Sweet Caroline (31 page)

“How are you two tonight?” His smile is slow, but sincere.

The large-bosomed woman arches her back so her exposed cleavage is right under Mitch’s nose. “I’m wonderful. How are you?”

Ho, boy.
If Mitch has this coming at him all the time, no wonder he strayed over the yellow line. But he barely seems to notice this woman and her two “friends.”

“Thank you, ladies. Have a good night.” He takes me by the arm and steers me toward the door.

“I think they wanted more than an autograph, Mitch.”

“Those kind always do.”

I snicker, and he breaks into a soft chuckle, steering us to the river-walk where the wind off the water presses against us in tender, cold gusts. “When do you leave?”

“January, I think.”

He leans against the cement pylon and faces me, tucking his hands into his jeans’ pockets and hunching his shoulders against the cold. “Are you sure? Don’t you want to stay in Beaufort? The Café is doing well. You have family and friends. A church.”

“Am I sure? Are you not the one who was singing the ‘amazing opportunity’ song a few days ago? Mitch, the Café will be in much better hands. The staff will have benefits as part of Buzz Boys, Inc. Paid vacations, insurance, even bonuses. I’ve signed papers, accepted Carlos’s offer . . . Yes, done deal.” I shiver in the damp, chilled air. I left my jacket in Elle’s car. “The building inspector came on Friday.”

“Caroline, all that ‘amazing opportunity’ stuff I said? Bull. Don’t sell. Keep the Café. Stay here.” The words come clipped and fast and drizzle me with a sense of desperation.

“Keep the—Why? And what do you mean ‘bull’?” I stand back away from him. “What would you have me do? Grow old and alone like Jones? Be married to that old run-down money pit? Or, hey, here’s an idea. Let’s get married. You and me. You could live in Nashville, and I’ll live here. How’d that be? Hmm?”

“Fine, but I’d prefer to live here. With you.”

Heart: What’d he say?

Head: Live here.

Heart: Ears, is that right?

Ears: 10-4

Heart: Head, have mouth ask him again.

Head: I’ll try, but mouth has a mind of its own.

“Live where? Beaufort?”

He shrugs. “Times have changed. I can commute to Nashville. I’d prefer it.”

I laugh, wagging my finger at him. “Okay, I see what you’re doing. Messing with me, right. You . . . you’re funny. Mitch, I’m joking. Marriage. Ha-ha, good one, Caroline. You’re joking too, right?”

“No.” He pulls his hand from his pocket and pops open a small box. “I’m not kidding.”

I blink. “Is that a ring?” A large, square diamond glimmers in the waterfront’s light. “Mitch . . .”

“Marry me, Caroline.”

The statement electrifies the hairs on the back of my neck. “Marry you?”

“I love you.” His velvety confession suspends all doubts. “Very much.”

“You want to marry me? For sure? No ‘Say it now, forget about it later’?”

“Yes, I want to marry you. Now. Forever.” His cocky, yet endearing smile beams. “I didn’t want to even hint at this until I had the ring. I wanted to surprise you.”

“I-I’m stunned. Mitch, really? M-marry you?”

I-I can’t
. . . Do I love him? In a flash, I compare my heart for Mitch to what I felt for J. D.
Oh, yes, I love Mitch
. Marry him?
Oh, yes.

I throw myself against him. “I love you, Mitch. Yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”

Our first kiss in many years is deep and tender, passionate with years of love and friendship. I can hear his heart thunder. “Caroline.” He reaches to slip the ring on my finger.

Wait
. I back away, the heat of his lips still on my mine. The cool platinum ring lightly touches my finger. “I accepted the job with SRG.”

“Can’t you call back, turn it down?”

“Call Carlos back? And say what, Mitch? Oops—never mind, my high school boyfriend finally coughed up a ring?”

He drops his hand, cupping the ring. “That’s not fair, Caroline.”

“For you? Or me? Mitch, I gave my word. Of all people, you were the one cheering me on.”

“Of all people, I thought you wanted to be with me.”

“I did . . . I do. But not now.” I step into him, grabbing his shirt. “I told Carlos yes. He held the position open for me, Mitch. He could’ve hired someone else when I had to take the Café, but he wanted to give me a try. Hazel went out on a limb . . . ”

“Well, then, forgive me. You absolutely should take the job with SRG.” He tucks the ring into his pocket. “What’s a lifetime of love and commitment compared to a year with the Latin Donald Trump and fifteen-hour workdays?”

The muscles along the back of my neck twist, sending a sharp pain over my scalp. “Don’t you dare, Mitch O’Neal. Don’t you dare. Not after you walked away from me for your career.”

“And I was a fool to do it. Learn from me.”

My knees buckle when I look into his eyes. “Learn what? That you followed your heart and ended up with a stellar career? That you lived a dream life? Are the envy of men, the adoration of women?”

“No, that love cannot be replaced with fame, money, careers, or amazing job opportunities. Caroline, I love you. Carlos is a businessman who sees you as cheap labor.”

“And what do you see me as? Easy lover. Poor Caroline, waiting at home for Mitch to return on his white steed?” A sour word spews between my lips. “Well, not this time, Mitch. I won’t do . . . do what . . . what everyone . . . ” The expression in his eyes dissolves every irate fiber of my being. “Everyone else . . . wants. Expects . . . Now’s my chance to . . . explore . . . life. Be free.”

“Am I offering bondage?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, in so many words.” Mitch walks off, disappearing behind the curtain of night beyond the waterfront lamps.

“Where are you going?”

“Sooner or later, Caroline,” his voice comes from the shadows, “we have to move on. Maybe we just weren’t meant to be. I want to get mar-ried, settle down, have a family.”

“Family?” A trigger word for me. I’d love to have my own family.

What am I thinking? Do I want the Barcelona job
that
bad? It’s a stupid line in the sand. One crash of a wave, and it washes away. Mitch loves me. He’s here, he’s now and he’s right—Barcelona is only for a sea-son, but marriage is for life.

His steps scuffle back toward me, then stop. “Are you ready to go home? My truck is that way.”

Loneliness explodes in my chest. In a hair’s breadth, my future with-out hope of him plays across my mind’s eye.

“Please ask me again.” My ears drum with panic.

Mitch appears, half in the shadow, half in the light. “You don’t mean it.”

“Now you’re telling me what I mean?” I can’t stop shaking.

“You’ll resent me.”

“Only if you don’t ask me again.” Gripping my hands at my waist, I fight the trembling, warding off the fear that I almost lost the love of my life.

Mitch strides toward me, his eyes locked on my face. I think.
Drat
the darkness
. Then, I see his smile. “Are you sure?”

“Will you ask me already?”

My man slips his arm around my back and tugs me close. Versace perfumes the air between us. “Caroline, will you marry me?”

I press my lips to his, then breathe out, “Yes, Mitch, yes. I’ll marry you.”

“No doubts?”

“None.”

He scoops me up with a shout and whirls me around. When he sets me down, he traps me against a pylon so I can’t escape.

“I’m going to love you like no one’s loved you.”

I loop my arms around his neck. “It’s always been you, Mitch. I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“I’m in it for real, Caroline. No record deal—I just signed a new one, by the way—can keep me from you. No world tours, no promise of fame or riches.”

“Good, because I might just have to hunt you down and—”

He cuts me off with a kiss.
Oh, I see how it’s going to be.

To: CSweeney

From: Hazel Palmer

Subject: I’m stunned, but so very excited

Caroline,

Finally, you said yes. I can’t believe it. To be honest, I was convinced
something at home would come up to keep you from coming. But you
proved me wrong. I actually did a jig in my office when Carlos told
me. After he left, of course, and I closed the door.

I can’t wait to see you. We are going to have a blast. Listen, we
charge all travel and moving expenses to our corp AmEx, so e-mail
me when you know your travel/moving day. Then I’ll book the com-pany
villa on the Mediterranean for a few days.

Carlos is amazing, but he’ll work you hard Monday through
Friday. You are so very lucky.

Also, I looked at some apartments for you (see attached) think-ing
you’d rather live on your own. I keep very weird hours. And I’m
a slob at home. Anal neat freak at work, but no time for it at home.
Thank heaven for maid services.

Can’t wait to see you.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Love, Hazel

CFO, SRG International, Barcelona

Monday morning. 8:02. The breakfast-club boys slide into their booth as I set down their coffee cups. Pastor Winnie waves his hands in front of his eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, what is going on here? I’m blinded. Caroline, your finger . . . Heaven and all the angels, girl, you done got yourself engaged?”

“She sure enough did, Winnie.” Mercy Bea says as she hurries past.

I’m exhausted from being up all night talking to Mitch, Daddy, and Posey, then collapsing into a not-so-deep sleep in my old room out-fitted with Posey’s new guest-bedroom furniture. Was it excitement, nerves, too much caffeine? I couldn’t sleep. I watched each wee morning hour tick away.

Dupree picks up my left hand and examines Mitch’s ring at close range. “Flawless?”

I take my hand away. “You think I asked?”

He dumps a creamer in his coffee. “At least three karats too.”

Pastor Winnie spreads butter on his biscuit. “A man like Mitch ought to be able to afford a nice piece of a ‘girl’s best friend.’”

The tip of my thumb touches the shank of the ring. “Mitch is my best friend.”

“Well, he’s given you another.” Pastor Winnie chuckles and shakes his head with a
tsk
,
tsk
.

“What happened to the job? Madrid, was it?” Dupree asks.

I don’t know . . .
“Barcelona.” I hurry off for their breakfast.

But just beyond the kitchen door, Luke catches me by the elbow and railroads me toward my office.

“What happened?” Luke eases the door closed. “You were smiling wider than the Broad River when you told us about accepting the Barcelona job.”

I’ve seen Luke on a near-daily basis for over two years, but never with the expression he’s giving me now.

“I love Mitch, Luke. Always have, and I want to marry him.”

“Suddenly this love between you has a time limit? Seems to me he could wait until after Barcelona.

“Marriage is forever. Why eat up Carlos Longoria’s time, and take an opportunity away from someone else, when at the end of my year there I’ll come home to marry Mitch?”

He grunts. “Waste of God’s good potential.”

A cold sensation runs through my insides. “What does that mean? Marriage is what makes the world go ’round, Luke.”

“You never even tried, Caroline.” He props his hands on the desk’s edge, the skin around his eyes crinkled with wisdom lines. “If Mitch really loved you, he’d back off, encourage you to move to Barcelona. Carlos Longoria is a businessman. He’ll understand investing time in you for only a season. Believe me, he’ll get his money’s worth out of you.”

Unable to look Luke in the eye, I focus on the basket of paid bills. For the first time in months, the paid pile is higher than the unpaid. “If I go, I’m afraid it’ll be the end of Mitch and me, forever.”

“Well,” Luke exhales, his voice soft, “marrying a man out of desperation is the best reason, I suppose.”

My gaze shifts to his face. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Then what are you saying?”

Walking toward me, Elle smiles. Her gallery is lit with spotlights over her latest paintings. The one of me reclining in
Bluecloud
is a dreamy framed watercolor.

“Five hundred dollars.” I blink to see if my blurry vision added a zero.

“Shh, keep your voice down. This isn’t the flea market.” Elle pinches my arm with a nod at browsing art enthusiasts.

“You’re going to sell my face for five hundred dollars?” I whisper this time, but skirt the edge of loud.

“Sold one of my niece, Rio, last month for twice the amount.”

“Then why am I only five hundred?” Astonishment to insult in under ten seconds.

“Stop already.” Elle picks up my engagement hand. “I still can’t believe it. Engaged. To Mitch. Oh, girl. We are going to have some fun planning this one. I’ll be your photographer, of course, as well as maid of honor, right?” Her eyes twinkle.

“Of course.” At this rate, all I’ll have to do is show up.

“Have you picked a date yet?”

“No, still enjoying being engaged.” I glance over at Mitch. He’s on the other side of the gallery, head bent as he listens to a rich-looking tanned man wearing shorts and a Polo—collar flipped up. As if sensing me, Mitch looks up, catches my eye, and winks.

And what I feel terrifies me.

“Caroline?” Elle nudges me. “Did you hear me?”

Forcing a smile, I answer, “No, what?”

“I asked if you wanted Mom to come with us to shop for wedding dresses. She’d love to help. Besides, the woman has five daughters, three married. She’s a pro.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

“So, any word from Hazel? How’d she take the engagement news?” Elle straightens one of her wall portraits.

“She said, well—”

“Excuse me, Miss Garvey,” A slender brunette with sun-lined cheeks steps into our conversation. “I’d like to talk about this piece over here.”

Elle excuses herself and walks off to make a sale.

I haven’t told Hazel, yet.

Mitch joins me after a moment, slipping his hand along my shoul-ders. “Want to grab some dinner?”