Making Me Believe (9 page)

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked surprised.

She studied him for a moment wondering if this was the time to bring up how she’d been feeling. “You’ve just seemed a little distant since we got back from Vegas.”

He pulled her down into his lap. “I’m sorry I’ve seemed that way. I don’t
mean to be distant.” She was his whole world. He didn’t want to give any woman the kind of power over him that saying that would, though, so he remained silent.

“I was starting to worry that you regret our marriage,” she said softly.

He sighed. “I don’t regret our marriage at all. We got married fast, and need to take time to get to know one another a lot better, but I don’t regret our marriage. I’m sorry that I made you think that.” He hadn’t meant to make her feel insecure. He wanted to kick himself for hurting her that way.

She snuggled into him, burying her face into his shoulder. She felt like he
knew everything in the world about her, but he’d completely closed off a couple years of his life from her. The years with Jill in them. She didn’t want to bring that up now, though. It was too nice to just sit with him and talk about their future.

“We only really had those two days alone together when we went to Vegas.
Since we got back, I feel like all we’ve done is work. How would you feel about taking a long weekend somewhere?” he asked. “I don’t feel like we’ve had the time we need to truly talk. And spend entire days making love of course. We need that.”

She smiled. “That sounds nice. Where are you thinking about going?”

“Maybe a cabin on a lake somewhere? I’d rather go in May, before school is out and the family traffic gets in. And before the oppressive Texas heat makes actually being outside not much fun. Unless you’d prefer to go somewhere like Vegas or Branson?”

“No, a lake sounds great. I like the idea of actually having some time
alone. Of course, it means I’ll have to cook a lot more than I usually do, but I’ll live,” she grinned. “Maybe we could find a cabin near a nice restaurant?”

“We’ll take steaks and I’ll grill out some too. That way all the work doesn’t
have to be you.” He liked the idea of doing something for her.

“Set up the time and place, and let me know as soon as possible. This is a
good time of year for me to take off work for a couple of days,” she said.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, too. You know, we don’t need
the money you make. I can easily support us both and then some. Do you want to start looking around for a location for your book store?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “We’ve never really talked about money, but it never
occurred to me that would be possible.”

He smiled. “If you were to save every dime you made, how long would it
take before you could get your store?” He knew how much she hated her job. It seemed to drain everything from her. He wouldn’t mind if she wanted to just stay home, but knew that she wasn’t the type who could do that without going insane.

She thought about that for a minute, doing some mental calculations.
“Probably four or five months?”

“If I could add around $20,000 to your savings? Then how long?” He could
add a lot more to it than that, but he knew she had a good chunk already saved.

“Then I could quit tomorrow,” she said. “But I don’t expect you to do that.”
She’d never felt like she should live off him. They didn’t exactly keep their money separate, but she felt like she should pull her own weight.

“Why not? I can easily do that, and you’d be able to do what you want to
do. Would you like to do that right away?” he asked.

She thought about it for a minute. It never occurred to her that he’d help
her open her store, but there was no reason to say no. He was her husband, and any money she made would be shared by them. “Absolutely. I’d love to never have to wear an antenna on my head again,” she told him.

“Give your two weeks’ notice on Monday then. We’ll scout around for a
location for your store. I’m assuming you want to open it here in Arlington?” he asked.

“I was actually thinking Grand Prairie. Arlington has a couple of used book
stores, but there aren’t any in Grand Prairie at all. It wouldn’t be too far from here, and I think I’d drive more traffic into my store that way. There are a couple of empty shops on 303 that I’ve been eyeballing for a while, hoping they wouldn’t be rented out before I was ready.”

“We’ll drive over there and take a look tomorrow,” he said. “If there’s a
place worth having, we’ll lease it. Do you know anything about keeping books for a business?”

“I’ve never done it, but I’ve done a lot of research on it. I have an idea on
how I want to run things. With the amount you’re pitching in, I’ll have enough for operating expenses for the first three months. Hopefully after that, even if I’m not making a lot of money, I can handle the expenses as they come along.”

“Hopefully we can find something tomorrow. Do I get to build the
bookshelves,” he asked with a gleam in his eye. He loved the idea of working with his hands and helping her in the process.

“Well, I was going to buy cheap ones, but sure! I’ll take all the help I can
get!” She waited a moment. “I’ll even see if I can come up with some way to……compensate you for your time.”

He grinned. “Do I get compensation for offering?”

She kissed him. “Will that work?”

He stood and led her into the bedroom. “It’s certainly a good start!”

*****

They found the site she wanted to use for her bookstore the following day,
and she gave notice on Monday morning. She was thrilled. The next few weeks were full of preparations for the book store. They decided to open on June first, which meant a lot of work had to be done in the meantime.

They took the second weekend of May to go to the lake. The relaxation
and just plain time away from life was refreshing. They left on Friday morning and the plan was to return on Monday evening. They went to a cabin on Lake Fork about a two and a half hour drive from Arlington.

On Saturday morning, after a good breakfast, Rose finally broached the
subject that she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind. “I want to talk to you about something, Alex.”

He looked up from the book he’d been reading while she showered.
“What’s that?”

She took a deep breath. “I talked to Sarah about the picture that I found in
your night stand. She told me about Jill.”

A shuttered look fell over Alex’s face. “What about her?”

“I want to know if you’re still in love with her. If you are, I don’t see how we can make our marriage work,” she said honestly. She’d thought long and hard about how she was going to bring this up, and had decided that the direct approach, while more painful at times, was the best approach in this case.

Alex sighed. “No, I’m not still in love with her. She’s been dead for two
years, and I’d just like her to stay that way.”

“Will you tell me about her? Sarah gave me her opinion and her
perspective on everything that happened, but I’d love to hear it all from you. You knew her best.” Rose knew that now that he was starting to talk about it, she needed to press the subject until they got it all out in the open. He laughed at that. “I thought I knew her best. Sarah and Mom both thought I was nuts to want to marry her. They kept telling me that she was a self-centered witch, but I just didn’t see it. Not at first. It just kept making me angrier and angrier that they were so against her.”

She frowned. “What happened to make you think they were right?”

He shrugged. “It was never one big thing, more like a lot of little things.

She always acted like my opinions were important to her, but when we
made a decision together regarding the wedding she would go behind my back and change it. She wouldn’t let Sarah be in the wedding, which I really wanted, but then finally, when she found out that Sarah would be showing a great deal at the time of the wedding, she asked Sarah to be in it. One of her other friends was extremely overweight, and lost over fifty pounds. Jill picked a fight with her and took her out of the wedding party.”

Rose looked at him contemplatively. “She sounds interesting.” She had
known most of this from Sarah, but was glad to hear that he had seen it for what it was.

Alex grinned. “That is a huge understatement.” He sat looking down at the
paper for a minute. “I thought about breaking it off, but felt like being engaged was a commitment. I didn’t want to back out. Then I found out she was sleeping with a friend of mine. Well, a former friend. He came to me and told me he was in love with her and she was afraid to break it off with me. When I confronted her, she admitted it, but said it had all been a mistake. He’d pressured her into bed with him.”

Rose shook her head. “I see. Did you believe her?”

“I’d already noticed too many weird things about her story to believe her. I told her that I was done with her. She took off. Three hours later I got a call that she’d been killed in car crash. Hit head on by a drunk driver.

Apparently, she’d left my place, and gone straight to a bar. She was hit on
her way home. Her alcohol content was just barely under the legal limit. I don’t know if she’d have been able to stop if she hadn’t been drinking.”

Rose sat thinking for a minute. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

“Why would I tell you about her? She’s been gone from my life for two years. No one knew that we’d broken it off before the wreck, so I played the grieving fiancé. I had no desire to date again for a while. I wanted nothing to do with another woman who could mess with my mind the way she had,” he said.

“Sarah thought you were grieving and hadn’t been able to see past that to
anyone else.”

He laughed. “I did grieve for the life I thought I’d have with her. I thought
I’d found the perfect woman.” He knew he’d found the perfect woman now. Well, perfect for him, anyway.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” she said. She walked over to sit beside
him on the couch, and stroked his arm.

He turned to her. “I’ve never told anyone the full truth of what happened
between us. I just didn’t feel like I wanted to dredge all that up again.”

She sat thinking about all he’d said for a minute. “Why did you still have
her picture?”

“Every time I met a girl that I thought I wanted to start a relationship with, I’d
get out her picture and look at it. It was my way of reminding myself what I didn’t want from life. I don’t want a Jill in my life.” He ran his fingers along her jaw. “I want a Rose in my life. I want someone who will give of herself and truly care about me.”

She turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand. “I can’t think of
anyone I’d rather spend my life with.”

He lowered his head and kissed her. “I thought that I was in love with
Jill right up until a couple of months ago. And then I met this girl in a laundromat and knew almost immediately what love really feels like. What I felt for Jill was lust. I was in thrall of her beauty. But you, Rose, you turned my world upside down when you helped me sort my laundry and told me that you wouldn’t have sex before marriage.”

She smiled, her whole face lighting up. “I love you, too. I knew after our
first date that I loved you. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise.”

He pulled her close and hugged her tightly. “I need you in my life. I’m
sorry that I made you feel like I was still in love with Jill.”

“No need to apologize. I understand why you didn’t want to talk about it.
Please try not to shut me out about things like that again. I’m confident, but even I’m not that confident.” She snuggled into him. “I do have one more thing to talk about.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I saw the doctor Thursday morning. The first of five will be born in about eight months,” she grinned. She had wanted all to be right between them before she told him. This seemed the perfect time.

“Seriously? That was fast! Should you be doing all the work you’re doing
for the book store then? Should we put that off?” he asked.

“I’m doing some interviewing this week for a couple of employees. With
help, I’ll be able to go to the doctor whenever I need to. All will be good. Of course, you’ll have to give up your office, and let me turn it into a nursery,” she said with a grin.

“I can handle that. Just so you and the baby are healthy.”

Epilogue

Rose looked around the store with a stunned expression on her face. It
was packed. She hadn’t expected an opening anywhere close to this one.

She’d decided to do have her grand opening on a Saturday, when she
would have the most potential for traffic.

Both of her employees were working today and Alex was helping out as
well. It was taking all four of them to cover all the customers swarming through her store. She’d decided to specialize in the two genres that she was most familiar with, romance and science fiction. She’d deliberately marketed to those two segments. Obviously it had worked.