No book returns for her had come for two solid weeks. With each passing day, Maggie’s hopes flagged a little more despite the mirth and growing cheerfulness of Miss Eloise. She’d never seen the woman get so excited about the end of the season. For Maggie it was always a bit melancholy to see all the cottagers close up their cottages, latch their shutters, and lock their doors until the next season.
It was always a rush at the end. Most the books that had been forgotten found their way back to the check-in shelf. But none of them had been from Wesley Graham Hill.
She’d checked.
With the last cart of books to shelve, Maggie decided to pace herself and sat to rest at her desk. She pulled out the last packet Wesley had sent her. The one they’d never completed together. The dried flowers were still bright, and she laid them on the desk beside her ink set.
Three academy girls turned in their last set of study books and left, arm in arm, giggling about who would take them to the music festival.
Maggie pulled out the handwritten notes from Wesley, her melancholy growing by the moment. She reread them and slid them underneath her desk calendar, waiting for the clock to chime five so she could escape the crowds getting ready for vespers.
If Wesley Graham Hill were the only love interest she’d ever have, she would cherish the five o’clock chime for the memory of the times he slipped through the doors. The memory of that first day when he’d offered an academic proposal. She closed her eyes and held her head in her hands, letting the memory of it drift through—
The door slammed. Footsteps.
Fingers drummed on her desk.
Maggie’s heart surged as she opened her eyes.
There before her stood Wesley dressed in a black suit, white shirt. His hair slicked. He held his fingers over his lips with a shh.
She bit her lips to hold back words. Things she wanted to say.
From behind him, he pulled a bouquet of red roses. As he did, her father appeared from the book stacks next to the door and made the shh sign with his finger over his lips. From behind her, she heard Miss Eloise’s footsteps, a gasp, and then silence.
With the proper audience assembled, Wesley grinned and dipped into a genteel bow. Then he knelt to one knee.
“Miss Magdalena Abbott, you are but a humble gardener’s daughter, I know, and I am but the orphaned nephew of a kind uncle who made a promise to be a father to me. Your smile, your words, your soul and faith, I cannot live without. I don’t care that you live in a simple apartment above the hardware store. I don’t care that you only have one fancy dress to your name.” He winked at Miss Eloise, who winked at Maggie. “None of my uncle’s wealth or prominence could make me as happy as having you in my life. Forgive me if I didn’t listen, never allowing you the opportunity to be forthright about your circumstances. Please do me the honor of accompanying me to the Final Fling, for you’ve captured my heart and I love you. For if I know you at all, I’m certain you know in your heart that faith and love are the only bridge that can bind us together, and no difference we ever face will be too great if we trust our Heavenly Father.”
With each declaration, Maggie’s doubts melted away. The realization that Wesley knew her and loved her in spite of their differences settled peace over her, a peace that had been missing until now. She let his words sink deep into her heart.
“What do you say?” he said finally.
“I say that you are ‘overdue,’ Wesley Graham Hill.” She grinned, using the line he’d first said to her.
Wesley jumped up from where he knelt, clasped both her hands in his, then leaned near and kissed her cheek. He lingered close as Miss Eloise and her father clapped and cheered.
“Don’t ever make me that miserable again.”
“You were miserable?”
“Terribly. I thought I didn’t matter to you.”
“Everything about you matters to me, Mag.” The words were only for her, whispered near. “All the rest of your days matter to me.”
Wesley’s words of a future with her, his declaration, and the peace that had settled over her were all she needed to believe the words her mother had written inside her Bible. “These three remain: faith, hope, and love.” Never could wealth or the lack of it, nor hardship, ease, or difference ever destroy what faith, hope, and love could build.