He blinks, seeming to come out from wherever he was. “I put the washcloth in the freezer.”
Londyn quiets as she looks at him with big eyes. She sniffles and babbles something that I think is probably Why are you here?
I head to the den.
“What now?” he asks as if he’s taking notes.
“You can bring me the washcloth,” I say as I sit in a blue swivel rocking chair next to a window that overlooks the city. I prop her on my lap, and Graham hands me the washcloth.
“I, um, washed my hands first, you know, after . . .”
I giggle. “Okay. She appreciates it.”
Londyn reaches for the cloth and promptly sticks it in her mouth and chews. Her back rests against my chest as I rock with her. Slowly, she stops her whimpering.
“Wow, that was easy. She really is adorable.”
I laugh under my breath at his surprised tone. He saw her in the kitchen at the bookstore, but there was so much else going on that he probably barely noticed her. “Now we have to get her back to sleep.”
“We?”
“You’re here, and we just had relations, and you can’t run off. It would be ungentlemanly.”
He rolls his eyes.
“What?”
“‘Relations’ and ‘ungentlemanly.’ Your words crack me up.”
I shrug delicately so as not to disturb Londyn, who seems wide awake as she darts her eyes between me and Graham.
“I don’t want to say ‘s-e-x’ in front of you-know-who.”
“Hmm. I saw the scars on your rib cage. What’s that from? Did Kian . . .”
“No, no. I have A-fib. It’s a heart condition where I have irregular heartbeats. Too fast. I took meds for a while, but they quit working. I had an incident at the store where I passed out, and my doctors decided I needed a cardiac ablation.” I go into detail, explaining how I assumed it was panic attacks at first but realized later that it was a medical condition.
He’s suddenly sitting at attention and walks over to me. “Let me see it again?”
Londyn pulls out her washcloth and watches Graham as he lifts my tank top and peers at the scar on my rib cage. He frowns as his fingers lightly trace over it. “Did surgery fix it forever?”
“Are you worried for me?” I ask, surprise in my voice.
“You’re going to be my wife.”
I shift the focus from me to him. “My heart issue is minor compared to what happened to you on the football field. Want to hear something crazy?”
He nods.
“I had my surgery the night of the Super Bowl. You and I were in the same hospital on the same night, Mount Sinai.”
He studies my face searchingly, his gaze lingering on my mouth. “And then we met in the desert. Life is weird.” His hands trail over the line of my cheek, tenderly, making my breath quicken.
“Yes.”
“I think I’m going to stretch out,” he says as he pulls away from me and settles back on the couch, adjusting the pillows as he lies back. It’s not quite long enough to fit his frame, so he removes his shoes and props his feet up on the end of the sofa.
He taps his fingers against his chest, the only indication that he isn’t completely relaxed. “Are you free Friday?”
“I can be. Jane and Andrew are helping out at the store.”
He shuts his eyes, almost as if he doesn’t want me to read his expression. “Good. Can you meet me in the afternoon. I can text you the exact time when I know for sure.”
“Where?”
He’s so quiet that for a moment I think he’s gone to sleep. “Clerk’s office at the courthouse, if that works for you? I can send a car to pick you up.”
I continue to rock a now-sleeping Londyn. “Should I wear white?”
“If you wish. Just us. Me and you. They’ll provide witnesses for us.”
I nod, even though he isn’t looking. No siblings at our marriage ceremony. And I get it. This isn’t real. There’s no reason to create a memory with our loved ones.
His breaths deepen as his chest rises and falls.
“What are you wearing? So we can match,” I murmur.
“The mayo suit.”
I kiss Londyn’s head. “Mr. Cream,” I say under my breath, and Graham doesn’t seem to hear me. A soft snore comes from him.
I pick Londyn up, remove her bib, and cradle her on my shoulder as I go back to her room and put her in her bed. She rolls over with a sigh, and all feels right in the world.
I ease back into the den and cover Graham up with a blanket, then leave a note out on the door telling Andrew and Jane to be quiet when they come in and not be startled by the giant man on our couch.
Chapter 17
EMMY
The last person on my schedule to interview leaves my office, and I groan as I pinch the bridge of my nose. Only one of the applicants today would be a good fit, and she can’t start for two more weeks.
The bookstore phone rings, and I pick it up. “Emmy Darling from A Likely Story Bookstore. May I help you?”
“Emmy! It’s been forever. How are you?”
“Great.” If I could just find more workers.
“It’s Angela from the Times. I thought you guys were closing; then I heard you weren’t. Good news. Does this mean you’ll have a new window for us soon? I’d love to see it and feature it in our summer roundup photos.”
Right, ugh. My anxiety shoots up. I’ve been so busy with Graham that I haven’t thought about the window lately. I need to get the new display up. “Hi, and yes, we’d be so thankful if you’d feature us. We put a lot of time and effort into our displays. We’ll have it ready by the second week of June. How does that sound?”
“Awesome. What time would be good to come by?”
I schedule a slot for her, and as I’m getting off the phone, a photo comes through on my cell. It’s Graham, replying to the text thread I’ve entitled Things We Should Know About Each Other. We’ve been texting on and off since our date, usually first thing in the morning and then in the evenings.
I squint at the pic he’s sent. It’s one from a college party where he’s standing on top of a bar inside a fraternity house as he holds up a trophy. A wide, broad grin is on his handsome face. His hair is short and spiky, his face young and free. He’s wearing Florida State gym shorts and no shirt. His chest is a work of art, an eight-pack glistening.
You were trashed, I send.
We’d just won the national championship over Alabama.
Did you have a serious college girlfriend?
No. I was too focused on football.
Hmm, Divina was his first serious relationship. It lasted for years. And then she cheated on him.
Send me a pic of you from the past, he sends.
I scroll through my pics and send one of me from a birthday dinner at the bookstore, after hours. Whoever took it, probably Babs or Terry, caught me in the middle of an eye roll as I attempted to blow out candles on a four-layer coconut cake Gran had baked. Andrew and Jane, ages twelve and thirteen, sit on either side of me, laughing, and Gran is behind me, a serene smile on her face.