Proposing to Preston: The Winslow Brothers #2 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 8) (22 page)

Indeed. There was something paradisiacal about her parent’s farm now that she had escaped it. The colors were vibrant, the lifestyle simple, the food honest and delicious, the people plain but happy…so much less complicated than her own life had become.

Y
ou’re making your life so much more difficult than it needs to be, Liebling.

She had, hadn’t she? Instead of appreciating Preston when she had him, she’d taken him for granted and almost lost him. Same with her family. She felt the sharp blessing of second chances and breathed deeply, grateful for her husband beside her, grateful for the warm and loving welcome she’d received from her family, and even for this place she’d worked so desperately to escape.

“I want to come back up here more often. I want our children to—” she gasped, wincing. “Oh, I didn’t…I mean…Oh.”

Her face burned and she clenched her eyes shut, wishing the ground would swallow her whole. They’d barely decided to stay together and she was already talking about kids? She cringed inside, wishing he’d say something…or, just be quiet. Yeah, that would be better. Maybe they could forget she’d said anything.

His voice was low and happy when he broke the silence between them. “I’d want our children to know where their mother grew up…to know their aunts and uncles, their grandfather and cousins. The swing on the porch, that baby Holstein. I’d want them to know all of it.” As Preston spoke, he stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and her whole body relaxed against him. His voice was soft in her ear, barely an audible rumble, but thick with emotion. “I wasn’t even sure if you wanted kids.”

“Of course I do.” She turned around in his arms, leaning her back against the fence, looking up at his face. “I want yours.”

His lips tilted up and his eyes—which looked back at her with such intense and deep love—softened as they searched hers. “You do?”

“Yes.” She shrugged, smiling back at him, wondering why he was so surprised.

“But…” His smile faded, though his grip around her waist tightened. “How will that work? Would we raise our kids in L.A.? With you off on movie shoots? Far from your family and mine? Spending holidays without my brothers or your sisters? That’s just not how I imagined having a family, Elise.”

She stiffened. “I never said that’s how I envisioned it, either.”

“Well then…how?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t… I mean, we’d have to talk about it. Figure it out.”

“When exactly?” he asked, dropping his arms and taking a step back from her. “When will we figure it out?”

She had a fleeting feeling of panic, but when she examined it, she realized it wasn’t because she felt pressured by Preston, but because she feared hurting him or losing him. She stepped toward him, leaning into their discussion, and said, “When we get home.”

“Home? And where exactly is that? Philly? New York? L.A.? Hell, we don’t even know where we’re going to live…or if we’re even going to live together.”

Refusing to let herself be drawn into an argument when they hadn’t even had a chance to discuss things logically, she placed her hand on his arm, curling her fingers gently around his sun-warmed skin. “When we get back to Philly, we’ll discuss it. All of it.”

He searched her face, then sighed loudly, a huffing noise of frustration and angst, and it flipped her heart to know that she was causing him any more pain.

“Preston...”

“What?” he snapped, his troubled green eyes vulnerable as they held hers.

“I am committed to this. To you. I
promise
you that we’ll figure it out.”

“How?” he asked again, his eyes increasingly bleak despite her reassurances.

And suddenly she had an idea. A good idea. An idea that was aborted long ago and saved for today.

“We’ll have a Marriage Summit,” she said, grinning up at him.

Her words surprised him; she could tell because he couldn’t keep his lips from twitching, and his free hand reached up to cover her fingers resting on his arm.

“A Marriage Summit?”

“Mm-hm,” she said. “When we get back to Philly, we’ll sit down for hours and talk about all of it: kids, where we want to live, our careers, our families, what’s important, what we can bend on, what we can’t. We’ll stay up all night until the morning…until we know how we want this marriage to look. And then we’ll make it happen.”

“We will?”

“Mm-hm,” she said, pressing against him, relaxing as his arms circled around her. “We’re goal-oriented people. We’re good at making plans and doing whatever we need to do to make our dreams come true. You’re my dream.”

“And you’re mine,” he murmured, his voice full of warmth and wonder. “You’re very certain we’ll make it work.”

“There’s love here,” she reminded him, tilting her head back as he lowered his lips to hers.

The service at Elise’s Mennonite church on Saturday morning was quiet and respectful, with the congregation carefully reciting Sarah Klassan’s favorite hymns and solemnly remembering Elise’s mother as a pillar of their community. Her burial service was similarly simple, and the meal afterward at the Klassan Farm only included Hans Klassan, his daughters, and their husbands. It was a somber lunch, but afterwards—as the women washed the dishes and tidied up the house—Preston felt a palpable release of tension as he hung out with the men on the front porch in the afternoon sun. They swapped stories and laughed more than they had in days, talking about their plans for farming the end of the summer and teasing each other good-naturedly. To Preston, it seemed as though the last of the funeral rites had been observed and life was resuming.

Sure enough, when Elise finally exited her father’s house, she found his eyes with a tender smile, then started saying her goodbyes. Wednesday was her first day of filming and Preston had already missed two days of work without much notice, she explained. It was time for them to return to Pennsylvania, and after tearful hugs and promises to come and visit again soon, they left the farm and packed up their dingy little motel room. As they refolded clothes and zipped their suitcases, they agreed that Elise would come home with him and tomorrow, Sunday, they’d have their Marriage Summit and figure out “what happens next.”

After reaching over to kiss Preston in the car and tell him once again how grateful she was for his company this weekend, Elise had curled up in her seat and promptly fallen asleep. And knowing what a long, emotional few days it had been for her, Preston was relieved to see her relaxed and recharging. Plus, it gave him some much needed time to think.

By the time they’d returned to their motel room last night, it was very late, and they’d been too tired to do anything but crawl into bed and hold each other until morning. And he wasn’t necessarily complaining, because Preston would never get tired of falling asleep beside Elise or waking up with his wife warm and soft in his arms, but the reality was that Preston wanted more. Much more.

He wanted a stable long-term plan that included a permanent home on the east coast and holidays that alternated between her family and his—the kind of life into which they could add children one day. Since she’d mentioned having children, it seemed like all he could think about. And why not? Brooks was having his first child with his fiancée, Skye, in March, and with Jessica and Alex getting married so soon, they could easily be next. Preston wanted his children to grow up with theirs… and with Abby’s little ones, too. He wanted family. He wanted normalcy. And he wanted it with his wife.

He looked over at her angelic face in slumber and grimaced. As much as he wanted to believe her words about staying married, making a plan for their lives together, and—God,
please
—even having kids one day, he was still worried that being at the farm, with the sorrow of her mother’s passing so sharp and fresh, may have impacted her judgement. He feared that when she returned to Philadelphia and immersed herself back into her Hollywood lifestyle, those precious words would suddenly become less valid, less true—emotional promises made at an emotional time. And he didn’t know how he would bear it if she slowly started pulling away again.

Taking a deep breath, he kept his eyes on the road, hoping that by the time they reached Haverford, he’d figure out a way for them to move forward while still leaving the worst parts of the past behind.

***

“Sweetheart,” he was saying, “Sweetheart, wake up. We’re home. We’re here.”

Elise stretched in her seat, her eyes rebelling against having to open. The car was dark and warm and Preston was right beside her. She could have slept for hours more. As her lids fluttered open, she turned her head to look at Preston and smiled.

“Hi,” she murmured.

“Hi,” he said, smiling back at her, reaching for her hand.

“Are we at your place?” she asked, finally turning her neck to look out the windshield. She blinked in confusion. They weren’t in downtown Philadelphia. They were parked in front of Chateau Nouvelle. “This isn’t…”

“It’s Chateau Nouvelle,” he said, reaching out to caress her cheek. “I need to talk to you. Let’s get out and walk for a few minutes, okay?”

He dropped his hand and opened his car door, closing it quickly behind him. She glanced up at the rearview mirror as he took her suitcase out of the trunk and her heart plummeted as he wheeled it to the front walkway.

What was going on? They’d decided to go to his apartment in the city and have their Marriage Summit tomorrow. What were they doing in Haverford? Why had he brought her back here and what did he want to talk about?

She dragged her hands through her hair, her stomach buzzing and flipping uncomfortably as she wiggled her feet into her shoes. Had he re-thought their tentative plan to stay married? Did he decide that he couldn’t trust her enough to give her another chance? Maybe it wasn’t worth the risk of another broken heart. Her own heart started to race painfully at the thought of losing him, and she noticed that her hand was shaking as she opened her car door and stepped outside on wobbly legs that had less to do with waking abruptly from her nap and more to do with fear.

Preston walked around to her side of the car and took her hand.

“I can hear you overthinking,” he said softly, pulling her along beside him. “Stop. We’re just going to talk.”

“About what?” she asked, lacing her fingers through his, amazed that even though her worries were about him, his touch calmed her.

Preston sighed as they walked through Chateau Nouvelle’s dark gardens, which had a lot of film and production equipment added to the landscape since they left a few days ago.

“I’ll be honest, Elise. I’m concerned that your mother’s passing and the emotions you must be feeling may have clouded your judgement over the last few days. I’m concerned that you may have made some promises you didn’t intend to make, and I think it would be unwise for me to hold you to them witho—”

“No! Hold me to them! Please hold me to them. Pres, I meant every word. I came back for
you
. I don’t want Hollywood, I want you. I didn’t make these decisions this weekend. I made them weeks and weeks ago. Months ago. A year ago! I just didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say. I didn’t want to just barge in on your life and I was sure you hated me and—”

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said gently, pausing in their walk to face her. He ran his free hand through her hair, cupping the nape of her neck so that she was forced to look up at him.

He was beautiful in the moonlight, his face soft and tender, his hair jet black like onyx, his green eyes dark and deep, and Elise’s heart clenched and wept at the thought of ever losing him again.

“I think it would be unwise for me to hold you to them without giving you a few days to be sure,” he finished. “Because if we decide to stay married and move in together and keep moving forward? I’m going to give you my heart all over again, and it’ll be yours to take or break. And if you break it again, Elise, it will destroy me. I’m willing to take the risk, but I’ve got to hedge my bets a little. I need you to be sure you want marriage this time.”

“How much time?” she murmured, tears springing into her eyes as she imagined his pain over the past two years, and—if she was honest—dreading the thought of falling asleep without his arms around her tonight.

“A week.” He laughed ruefully, tilting his head to the side, his fingers gently massaging the back of her neck. “I’m not sure I can stand more than that.”

She took a step closer to him. “I love you, Pres. I love you so much. I don’t need a week. My feelings aren’t going to change in a week.”

He searched her eyes, wetting his lips, like he was tempted by her offer, but then he sighed, dropping one of her hands. “Please go along with this. For me.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

“What time should I pick you up on Friday?”

“I insisted we wrap at six every day.”

“You did?”

She nodded. “It’s in my contract. I was planning to bother you every night until you agreed to stay married to me.”

He grinned at her. “Then I’ll pick you up on Friday at six, and we’ll have our Marriage Summit then. I mean, if you still want to.”

“Of course I’ll still want to.” They started walking again, this time back toward the front entrance of Chateau Nouvelle, and Elise tightened her grip on Preston’s hand. “I’ll miss you. One week is going to feel like twenty.”

“For me, too,” he said, as they rounded the house. “But I had hours to think about it, and I think I need it. I need to know that you had time to think it over.”

“I understand,” she said, her voice catching. How she hated the thought of him leaving her. How she dreaded the moment he drove away. And getting into bed tonight all alone? More tears burned her eyes at the thought.

But twice now, he’d referred to their time apart over the last two years—how much it had hurt him, and she understood that giving him this time would reassure him as to her intentions. She knew she didn’t need it, but what hurt a little was that he did. The least she could do was give it to him.

“Elise,” he said softly as their feet crunched onto the driveway gravel.

“Hmmm?”

He stopped walking, and she faced him, looking up at his face, which was fraught, like he was in pain. He shook his head, then seized her eyes again, holding them, searching them.

“You have to know… I need to tell you… I…I love you. I’m
completely
in love you, even more today than I was two years ago. I’d do anything to make you happy, to be with you, to belong to you, to know that you belonged to me.”

“I
do
belong to you,” she insisted, her heart thundering with gratitude and awe for his words.

He loved her.

He still loved her.

Though she had already suspected it was true, hearing the words in her ears was so welcome, so heartbreaking, she couldn’t help the tears that slipped from her weary eyes.

He leaned down and kissed her, pressing his lips gently against hers, plucking and nipping, first her top lip, then her bottom. His arms came around her waist and he pulled her against his body, his tongue seeking hers, and finding it, sliding slowly, then more urgently against hers. She moaned into his mouth, winding her arms around his neck, her fingers playing with the soft black hair on his nape as goosebumps lit out across her skin.

This man was her husband.

Hers.

And he loved her.

He groaned softly, releasing her lips and gathering her close as he leaned his forehead on against hers. “I’m a masochist for even
suggesting
we wait a week.”

She was inclined to agree with him, but didn’t. This is what he needed and she needed to support him. “No, Pres. It’s smart. When you see me on Friday, you’ll know I’m yours forever. You’ll know that I choose you and hopefully you’ll be able to start trusting me again.”

He sighed, a frustrated huff that almost made her smile.

Leaning away from him, she buried her fingers in his hair, pushing it off his forehead and grinning up at him. “Now go. And remember how much I love you.”

He released her slowly, his eyes dark and burning as he nodded, got into his car, and drove away.

***

The next morning, Preston woke up at Westerly, having decided the night before not to drive back into Philly at midnight and although his first instinct was to race over to Chateau Nouvelle and check on Elise, he knew that their plan was sound. She’d be learning lines and blocking scenes on Monday and Tuesday. Then filming on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and hopefully that would be enough of her “real life” for her to evaluate what it would look like with Preston in it. Lord knows that more than a week apart felt impossible.

Rolling onto his side, he opened his eyes and started. Jessica was standing beside his bed with her hands on her hips and a very, very disapproving look on her usually-pretty face.

“You’re
married
? You’re
married
? I just…I mean, I can’t even…
YOU’RE MARRIED
?”

He couldn’t help it—he did the worst possible thing when his little sister was on a rampage: he smiled at her.

But instead of beating him senseless with his own pillow, she surprised him by widening her eyes and smiling back. Her body relaxed and she sat down on his bed, in the curve of his body with her back to him, looking at his face over her shoulder.

“I haven’t seen that smile in a long, long time,” she said thoughtfully.

“I haven’t felt much like smiling.”

“And now you do.”

He nodded. “And now I do.”

“You’ve been married to a movie star for two years and none of us even knew? How could you keep that secret, Pres? Why?”

He sat up, pulling the sheet to his waist, as Jessica shifted to face him.

“We loved each other, but we weren’t ready,” he said. “We rushed into it and it was kind of a…disaster.”