“Well, then, he found someone who also liked yelling. A very politically active know-it-all who was a senior in college. Rob was forty-two.”
I can’t help but make a face. “Gross.”
“I know.” Diana shakes her head. “He said they weresoulmates. And maybe they are, because maturity-wise, they’re about the same level. They’re still together, anyway, and it’sbeen… what? All of six months? That’s a long time for a twenty-two-year-old.”
Despite her jokey tone, I can hear the hurt in her voice needling through. “I’m sorry,” I tell her quietly. “That all sounds really tough.”
“Well.” She sighs and discreetly wipes her eyes. “It was. But I’m doing my best to have my own fresh start… here.” She looks around ruefully. “All my friends back in Chicago think I’m crazy.”
“Well… I have to ask, why did you pick Wildflower Valley?” I ask curiously. “It’s off the beaten track, for sure.”
“Why did you?” she tosses back at me with a smile, and I can’t help but laugh.
“If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have. My husband convinced me… and my whole family, that homesteading was the way to go. It took me a whole year to get on board, but here we are. He found our place online, and I have to say, it’s been the best decision we’ve ever made. We all love it here.”
Diana looks at me with undisguised envy. “I hope I’m saying that in a year. I don’t know anything about homesteading, but I like to garden, and I figured I could have as many rescue pets as I wanted out here and become the weird single cat lady that everyone loves to joke about. Plus, I love the songCountry Roads, and it says that West Virginia is practically heaven.” She grins as she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “So, why not?”
“Why not?” I agree. “You’ll have to come over to dinner and meet the family.” And maybe I’ll invite Mike. Although I have a suspicion they’re pretty different politically, they might have more in common than either of them realizes. They’re both, I think, desperately lonely.
I leave a little while later, promising to set a date for dinner—Diana doesn’t want to meet anyone until the blue hair dye has faded a little more. As I head back home, I decide I really dolike our new neighbor. She’s funny and honest and maybe a little crazy, but aren’t we all? I’ll have to introduce her to Emmy and the Peppers and maybe a few people from church, too. And, of course, Mike Landry… that could either go really well or be a disaster. The jury is definitely out on which one it might be.
As I come into the house, I see Josh sitting on the sofa, his back ramrod straight, his face as white as a sheet. Rose is in bed, and Jack and William are still out bowling with the church youth group in Buckholt, a fairly recent development in their social lives. My dad is either asleep or watching TV in his room.
Various animals are sprawled about on the sofa or the floor, and everything seems peaceful. So why does my husband look like he’s seen a ghost?
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I drop my keys on a side table.
He looks up at me, his eyes wide, his mouth opening in what feels like a silent scream. It takes a few seconds before he’s able to speak.
“You’ll never guess what Ben Wilson came over here to ask me tonight.”
Chapter sixteen
“Oh.”
I regard Josh ruefully, smothering a laugh at his obvious shock. To be fair, I’ve had a few weeks to get used to the idea, not that I’ve actively thought about it all that much. Still, it’s been bubbling away in the back of my mind.
“Actually,” I tell my husband, “I think I might know.”
His eyes round and his mouth drops open. Again. “What?”
I grimace in acknowledgment of my unwitting deception. “Emmy gave me a pretty big hint when we went away to Charleston.”
“Abby, that was three weeks ago!” He looks exasperated as well as outraged.
I can’t exactly blame him. I really should have found a time to broach this topic sooner.
“You couldn’t give me a heads up in all that time?” he demands. “If I’d had so much as aninklingof what he was going to ask me, Imighthave handled it better.” He groans and lays his head back against the sofa, closing his eyes—and making me wonder how hedidhandle it.
I wince as I go sit down next to him. “I’m sorry, I really should have,” I tell him contritely. “I just wanted to get straight in my own mind how I felt about it, and, honestly… I was hoping this was more of an in-the-distant-future kind of thing.” Which it stillmightbe… maybe?
“Well, it’s not,” Josh says flatly. “It’s a right-here, right-now kind of thing. He showed me thering.”
A frisson of some emotion I can’t identify goes through me. It’s nothingtoonegative, but it still feels scary. Big. Do I really want Bethany to get married to the first boy she falls in love with, before she’d even turned twenty? She’s only known him for a little over ayear.
“We are talking about him proposing?” I clarify, just in case, and Josh rolls his eyes so hard, I see nothing but the whites for a full second.
“Yes, that is what we’re talking about.”
