Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(72)

“Ginger,” her mother prompted, kicking her lightly under the table. “what do you say?”

“I’m not expectin’.”

“Well, I should hope not,” said Miz Sophie. “Not yet, at least.”

“Umm . . .,” she stalled, looking up at Miz Sophie and hoping that her face didn’t register the anger she felt. “I’m sure we’ll need those things . . . someday.”

Miz Sophie’s excited grin faded until her lips were a grim slash of hot pink.

“I see. Well, I don’t know about you, Magnolia,” said Sophie, glancing away from Ginger with an annoyed sniff, “but I always said, the younger the mother, the happier the baby. I certainly hope your daughter’s not plannin’ to make my boy wait forever for little ones.”

Magnolia pursed her lips in shared disapproval. “Well, daughter?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say, I guess that’s between me and Woodman, but there were still three months before the wedding, and she wasn’t interested in Miz Sophie playing the martyr for the duration.

“It’s a lovely gift, Miz Sophie. And you’ll be the first to know if Woodman and I have any . . . news.”

Mollified, Sophie nodded at Ginger and turned to Magnolia. “It’ll all work out like we always planned.”

Without warning, Ginger bolted up, knocking her chair back. It clattered to the floor, and the ladies gasped in surprise, looking up at her.

“I . . .,” she started, her chest so tight, she could barely breathe.

“Virginia!” her mother exclaimed, her face a strange mix of irritated and worried.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, hurrying to the powder room across the room and closing the door behind her.

Bracing her hands on the sink basin, she took a deep breath that filled her lungs and diaphragm, then exhaled slowly, opening her eyes.

Looking back at her in the mirror was such a pretty girl: blonde hair, brown eyes made up carefully with eyeliner and mascara, a little gloss on her lips and pink in the apples of her cheeks. She wore a sundress and a cardigan sweater with a double strand of pearls around her neck and large pearl studs in her ears. She looked perfect. The perfect Southern bride-to-be.

She also looked sad. So very alone. So very, very lost.

Turning on the water, she held her hands under the cold stream until they were almost numb, then she turned off the water, dried her hands, and returned to the table to apologize and help choose her wedding cake.

***

Ginger didn’t know what had come over her at the cake shop, but ironically, when she was feeling like this—freaked-out about the wedding and the future and forever—there was only one person who could truly make her feel better, so Ginger half walked, half ran to the Apple Valley Fire Department, a few blocks away, anxious to see Woodman.

“Hey, Gin!” yelled one of the guys, standing outside the firehouse with a cup of coffee, checking his phone.

“Hey, Logan. Woodman here?”

“Woodman’s always here!” he said, hooking a thumb inside.

“Lookin’ good, Ginger,” said Fred Atkins, the assistant chief, as she opened the door to the lobby.

“Thanks, Fred.”

Miss Melody Grace, the receptionist for the department, waved hello and buzzed her in, and Ginger beelined to the communications room, where she knew she would find her fiancé.

As she swung open the door, a Nerf football nailed her in the forehead, and she stumbled back a little as she heard Woodman’s voice say, “What the hell, Austin?”

Rubbing her forehead, she opened her eyes to find a sheepish Austin Wyatt to her left and Woodman crossing the room at a clip. It had been several months since Woodman stopped using his cane, and though he’d always have a pronounced limp, he moved around better than anyone had expected. His physical therapist said he’d never seen anyone work as hard as Woodman to be whole again, and Woodman laid all that progress and all that improvement at Ginger’s feet. He credited her—the way she’d welcomed him home, into her arms, into her bed, into her heart—with giving him the strength and reason to push harder, be stronger, get well, be whole.

When he’d proposed, last New Year’s Eve, he said, “You gave your heart to me. I want to give my whole life to you.”

Tears tumbled from her eyes as he said the words. He didn’t know that her heart had been shattered two years before, in an old barn, splintered into a million jagged pieces. He didn’t know that when she said her heart was his, he was accepting something broken beyond repair.

But if he wanted it, he could have it. Whatever was left of it belonged to him.

“It’s yours,” she’d whispered tearfully, and he’d slipped his grandmother’s ring on her finger.

“Austin should’ve caught that,” he said, cupping her face with his hands and looking at her forehead with concern. “You okay, darlin’?”

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, into him, letting herself be enveloped in his scent and strength. She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes, resting her cheek against his chest.

“Mm-hm,” she hummed. “I’m fine.”

“You sure, baby?” He tipped her chin up and brushed his lips against hers.

They were warm and soft. Comforting. But when he tried to deepen the kiss, she pulled away to answer him. “I’m sure.”