Aging with Gracie (26 page)

“With that in mind, we thought it would be nice to have a little going-away party. That way, each of us will have some time tonight to spend with her before she leaves us for good.”

Grace turned toward Marianne with a puzzled look. Although the older woman had a smile pasted on her face, Grace was almost certain that her words had held a touch of sarcasm.

“Now, let’s enjoy this wonderful meal. After that, we can get on with the festivities.”

•∞•∞•

Several hours later, Grace was exhausted. She’d spoken to everyone at the party and had taken more than one load of going-away presents into her office for storage. She was there now.

She bent to pour Mr. Knightley another bottle of water. She’d been thankful when Abby had offered to look out for him earlier in the evening. The dog had enjoyed seeing his old friend.

Amazingly, the office looked as if she’d never left. Her father had promised to pack up everything, but he must have forgotten. All of her belongings were right where she’d left them. She sat down on the comfortable sofa and tugged off her high-heeled boots. As she rubbed her sore feet, she looked around the room.

Jack had given her one of Emma’s paintings that he’d purchased at a gallery in Dahlonega, and it was hung neatly on one wall. The photos of Abby and her that Jack had taken were still tacked to her message board. The silver wrapper of an uneaten chocolate Kiss, a little gift Jack had taken to leaving on her desk every morning, shone in the dim light of the lamp.

Oh, Jack
, she thought.
If only things could have been different
.

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.

“Grace?” Marianne’s head appeared through the opening. “Trish asked if you would check out something in the kitchen before you left.”

“Is something wrong?” Grace didn’t bother putting on her shoes. After all, she’d been barefoot on the floors in the past.

“I’m sure that there isn’t,” Marianne told her. “Something about that big refrigerator.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look,” Grace headed in the direction of the kitchen.

“Goodnight, then, dear.” Marianne gave her hand a squeeze. “I hope you’ll keep in touch.”

“Of course,” Grace smiled. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

The two parted ways and Grace walked into the kitchen. Trish was nowhere to be found, so Grace opened the door of the large, walk-in refrigerator and peered inside. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but she stepped inside to check the interior thermometer anyway.

Suddenly, the door closed behind her. She reached to open it but found that it wouldn’t budge.

“How in the world!” she muttered. “I can’t even stay out of trouble on my last night here!”

Although she had on her warm vest, her feet were already feeling the cold. She began to beat on the large metal door.

“Hello! If anyone can hear me, I’ve locked myself in!”

She continued this for a few minutes then decided to look around for something she might use to pry the door open. Seeing a long pole underneath one of the wire racks, she bent down to retrieve it.

It was in this position that Jack found her as he opened the heavy door.

“Grace?” He looked at her in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

She crawled away from the rack and sat back on her heels.

“Jack! Thank you for rescuing me,” her frosty breath heaved out a sigh of relief. “I locked myself in.”

“But there’s no way you can lock yourself in,” he told her as he reached down to help her up. “The lock’s on the outside.”

He turned to show her. About that time, the door slammed shut again.

“What?” He pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t move. “What’s going on Grace?”

“I have no idea,” she told him. “Marianne asked me to take a look at the freezer before I left.”

He raked a hand through his hair and groaned.

“What?” she asked.

“Marianne,” he muttered as he shook his head in disbelief. “She asked me to check on a noise coming from the fridge.”

“She set us up, didn’t she?” Grace laughed. “Can you believe it?”

“Actually,” Jack nodded. “She told me that she had a plan to get us together. I just thought it had something to do with the party. I didn’t realize that part of the plan involved frostbite.”

“Why did she have a plan?”

“I suppose because the two of us were either too stubborn or too stupid to get our acts together.”

Grace shivered. She bent down to rub some warmth into her cold feet. Jack noticed her silk stockings and sat down. He pulled her into his lap, and one by one, took her feet into his hands and began to gently squeeze them to get the blood flowing.

She leaned back into his chest and sighed.

“I’ve been pretty childish about the whole thing, haven’t I?” she admitted. “I haven’t given you a chance to explain. That was wrong of me, Jack.”

“I’ve been just as bad,” he told her. “I’ve been mad at the world because I didn’t get my way. I wanted things back to normal. I didn’t understand how deeply you had been hurt by everything, Gracie.”

“Do you love her?” she asked. “Susan?”

“Absolutely not!” He turned her in his arms. “You are the only woman that I love, Emma Grace Woodhouse. You have stolen my heart, and I will never love anyone like I love you.”

“Oh, Jack,” she sighed as she pulled him into her arms. “I love you, too. I was just trying to make everyone happy.”

“But neither of us will be happy if we’re not together, Princess.” He placed a kiss on her cool lips. “You’re the only one I want, Gracie. I want to marry you. Love you. If God is willing, have kids and grow old with you.”

“I want that too, Jack,” she agreed as she wiped at the tears escaping from the corners of her eyes.

“So will you marry me?” He tipped up her chin to wait on her answer. He saw it in her eyes long before the words came.

“Of course I’ll marry you, Jack Ellis!” she squealed as she took his cheeks in her hands. “After all, you are my very own Knight in Shining Armor.”

As their lips met with a gentle kiss, the refrigerator door jerked open. Several pairs of guilty eyes stared into the recesses of the frigid space.

“So? Are you getting married or not?” Bold as brass and as unapologetic as ever, Elinor was the first to speak.

“I suppose it will be okay if you busybodies start planning on a spring wedding,” he drawled as he took Grace’s hand in his. “Is that okay with you, Princess?”

“As long as we have it here in the garden, that sounds just fine,” she smiled. “Now who do we have to blame for this?” She looked at the faces. Marianne, Elinor, Sally and Trish. What a crew!

“You have no one in the world to blame for this plan of ours other than yourselves,” Marianne announced in her calm voice. “You forced us to go to these extreme measures.”

“Well, I, for one, want to thank you,” Grace grinned.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Jack concurred. “Now, if you ladies would find us a couple of blankets, I’d like to spend some time with my fiancé.”

“They’re already on the sofa,” Elinor told him. “Just don’t forget about the curfew.”

“Thank you for reminding me, ma’am,” he laughed as the women walked away, leaving him alone with his beautiful Grace. “I’m sure ya’ll only have Grace’s best interests at heart,” he called after them.

“And you’d better not forget it,” Grace chuckled as they made their way into the living room and headed toward the sofa. “They’re a force to be reckoned with, aren’t they?”

“Just like you,” he said as they snuggled into the warmth of the blankets. “By the way, I like your hair.” He pulled on a short curl.

“Thank you,” she rested her head on his shoulder. “Jack?”

“Yeah, Gracie?”

“Where will we live?”

“I suppose my house on the mountain is as good as any,” he told her. “You’ll want to stay on here, won’t you?”

“Can I really?”

“Princess, I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from this place,” he told her as he kissed her forehead. “It brought us together.”

“It did, didn’t it?” she smiled.

And as Grace looked around the room, she said a thankful prayer that God had always had a plan for her. In the beginning, it hadn’t seemed like the best one. She had argued with Him more times than she could remember. In the end, though, it had been the right one. Things had definitely worked out for her in Manhattan!

What a novel plan!

Epilogue

Our Beautiful Cassandra

“Jack Ellis, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to shove that camera─”

“─Now, Gracie,” Jack cut off his wife’s threat with a quick kiss. “Try a little ice.”

He held a spoonful of ice in front of her mouth, but she immediately pushed his hand away.

“I’m sick of ice,” she moaned, not caring that he was capturing every last detail on his video camera. After twenty hours of labor, she’d had enough of his placating. She was completely exhausted from the day’s work.

She glanced around the room and realized that Jack had at least followed a few of her demands over the past several hours. For one thing, her mother was nowhere in sight. After three weeks of bedrest with Evelyn in attendance, Grace was close to crazy. Homicidal was probably a better description.

Although Grace had forged a relatively easy relationship with her mother over the past year since her marriage to Jack, Evelyn still had a way of micromanaging that was hard for Grace to tolerate, even on a good day.

Grace closed her eyes and hoped that the respite between contractions would last more than two minutes. A catnap was not to be had, however, for in less than a minute, she was wracked by another squeezing clench of her abdomen.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she moaned as she turned her eyes toward the nurse. “Can’t you just take it out?”

“Gracie, baby,” Jack kissed her hand before she could pull it away to grip the siderail of her bed. “Be reasonable, honey. It’ll only be a little while longer.”

“You’re not the one with a baby the size of a ten-pound basketball blazing a trail through your─”

“─I get the picture,” he mumbled, and Grace was more than a little pleased to see his face blanch in horror at what she’d been close to describing.

Serves him right
, she thought to herself.
I’m the one lying here in pain, and all he can talk about is ice.

As if on cue...

“Try another ice chip,” he said as he placed the cool peace offering near her parched lips and followed it with a gentle kiss. “I love you, you know,” he smiled at her.

The look on his face was one of such love and sincerity that Grace was momentarily stunned by the power of it. As she watched him, she caught the flash of moisture creeping into his clear blue gaze. She raised her hand and touched his unshaven cheek.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful man. This wonderful husband.

“I love you, too.” Her dazed smile turned to a grimace as another contraction struck. “But if you don’t get away from me...”

“Breathe, honey,” he ignored her ire and returned to his coaching duties.

She begrudgingly followed his cues, but continued her warning between breaths.

“...I’m gonna,” she stopped her threat mid-sentence as the fear and awe of the moment overtook her thoughts. “Oh, I think it’s time,” she finally gasped. “It feels like it’s time!”

“I think you’re right,” her obstetrician concurred as he lifted up the sheet a nurse had draped over Grace’s knees just minutes before.

“Hot dog! I’m gonna’ be a Daddy!” Jack brushed a nervous hand through his already ruffled hair and grabbed Grace’s fingers.

She could not tell whose grip was tighter, Jack’s or hers. What mattered most was that his hand was in hers during this time. That they were here. Together.

“Now, Grace, on the count of three, I need you to push,” the doctor commanded. “One. Two. Three!”

And with a will forged over time, from generation to generation...woman to woman...Grace somehow found the strength to bear down with all her might. At the back of her mind were the women who had wandered down this same road...finding hope, and sometimes heartache, on its path.

Women like Marianne, who, with Theodore, her perfect love, had endured the pains of childbirth three times...and found a joy beyond measure with her husband and family.

Woman like Ellie, who had discovered love, only to lose both her husband and their unborn child in a series of events so devastating that it had taken her years to overcome her loss.

Women like Emma, who had raised her Molly year after year...long after Molly had been gone.

Even women like her mother, who had worked so hard to make Grace’s life perfect.

Now, as Grace experienced that same precious gift of motherhood, she said a silent prayer that her path would find the same love and happiness that she had learned to recognize...and to celebrate...as a result of her friendship with a group of amazing women.

That she had
aged
with them over the past two years was obvious. She could only hope that she had done it with
grace
.

“And here she is!” The doctor held up their precious gift and placed it on Grace’s chest. “Meet your new daughter, Grace.”

“Oh, my baby,” Grace breathed a sigh of relief as she looked down into a pair of dark, squinted eyes. She rubbed her daughter’s cheek with a gentle finger. “Hello, wonderful girl. I’m your Mommy.”