38
Luella adjusted the sleeping mask covering her eyes as the car went over a small bump. Where were they going? “You know, Chuck, if I’d had any idea returning to the island included whatever shenanigan this is, I might have stayed in North Carolina.”
“You’re fine and no peeking.” Charles’s deep voice made her heart thump like a schoolgirl’s. “Are you peeking?”
She’d been home three weeks, and he’d made every outing interesting, but he was really going over the top for this.
“No. I was simply adjusting it so the elastic didn’t pull my hair. But I don’t need to peek to know exactly where we are.” She reached over and squeezed his hand on the car’s gearshift.
“Really, now?”
“Yep, but it’s an interesting way to spend a Sunday afternoon drive.”
The car stopped.
Luella nodded, not needing to take the mask off. “We’re at Fort Frederica.”
He laughed. “How on earth…”
“When you’re born and raised on a seventeen-square-mile island, you get to know the place.” The car was moving again. She sat in silence for a moment, feeling its movements. “And now you’re just driving in circles.”
A drawn-out sigh came from the vicinity of the driver’s seat.
The next thirty minutes were filled with twists and turns and Charles driving who-knows-where through neighborhoods and up and down driveways.
“Having fun?” Luella asked.
“Are you here with me?”
“I am.”
“Then I’m having fun. Ever hear the one about…” He told silly jokes, making her laugh entirely too easily. She did her best to tell equally funny jokes.
Finally they stopped.
Luella reached for the mask. “Okay, okay. You got me. I don’t know where we are. Can I take this mask off now? Is this place the surprise?”
“Yep. Go ahead.”
Luella’s eyes adjusted to the brightness of the day. Straight ahead was Blue Sails. “The store?” Why would he go to all this trouble? She tilted her head. “I’m confused.”
He nodded, saying nothing further.
She narrowed her eyes. Was that it? “I’ve been thinking Tara could be the fifth Glynn Girl, but I’ve changed my mind. You could be it, pulling a prank like this. You know that?”
“Maybe that’s my goal.”
She studied him for a few seconds.
“Okay, okay.” He pointed at the tie-dyed beachwear shop that shared the building with Blue Sails Casual Living. “That’s the surprise.”
“Dye Hard is the surprise? I hate to break it to you, but Sue Beth already gifted me with a full set of monogrammed tie-dyed beach towels. I’m not sure my apartment has room for more.”
“You’re funny. What if I told you that Dye Hard is moving their shop over to the newly built shopping center at Jekyll Island, vacating this space? They just turned in their notice a few days ago.”
Was he saying—
“And,” he continued, “the property manager,” he pointed to himself with a thumb, “wants to get their shop filled as soon as possible before the summer ends, and fall begins in eight days And his boss authorized him to rent it at a discounted rate.”
A grin spread across her face. “Oh really?”
Charles pulled her hand into his. “It’s not the building you wanted. That one’s already spoken for. But it would give Blue Sails Casual Living the footage you wanted to spread out, both downstairs in the shop and upstairs with additional room for Sue Beth’s studio, and it’ll do it at minimal cost. It makes your building part of the much-desired corner lot. You girls had good business all summer, despite everything that was going on. I believe this expansion would help your business grow even more.”
Luella looked at the building, trying to imagine their spreading out to take over the whole thing. It would give Sue Beth a separate entrance for her art classes. And they could compartmentalize the store better, maybe even designating a room for small events.
“That sounds amazing! We’ll have to talk numbers with Julep, but I like this plan even better. We don’t have to pack up and move, just put in a couple of double-wide doorways between our store and Dye Hard’s and spread out. This was very thoughtful. Thank you.” She got out of the car and started walking toward the shop. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone. They’d be thrilled.
Charles closed his door and stepped onto the sidewalk with her, grabbing her hand to stop her. “Wait. There’s one more surprise. I think you’ll be happy.”
She stopped and turned to face him. “Yes?” She was already pleased as punch. What else had he planned?
He held both of her hands. “When I came to this island, I thought I would stay only a year, maybe two, and I’d told the owners of Seaside Properties my plan. But I’ve revised it, and I’m staying on the island in a permanent position based out of the hotel. I’m too intrigued by you to be willing to move away. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, whether you want to stay single forever or not.”
Her heart threatened to burst, and her smile was so big it almost hurt. “I find my position on that particular point is shifting quicker than the incoming tide.”
“That fast.”
“Every bit. I’m finding the idea of marriage doesn’t seem so bad anymore, provided it’s to someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Okay, just you.”
He leaned down and kissed her.
She leaned back, her heart going crazy. “Well, hello, darlin’.”
He laughed.
She took him by the hand. “Chuck, sweetheart, would you marry me?”
He blinked.
“Should I take that as a yes?”
He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “For better or worse, with Glynn Girls stopping by and calling all times of the day and night, I would consider it an honor above all honors if you, Luella Demere Ward, would marry me.”
She wanted to say something quippy and cute, but all she could think was that this felt as much like a miracle as Siobhan finding her way home again. “So this is love?”
Charles kissed her cheek again. “It is, and it’ll continue growing like kudzu until death do us part. I promise.”