“Yesterday. I left them on your…” She slapped a hand to her face. “Crap! I left them on my kitchen counter. I walked right out without them, and you wanted them today. I’ll run home and get them right now.”
“You’ve got a full list right now. It can wait.”
“I’m sorry, Bo. I know you wanted to look them over, show them to your mother and your grannies, and I just— It won’t take me ten minutes to get them and come back.”
“You’re going to be running around here nonstop in about five minutes,” Jessica reminded her. “I can slip out in about an hour.”
They weren’t top priority, Bodine thought, but they were on the day’s agenda. “Why don’t we do this? I can just swing by and get them on my way home. I’m hoping to leave all this to both of you in about an hour. It’s easy for me to go by the Village on the way home. If you don’t mind giving me a key.”
“I’ll get it for you. I’m really sorry.”
“It could wait, but I’m going to be showing it to a bunch of women. I want to give them time to argue about it.”
“Two minutes. Just put it under the mat when you leave. I’ll give the waitstaff a heads-up on the way.”
“She’ll kick herself for a week.”
“She shouldn’t,” Bodine said. “She did me a favor picking them up when I was crunched for time. In any case, I’ll be here for another hour, longer if you need. Just let me know if you need a hand with either group.”
With Chelsea’s key in her pocket, she circled around, slipping into the dining hall to check on setup, then over to the Mill to do the same.
She came back out to Callen standing with the horses under the rise of a full red moon.
The music started up with the lusty “Nothing On but the Radio.”
She considered it perfect.
“I thought you’d have headed home by now.”
“I’m about to,” he said as she walked to him. “I wondered if I’d put it off long enough for you to be ready.”
“Not for about an hour. You’ll lead Leo home for me? I’m going to steal one of the Kias.”
“Then I better give you these now.” He pulled a clutch of flowers from his saddlebag.
“You bought me flowers?”
“I stole them from here and there on the way. I guess the sunset put me in the mood, and that moon did the rest. You said once you like getting flowers from a man.”
“And I do.” She took them, smiling at him. “That’s something I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
“I remember a lot when it comes to you. I’ve got those words.”
“Oh, but—”
“I planned to put them together tomorrow, after that fancy dinner. That’d be more standard. But look at that moon, Bodine, that big, red moon hanging up there. It says more for people like you and me than champagne.”
She looked up at the big brilliant ball in the endless sky. It did say more, to people like him and her. He knew her. She knew him.
“I want you to know what I’m going to say I haven’t said to another woman. My mother, my sister, a few times. Not enough times, but I’m going to work on that. But never to a woman, not when I was here, not when I was gone, because saying it changes things, so I’ve been careful.”
She looked down at the flowers—wild ones, she thought. Nothing hothouse, but flowers that came wild and free. And back up at him. His face still bruised, his eyes blue in the moonlight. “That’s a lot of words already, Skinner.”
“I’m working up to the important ones. When I came back, when I saw you again, it gave me a jolt. Not just that you’d grown up, gotten prettier, but seeing you made me realize I’d thought of you a lot when I was gone. Just little things, bits and pieces of my life here. The good ones. The good ones always seemed to have you in there, one way or the other. I didn’t come back for you, but you made coming back right. All the way right.
“We felt something for each other, and maybe we figured we’d jump into that, and that would be enough. It’s not enough for me, and I’ll do whatever it takes so it’s not enough for you. I love you.”
“There it is,” she whispered, took a step closer.
Lifting a hand, he nudged her back. “I’m not finished. You’re the first, you’re going to be the last. You can have some time to get used to that, but that’s how it is. Now I’m finished.”
“I was going to say I love you back, but I’m going to need you to specify just what you’re saying I have to get used to.”
“A woman as smart as you ought to make that connection. We’re getting married.”
“We—what?” She took a deliberate step back.
“You can take some time on that, but—” He yanked her back. “Go back to the first part.”
“You can’t just leapfrog right over—”
He kissed her, drew it out. “Go back to the first part,” he repeated.
“I love you back. But you can’t tell me we’re getting married.”
“Just did. I’ll get you a ring if you want one. I’ll pick it out though.”
“If I’m going to wear something I ought to have a say in—” This time she cut herself off, nudged him back. “Maybe I don’t want to get married.”
“A woman comes from what you do, sees what it can mean to make that promise? She’ll be fine with it. I’m going to need your promise, Bodine, just like I’m going to need to give you mine. But you can take some time on it.”
He kissed her again, hard, brief, final. “We can talk about it when you get home.” With that, he took Leo’s reins, swung up on Sundown. “I’ll wait for you.”
As he started to turn the horses, Sundown sent her a look. On a human face she’d have called it a smirk.
“You might have a long wait!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and broke into an easy trot.
*
No doubt Bodine ran late because Callen had messed up her thought process. How was she supposed to concentrate on work, on questions from staff, on making sure the opening concert of the season got off to a smooth start when he’d effectively tossed marriage at her like a set of car keys and told her she’d be driving whether she was in the mood or not?
She’d prepared herself for the I-love-you, I-love-you-back portion—though by her schedule that should have been on Saturday’s menu. But the leap straight to marriage didn’t give her time to get her feet under her.
Still, she put his flowers in a vase, put the vase on her desk. She appreciated the flowers. She appreciated a lot when it came to Callen Skinner.
She didn’t appreciate being told how she’d spend the rest of her life. Because he’d hit the bull’s-eye on one element. She knew where she came from, and where she came from took marriage seriously. Not on a whim, not in a rush of hormones or dreamy feelings, but seriously, as the foundation for everything else.
With Chelsea’s key in her pocket, she got behind the wheel of the little car she’d borrowed for the night. That’s what she’d tell him, she decided. She wouldn’t be told, and she took marriage seriously.