Page 89 of Undeniably Perfect

I chuckle and squeeze her against me as I crush my lips to hers.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kent

I can’t believe it’s been a month since the gala, a month of nights with Tabby. I can’t get enough of her. She even talked me into getting my first tattoo in honor of the World Series win. Then she talked all the Moores into getting a special “M” tattoo. She’s changing me, a little step at a time, every day, she’s making me a better person. It’s off-season now, so we’ve spent an insane amount of time together. We’ve visited our family beach house on the shore. I find out more and more about her every day. She keeps teasing me that she has more layers than a Smith Island Cake.

We just got back from our week vacation and now it’s time to show her my secret project that I started over a month ago. I had to call in a lot of favors to get it done so quickly, thankfully I’m friendly with the permit office for the county. I walk up behind her while she’s washing dishes at the kitchen sink, and I wrap my arms around her, breathing in her scent.

“I have something to show you.”

“OK…” she says as she turns and raises an eyebrow.

I grab her hand and take her to the car. We get in and instead of backing out of the driveway, I pull off into the side yard.

Tabby screeches. “What are you doing?”

I laugh as I drive along the side of my property and onto the small acreage behind me that I purchased from Mr. Hannum’s orchard.

“Where are we going?” she laughs as the car bounces along the trail.

As we come out of the woods, there’s a small clearing at the top of a hill overlooking the apple orchard. And sitting on the edge of the hill is the studio that I have had built for her from an old barn on the property.

I park the car, and we get out.

“What is this?”

I smile as I hold out my hand. “Come see.”

We walk slowly up a gravel lane that comes off the orchard drive, where guests can park and pick their own apples.

I open the door, and she follows me inside. From the outside, the structure looks like a barn, but inside skylights let in natural light. There’s a loft over half of the building and the other is open to old beams of the roof. One whole wall is covered in giant windows that look out over the orchard. There is a bathroom and a dark room and an office.

“It’s your new studio,” I announce with a wave of my hands.

“It’s what?” she asks, her eyes growing wide.

“I had it built for you.”

She turns to me, clearly waiting for a punch line.

“I. Had. It. Built. For. You,” I enunciate.

“Kent, don’t be ridiculous. People don’t just go and build other people whole buildings.”

I grin. “Well, this person did.”

She slowly looks around. I had Lyla help me decorate.

She freezes when she sees a photo I had hung above her desk. It’s surrounded by a few other shots I took of her with my family. I had seen her admiring my mom’s wall of photos and wanted to give her one. She walks toward the open door and stares at the photo of us. It’s a candid silly shot she took that day we met. A selfie of us. I had asked if the photographer ever is photographed, so she turned around and snapped a photo of us. We’re both grinning and looking completely happy. The photo makes me a little sad, knowing what is to come after that moment, but it also is the reason we are here now.

She turns back to me. “You did this?”

I nod. “For you.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “But…why?”

I smile at her and cradle her face in my hands. “Because I want you to have the best. You deserve your own studio. Mr. Hannum has been trying to sell me some of this back acreage for years, but I never had a reason…until now.”

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