Married for Christmas (Willow Park) (4 page)

But now she had an engagement ring there.

She made sure to keep her voice dry as she said, “Yay us.”

“What do you think? The couch
against the wall?”

Jessica looked from Daniel’s face to the long empty wall
adjacent to the fireplace in the house they’d be moving into in Willow Park. “I
guess.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Wouldn’t it be nicer in front of the fireplace? Like this?”
She gestured toward a space in the middle of the room, walking off the length
of it. “And then the TV could go here, my big chair could go here, and we could
put bookcases against the wall.”

She got increasingly enthusiastic about plans as she talked,
but when she’d finished she looked over at him hesitantly, hoping he hadn’t
thought she was trying to take over. It was hard not to be excited, though,
since it was starting to feel real—like she would really be living here in
Willow Park, married to Daniel, in just a month.

“Yeah. That would be better.” He grinned at her in his
endearing way, causing her chest to tighten. “We are talking about
my
couch, right?”

She tried to hide a smile. “I don’t know. My grandma’s couch
is almost an antique—” She broke off when his eyes widened in horror, and then she
burst into laughter.

She’d been using her grandmother’s old sofa for years
because she’d never felt it worth the trouble of replacing it with something
more her taste. It was perfectly comfortable but also boasted huge pink peonies
all over it. Daniel’s couch was only a few years old and was made of brown
leather.

He narrowed his eyes as he realized she was teasing him,
making her laugh even more.

The manse—the house owned by First Presbyterian Church in Willow
Park and used as housing for the pastor—was charming, built about a hundred
years ago, with original hardwood floors, a big front porch, and two big
willows in the backyard.

Jessica had always loved the house. She couldn’t believe she’d
actually be living in it soon.

She couldn’t believe she’d be living in it with Daniel.

They’d been engaged now for two weeks, but she still had trouble
wrapping her mind around that fact.

Since they’d finished walking through the first floor, they
headed upstairs to the second. Several years ago, the church had turned two
small bedrooms into a master suite, and there were three other bedrooms down
the hall.

Jessica was hit with the vision of having children in those
rooms. All her life, she’d wanted kids, and she’d started to lose hope that
she’d ever have them.

She shook off the tempting daydream. She didn’t want to
assume that everything would work out according to her plans.

But she couldn’t help but see them. She couldn’t help but
hope.

“You okay?” Daniel asked, evidently noticing her
distraction.

“Yeah. Good.” She smiled at him, trying not to look too
ridiculously happy. Most women she’d known were excited about the romance part
of the marriage. She could definitely understand that. She didn’t have the
romance—but she’d have all the other stuff.

And that was still a lot to be excited about.

She added, “I’ll make one of these bedrooms my office, if
that’s okay.”

“Of course. Which one do you want?”

She stepped into the bedroom with two big windows, one that
looked out onto the back yard. “This one, I think.”

Daniel eyed the room assessingly.  “I like it. You could put
a desk in that corner, so you’d have a view of both windows.”

“My desk wouldn’t work in that corner.”

“You could get a new desk. Didn’t you find yours at a yard sale,
anyway?”

She walked out to look through the second window. If she
turned her head right, she could catch a glimpse of the charming, tree-lined
street. “I’m not going to spend money on a new desk. Yard sale or not, the one
I have is still fine.”

He didn’t argue. Just looked out the windows for a few more
seconds and then wandered out of the room and down the hall to the master. She
followed him, since there was nothing else to see in this room.

He stopped before he walked in and cleared his throat. She
suddenly realized his expression was slightly self-conscious.

“What were you thinking about the bedroom situation?” he
asked.

She gulped, feeling a wave of self-consciousness washing
over her, much stronger than what she’d just seen in his face. They were both
adults, though, and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Not really.
“Well, I guess we should probably share the master if you’re okay with it. I
mean, it’s going to look strange to everyone if we have separate rooms.”

“You’d be all right with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I didn’t know if you’d want me all in your space.”

“I’ll have plenty of space, since you’ll be working at the
church most days. If we’re going to be married for real, then we might as
well…” She trailed off. Couldn’t bring herself to say the rest.

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t have the nerve to look at
his face. It might be hard for him—moving on after Lila, even just moving on to
a half-fake marriage.

The flood of sympathy at the thought compelled her to raise
her eyes. His face looked stiff, a little lost.

She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “We don’t
have to share a room if you’d rather not. We can work it out with how everyone
else might view it.”

“No. You’re right. We should share the bedroom.” He gave her
a half-smile, his mood suddenly lifting. “Besides, if we had separate bedrooms,
I’m sure you’d insist on claiming the master, and I’d be stuck in one of those
cubbyholes.”

She giggled, relieved they’d fallen back into casual friendliness
again.

No use to get nervous about sharing a bed with Daniel quite
yet. Or get excited about it.

It was still a month away.

Daniel would be starting his job and moving to Willow Park
next week. She wouldn’t move until after the wedding.

They went into the airy master bedroom. It wasn’t huge, but
it was much bigger than was normally found in a house of this age, and it also had
an updated attached bathroom. She couldn’t help but shiver in delight at the
big window and window seat against the far wall.

“My grandma’s furniture would look great in here, if that’s
all right with you.”

“Yeah. It’s nicer than what I have. I can just sleep on a
mattress until we get your stuff out here.”

They both stared for a minute at the wall where the bed
would be placed.

Jessica tried to smother the jittery excitement that arose once
again at the thought of going to bed with Daniel.

To distract herself, she gestured toward one corner. “Bear’s
bed could go there.”

The nature of the silence that followed made her shoulders
stiffen. “Right?” she asked, glancing back at Daniel.

“The dog really sleeps in the bedroom?”

“Of course. And her name is Bear.”

“Wouldn’t she be just as happy sleeping downstairs?”

“No. She wouldn’t be happy at all.” All of her soft,
trembling feelings vanished completely in a rush of anxious indignation. “She’s
slept in the bedroom all her life. I’m not going to send her downstairs. She
wouldn’t understand. She’d probably howl and scratch at the bedroom door to get
in.”

Daniel sighed. “I told you that you shouldn’t spoil that dog.”

“What are you talking about? This is hardly an ethical
issue. She’s a dog, and she’s perfectly well behaved. I’m not going to banish
her from the bedroom. I’ll sleep in another room if I have to.”

Daniel’s family had never had pets. His mother hadn’t liked
them. So he’d never grown up with a dog as a part of the family the way she
had. But it didn’t make sense to Jessica. He had the warmest heart when it came
to people. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t love her sweet dog.

When he didn’t reply, she added, “She’s been with me for
five years. I’m not going to send her away at this point. It would really hurt
her feelings.”

“You know dogs don’t have feelings to hurt, right?”

She almost choked on her outrage. “You close the door on her
face and then tell me she doesn’t have feelings to hurt.”

He was starting to get a little annoyed, probably thinking
she was overreacting about something absolutely absurd.

But she saw him take a deep breath, obviously suppressing
his initial reaction. “Fine,” he said, gravel in his tone. He rubbed a hand
over his thick hair. “She can sleep on her bed in here.”

Jessica opened her mouth to reply but shut it again
immediately.

“She does always sleep on her own bed, right?” He’d
obviously picked up some sort of nuance in her silent response.

“Most of the time.” She casually walked to the window and
looked out on the wide expanse of backyard and the large shed. It was
definitely getting to be winter, with gray skies and chilly wind. No hint of
snow yet, though.

Suddenly, he put his hand on her shoulder and swung her
around. “Jessica?”

“I told you. She’s usually sleeps on her bed.”

“And the times she doesn’t?”

She cleared her throat. “Sometimes she gets hot. Then she
goes to the hardwood floor. It’s cooler.”

“Uh huh.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“The dog is not going to sleep on the bed with us.”

“Her name is Bear.”

“She’s not going to sleep on the bed with us. She’s huge.”

“She’s not that big. Don’t be mean.”

“
Mean
? She’s almost as big as you are.”

“She usually sleeps on her own bed.”

“She’s going to sleep on her bed all the time now. I’m going
to have to put my foot down about this.”

She was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of attraction for
him. Daniel was tense and annoyed and deeply authoritative. He felt really big,
standing only a few inches away and glaring down at her.

She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to touch her.

She forced the attraction back—since he obviously didn’t
feel the same attraction for her. There was no use arguing about this anyway.
Things would happen as they happened. “Fine. You go right ahead and put your
foot down.”

He blinked, obviously surprised by her response. “I’m
serious about this.”

“I know you are. That’s why I said you could put your foot
down.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Something’s not right here.”

“Why would you say this?”

“Because you’re not the most compliant of women.”

Lila had been compliant. Sweet and loving and tiny and as
delicately beautiful as a porcelain doll. And naturally submissive. The perfect
pastor’s wife. Everything Jessica was not.

But Jessica was determined to do this right—to be as perfect
a pastor’s wife as she could possibly be.

As long as Bear didn’t get turned out of the bedroom.

“Why would you say that? I can be just as compliant as anyone
else.”

Daniel suddenly choked on a burst of amusement. “Arguing
with me about how you’re compliant is not the way to prove your point.”

His amusement was infectious, but she managed not to
smile—since it seemed to give him some sort of victory.

“Anyway,” she concluded, “the point is that you put your
foot down and that’s totally fine with me. Bear sleeps on her bed. Most of the
time.”

***

“You look absolutely beautiful,” Martha
Hendricks gushed. “I had no idea you could look so beautiful.”

Martha was the wife of one of the church elders, and Jessica
had known the woman all her life. Martha made sure she got her hands in any
event that occurred at the church, including Jessica’s wedding.

At the moment, the gray-haired woman was fluttering around a
large Sunday School room, which had been turned into a dressing room for the
occasion.

The wedding wouldn’t start for another hour, but Jessica was
already dressed. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. She didn’t usually get
uptight about things.

But she was
really
nervous.

One of the women from church who ran a beauty salon had done
Jessica’s hair and makeup—curling her long straight hair until it fell in soft
waves around her shoulders and applying more makeup than Jessica had ever worn
in her life, although everyone assured her it looked very natural and wasn’t nearly
as much as most women wore for their wedding days.

She’d then put on her dress and, with nothing else to do,
was left waiting the rest of the time remaining. In the last fifteen minutes, her
anxiety had built up to a frantic blur.

“Thank you,” she told Martha. She wasn’t sure she was
beautiful, but at least she looked prettier than she normally did. “What time
is it?”

“One-thirty,” Kim said. Her friend was her only attendant,
since Jessica didn’t have a huge circle of close friends and had almost no
family. Daniel had a lot more friends, but his only attendant was his brother,
Micah. “It’s still a half-hour until the photographer wants to do pictures.”

“Okay.” Restless, Jessica walked over to where her mother
was sitting in a corner near the window, wearing a pale blue suit. “Are you
doing okay, Mom?”

Her mother blinked at her with a familiar vague expression.
“You’re getting married.”

It was almost a question, as if she’d just learned of the
fact.

“Yeah. I’m getting married.”

“To Daniel, who broke my window.”

Jessica smiled, pleased her mother remembered so much and
could put the pieces together today. She’d been concerned such a long outing
today would rattle her mother and overtire her. “Yeah. I’m marrying Daniel.”

“I still can’t believe it myself,” Martha said, bustling
around organizing and reorganizing the bouquets that were already in perfect
order, since Jessica had laid them out herself. “Everyone was so surprised.”

“Well, we were kind of surprised ourselves,” Jessica said
casually. “It just sort of happened.”

“After poor Lila, we weren’t sure he would
ever
move
on. She was such a sweet, pretty thing—with the most angelic spirit. And you’re
just so different. We never would have guessed.”