Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
“Like, fancy?” She cocked her eyebrow.
“Tennessee fancy.”
It was nonsense, but she seemed to get what I was saying. She nodded and headed back to the bedroom, coming out fifteen minutes later in bedazzled jeans, a tight-fitting sweater that fit the cool weather of an Ashford November, and boots.
We headed over to Everett’s place, where the bonfire was that week, and I began introducing her to everyone she hadn’t met yet. Which, sadly, was a bunch of really awesome people.
All of the lumber folks were there, along with their spouses. It was the first time she had met Desiree or Rebecca. It was fun to introduce her to people in the town that didn’t seem to fit the usual clichés. Finn and Wendy and Gerard and Malia were also there, and we hung out with them for quite a while, having a good time.
But as the night wore on, I felt more and more nervous. I was about to make a huge leap, go against my nature and do something public and take a risk all at the same time. But if anything was going to firmly and finally break me out of being the person I was when I was with Charlotte, this was it. I was going to be a whole new person after this. And I was going to join the tradition of major announcements being given at the bonfires.
Hawk and his girl, Dee, were hanging out with us, Hawk laughing and recounting how he had rescued Ian and Mina last winter when I took Beth Ann by the hand and led her to the front porch, clanging on a glass with a spoon and getting everyone’s attention.
“What are you doing?” Beth Ann asked under her breath.
“You’ll see,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t like all this kind of attention,” she continued in a hushed voice.
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On what I have to say,” I said and turned to her, “and who I have to say it to.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Everyone,” I said, addressing the whole crowd but keeping my eyes firmly on Beth Ann’s. “I wanted to get your attention for just a moment because I have something I wanted to say. Many of you just met Beth Ann tonight, and I am sure you have seen, like I have, what a wonderful, sweet, caring, gorgeous woman she is. She is easily the greatest thing to ever happen in my life, and I am sorry I didn’t bring her around before. But right now, there is a question I need to ask her that I wanted as many witnesses as possible for.”
“Jason?” she asked, her voice sounding far away and breathy.
I took her hand and knelt down on one knee. Looking up at her, I smiled, and tears began streaming down her cheeks.
“Beth Ann, I want to know, will you be my wife?”
There was a moment when she couldn’t speak. One hand was pressed to her chest, and the other held mine. I slid the ring I had picked up earlier that day over her finger, and she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes I will!”
A roar from the crowd went up around us as I stood, and we kissed. Then we were literally surrounded by well-wishers and people offering us drinks and advice, jokes and warnings, all in the name of young love and the excitement of a new marriage beginning in front of them.
We stayed until almost everyone else was gone, then slipped out to the truck. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I put the car in drive.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
“Home,” she repeated happily.
27
BETH ANN
Was this really happening? Could I have possibly found myself this incredibly happy after falling headfirst into something I didn’t even know existed?
As I curled up against Jason in the front seat of his truck, my hand rested on his chest so I could feel the beating of his heart. I thought back on that morning when Mr. Warren first called me to tell me about the farm. It felt like a lifetime ago now. I could barely even remember that life I was leading. Even when I looked back on it, there was a sense that all this existed then. It was like thoughts of the farm and of Jason superimposed themselves over the years of my life well before I came to Ashford and learned about my family’s legacy.
That morning, I didn’t know what my future was going to bring. I knew there was something out there, I just had no idea what. But I wanted to find it. The tug inside me said there was more to my existence than just sitting on my computer doing accounting work and waiting for the next thing to come my way.
This was it. All of this.
The thought flickered through my mind that I almost didn’t come here. There was a point in that conversation with the lawyer when the whole idea of picking up and coming to a small town in Tennessee that I’d never visited and didn’t know anyone in sounded illogical. I didn’t know anything about running a Christmas tree farm, and that would be if there was any point in resurrecting it at all.