A Boy Worth Choosing (The Worthy Series Book 2) (12 page)

“I’m going to need a personal yogi if we keep this up.” She smiles a lazy smile at me, as if she’s reading my mind. But she stays right where she’s at.

I imagine her at a yoga class, which is clearly the wrong thing to do. I shake the thought away quickly and stand up to leave.

“I should probably go.”

I can’t help the throaty sound of my voice, but it is definitely having an impact on her. She takes a step toward the breakfast bar that separates her kitchen and living room, effectively blocking the space between us.

“Do you think your hearing will be done early enough to do dinner tomorrow? I’ll cook. Anything you want.”

How can such an innocent statement sound so tempting? I seriously need to get out of here. And to take a cold shower.

“Sounds like a date.” I reach of the door but realize I don’t want to leave without one last taste of her.

She must have the same thought because by the time I turn around, she’s rushing around the bar towards me. She pins me to the door by her momentum and it’s like we were never interrupted. Hands searching and lips yearning, pressed into one another, the chemistry between us ignites the air and steals the breath out of us both.

All too soon, Jessie lets go and steps back, covering her mouth with one hand and flattening the other on her stomach, holding herself back. She pulls the one over her mouth down and folds it with the other in front of her, giving me as innocent a smile as she can muster given the circumstances.

“Good night, love,” she says sweetly as I open the door behind me.

“Good night.” I close the door behind me before I come up with another excuse to get tangled up in her and step out into the cool night air.

Dear God, please give me the strength to hold my ground and do what is right by her. Oh, and please let this be a short engagement.

Chapter Thirteen

~Jessie~

I’m a little excited to talk to Daphne. Okay, more than a little. More like so excited that I get to the office an hour before I know she’s going to be there. I sip a soy latte as I sit at my desk searching dresses, opting for a healthier coffee since I now need to make sure I can fit into what I want.

What I want. That is somewhat of a new concept. I hadn’t realized how much of a say Jake had in the preparations of that wedding until now. I have free reign over everything I choose. Of course, I’m going to want Stephen’s opinions…but he said I could have whatever I want and that makes me happy to no end.

I start to think of when we should have the wedding and memories from last night flood my mind. I can still feel the heat of his hands on my back and the whisper of his breath on my neck. The clink of Daphne’s keys on the front door pull me out of my trance and I close my laptop, preparing to drop the news on her. The sooner we get married, though, the better.

“Well aren’t you just a ray of sunshine this mornin’?” she asks, taking in my white cropped pants and mint sleeveless blouse, holding my hands behind my back. I picked out some fun sandals and had repainted my toenails to get in the summer groove.

“Cute sandals. Feeling a little giddy today it seems. Wait…what’s up?” she looks at me cautiously.

I purposefully use my left hand to pull a strand of hair out of my face and my dear friend doesn’t miss a beat.

“OH MY GOODNESS!! Ahhhh!!” she screams, jumping up and down. “You’re getting married!! He asked you to marry him. You’re getting married!!” She repeats herself several more times and the only response I can get in edgewise is to giggle and squeal along with her.  When she finally does calm down, she pulls my left hand out and completes a thorough inspection of my mother’s ring. My ring.

“Oh, darlin’. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect one for you,” she raves.

“It was actually my mother’s ring.”

Her head jerks up so fast I’m afraid she might have snapped her neck. Her eyes bore into me with understanding.

“Wow. Your daddy….wow. Jessie, that’s…wow.” I smile at her inability to complete a thought.

“I know. I couldn’t believe Dad gave it to him, but he said it just felt right to do so. He had it for a month!”

She blurts out a full on belly laugh. I have tried very hard not to complain to her about his not asking for the last few weeks, but every once in a while she would make me, just to get it off my chest. She told me the same thing every time, “Give him time. It will happen.” And she was right.

She beams at me now, totally thrilled for me.

“So I have a question for you. Will you be my—“

“YES! Yes! I’ll be your maid of honor,” she exclaims, pulling me into a tight hug, before I even have a chance to finish asking.

We giggle and cry a little bit until we’re joined by Jason, who I’m pretty sure we totally alienate with our emotionally charged girly moment. He takes it in stride though and gives us a wide berth. Just about the time we get calmed down, Shelby walks in and starts jumping up and down and doing a happy dance with us. The boys just watch from the safety of their offices.

“Um, ladies. I hate to break up the rejoicing that is going on over here, but we do have a Monday meeting and we do need to get started,” Isaiah, ever the voice of reason, tries to interrupt our celebration.

We finally stop with the jumping, but as everyone starts to dissipate to prepare for the meeting, I find I can’t really move from my spot in the lobby. Daphne grabs her notebook from the desk and walks back up to me as I inspect my ring again.

“Congratulations, darlin’. I couldn’t be more happy for you right now. You’re one very lucky lady.”

“I am, aren’t I?” I say, realizing that if not for God’s great hand in my life, I could be in one of two pretty crappy relationships.

Right now, I could be married to a man who not only didn’t respect me enough to be faithful to me, but would have totally run my life, taking every decision away from me. Or I could be with another man who doesn’t respect me or the relationship I have with my Creator. Instead, I’m engaged to a man who respects that I have a mind and dreams. He respects my relationship with Jesus, knows it almost as well as I do, and doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. Well, not maliciously anyway. He wants me to be happy and loves the person I am. Yes, I’m one very lucky lady indeed.

“Come on, we have a meeting we need to get to.” Daphne takes my hand and practically drags me to the conference room.

***

A gorgeous bouquet of hydrangeas, roses and gerberas, just as beautiful as the one he got me on my birthday, and a day planner arrive via messenger late afternoon with the sweetest note ever.

To the woman who has completely captured my every thought- I meant it when I said I want you to have whatever you want. I hope this planner will help you to organize and plan out every detail you could possibly need or want for our big day. I can’t wait to be your husband.

–Forever yours, S.

P.S. thoughts of you make a court hearing both more pleasant and difficult to sit through at the same time. That takes some talent.

The sweetly-scented array permeates my office, bringing the outdoors in while I do my best to stay on task and edit photos. I’m quickly distracted though when my desk phone rings.

“This is Jessie.”

“Hey, Shaina’s on the other line. I’m gonna conference her in.” There’s a quick pause before I can stop her and a second later I hear a sniffle.

“Hey Shaina! How are you?”

“Hormonal. Ugh. I can only watch action movies, and some comedies, but everything else makes me cry.” She sniffles again and I fight back the urge to giggle at her. “What are you up to?”

“Well currently I’m trying to focus on editing instead of picking out a wedding dress.”

“Wait! What?!? Hold on.” The background noise dies and it sounds like she pauses something on TV. “Did I just hear you correctly? You’re getting married?? When were you going to tell me??”

“Whoa, calm down. Stephen asked me yesterday and I had to tell a few people before I could call. I was going to do so this afternoon actually. I was hoping you would be one of my bridesmaids actually?”

“Absolutely! Well only as long as you can wait until after I have this baby. I’m having to skip most of the fun fancy stuff lately. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to squeeze this beach ball of a belly into a ball gown lately. I haven’t been to a formal gathering in a month.”

I can just see the pout on her face at missing the opportunity to heckle Kansas City’s elite club of snobs.

“I’m sorry you’re missing out. We should do a casual girls’ night soon,” Daphne consoles her.

“Yes, because I need some help planning a wedding, and who better than the girls who threw me an explosive birthday party.” Daphne and I chuckle at my ill landing joke, while Shaina’s hormones get the best of her and nearly cause her to start a rant of all the things she would like to do in retaliation to Caleb.

“When is the big day?” Shaina asks instead.

“We haven’t really discussed it yet. But we’re having dinner tonight so hopefully we can hammer out a date then.”

“Let’s hope its sooner rather than later. I really don’t want to catch the two of you making out in your office again,” Daphne whines.

“Careful what you wish for. Once they’re married you might find them doing a little more than making out, Daph,” Shaina jokes.

“Wow. You two are just so supportive. Such great friends, really.” I feign offense.

“Well once you two decide on a date, lets plan a girls’ night. And a dress shopping trip. Oh, and a cake tasting trip…oh cake!” Shaina croons.

And just like that, the rest of my productive afternoon is lost.

***

“Mmm. It smells good in here.” Stephen lets himself in bringing another bouquet in with him.

“Wow! More flowers? Careful there, Mr. Cahill, keep spoiling me like this and I’ll come to expect flowers every day.”

He hands me the flowers and wraps an arm around my waist to pull me in for a kiss.

“I’d bring flowers home for you every day for the rest of our lives if it makes you as happy as you make me.” He kisses me again.

I can’t help the growing grin as I turn to find a vase to put the flowers in.

“It smells spicy in here. Cumin, maybe some cilantro. Mmm.” I feel him against my back before his arm snakes around me again. “Did you make enchiladas?” He growls in my ear. He pulls my ponytail away from my neck and kisses me tenderly along the collar of my apron.

“I did,” I manage to say, albeit breathlessly. He nuzzles my neck and it becomes apparent I’m going to have to ban him from the kitchen while I’m cooking, otherwise, we’ll never get to eat.

“Would you mind setting the table?” I ask, hoping to distract him. He takes his hint, but not before planting another kiss just behind my ear. I brace myself as I wait for him to move away from me so I can regain consciousness.

“So what all did you get planned today?” he asks as he lays plates on the table.

“Well I officially have a maid of honor and two bridesmaids. Is three too much? Enough?” I ask as I slice up some chives to sprinkle on top of the enchiladas. I don’t hear him come up behind me again.

“Three is perfect,” he whispers in my ear. I stop moving the knife before I accidentally slice a finger off.

“How was court today? How did the hearing go?” I ask, hoping to distract him.

“We won, actually.” He steps back, which is good, because I might have accidentally stabbed him when I turn around with too much enthusiasm for holding a knife.

“Stephen, that’s great!”

“How about you put the knife down, babe.”

I set it on the counter behind me and turn back to him. He chuckles at my exuberance and engulfs me again. Before our little celebration can grow, though, the timer goes off for me to pull the enchiladas out of the oven.

He gives me a devilish grin as we split, working harmoniously to finish setting everything out on the table and sit down to eat.

“So, I know we should have been doing this all along, but since we’re going to be eating dinner together from now on, how about I say grace?” he asks. My heart swells and I couldn’t be more excited to marry this man more than I am right now.

“Absolutely.” I grab his hand and close my eyes, unable to contain my smile from taking over my face.

“Dear Father, thank you for this meal, for the beautiful hands that prepared it. Thank you for the blessing of having her in my life and for making her my bride. Please watch over us and help us to keep you first in our lives and in our relationship with each other. Help us to remember our promise to stay pure to you. We love you and thank you for the many blessings you have provided for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

It takes me a moment to catch my breath again before I can function, but he digs right in with the appetite of a teenage boy.

“So have you thought about when you’d like to get married?” he asks slyly from his side of the table as he scoops a third of the dish onto his plate.

“How about early fall? The weather is typically really nice and we could do indoor or outdoor,” I suggest.

He stops chewing and gives me a deer-in-the-headlights look.

“2017? That sounds great. That will give you plenty of time to plan and have the wedding you want.” His enthusiasm is fake, and clearly he isn’t comfortable with my idea.

“You want to wait two years to get married?” I ask quietly, putting my fork down mid bite. He wipes his face with his napkin, noticeably stalling to choose his next words carefully.

“Well, I think that will give us plenty of time.”

“Time for what? Why do you want to wait to get married?” I’m seriously confused. Based on our make out session last night, we’d be lucky to last two months, let alone two years.

“Why do you want to get married so quickly?” he counters.

“Because I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.” My voice is so quiet and he looks like he’s going to be sick. For  a few moments I think,
great, I may have just poisoned my future husband.
“I thought that was what you wanted. It is what you’re asking, isn’t it?”

“Jessie-“

“I don’t understand. Where is this coming from, Stephen?”

He stares at his plate a moment longer before looking up at me.

“I want to give you a legitimate reason, I really do. But right now, I just feel it in my gut. I meant it when I said I want you to have everything you want for this wedding, and I want to give you all the time you need to make it perfect. It’s my intention for this to be your only wedding. And I just need some more time.”

He looks down, clearly torn. Seeing him war with himself over whether to fight me on this or not should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. We’ve played this game of hurry up and wait for so long, it’s exhausting. And infuriating.

“I still love you and I want to be married to you. You know that right?” he asks quietly, reaching across the table to rub my hand.