The Last Bride (DiCarlo Brides #6) (39 page)

But Gage couldn’t stop wondering whether or not Jonquil would ever speak to him again.

It had been two and a half days since Gage had seen or spoken to Jonquil. He’d called and she hadn’t answered, texting back instead that she was busy. He ached, just thinking that she might have decided she was wrong about him, but determined to give her a few days’ space to figure things out—he certainly needed it. Even if she had answered, he really didn’t know what he would have said.

And the mountain bike festival kept him hopping from sunup to sundown. He hoped to see her there, but though she checked in, he only caught a glimpse of her one afternoon, and then nothing. He wasn’t sure it had even been her he’d seen.

After leaving the resort, he headed to his mom’s house to check on things. The plants would need watering and he needed to make sure the lawn was being mowed. He didn’t know what to do or think about Natalie. She had admitted to everything and would see a lot of jail time, though she intended to get a lawyer to fight it. Of course.

Gage wasn’t even sure how to feel about it except that he was numb. Numb from the loss of his mother, his sister, his illusions, from the fact that Jonquil had decided her life was better off without him. Apparently. All he knew was that his life wasn’t better without her. He missed her.

But she was right; he’d decided he’d be better off alone, hadn’t he? That women would be better off if he stayed alone? He stopped and pulled some dead leaves from one of his mother’s many, many plants and added water to the pot, then continued on, stopping in front of a portrait of their family, taken when he had only been four or five and Natalie had been a toddler.

The faces smiled and his father’s arm was around his mother’s shoulders, but it was a lie. They hadn’t been happy and in love, the happy faces hadn’t smiled like that very often, and certainly not with the same feel to them. He studied his father’s face, picking out the features that they shared.

The high brow, the line of his nose, the set of his jaw. His father hadn’t been intentionally cruel, but he’d been hard and demanding, certain he knew more about what was good for his kids than his kids would ever be able to figure out for themselves. Like George DiCarlo had been with his daughters.

Gage’s brain stopped, caught on that thought. “Like George.” Had that been why Gage didn’t care much for the man, why he’d been so against getting to know Jonquil, giving into his own attraction to her? Had he been fighting because he thought George had been overbearing like his own old man?

Gage walked away a little dazed. Did he really care if George wanted something or not, or what anyone else thought? He missed Jonquil, missed her smile, missed her curls, her laugh, the way she made his house feel like a home. He missed their conversations and arguments about sports, the way she was nearly fearless. The way she made him feel better about himself, more whole. More like he belonged.

He slumped into the nearby couch. He loved Jonquil.

He
loved
Jonquil.

And he kept saying that he wasn’t going to marry her, that they couldn’t be anything serious, insinuating that she was not important enough to be a permanent part of his life.

He dropped the watering can next to the sofa, allowing a little to slosh over the edge and onto the deep-pile carpets. He rushed from the room.

He had to see her.

The world must have been conspiring against Gage. He went to Jonquil’s house, but if anyone was there, they didn’t answer when he knocked. He went to the hotel, but when he check at the floral center it was locked up and the ladies at the front desk said she’d checked out over an hour earlier.

Gage called Jonquil’s phone, but she didn’t answer. He called Cami, but she hadn’t seen Jonquil. He called Delphi. No luck. He called the theater where Angela worked, but the guy at the door said she hadn’t been by. He was starting to get anxious when he dialed Rosemary’s number. When he called Sage and even
she
didn’t know anything, Gage wondered if Jonquil was in trouble or was she just ignoring him? Where else could she be?

Really worried now, he drove up his street, thinking he might have to call out the cavalry—then he found her car parked in front of his house. His heart calmed, but a new kind of anxiety took over.

Jonquil stood from the front steps where she had been sitting in the fading sunlight when he came to a stop in his driveway instead of pulling into the garage. Her hair fell down her back in a wave of blond curls, she stuffed her hands in her jeans, her snug peach tee showing every curve. He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and just hold her.

He got out of his car and circled the front. “I’ve been looking for you, calling around to your sisters.”

“I’ve been here for more than an hour.”

“Really?” Somehow he was still anxious, even with her standing before him, looking like sunshine. “I tried calling you.”

Jonquil smiled. “I guess I left the phone in my car. Sorry about that. I wondered how you were doing. I asked Cami but she said I should ask you myself.” Her lips quirked a little at the corners.

“Good advice. Want to come in?” Gage gestured to the front door.

She shook her head. “How about if we stay out instead? It might be easier.”

He nodded, understanding. “It’s hard for you to be in there after what Natalie did.”

“That’s part of it.”

She wants an easy escape when she’s done with me.
The thought made panic rise inside his chest—would she never be comfortable in his place again? Would it matter if she was ending it for real today? “Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said last time you were here. About how I’ve been pushing you away. About how I didn’t know what I wanted or maybe I wasn’t man enough to take that step.”

“I never said that.” She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering slightly in the cool of the mountain evening.

“You didn’t have to say it. I think there was plenty of subtext in that conversation. I’m not good with that stuff usually, but I’ve had enough time to pick up some of it. And I’ve thought that conversation through a few dozen times in the past three days.”

She nodded slightly, the last rays of the sun fell on her head, turning it to spun gold. “So what did you figure out while you were thinking?”

“I took a walk through my mom’s place today, watering plants. And I realized why I fought against my feelings for you for so long.” He gestured to the steps, wishing there was a bench or something. “You want to sit for a minute?”

She took the top stair, watching him but not speaking.

Gage used the moment to gather his thoughts. He hadn’t really considered what he would say, just run headlong out to find her. “I guess you figured out from my chat with Natalie that my relationship with my father was not great.” She nodded and he continued, “He was bossy and overbearing, telling me how to run my life. I put up with a lot of it, trying to please him, so he would be proud of me. I had no idea he had been proud of me—not until Natalie said so. And Mom was difficult as well, in a different way. I always felt like someone was telling me how I should live.”

“I get that.”

When she didn’t say more, he pushed himself again. “Your dad was smart, knowledgeable, and very sure of himself. Somewhere in my head when he pulled me aside and said he had just the girl for me, I associated him with my father. He had plans, expectations, unreasonable ones, I thought, and I felt an instant need to push against his authority. I was determined not to meet you, fall for you or do anything that would make you happy the way he wanted.”

He paused to wipe at the tears that trailed down her left cheek. “I’m kind of an idiot.”

She smiled, laughing lightly. “Yeah, you kind of are.”

“I kind of hate that your dad was right about us.”

Her smile grew. “You wouldn’t be the first of the group to feel that way.”

“Forgive me?”

“I might be able to do that.”

“I love you, too.” He held his breath. Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything so he continued, “I know I don’t deserve you and you probably don’t want to live in this house, but I can build again, design something you’ll love. I just don’t want to have to live without you. You make everything seem so much better, brighter. I want to marry you and have some kids to raise here in my hometown with my friends and your sisters in running distance and—”

Gage didn’t get any further because she threw her arms around him, nearly toppling them both from the steps as she kissed him long and hard. “Yes. When you have a ring for me, I’ll say yes. Just don’t make me wait for long, okay?” She kissed him again, holding him near. He pulled her up to sit on his lap. This was where he belonged, with her, in her arms.

“So, do you need me to design us a new house?” he asked.

She paused to consider. “No, I’ll adjust. I have many more good memories in this house than bad ones. We’ll stay here and grow old together. You and me on the back porch with the sunset settling over the grandkids playing on the grass.” A smile teased her lips as if she could already see it in her head.

Though he’d never imagined a future like that before, at that moment, it seemed as perfect as could be.

The sun was out, the birds sang in the trees and Jonquil was running behind. She checked her watch, hoping everyone else wasn’t already there. They probably were—it seemed like everyone else was habitually early and the past few days she’d been running behind all of the time. She admired the square-cut diamond Gage had bought her the day after they worked out their problems, and smiled.

“Hurry, Gage,” she called from the front steps where she was waiting to go to work. He came down the stairs in his black dress pants and a green blue polo that stretched across his shoulders so perfectly it made her want to kiss him good morning. Again—and just as thoroughly as she had when she’d arrived to pick him up.

“You’re so impatient.”

“You know Delphi has a clock built into the back of her mind. She’ll probably know to the second exactly how late we are.”

“Unless Jeremy kept her up late last night finalizing wedding details.” Gage grabbed a bagel from the bag on the kitchen counter and followed her outside. “Only five more weeks. She reminded us when we went over there for poker night.”

“You and all of the current and future sons-in-law?” She’d gotten a kick out of learning that’s what the guys had been calling themselves for the past year.

“Not too future.” He took her hand and turned her engagement ring so it caught the sunlight. Their wedding would be only three weeks after Delphi and Jeremy’s. She couldn’t wait.

They climbed into the car and headed for the hotel. Jonquil could see—even before pulling into the parking lot—that most everyone else was already there.

Nearly a dozen people milled on the south lawn of the hotel, a buffet table holding champagne bottles in silver bowls sat on top along with a dozen flutes. She felt a little pang of sadness that Angela had already gone back to school—once they got past all of the weird childhood garbage they’d both been carrying around, it had been great to be able to spend the summer together.