Page 40 of The Wedding Gift
“Maybe it means that it’s great to have a partner,” he said.
“Don’t you get the feeling we were meant to be right here at Christmas?” she asked.
Life in Mingus, Texas, was going to be just fine. She’d found one of the last good men in the world, and their journey together might not be what she expected when she made that wish last spring, but it would be their story no matter where it led.
He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Chapter 8
Jorja hummed songs about feeling lucky while she watched the bag of popcorn in the microwave. A scraping noise behind her made her whip around to see Cameron moving his bed across the floor. If he thought a few kisses gave him permission to turn two beds into one, he had rocks or cow patties for brains. She opened her mouth to say something and then realized that he had made an L-shape out of the beds.
“Now we’ve got a sectional to use to watch our movies,” he said. “We won’t have to strain our necks trying to see the television. I don’t know why the folks who put it in hung the damned thing on the wall.”
“Probably because they didn’t have room for an entertainment unit or even a stand to put it on.” Couldn’t he see how small the place they shared really was?
“Maybe so.” He put the first movie in the player, which was sitting on a chair from the bar, and picked up the remote. “Need some help over there?”
“I got it under control, but I’m wondering what we’re going to use for a coffee table or end table to set our mugs on.” She poured two big cups full of hot chocolate and added a fistful of miniature marshmallows to each of them.
“How about another chair? We can put it right here where the beds meet up.” He headed out to the bar before she could answer.
She poured the popcorn into a bowl and carried it over to the new sectional. The part that faced the television was his bed, so she set it somewhere close to the middle and went back for the hot chocolate. By the time she’d carried that from the kitchen area, he had set the chair where it was needed and had flopped down on the bed with the remote in his hand. She sat down on the other side of the popcorn bowl and drew her legs up under her to sit cross-legged.
“Are we ready?” He pointed the remote toward the television like it was a gun.
“Nope, we have to dim the lights.” She hopped up and flipped the light switch next to the back door. “Did you ever realize that if we came home drunk some night, we might get confused and try to open the wrong back door?”
“Honey, if we come home drunk, we’ll just stagger in here from the bar.” He laughed. “I guess the original Honky Tonk always had the front door and back door, but when they built on this apartment, they decided to make it accessible through the parking lot. Now are we ready?”
She sat back down and nodded. “Laissez les bon temps rouler.”
“Let the good times roll.” He interpreted what she’d said.
She had her hand in the popcorn bowl whenHome Alonestarted instead of one of the two that they’d talked about. “I love this, but…”
He covered her hand with his. “I figured we were starting our own traditions. Besides, if we watch what we used to see with our families, we’ll get homesick. This one will make us laugh. We will watch it every Christmas and remember what a good time we had on our first Christmas together.”
“So, you think we’ll be together for years on down the road?” She slid her hand out from under his and filled her mouth with popcorn.
“Yep, I do.” He picked up a few kernels and popped them into his mouth.
“We should take pictures of Frank James and our tree and decorations in the bar and even our apartment,” she said. “I’ll make a scrapbook to keep them all in…” She stopped andstared at the television. “This is my favorite part. Someday I’m going to have a son like Kevin.”
“Are you going to forget him when you fly to Paris?” Cameron teased.
“Hell, no! To begin with, I’ll have a bar to run, so I won’t even be flying to Paris, Texas, much less to the one across the big pond,” she answered as she fluffed up his pillow and leaned an elbow on it.
“What about all the other kids? Are you going to let them call him FedEx?” Cameron chuckled.
“Nope, and what makes you think there’s going to be other children?” she asked.
“A boy needs siblings,” Cameron said. “Someone to fight with and stand up with when someone else picks a fight.”
“That’s something to think about later. Right now, I don’t want to miss a minute of this movie,” she told him.
Cameron awoke to nothing but a blank television screen staring at him.Home Alone 2had ended, the credits had rolled, and the digital clock on the DVD player told him that it was three thirty in the morning. He was stretched out on the front side of the bed. Jorja was spooned right up to hisback and had one leg thrown over him. Her arm was tucked tightly around his chest as if she was afraid that she would fall off the back side of the bed. He wished he had a picture of the two of them to put in her scrapbook, but there was no way he could reach his phone without waking her. He managed to pick up the remote and turn off the television, and then he closed his hand around hers and went back to sleep.
He was awakened again at ten o’clock in the morning when she gasped and jumped off the bed. He rolled to the wrong side and wound up on the floor about the same time that a spider rappelled down from the ceiling and hung suspended about six inches above his nose. Then another one swung down right beside it, so now there were two of the monsters staring at him as if he was going to be their supper.