“YOU CAN STOP staring at it.” Fletcher chuckled at the way Paige couldn’t take her eyes off the ring on her finger. “I can promise it isn’t going anywhere.”
Paige hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off her face for the past week. It had taken that long to come to terms with getting her life—her entire life—back. With a very nice bonus. “It’s beautiful.” She loved how the sparkling diamond caught the light through the car window.
“It’s small,” Fletch said and not for the first time.
“It’s simple. Like me.” She turned and looked at him, placed her hand on his arm and squeezed. “I don’t need fancy jewelry, Fletcher. I just need you.”
“And me!” Charlie bounced forward from the back seat as Fletcher parked in front of Mrs. Hastings’s house. “Thank you for my engagement present.” She clasped the butterfly pendant accented with two tiny diamonds in its wings between her fingers and slid it across the thin gold chain. “It’s so pretty!”
“A special occasion calls for a special gift,” Fletch said and kissed the back of Paige’s hand. “Can we discuss wedding dates now?”
“I thought it was the bride who was supposed to be anxious.” Paige laughed. She was still trying to figure everything out. Where did she finish school? Did she get a job at a hospital? She loved working at the diner, and for Calliope, but the idea of being a nurse filled her with more hope than she’d had in years. The possibilities were endless.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the front door open and Mrs. Hastings step onto the porch to wave to them. “Charlie, why don’t you—”
Charlie shoved out of the car and slammed the door behind her, but she didn’t get much farther. Not when her attention appeared to be snagged by something across the street.
“Mom!” Charlie motioned over her shoulder, her eyes wide with something akin to panic. “Mom, look! The sign’s gone.”
“What…sign?” Paige followed Charlie’s gaze to the cottage home with the butterfly glass window above the door. Her stomach dropped.
Not only was the For Sale sign missing, but the front yard had been tamed, the trellis painted and the weeds removed and replaced with thick, lush sod. “Oh, no.” Paige jumped out and joined Charlie at the newly painted fence. She rested her hands on Charlie’s shoulders and hugged her. “It looks like it’s been sold.”
It was silly, Paige thought, given all the good that had happened to her, to be sad about a house that was by all rights never going to be hers. She didn’t want to be greedy, not after everything she’d been given recently. She pressed a hand against her chest. It was still the most beautiful house she’d ever seen.
She blinked moist eyes up at the vintage stained glass window.
“Who bought our house, Mom?” Charlie asked.
“No one bought it.” Fletch slipped an arm around Paige’s waist and held tight. “The owners decided to keep it in the family.”
“Oh.” Charlie sighed and rested her chin on the top of the fence post. “I guess that’s okay.”
“I certainly hope so.” Fletch dug into his back pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He dropped them in front of Charlie’s face and jingled them. “Welcome home, Charlie.”
Charlie gasped, grabbed at the keys and spun around, the huge smile on her face exposing her back teeth. “Really?” She squealed so loud Paige flinched. “Really and truly? We’ll get to live here?”
“Really and truly.” He reached around her and pushed open the gate. “Go on inside and check it out. Especially upstairs, the second door on the left.”
“You bought us a house,” Paige whispered. “You bought our house.”
“Not exactly.” Fletch drew her in front of him, wrapped his arms around her as Charlie’s squeals echoed from inside. “This was my grandfather’s house. He built it himself. It was his pride and joy. My grandmother made the window.” He pointed to the brilliant monarch butterfly shimmering in the sun. “All these years I wondered why none of the offers ever felt right. Now I know. It’s been waiting.” He pressed his lips into her hair. “For you and Charlie.”
“And you,” Paige whispered as she stared at her new home. “There’s nothing left, Fletcher. You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Charlie squealed again, prompting Paige to think it was time to join her daughter. And then she heard something else. Something that sounded an awful lot like a…
“Was that a bark?” Paige glanced over at a suddenly innocent-looking Fletch. “That was a bark. Fletcher Bradley, you did not.”
He grinned. “Now is probably a good time to remind you just how crazy you are about me.”
The second-story window slid open and Charlie leaned out, her arms filled with puppy. “Thank you, Daddy! He’s perfect!”
“She!” Fletch called out, as a laughing Paige dropped her head forward. “Be back in a sec.” He hurried over to Mrs. Hastings to say they would be by for tea in a little while.
Paige waited for him at the front door, and when he joined her, she held out her hand.
So they could walk inside.
Together.
* * * * *