A Seagrove Christmas (South Carolina Sunsets #6) - Rachel Hanna Page 0,25
to one knee and just propose to him herself. Change things up a bit. Surprise him. She stopped and looked up at him.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, looking at her with concern.
She couldn’t form words. Drop to one knee, she thought to herself. Be brave.
“Meg?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you stop? Are you okay?”
“I… um… Yes. I’m fine. I just thought my shoe was untied.”
He looked down at her feet. “Darling, you’re wearing flats.”
She looked down too. “Oh.”
Christian chuckled. “Boy, you do need a nice long sleep. Come on, let’s get our daughter and go home.”
* * *
SuAnn sat across from Nicholas and tried not to stare. As much as he resembled Santa Claus now, he was still as handsome as ever. The same blue-gray eyes she’d stared into thousands of times in high school. The same rough hands that loved to work in the yard and do his own mechanic work on his car. The same dimple in his left cheek, but not his right.
“Are you staring at me, Susie?” he said with a wink.
“Maybe a little. It’s just so surreal that you’re here.”
Nick took a bite of chili and then wiped his mouth. They’d opted to have lunch at the cafe on the square before SuAnn was helping Julie with the cookie party later in the day.
“Well, I have to say it feels much the same for me. You’re just as pretty as you ever were.”
She smiled, trying desperately not to blush a bit, although her Irish heritage always gave her away.
“So what are we doing here?”
He tilted his head to the side in confusion. “I don’t rightly know what you mean?”
“You and me. What are we doing?”
“We’re eating lunch, honey. Are you feeling okay?”
She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes. “You know what I mean, Nicolas. Why are you here? What is it you think is going to happen with us? I mean, you don’t live here. Are you just here to spend the holidays with an old flame?”
His eyes widened. “You’re just as much of a spitfire now as you were back then. I’m here because I never stopped loving you.”
“And I feel the same. You know that. But that was a long time ago, and we were just kids. We’re adults now, and we have to make mature decisions.”
“What are you saying?”
“Look, I’m way too old to play games. And I’m somebody who appreciates reality. Logic. And I just don’t see where we’re going with this.”
He folded his napkin and sat it in his empty bowl. “I’ve kind of been wanting to talk to you about that.”
Here it comes, she thought. The big let down. No man in her life had ever not let her down at some point. She would rather just get it over with and enjoy her holidays than worry the whole time.
“Okay. What do you want to say?”
“I want you to move away with me.”
SuAnn sat there, staring at him like she didn’t understand the language she was speaking. “You want me to what?”
“Move away with me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Susie, we missed out on the chance to be together for decades. I want to make use of every bit of time we could have together. I don’t know how you feel, but I don’t ever want to be without you again.”
“I feel the same way,” she said, smiling.
“Then let’s move away together. Let’s go somewhere and have the life we always dreamed of. Remember when we said we would get a little place on the beach in Hawaii? Watch all of our sunsets together?”
“Those were the musings of two high school kids, Nick. We’re grown up now.”
“Why can’t we have those dreams? Just me and you taking on the world!”
She rolled her eyes. “We’re both in our seventies. I think our times of taking on the world are behind us, dear.”
He laughed. “Maybe so, but can you imagine how much fun we would have? Or maybe we could check out Alaska? Or Montana? I’ve always wanted to move there. The fly fishing there is supposed to be amazing…“
She held up her hand. “Are you forgetting that I have a business here? And a life? My kids are here. My grandkids.”
He leaned back in his chair a bit and nodded. “I know. I get that, I really do. I mean, I have nothing holding me anywhere because I never had kids, but I understand how difficult that must be for