Paris
I HAD TO talk to him.
But I wasn’t sure what was going on. After following Tyler home in my car, he asked me if I wouldn’t mind changing into something warm and meeting him outside.
He sounded so urgent.
Quickly, I threw on a pair of leggings and a sweater, and then I grabbed my coat and boots.
Nervousness overtook me. I didn’t want us to work out because we had to. I wanted us to work out because he wanted to.
How would I ever really know?
When I went back outside, Tyler was waiting for me in his grandfather’s old pickup truck that didn’t look so old anymore.
It wasn’t candy apple red the day he pulled a Say Anything under the window, but it was now.
I kind of loved it.
It was badass.
“Your carriage awaits,” he smirked as he opened my door with a bow.
“Am I Cinderella?” I laughed as I stepped inside.
“Only if I get to be Prince Charming.”
The door closed before I could respond, and I watched him cross the front of the truck. He was still wearing his tux pants, and with every confident stride he made they pulled across his muscular thighs in the most delicious way. He had removed the jacket and bowtie and his white shirt moved with such ease as it molded to his toned chest.
Yes, he was my Prince Charming.
Everything about Tyler Holiday was so alluring. However, I wasn’t sure he’d still be mine after tonight.
As soon as he got in, I said, “Tyler, we need to talk about—”
He cut me off. “Don’t say anything. I have something to tell you first and then I want to show you something, okay?”
There was a flicker in his eyes, but I couldn’t decipher it. “Okay.”
He drove down the hill and around the valley toward the lake you could barely see from the kitchen window and parked the truck.
The scrub pines had grown so large, the only hint that water existed beyond was the reflecting light the moon cast on the surface.
With the heat blasting inside, he turned toward me. “I know I never let anyone inside, and I want to explain to you why. It doesn’t change anything or make it better, but I just want you to know what happened the day my father died.”
I nodded and just listened.
He brought my fingertips to his mouth and kissed them before he spoke. “My father drank. A lot. For as long as I could remember. But after my grandfather died, that was all he ever did. I don’t think he was sober once that entire year. It was my seventeenth birthday, and birthdays were always trouble around Corky. That day he woke me up at the break of dawn telling me he’d gotten me a present. The present was a case of genuine moonshine.”
I shifted in my seat, not sure where this was going.
“I started to drink it with him before I even brushed my teeth, but it tasted like shit and I told him so. He punched me in the jaw and kicked me until I knew he’d cracked a rib. He called me a pussy and told me to man up. So I drank it and when he wasn’t looking, I dumped mine and filled it with water. I kept doing this and he kept right on drinking. By noon he was so wasted, he could barely speak. Just kept mumbling off the same advice he always did when he was that wasted—that he hoped I understood love was meaningless. It was a four-letter word never to be spoken unless I wanted to end up like him. And fuck, I didn’t want that.”
“Tyler—” I started to say, but he stopped me with a shake of his head.
“Let me finish.”
I nodded and choked back my sobs for him.
He went on. “By three that day he was extremely confused, disoriented, and his breathing was shallow. I should have called 9–1-1, but I didn’t. I wanted him to suffer like he had always made me suffer.”
I gasped, fearing where this was going.
“Yeah, well even then I pussied out on him. When he became unresponsive, I called Wilhelmina, who called 9–1-1. By the time we got to the hospital, it was too late. The alcohol had poisoned him. Luckily, he was in and out of consciousness, allowing for Wilhelmina to quickly marry him. I watched him take his last breath knowing if only I would have called for help sooner, I might have saved him. And you know what? I felt like that was the biggest fuck-you I ever could have given him.”
Tyler was shaking and I reached for him, pulling him to me. “Tyler, you didn’t kill him, just like I didn’t kill my mother. He was an alcoholic who drank himself to death. Who’s to say that even if you would have called someone sooner, he would have lived.”
Tyler held onto me. “I watched him die and felt nothing but satisfaction. What kind of person does that?”
Understanding why his birthday was so tragic, I took his face in my hands. “You are not a bad person, Tyler Holiday.”
He clutched me to him, holding me like I was a lifeline, and we stayed that way for the longest time.
Many minutes later, he pulled back. “I need to get out of this car. Would you like to go somewhere with me?”
After I wiped my tears away, I answered, “Yes, I would.”
The fact that he wasn’t running made my heart beat in a special way.
I got out and met Tyler in front of the truck. His expression was reserved, revealing nothing. His shoulders were wide and proud when he took my hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
“Wait, Tyler,” I said.
He looked down at me, his lashes fluttering. “Please, let me show you something first?”
The pleading in his voice was all I had to hear to agree.
“Follow me,” he told me.
Follow him.
I’d follow him anywhere.
It was déjà vu to that first night we’d met. Him leading me somewhere me having no idea where or why.
The cloudless night sky was littered with stars and I tipped my head up to gaze at them but even with it all that sparkle overhead it was chilly. “You should put on a coat,” I told him. “It’s really cold out here.”
Tyler glanced over his shoulder and slanted me a look. “You worried about me?”
Trying to act indifferent was useless. “Yes, maybe, I am,” I said and drew in a frosty breath.
“Good.”
Of course, I had to giggle.
We made it through the straggly patch of trees in no time. Everything was dark but still when we came to the end, Tyler said, “Close your eyes.”
“What is going on?” I asked. “I really need to talk to you about something.”
“Just close your eyes and let me show you something, first.”
As soon as I slammed my eyes shut, he let go of my hand and turned me around so my body pressed against the hard planes of his.
“Okay, open them,” he said.
When I did, I gasped in delight. “Oh, my God.” I brought my hands to my mouth and looked over my shoulder. “You did this?”
He nodded, so very sure of himself I knew right then we were already together for the right reason. “For you. For us.”
Under the night sky stood a bright white gazebo with six equal sides and a peaked roof crowned with twinkling lights, and near the lake was a shiny blue rowboat with oars.
Tears welled in my eyes as I pictured the rowboat on the lake. The gazebo sheltering us from the intense sun as we drank lemonade. And a rose garden with a picket fence just beyond.
Picnics and flutes of champagne.
The pink and gold glow of sunrises and sunsets.
White doves and morning birds.
Kids running in the fields.
I pictured a life.
Our life.
Our happy life.
“Come on, let me show you,” Tyler exclaimed in excitement leading me to the gazebo. On five sides white lattice fencing formed a barrier and the sixth side was wide open to face the lake.
Feeling like this was a dream, or a fairytale, I took the three crisp white steps and stopped at the top. Two rocking chairs, which had been on the front porch, where inscribed with the words, his and hers, and there was a lemonade table in between them.
I whirled around, and when I did, my heart leaped, catching in my throat at the sight of him.
Tyler was on the steps, down on one knee, holding a small black box in his hand. It was open and inside was a platinum band that matched his own. “Paris,” he said. “I didn’t do this right the first time but I’m going to now, and I hope it isn’t too late.”
There were a million reasons why we shouldn’t be together, but there was one really good reason we should, and that was love. There was another, too of course, but he didn’t know it yet.
I began to shake, and my long hair fell down around my shoulders and over my face, but I could still see him.
He drew in a deep breath. “I can’t rewind time, but if I could I would have told you that I love you, Paris Holiday, long ago. I think I’ve loved you since that first night we laid out here on a blanket and talked until we both couldn’t talk anymore. I should have told you then. I should have told you a million other times. And I’m telling you now, I love you and I want us to be together for the rest of our lives. Build a winery, make a home, have a family, watch the sunrise and the sunset, grow old together. You were my first and I want you to be my last. You’re perfect and sweet and I want you to be all mine, forever.”
I covered my mouth with my hands and let my tears fall freely. A hundred more years could pass and I knew I would still find it hard to breathe every time he looked at me like that. That butterflies would always dance in my belly when he was near. That he’d had me at hello.
“Yes. No. Maybe?” he prompted, looking for an answer.
Feeling overwhelmed, I dropped down and sat on the second step, pulling him up beside me. “I love you, Tyler Holiday and yes, I want to stay married to you, but I have something to tell you first.”
He slid the ring on my finger. “What? You’re leaving on a jet plane to do the whole eat-love-pray thing?”
I shook my head and laughed.
“You want to move in with Tabitha?”
I laughed even harder. “Oh, God, no.”
“Then what?”
I could do this. “It involves the whole build a winery, make a home, have a family, watch the sunrise and the sunset, grow old together thing you just talked about.”
His head cocked in confusion. “Did I leave something out?”
The corners of my mouth tipped up. “No, it was perfect,” I said, and tears fell from my eyes, slipping in hot trails toward my chin and down my throat, puddling in the hollow there. I wanted to tell him but I wasn’t sure how he was going to take it. Before I could say anything, I felt that nausea that just wouldn’t go away come back with a vengeance. Without a word, I got to my feet and rushed over to the trees.
“Paris? What’s going on? Are you all right?” Tyler asked, his arm coming around me and helping me to stand up straight. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” he demanded.
I shook my head no. “Pregnant,” I croaked out amid another round of tears.
This crying business really had to stop.
Tyler stared at me dumbfounded for the longest time. “Over . . . when I . . . you mean the family?”
I wiped my mouth with a mitten I’d shoved in my pocket and decided to help him out. “Yes, I was trying to tell you your order of life events had to be changed. That the family part was going to be coming first.”
“You and me and a baby?”
Seriously, could he be any cuter? I nodded. “Yes, I am having your baby and if you want the two of us, we’re yours.”
The smile that crossed his lips made me weak in the knees. “If I want you both? Of course I do,” he said and then swung me into his arms and strode rapidly toward the truck.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You need to get to the house. It’s way too cold out here. And it’s late. You should be in bed.”
“Tyler,” I laughed. “I’m pregnant, not old.”
“I know that,” he huffed as he set me in the truck.
I grabbed him and pulled him to me before he could close the door. “Tyler,” I held my ring up. “I think tonight is our wedding night.”
He looked at me, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight with so much lust, I couldn’t wait to put my hands all over him. “Is that an invitation for me to move back into our bedroom?”
I nodded and then pulled him to me. “It’s more than invitation. It’s an order.”
His lips twisted in amusement. “Don’t let those panties of yours get too big, Love.”
Joy flooded my heart and I nearly toppled him over as I hugged him tightly. “I love you.”
He hugged me back, emotion thick in his own voice. “I love you, always and forever.”
Always and forever.
Now that sounded like a promise I couldn’t resist.