If the Shoe Fits (36 page)

Julianne gazed into the distance, searching, searching for some sign of Will. “It’s okay. I’ll just wait here. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“Julianne!” Alison reassured her. “You can do this. Come on. Take my hand.”

She absently allowed Alison to lead her by the wrist toward the horse while Alec steadied the step stool with his foot.

“Left foot in the stirrup,” Alison told her evenly. “Then lift your right leg over the saddle.”

She started to follow the directions, and then she paused and smiled at Alison. “I see why you’re so good with children.”

Alison chuckled. “Here. Hold the reins like this.”

It took three tries before Julianne plopped into the saddle and squealed, and she held the reins so tightly that her hands ached.

“Hi, horse. How are you? I’m Julianne. Please don’t hurt me.”

Eeyore whinnied, and Julianne screamed like a swimmer in the sights of a twelve-foot gator.

Will’s eyes had been closed for a long time up there on the ridge. On his knees under his favorite elm tree, he asked the Lord to give him wisdom and guidance, and most of all grace. He didn’t know how the situation with Julianne could possibly be resolved, but God knew. And he wanted more than anything to trust Him with it, so he laid it all at the foot of the throne and worshiped the God who turns very crooked roads like this one into straight and smooth boulevards. He gave his love for Julianne over to the Lord of the universe. Then he shifted to sit on the grass, his back pressed against the tree, and his head tilted up toward the very blue Ohio sky.

Yeah, his eyes had been clamped shut for a very long time. So when he saw … what he thought he saw … out there in the distance, he had to blink several times. Very hard. And he blinked again, shaking his head like a wet dog.

When the sound of Julianne’s screech reached him, it acted like a pinprick that catapulted Will to his feet. What on earth was she doing …
on a horse?

“Will, help me!” she cried when she saw him, her face contorted and her mouth wide open. She held Eeyore’s reins in the air with both hands, her arms stiff as rigor mortis. “He’s not listening to me. I think he’s trying to throw me off! Help me!”

Will clicked his tongue a couple of times, and Eeyore headed straight for him. He tried to take the reins, but Julianne had them in a death grip and couldn’t seem to let go.

“Jules, what are you doing?”

“I’m … riding a horse, Will.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“Because,” she said, prying her fingers from the reins, “I needed to talk to you, and Alison didn’t think it would be romantic if I drove up the trail in my PT Cruiser. Personally, I think it would have been fine.”

Will’s heart leapt inside his chest, leaving a hollow sort of ache where it had been.

“This is you being romantic?”

“Well. It’s me trying. How do I get down?”

“Oh, you don’t,” he teased. “I just need to take this in.”

“Will!”

With a laugh, he opened his arms to her and she slid straight into them and allowed him to pull her out of the saddle. It didn’t go as smoothly as he’d imagined, and she kicked Eeyore in the belly on her way. The horse whinnied, Julianne screeched, and the two of them tumbled to the ground as Eeyore galloped away.

“He’s getting away!” she whimpered as they lay there on the ground.

“He knows his way back,” he reassured her, and Julianne began to giggle.

“Can you imagine Alison and Alec’s faces when my horse returns without me?”

Will smoothed her honey-blonde hair and gazed into her glistening sky-blue eyes.

“What are you doing here, Julianne?”

“Oh,” she said, pushing herself upright. “Well, I thought you were making fun of me last night, and then I talked to your dad this morning—”

“Oh … no.”

“—and he told me that you were serious, that you were just telling me what you’d wanted to tell me since before I shaved my legs for the first time.”

“He said that?”

“No. Maybe it was my mom who said that.”

“Your mom was there?”

“Yeah. And remind me later to tell you about how your dad and my mom have finally admitted out loud that they have
feelings for each other
!”

His thoughts twisted into a slight spin. “What?”

“Anyway, for right now, let’s get back to the other feelings on the table, please.” She shifted to face him, and Will bent his knees and leaned slightly into them. “Is that true? About your feelings? For me?”

Too late to turn back now.

“Yeah, it’s true.”

“You weren’t mocking me?”

“No, not mocking.”

“So you’ve always felt like this?”

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, Jules.”

His pulse began to pound, and the scenery began to gyrate a little. Too many years of suppression, he supposed. Now that the words had finally escaped and the sentiment had tumbled out to the grass between them, instead of the relief he’d always imagined, Will felt nothing but terror.

“So … when I was dating that drummer …”

“Then.” He nodded.

“And Billy Rampart?”

“The whole summer. Torture.”

“And in law school—”

“Are we going to relive every horrible moment?” he cut in.

“No,” she replied with a smile. “I’m sorry.”

And then it happened. The thing Will had imagined and dreaded for more than twenty years. Julianne fell silent.

“Please say something,” he finally urged.

She sighed, and a couple of eternities passed before she finally spoke. “Remember when we had that first date in high school?”

Remember? It’s been my constant companion ever since.
He shrugged one shoulder and nodded. “Of course.”

“I doodled your name in my diary that night.”

“You keep a diary?”

“Well, I did then. Anyway, I wrote that you were the Prince Charming I’d always dreamt about. I wrote something like, ‘Mark this date! It’s the date I’ll look back on and know that my whole life changed.’”

“So what happened?”

“You were different. You started acting all ooey-gooey, and you wrote me that love poem.”

Will tossed back his head and laughed. “You’re the silver light of the moon, the fireflies in June; you’re the one and only—”

“Song that I croon,” she finished for him on a string of giggles. “Very bad poetry, Will. And I didn’t want us to boil down to ooey-gooey and bad poetry. So I tucked those feelings away, and I moved you from the Prince Charming shelf to the Forever Friend shelf.”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat and asked, “Can’t I be on both shelves?”

“I didn’t think so then.”

“And now?”

“The princess never ends up with her best friend, Will. She doesn’t find him on a ten-speed bicycle right there in the cul-de-sac.”

“Jules,” he said, leaning forward and looking squarely into her eyes. “I know this has always been a tough concept for you to grasp, but you’re not a princess.”

She smacked his arm with a gasp. “What a horrible thing to say,” she said with a chuckle.

“And I’m no Prince Charming, I can promise you that.”

Julianne narrowed her eyes, and her full red lips shifted into a pout. “You’re pretty close though. You know, when you met Holly and asked her to marry you, I felt like I might die.”

“You did?”

“Yes. I didn’t really understand why. I just knew I could die at any moment. Just the thought of losing you to someone else …”

As her words trailed off into silence, Will stared into her eyes, and he thought that they looked like the ocean on a stormy day. Blue falling into blue. He wanted to dive in and swim around for a while. Instead, he stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“The thing is, Jules … I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“No,” he corrected, and he pushed upward and knelt over her. “I mean, I really
love you
.”

“I really love—”

“Jules,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and holding her firm. “I … love … you.”

“I get it, Will. You love me.” After a long and silent moment, she tilted her head slightly. “Are you going to kiss me now? Because this is where Prince Charming would kiss her.”

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

Melting under his touch, she proclaimed, “So much.”

And Will Hanes took Julianne Bartlett into his arms and kissed her. Twenty years’ worth.

And as her Father had always promised
,
True Love’s kiss caused the stars to swirl
and the breeze to sing a beautiful song
between the leaves of the elm tree
.

“At last,” her fairy friend declared
.
“She’s found her Happily Ever After.”

For more than a decade
, Sandra D. Bricker lived in Los Angeles. While honing her chosen craft of screenwriting in every spare moment, she worked as a personal assistant and publicist to some of daytime television’s hottest stars. When her mother became ill in Florida, she put California in her rearview mirror and moved across the country to take on a new role: Caregiver.

The author says that it was her 8th novel that opened the door to finding her way as a writer. “I’m a Christian woman, first and foremost,” she says. “So it was a bit of a dream-come-true when Summerside Press chose me as one of two authors to launch the Love Finds You line.”

Sandie’s real-life role as cancer survivor has parlayed into her steadfast commitment to raising awareness and funds for ovarian cancer research. Spearheading a series of devotionals for Summerside Press (such as the popular
His Grace is Sufficient … Decaf is Not
), the author has stipulated that a portion of each contributor’s proceeds will go to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

Always the Baker, Never the Bride
, released by Abingdon Press in September 2010, garnered phenomenal reviews and spawned a series of three more novels based on the popular cast of characters at The Tanglewood Inn, a wedding destination hotel in historic Roswell, Georgia. The Another Emma Rae Creation series of novels has cemented Sandie’s spot in publishing as a flagship author of Laugh-Out-Loud Romantic Comedy for the Inspirational Market.

And one of the author’s pet projects is animal rescue, evidenced by the special bond she has created with one particular formerly abandoned puppy—a red-haired collie with “killer brown eyes and the heart of the class clown.”

Connect with Sandie at
SandraDBricker.com
or LIKE the Facebook page exclusively for her readers titled Fans of Author Sandra D. Bricker.

Now that you’ve enjoyed
If the Shoe Fits
, check out this excerpt from
Rise and Shine
, another contemporary fairy tale by Sandra Bricker.

In true
Sleeping Beauty
style, Shannon awakes after ten years in a coma to find that nothing in her previous life is the same—including her! Can she navigate to a happy ending in a world where reality television has taken over the planet and everyone’s life appears to revolve around a tiny screen on their cell phones?