Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(72)
After that flurry of company, though, they were left alone unless they sought out civilization. Theo took her through town. They replenished the larder at Donovan’s IGA, and they had a couple of meals at the Pink Plate Diner. One day, he took her to campus, eerily quiet during winter break, and showed her his office, which had a stale, dusty smell of disuse. It was strange to be in this room again. He’d spent years in it, his entire career could be traced back through the books that lined three walls and the papers that filled the file cabinets, but after so many months away, it barely felt like his.
Carmen studied all of his framed degrees and certificates, the teaching and service awards, the National Book Award, photographs of him during Orchids’ peak with famous writers and dignitaries. Then she plopped into the old armchair he kept for students and asked, “Is this the hot seat?”
He sat at his desk, trying to ignore the solid red light glowing on his phone, indicating that his voice mail was full. He wondered if there was a way to simply erase the entire thing without listening to any message at all. He’d have to look into that. “It’s where students sit, yes. Not sure how hot it is.”
“Do you make them cry?” She nodded toward the nearby box of tissues.
“Crying happens sometimes, yes. I don’t set out to make them cry, no.”
“I bet you’re a tough grader. You probably make all their papers bleed red ink.”
He smirked at her. “Critique is how we learn.”
Triumph filled her laugh. “I knew it! You’re that professor all students moan about. You probably never give As.”
“When they’re warranted, I do. But an A suggests mastery.”
She slouched back in the chair, playing with the beaded pull of the floor lamp next to it. “Yep. You’re a ninja prof. You’re all hot and nice and funny, and then you tear them a new one.”
He shrugged, enjoying her play. Then she stood, came to him, and pushed herself between his legs. “What would I have to do to get an A from you?”
Lifting her shirt, he kissed her bare belly, then pulled her onto his lap. “Master me.”
oOo
Two nights before she was scheduled to go back to Quiet Cove, and the night before Jordan was scheduled to be home for winter break from the University of Maine, they had their first snowfall of the week. The flakes were the fluffy kind that were pleasant to be out in, and would be good packing for children’s snowmen, forts, and snowball fights in the morning.
Theo took Carmen for a short walk through the falling snow, leading her through the well-worn trail the boys had made over years of wandering through their woods. They didn’t go too far; dusk was falling, and the woods got dense and deep dark a couple of hundred yards from the house. But it was beautiful and nearly perfectly quiet, except for the crunch of their own boots through the snow. Carmen slid her hand into his glove with his, and Theo felt a completeness he had not known in a very long time.
Maybe not ever.
That night, as every night of this week, he stoked a fire in the stone fireplace, and they ate a simple meal and then curled on the sofa together to read. He read an actual book, made of paper and ink; Carmen read on her tablet.
When he realized that he had read the same two paragraphs several times, he set his book down and watched her for awhile. She was everything he wanted, everything he needed. Sitting here, in this house, wrapped up with this woman before the fire, he had a complete and perfect life. He’d barely been tempted by the liquor in the sideboard cabinet. A couple of rough moments, but that was all. He’d had no need to escape from or drown away anything. He’d wanted to be perfectly lucid and present in every moment with her.
But they had yet to talk, yet to make any decisions. He had wanted her to have this week and feel the comfort and peace that the Wilde Wood offered, the cozy simplicity of his little town. She was leaving on Sunday, unless he could persuade her just to stay from now until eternity. Jordan would be home tomorrow, probably early. Tonight was the night they needed to talk.
“Carm. I want to marry you. I want to marry you and live here with you. I want to love you in these woods until I die. That’s what I want.”
Her first—and for disconcerting seconds, her only—reaction was a tightening of her hand around her tablet. Then, finally, she set it on her lap and turned her head to him. “Jesus, Theo. Don’t.”
Despite their great week, part of him had been prepared for her fear. But it still hurt deeply. He tried to be calm. “We need to make this decision.”
“I told you I needed time. You said you’d give me time.”
Calm ebbed away. Nearly another week had passed, and they still hadn’t even talked about it. “Time—how much time? You are having a child, Carmen! My child! She’s not going to wait to come until you’re ready to face that fact. And she’ll be here before you know it. The changes we have to make will take time to bring to fruition. You can’t hide under the covers and pretend it’s not happening.”
He’d said too much, too fast, in the wrong way; he knew it as soon as the words stopped coming. Her expression changed subtly but completely. She turned to stone.
“I don’t have to make any decision. I just have to buy a crib.”
“Carmen, don’t be like that.”
“Like what? Don’t let you bully me into making the decision that suits you best? Why do I have to move and upend my life? Why don’t you move to Rhode Island? And who the f*ck said anything about marriage? EVER? When did that come up?”