Twenty-Three
Shannon proudly showed off the finished living room in Gabe’s condo. He was pleased with how it had turned out. With Nadia back home in Malibu, everyone was calmer.
“One more thing,” Shannon said. “Felicity is in town.”
“Boston?”
“Only town in my world. She’s stopping by in—” Shannon glanced at her phone “—twenty-two minutes if she’s on time.”
“And she called you instead of me?”
“So it appears.”
Felicity arrived on time. Apparently she’d meant to surprise Gabe, but Shannon had missed that cue. He gave her a tour of the condo.
“It’s quite a place, Gabe,” Felicity said when they returned to the living room. She stood at the windows overlooking Back Bay. “You’ve done well. You work hard. You take risks. You’re smart. You treat your freelancers and employees well. I’m not surprised, you know.”
“Figured I’d be a successful start-up entrepreneur when we were in second grade?”
She grinned at him. “Kindergarten.”
They both laughed, but he could sense something was on her mind. “What’s up, Felicity?”
She turned from the windows. “I was just thinking about how different my life is from yours. How different Knights Bridge is from Boston. I mean, here I am, thinking about making my annual ratatouille when I get home.”
Shannon frowned as she joined them from the kitchen. “What’s ratatouille?”
Felicity explained. “I make enough to freeze for the winter.”
“That’s what people do in small-town New England, Shannon,” Gabe said.
She shuddered. “I can see freezing tomatoes and applesauce, but the only eggplant I like is fried and covered with mozzarella, parmesan and tomato sauce.”
“Ratatouille in the dead of winter reminds me of summer,” Felicity said.
“Sitting on the beach in Fort Lauderdale for a week reminds me of summer,” Shannon countered.
“Gabe’s grandmother taught me how to make ratatouille,” Felicity said. “She’s gone now.”
“But her ratatouille recipe lives on,” Gabe said. “She’d like that. I think she was the first person in Knights Bridge to make it.”
“There are all sorts of versions,” Felicity said.
“I would like the kind that doesn’t really taste like ratatouille,” Shannon said. “Are you using vegetables from your own garden?”
“I don’t have a vegetable garden yet,” Felicity said. “That’ll come in time. I get fresh veggies from friends with gardens and from the farmers’ market.”
“It’s still every Wednesday on the common?” Gabe asked.
She smiled. “Some things don’t change. Anyway, I postponed my ratatouille. I had some business in Boston I needed to tend to.”
Gabe noticed Shannon make a discreet detour to talk with the painters, now working in the kitchen.
He turned to Felicity. “Need a place to stay?”
She glanced again out at the view. “It’s a great location. This place is great, but it’s—I don’t know. It feels temporary.”
“It is temporary.”
“That’s how you live your life, isn’t it?”
“It has been, but I’m still young. So are you.” He smiled. “You can always travel while the ratatouille is in the freezer or on the vine.”
“I love to travel. I missed going places when I was digging myself out of debt.”
“Do you think you got stuck in being hyper-responsible?”
“After being hyper-irresponsible? Maybe.”
“You have to leave some room in your life for a little fun. If you could go anywhere, where would it be? Home doesn’t count.”
Her eyes sparked. She didn’t hesitate. “Wyoming.”
* * *
Felicity went to her meetings in town and met Gabe for dinner at a quiet restaurant in the North End. As much as she was enjoying her time in Boston, she knew it wasn’t for her anymore. Knights Bridge, friendship, family. They were on her mind, even on a beautiful summer evening in the city.
“I never felt part of Knights Bridge growing up, not the way you did,” she said, seated across from Gabe at their cozy table. “I was always the banker’s daughter.”
“In your head. It was how you saw yourself.”
“The way Nadia saw herself as her ex-husband’s victim.”
“Not that bad. You were just a kid.”
“I feel a part of things now,” she said.
“You made that happen by moving back to Knights Bridge, being yourself.”
“Accepting I didn’t want to be a financial analyst, never mind wasn’t any good at it. What about you? How do you feel about Knights Bridge these days?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself I didn’t belong there—convincing myself that success and happiness lay anywhere but Knights Bridge.”
“But that’s not true?”
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s not true.”
She picked up her wineglass. “What’s on your mind, Gabe?”
He told her about Dylan’s invitation to join him, Noah Kendrick and a former colleague in a new venture capital business.
He studied her, his eyes narrowed in the candlelight. “You know about venture capital, don’t you?”
“One of the jobs I was fired from. I lasted eight months. I learned a lot.”
“Wasn’t eight months your record?”
She smiled. “See?”
“I’ll continue to do start-ups. I don’t need to be in Boston to do that. Dylan’s opening offices in the old George Sanderson house.”
“I heard a rumor about that, but I didn’t realize you two had been talking about working together.” Felicity drank some wine and set down her glass, absorbing Gabe’s words—taking in his mood. Focused, certain. He’d made up his mind since he’d arrived at her house ahead of the boot camp, wanting to sleep on her couch. “I’ve never been inside the Sanderson house. Can you see yourself with an office in the turret or something?”
“The octagon room,” he said with a grin.
“People say the house is haunted. Evelyn Sloan insists it has more ghosts than the library, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
“Is old George’s ghost one of them?”
“Evelyn didn’t say.”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
“We, huh?” She noticed her heartbeat had quickened. “You want me in on your ghost hunts, do you?”
“You’ll love a good ghost hunt. Felicity, back after our night...the summer before college...” Gabe took a breath and leaned across the table, the candlelight flickering in his eyes. “I wanted to propose to you.”
“Gabe...”
“I talked myself out of it. I knew it was crazy. We were too young, and I was afraid I’d lose you as a friend. And I was driven.”
“You had places to go, things to do and money to make.”
“I did, and so did you.”
“Even if it brought me full circle back to Knights Bridge.”
“Me, too. Us.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “I memorized my proposal. I rehearsed it for days. I haven’t forgotten the words. I love you with all my heart, Felicity. I want to be with you for the rest of our lives. You’re my best friend, and you’re the love of my life. Will you marry me?”
“Pretty good words, Gabe,” she said.
He smiled. “They are. I’m not quoting them to you, Felicity. I’m saying them to you now, all this time later. It’s been staring me in the face. Why I haven’t settled with a woman. Why I’m so driven. Why I’ve never found a real home.” He paused, his gaze riveted on her. “It’s because you’re my life. You’re the woman I love and have loved since we were teenagers. I didn’t want to risk losing you, and I almost lost you, anyway.”
“Gabe...” She almost couldn’t speak. “You’ve always been the one. Always. You always cared about me and just about me—not that I was the banker’s daughter or the hotshot financial analyst, or now, whether I’m a success at event planning or just want to pick blueberries and make ratatouille. I see that now. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but you least of all.”
“You never could disappoint me, Felicity.”
“I see that now.”
“Do you want me to say them again?” he asked her.
“The words you memorized?” She smiled, squeezing his hand. “Yes.”
“I love you with all my heart—”
“I mean yes to your proposal. I love you, Gabe. I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ll love you forever. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
They walked back to his condo, hand in hand, enjoying the summer evening, talking about vegetable gardens and blueberry-picking and stacking cordwood for the winter...and their wedding. Felicity smiled as Gabe pulled her close.
“Another Knights Bridge wedding,” he said.
“This time it’ll be our wedding. It’ll be a fun one to plan.”
“I thought you don’t do weddings.”
She looked up at the city lights, imagined the stars at her house—their house—on the river. “I don’t do many weddings, but ours?” She slipped her arm around his waist. “I can’t wait.”