Page 65 of Every Rose

Daphne dried her hands and was already walking to the front door when the doorbell rang.

Rose peeked out the window, and her heart began to stutter. She knew that truck.

Sure enough, in much less time than she needed to prepare herself to see Matt, he was inside the house, talking to her mom, asking after Jack.

Marguerite nudged her. “Go on, go talk to him.”

She wiped her own hands, pulled in a breath and walked out to find Matt patting Lucky. He looked like he’d been gardening, or cleaning out the garage or something. He had dust on his jeans and an old plaid shirt on.

She didn’t care. She wanted to throw herself in his arms, dust and all. Instead, she said, “Matt. What a surprise.”

When he glanced at her she felt a week of misery intensify into one painful stab. How could he not love her? How could he not see how much she loved him?

He didn’t look like he’d been getting a lot of sleep, but that probably only meant he’d been on call all week.

He straightened. “Rose, would you like to take a walk?”

“Um, sure. Let me grab my shoes.”

She was so flustered she couldn’t remember where she’d left her shoes, or what shoes she’d been wearing, so she stuffed her feet into purple plastic Crocs that she thought might belong to her mother. He opened the front door and she followed him out. “This is a gorgeous property,” he said.

“We like it. I’ll take you out by the pond, there’s a nice walking trail.”

Vigorous scratching could be heard on the door behind them and she realized that Lucky was not in a mood to be tactful. “Mind if the dog comes?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She opened the door and Lucky bounded out, looking like she’d been let out of prison. She frisked, and bounded, found one of her million tennis balls and picked it up, threw it in the air, and then dropped it at Matt’s feet.

“She’s flirting with you,” Rose told him.

“Glad someone is,” he replied, then bent, picked up the ball and hurled it. Lucky took off at a gallop.

She ignored the comment, but her heart was thudding.

“Your mom says your dad’s doing really well.”

“He is.” She led him down the path. Ahead of them, the dog had found the ball, or maybe another ball which would be good enough for her, and was already turning to head back toward them. “Did you come to check on my dad?”

He turned. “No. I came to check on you. There are some things I want to say.” He stepped closer, and a yellow ball thwacked his foot, accompanied by a canine whine. He glanced down. “Lucky, you are really cramping my style here.” The dog grinned and wagged her tail and once more Matt threw the ball, this time putting every bit of muscle into it so the dog had a lot farther to go.

He turned back. He looked so good. She didn’t care that he needed a shave or that the best use of that shirt would be to buff furniture.

“I need to ask you something, something I should have asked a week ago. Are you planning to marry Peter Buckingham?”

“No.”

His eyes closed briefly. “I am such an idiot.”

“Yes. But so was I. I should have told you. I thought you’d ask. I wanted you to.” She shook her head. “No, the truth is, I wanted you to fight for me.”

“But you’d gone on about him and it was obvious that you regretted the end of the relationship. I figured he was everything you wanted.”

“A year ago, I’d have agreed with you.” She’d had some time to think this through. She glanced around at the green, leafy trees and the pond where Lucky was wading for the ball. “I never thought I belonged here. I believed all the fairy tales. I was that princess dropped in the wrong family. And when Peter came along, I felt like he was there to claim me, to take me to the world where I did belong. When he proposed I had a moment. A total fantasy, fairy-tale ending moment. But when you close the book, or the movie ends, the fantasy’s over and you go back to real life.

“Peter was a fantasy for me. I never loved him. I loved the idea of him. When I thought about marrying him, all I could think about was how much I couldn’t lose you.” She gazed into his eyes, and saw deep understanding there. “Because you are my reality.”

He seemed pretty happy with her answer. She waited for him to kiss her, for everything to go back to normal, but he said, “I don’t want to push things here, but is there any chance you might one day love me?”

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