Ellie pushed the enter button on her laptop with a flourish. “There,” she pronounced to the room. “The Blue Thorn Fibers online store is officially up and running. Phase one is complete. And three days before my September first deadline—I’m ahead of schedule.”
“Oh, we’ve got phases and schedules now, do we?” Gunner commented from his seat on the couch.
She turned around in the office chair to face the room. Gunner, a due-any-day-now Brooke and Audie filled the couch, while Gran applauded from a side chair. Nash, too fidgety to sit down, had alternated between pacing near the wall by the windows and leaning against the bookshelves.
“Well, I’ve still got to pay the bills working at the Austin Restaurateurs Association until the actual shop is up and running,” she answered her brother. “You’ve never had a retail arm of Blue Thorn. You have no idea how much work running a place like that can be. We definitely need to ramp things up slowly.”
“Bison meat, bison leather goods and bison yarn all in one shop?” Gunner raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure this is going to work?”
She’d explained the business plan to Gunner a dozen times now and had begun conversations with their cousin Witt to come on board to run the retail meat business. “Yes, Gunner, it will,” she declared, determined to keep the frustration from her voice. It had taken her all summer to figure out what was next in her life, but now she was jumping into it with both feet—and a smart plan. She refused to be stymied by Gunner’s nagging doubts. “The ranch is doing well, but it could still do better. This gives us two additional income streams and increased visibility.”
Gran gave Gunner a look. “How many times are you going to make her convince you? We all voted yes. Now let the girl get on with things.”
Ellie looked over to Nash for a show of support, but he seemed to be preoccupied with his smartphone.
Brooke peered at the computer screen. “The website sure is nice looking. I had no idea Robby was so talented.”
Ellie waited for Nash to reply to that, but the man’s head was still bent over his phone. She tamped down her annoyance and spoke up herself. “Well, he wasn’t that great as a car guy, but once Nash got him on the computer we found out where his real skills lie. He took to website design like a fish to water, didn’t he, Nash?”
Nash grunted and nodded, but didn’t look up. Something must have been wrong—he’d been so loving and attentive since she’d moved to an apartment halfway between Martins Gap and Austin, spending all his free time on the weekends with her either there or here on the ranch. In the past six months her entire life had righted itself into a splendid new future. I thought I knew love with Derek, but You’ve given me a man who shows me what true love is. Thank You, Lord.
“Are you serious about hiring Marny once the store is open?” Gran asked. “I know you’ve patched things up between you, but are you sure?”
“We’ll need some help, and I want her to have a future here in Martins Gap. Besides, she’s one talented knitter—and so fast. I told her she could sell hand-knitted bison socks on commission and you should have seen how her eyes lit up.” It had taken a lot of prayer and communication to get to the heart of Marny’s anger and helplessness. Ellie considered her repaired relationship with the girl to be one of the greatest achievements of her reshaped new life. Yes, Marny had hurt her, but they’d moved past it, and now Ellie truly wanted her to succeed. If working in the Blue Thorn Shop once it opened helped that to happen, then Ellie was all for it. “I only wish Mick would come back.” With only a misdemeanor criminal mischief on his record, Mick had enlisted in the military shortly after graduation. “I hope he gets himself straightened out.”
“If he can’t do it on his own, the army will likely do it for him,” Gunner remarked. “I think it may have been the best thing for the guy. He may sorely miss his father’s inattention by the end of boot camp, but all that supervision should do him a world of good.”
“We’ll see.” Ellie stared hard at Nash, his inattention getting under her skin. Launching the online store for Blue Thorn Fibers was a big deal for her—why was he tapping away on his phone?
Her irritation was cut short by a ding from the computer. “Look at that! Only up and running for fifteen minutes and already we have our first sale!”
“Hooray for Aunt Ellie!” Audie cheered, running up to throw her arms around Ellie and plant a big sloppy kiss on her aunt’s cheek. “What’d they buy? What’d they buy?”
Ellie opened the transaction section of her website software to bring up the order. “Eight skeins of Blue Thorn wool and bison blend. And guess what color, Audie?”
“Russet!” Audie pointed to the screen that showed the small selection of available colors. No one ever doubted the natural color of the bison yarn would get any other name than Russet. The burly calf Audie had named—now a full-grown adult—had become as much a Blue Thorn fixture as his mother, Daisy.
“Oh, look,” Ellie said, scrolling through the rest of the order. “They ordered the men’s sweater pattern, too.”
“Where are they from?” Audie asked. “Can you tell?”
Ellie punched the few keys that brought up the customer information, then froze. She spun in the chair, only to find herself staring into the face of her first customer. “You?”
“Why not?” said Nash, who now stood right next to her. “You’ve never made me anything before.”
Ellie felt her cheeks flush. “You know why.”
Nash got the oddest look on his face as he pulled her up out of the chair. “Well, now you can just make it after.”
“After what?”
“After we get married.” He fished into his pocket and got down on one knee. Ellie felt the room spin, barely hearing Audie’s delighted whoops and cheers. “You said it’s okay after. I just think of it as a down payment. Well, that, and this.” He produced the most exquisite ring: a round white diamond hugged on either side by swirls of tiny blue sapphires—similar to, but wonderfully different from the family heirloom Brooke wore on her finger. Ellie’s heart burst in a million directions as she watched Nash slip the ring on her finger. It was perfect. She loved it. She loved him. She stared at it, then at him, her heart so filled with joy it felt as if she couldn’t hope to produce breath or words.
She felt something bump up against her hips. “Aunt Ellie,” Audie whispered loudly. “You’re supposed to say yes.”
Nash’s hand came up to touch her cheek in the way that always made her knees buckle. “That is sort of what I am hoping for.”
It was as if all the yeses in the world fought to get there first—speech felt entirely beyond possible. Instead, she began to laugh and cry and nod furiously all at the same time as she threw her arms around Nash’s neck, holding him like the lifeline he’d become.
“Looks like yes to me.” Gran laughed.
Nash kissed her, then said “I love you” softly into her ear, sending tingles zipping out through her fingertips. He kissed her again. “You saved me.”
It was what they had come to say to each other over the summer—a promise, a ritual between them. “You saved me,” she said, marveling at the ring on her finger and the purely perfect state of the world. “My hero.”
“Grow old with me right here in Martins Gap.” His arms slipped around her waist and she forgot anyone else was even in the room. “You can knit me a sweater and bake me biscotti every year until I’m eighty.”
“Every year until you’re ninety, Natsuhito,” she corrected. “And maybe a few more years after that.”
“Not-so what-o?” Audie balked.
Ellie would have explained, but she was too busy—her future husband was giving her the world’s most perfect kiss.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE FIREFIGHTER DADDY by Margaret Daley.
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