Today was just about the four of us making it legal.
Well, five, counting Trevor.
The morning we went to the courthouse, Robbie came out of his room in his best khakis, his periodic table tie, and a white button-down. And, of course, his loafers.
“New shirt?” I asked.
“Grady got it for me,” Robbie said. “Isn’t it spiffy?”
“Very much so,” I said.
Madison was on the couch in her favorite pink dress, trying to get Trevor to hold still long enough for her to clip a bow tie to his collar. Trevor was enduring it the way he endured most things, with the patient resignation of a dog who had long ago accepted his fate.
Grady came out of the bathroom in the suit he’d worn to the Halloween party.
My stomach fluttered. “You look handsome.”
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Is that new?”
I looked down at my cream silk dress, simple, just above the knee. “Lila and I went shopping.” I flushed, feeling sheepish.
“Wait, do you mean you did as I suggested?” Grady asked, pulling me close.
Before we could get too carried away, Robbie cleared his throat. “I have an important matter to discuss.”
He walked to the kitchen table and set down a folder. We gathered around—Grady and me on one side, Madison climbing onto a chair on the other, Trevor sitting at our feet.
Robbie opened the folder and produced a neatly printed document, two pages long, stapled in the corner. The title, centered and bolded, read:
