“How long would you have me wait for an answer?” he asked as he escorted her to the front porch.
“In the new year,” she promised. “I’ll talk to Hattie after I return from California.” By then, she hoped, her aunt would see things anew.
“I will eagerly await youryes.” He lingered another moment, as if she might change her mind, but he didn’t press. Instead, he gave her a kiss that would remain on her lips until he returned to Haven House.
“Good night, Olivia.”
Her heart hammered when he stepped away, and her feet—they seemed to lift right off the ground without his arms as an anchor.
Everything within her wanted to cry out for him to wait. She could toss a few things into a satchel and spend the next week with his family. In a perfect world, Hattie would travel west with them. She and Simon could marry in Winfield this weekend, a family celebration.
But she didn’t live in a perfect world.
Her arms folded over her chest, the warmth already fading as Simon started his engine. If he waved goodbye, she didn’t see it in the glow of his taillights.
What was she going to tell her aunt? Hattie would be hurt—angry, even—if she agreed to Simon’s proposal. And how could Olivia marry without her blessing?
Hattie would come around in time, like she had with Graham, buthow long must they wait? She sat in a chair and rocked, remembering her first year of marriage. Her father had loved Graham from the beginning, pleased that his daughter had chosen a minister who encouraged her to write. If her father were still alive, he’d like Simon as well for how he urged Olivia to continue growing as a writer. Simon saw past her work and age and the walls she’d built to hide behind, looking straight into her heart.
It had taken Hattie, her father’s only sister, an entire year to warm up to Graham. Then she’d spent the next twenty years spoiling him with pies and cakes.
It would only be a matter of time, Olivia guessed, before Hattie was baking Simon’s favorites.
An ache seeped from her chest as darkness swallowed his taillights. She stood slowly, loneliness plaguing her when she turned into the house. Her coat she hung on the familiar peg that Graham installed by the front door before stashing her boots in the closet. Every inch of this house was familiar. Comfortable. It would take her time, months even, before she could entertain leaving.
But Simon hadn’t required it of her. He understood, much more than Hattie, her unsteadiness in trying to navigate the in-between. One wrong move, a misstep, and she would surely tumble. Then where would she land?
Right into Simon’s arms, she hoped, but the doubts still haunted her. Entangled her really. She created similar fears to stop her book characters from pursuing the best things in life. Now she had to overcome her own fears in order to thrive again.
Her fidgety hands kneaded her skirt like it would help clear her mind. She had to get back to work, continuing on with her fictional professor who’d become trapped in London during a blitzkrieg. Her heroine would rescue him before Christmas morning, perhaps settling some of Olivia’s own unrest since she didn’t like leaving her characters in such a precarious position.
She avoided Hattie’s bedroom on the way to her office, and as the night hours ticked away, she poured herself into her story, wrapping up her characters’ plight. Finally, the heroine found her man.
On paper, over time and countless cups of tea, she could solve the most difficult of problems. Weave dozens of threads together in perfect time.
God worked things together for good, according to the book of Romans, for those He called, but it was awfully hard sometimes to see how it came together in this life. He was the author of the greatest story ever told, but sometimes she wondered if the characters He’d created went rogue. If they—ifshe—didn’t do exactly as He’d hoped or planned.
Hours later, she glanced up at the window and smiled when she saw snow sticking to the glass. A white Christmas.
After she stumbled downstairs into her bed to sleep, she dreamed of Simon’s arms around her. The delight of waking up next to him on Christmas morning, and, eventually, every morning.
Once she returned from California, once Hattie understood all that was in her heart, Olivia wouldn’t waste another moment considering his question.
Her answer would be yes.
16:Harper
“Sissie Sloan wants to talk to you,” Kelsey said from somewhere in the Pacific, teal waves probably rolling over her toes and white powder sand.
Harper tapped her brakes. “Did you say Sissie Sloan?”
“I did.”
“What does she want to talk about?” Harper asked as she continued her drive through Catawba, passing an entire forest of streets—Sassafras, Mulberry, Walnut, Chestnut, Spruce, Pine.
“She didn’t give me the particulars. Just that she wants you to call.”
Kelsey paused to speak with someone on her end, probably a masseuse in her oceanfront cabana. Harper could almost smell the suntan lotion. Taste the piña coladas. Hear the palm trees rustling in the breeze.
