Blossom Street Brides (Blossom Street #10)(100)

“Okay.”

Ten minutes later he came into the kitchen dressed in a freshly washed pair of jeans and a shirt. His hair was wet and his face clean shaved. Lauren had two cups of coffee on the kitchen table. “Are you hungry?” she asked. He looked as if he was several pounds lighter and desperately tired.

“I’m fine.”

They sat across from each other. Rooster reached for her hand, clenching it tightly in his own.

“Why did you take off?” she asked, the first question that came to mind, needing answers.

He didn’t meet her gaze. “I’d pinned my hopes on the fact that you might be pregnant, and when I learned you weren’t it felt as if our marriage was a lost cause.”

“Oh, Rooster, I was disappointed, too.”

“I thought if we had a baby you might be willing to give me another chance. When you weren’t, I had to get away and lick my wounds. From the look of things,” he said, and glanced into the living room, “you’ve been here awhile.”

She nodded. “Ten days. I apologize for the changes, but I needed to keep busy, and this helped me feel closer to you.”

Rooster kissed her fingertips. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I was a fool not to tell you about Lacey and me … Even now I don’t know why I didn’t. You deserved to know everything.”

“I don’t ever want there to be secrets between us.”

“That’s a promise I won’t have trouble keeping.”

“Where did you go?” she asked. It seemed as if he’d been away forever.

“The crazy part is, I can’t really tell you. I simply rode. Max did something similar to deal with his grief. Getting away seemed to help him, and I thought it might help me.”

“Did it?”

“No,” he admitted. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. After a while I accepted the fact that I’d lost you by my own stupidity. I assumed we were about to have one of the shortest marriages in history. I did everything I could to put you out of my mind.”

“Did it work?” she asked, needing to know.

“No, but I tried,” he admitted.

“Why were you so cold when you first walked in the house?” she asked. Perhaps one day she’d tell him that he’d ruined her end-of-the-movie fantasy of their reunion.

Rooster set down his coffee. “I thought at first the house had been burglarized while I was away.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“And then you were there, like a vision, a figment of my imagination, and I was stunned. I’d made the decision to do everything within my power to put you out of my life and move forward.”

“I intend to make that impossible, so you’d better get used to seeing me every day for the rest of your life.”

“I think I’ll be able to deal with that.”

“Good thing,” she said, smiling, unbelievably happy.

“You’ll notice it didn’t take me long to change my mind,” Rooster reminded her.

“Long enough.” She didn’t know if her heart could have taken it if he had sent her away.

Rooster sipped his coffee and seemed to sway in his chair.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asked, immediately concerned.

He looked up at her as if he was unable to answer the question. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s what I thought.” She stood, took her coffee and his, and carried their cups to the sink. “We’ll talk more in the morning, but for right now, we’re going to bed.”

“If I can find it,” Rooster teased as he stood, a little uneasy on his feet.

“You’ll find it,” she assured him, and slipped her arm around his waist.

“You’d better not plan on sleeping,” he told her, his eyes dark and serious. “At least not right away.”

“We’ll see,” she said, cajoling him.

But Rooster proved to be right. It was a good long time before either of them fell into a deep slumber.

Epilogue

“Oh, Bethanne,” Lauren whispered as she stepped into the reception hall, viewing it for the first time. The room was beautifully decorated for her and Rooster’s wedding reception. The round tables were adorned with baskets of flowers in pale green and lavender. The chairs were covered in white linen, with large lavender-and-white silk bows tied in the back. Her friend had seen to every detail.

“Does this meet with your feng shui requirements?” Rooster teased her.

“You’re not going to let me live that down, are you?”

His answer was a warm smile that washed over her like sunshine. “You can rearrange the furniture any way you want. Only next time you might want to mention it, especially if you decide to move the bed again.”

Lauren struggled to hold back a smile. The feng shui book had made a strong impression, and ever since reading it, she routinely moved the furniture around. Rooster rarely noticed until he went to sit on a chair that was no longer where he assumed and instead landed on his backside on the carpet. It’d become something of a joke between them.

“This is the same place where Andrew and Courtney had their wedding reception,” Bethanne explained.

“And where Bethanne agreed to be my bride,” Max said, his arm around his wife’s trim waist.