Northern Fires (14 page)

“Hey, a night out at a dinner theater and the chance to see you—I wouldn’t pass that up.”

Juliette grinned. “It’s not quite what a lot of dinner theaters are where waitstaff serve meals on trays, but it works here. We go with our own flow here in Good Riddance.” She took Sue by the arm. “So, come on and you can meet everyone and leave your purse at the table while you go through the buffet line.”

Sven’s folks were seated at a table with Merrilee and Bull. The doctor had cleared Pops—as she’d been instructed to call him—for travel, and this was their first outing since his surgery. The empty chair at the table was Sue’s. Juliette made the introductions.

“It’s nice to put a face with a voice and a name,” Merrilee said.

Edgar grinned. “We saved you a seat. This is the rehab table.”

Marge glared at him.

“What? Oh, damn. I meant because I’ve got a new heart valve, and Gimpy over there—” he waved toward Bull “—has a broken arm. I didn’t mean…”

Both Juliette and Sue laughed. Juliette patted him on the shoulder. “It’s fine, Pops. We know what you mean. And Sven comes by it honestly, that’s for sure.”

Marge sniffed. “All of our sons’ bad traits come from him and his side of the family.”

“Speak of the devil…”

Sven slipped from behind the curtain and headed for them. “Sorry about that,” he said when he got to the table. “The tower kept collapsing.” Flashing one of his most charming smiles, he offered his hand. “You must be Sue. I’m Sven. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh. My,” Sue said.

“It’s okay,” Juliette said. Even Sue’s pragmatism was no match for Sven Sorenson’s charm. “He has that effect on women.”

Sue shook her head. “You never stood a chance, did you?”

Sven grinned and put his arm around Juliette’s shoulders. “She put up a damn good fight, didn’t you, babe?” He murmured for her ears only, “And she’s still fighting, but I’m going to win yet.”

There they were back to that same circling on the marriage topic.

Juliette merely shook her head. “Okay, I’ve got to get backstage, but I hope you enjoy the production. And let’s all hope the tower doesn’t fall.”

Sven feigned a dark look. “She’s power mad.”

Everyone laughed. She was mad—mad about him.

Halfway through the production it hit her. She’d come so far and now she needed to take that final leap of faith. And she knew as surely as she knew her own name that it was time. She’d never been more certain of anything than her and Sven and their future.

Finally, the entire cast and crew took to the stage for the closing bow amidst a standing ovation. Good Riddance was an appreciative crowd to play to.

Tessa Sisnukett, the director, thanked everyone for coming and another round of clapping ensued. Juliette spoke up at the tail end of the applause. She wanted to catch everyone before they started leaving—and before her courage failed her.

Public speaking was so not her thing, but a woman who’d finally learned to fly and soar and feel safe without ever leaving the ground had to do what she had to do.

“While everyone’s still here…and if everyone will stay on the stage…tonight we’re going to do some improvisation.” Murmurs rippled through the audience. “Sven and I have been having our own play and I kept flubbing my lines—” she turned to him “—but if you want to give it another try, I think I finally got it right.”

“This is the one we’ve been rehearsing?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, then. Juliette, Juliette, you are my star in the east…wait, sun in the east.”

She could feel his happiness radiating off him. She felt pretty giddy herself. Good Riddance was seeing a new side of her, the side she’d kept hidden, the side she’d never acknowledged even to herself. “Wrong play, Sven. Wrong lines.”

“Oh, damn.” He looked out at the audience, “See, this is why she and I were backstage with the set design.”

Everyone laughed. There were a couple hoots and claps from the rear.

Sven cleared his throat. “Juliette Miller, everyone here knows I love you.” That earned him a few catcalls. “Most of them were in Gus’s that night and those who weren’t heard about it before the next morning, considering the way news travels here.”

That garnered several more laughs.

“I think the next line is yours,” he said, giving her a sweeping bow.

“Sven Sorenson, I love you. I love you the way I never thought I could love anyone.”

A collective sigh rolled through the audience.

He looked her in the eye. “You sure you’ve got the next part down correctly? Do you trust me?”

She nodded and he continued. “Everyone pretty much knows we got puppies from the same litter…”

What the…? “I think you’ve got a totally new script.”

“Work with me.”

“I trust you,” she said. And she did, with her heart and her soul.

“So, I think it’s a shame to keep those puppies apart. I think puppies are much happier with both a mom and a dad around.” He dropped to one knee. “Will you do me the honor of being the mother of my puppy?”

Marge stood up. “Sven Sorenson, that is the worst line, improvisational or not. I taught you better than that.”

Edgar tugged on her. “Sit down, Marge.”

Marge grudgingly resumed her seat, but kept talking. “Well, it’s just bad writing. What? She’s going to want to tell our grandchildren that their father asked her to be the mother of his puppy? Dear God.”

Edgar patted Marge on the arm and looked up at the stage. “Son, you know how women are. They take this stuff seriously. You might want to try again.”

“Juliette, I love you. Will you marry me?”

“I will.”

The words had barely passed her lips when Edgar yelled out, “The ring. The ring.”

Juliette looked at Sven, totally befuddled. “The ring? What ring?”

“Damn. Redo.” He reached in his blue-jeans pocket and pulled out a box. “Juliette, will you marry me?”

She looked dumbfounded at the jeweler’s box in his palm. “You had a ring… How… Huh?”

“I was going to propose tonight, right here, anyway. You just beat me to it. But it’s all worked out. And trust me, I was a whole lot happier knowing you’d finally got your lines right.”

“But what if I’d said no?”

“Then I’d have kept asking until I wore you down.”

“Hey, you gonna kiss her or what? ’Cause if you need a stand-in, I can help out.” Juliette wasn’t sure who it was that yelled but she didn’t really care.

“I think I’d better kiss her, ’cause the other option isn’t going to work out well for any of us.”

And he did, earning them another standing ovation.

Epilogue

“I
LOVE
IT
HERE
,” Juliette said as they settled on the blanket in the picnic spot she'd come to think of as theirs, the place where they'd first made love.

She settled her head against Sven's belly. They probably looked like a human T to the hawk flying overhead, with her lying perpendicular to him. In the clearing next to them Baby tackled her brother and the two puppies rolled around, play growling, only to leap to their feet and chase one another again. “They like it, too. And Bruiser's always so good with her. Even though he's twice as big as she is, he never hurts her.”

“That's because she's little and quiet at first, but she's feisty inside, just like you.”

He ran his hand through her hair and she sighed aloud in contentment. She held her left hand up, letting the sun catch the facets of the diamond on her finger that bespoke the promise between them. This man would stand beside her, with her, in front of her, if need be, to take on the world. And she'd do the same for him.

And she knew him well enough to know something was on his mind. It had been for a week or more. She hadn't pressed him. When he was ready he'd throw it on the table between them. That's the way it worked with them.

“This would be a fine spot for a house, don't you think?”

She'd thought the same thing the last time they were out here. “Honestly, I've always thought it would be a better choice than where Dalton and Skye put theirs, but to each his own.”

“Yep, nice and private, as we know. Great views of the lake, the mountains, the sky.”

“I know. From the front porch you'd see all that.” She swept her arm out in front of her. “And that view's not too shabby, either.”

She'd been waiting for what she felt was the right time to talk to Sven about where they were going to live once he finished his jobs in Good Riddance. She knew he'd always been something of a rolling stone and if that was important to him, then she'd figure out a way to make it work—they'd figure out a way to make it work. As a bush pilot, she could find work in other areas, but she'd started thinking more and more that maybe the two of them together would make pretty decent parents.

Bruiser zoomed past with Baby in hot puppy pursuit.

Sven laughed. “The dogs like it, too.”

He put the sketchbook he always brought with him on the blanket to the right of her and flipped over a couple of pages. “What do you think about that house?”

She had the sense it wasn't a casual question. Her heart began to thump harder in her chest. “It's beautiful but not intrusive.”

“Yep. And what do you think of this?”

He flipped another couple of pages. A typed document was there between the sketch paper. It took her a second to realize what she was looking at.

She sat up and turned on her knees to face him. “You mean…?”

That slow smile that she loved so much lit his eyes and curved his lips. “Yep.”

“This land is yours? You bought it from Dalton?”

“Dalton agreed to sell me a parcel and he thinks we'd make good neighbors, but it's not mine. It's ours. Look again. Both of our names are on the property.”

There it was, both of their names. The two of them together.

Just when she thought it couldn't get any better it did. She'd never known how high she could fly with her feet still on the ground.

* * * * *

ISBN: 9781459227118

Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer LaBrecque

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