“Did I hear someone say marriage?” a short plump young woman said gleefully, bouncing up to the terrace with a huge towering flower centerpiece. The flowers and greenery cascaded onto the table as she set the arrangement in front of us and fluffed it out.
“If we do,” Meg said, “I’ll have Weddings in the City plan it, of course, Amy.”
“You better!” Amy said. “I have money riding on you two.” She wagged a finger at me. “Don’t screw it up, Hunter!”
“Why do I get the blame?”
She grinned. “Men always get the blame!”
63
Meghan
“Hunter wants to marry me!” I announced giddily, dumping out my freshly washed laundry and flopping onto my bed.
“I hope you washed the sheets,” Kate said, eyeing the bed apprehensively.
“Of course,” I said. “Hunter had to go back home Monday morning to deal with his brothers, so he wasn’t even here.” I frowned. “For some reason, Remy is out of town. I think he’s usually at the estate.”
“The reclusive Svensson brother?” Kate asked. “I talked to Grant about Remy. Grant said he had heard of him in the Marines. Apparently, there was a nasty firefight. Rumor has it that Remy has pretty bad PTSD and doesn’t do well out of his comfort zone anymore. I wonder what happened to make him leave Harrogate?”
“That is weird,” I concurred as I carefully folded and rolled the rest of my clean laundry, Marie Kondo style. “All the time I’ve lived here, Remy has never left.”
“Aren’t you guys close-ish?” Kate asked Susie.
“We’re not that close.”
“You guys were both in the military,” I teased. “Maybe when Remy returns, you can ask him on a date.”
“Why don’t we not talk about my nonexistent love life and instead talk about the fact that it wasn’t even three months ago that you and Hunter were at each other’s throats, and now he wants to marry you.”
“Do you think it’s suspicious?” I asked my friends.
“It’s totally romantic!” Kate insisted. “We have to plan a humongous wedding.”
“Maybe I’m going crazy. Or maybe he’s up to something.”
“Honestly,” Susie said, “after hearing about you complain about Hunter and fret about him and cry about him, I just want some resolution. After all he’s put you through, the least he could do is marry you. Then if it doesn’t work out, at least you can get alimony out of it.”
“I like a pragmatist,” Kate said, grabbing a bottle of champagne that she had been chilling in my freezer. “Where do you think he’s going to propose? I would want to be proposed to in the town square under the gazebo. If Hunter timed it right, he could have the whole thing decorated with flowers and surprise you.”
“Ooh, I like your idea better than mine,” I said. “I was thinking maybe at a town hall meeting.”
“Good gracious,” Kate exclaimed. “Girl, you need a vacation. Hunter can’t propose to you at work.”
“What if he did it with the train somehow, really made an event about it?” Susie suggested.
“We need to make a Pinterest board with your favorite rings together,” Kate suggested. “Just in case Hunter asks one of us for what he should propose with.”
“I don’t want too big of a diamond,” I said as we crowded around my laptop.
“Maybe something antique?” Susie said. “Remy told me that they found a bunch of rings and jewelry hidden in the Harrogate house during renovations.”
“Maybe you could do a sapphire ring, like Princess Diana,” Kate said.
* * *
I pushed awayany feelings of doubt about Hunter over the next few days. I didn’t have a chance to spend any alone time with him—we couldn’t seem to get our schedules synced up. But he always seemed to have a little gift waiting for me in my apartment. It was sweet and made me feel so loved. It was nice after years of stress just to feel desired.
