“Please, call me Alice. We’re family.”
Marg’s heart warmed at her mother’s openness toward her fiancé.
Ben’s eyes widened at the sight of her, and his jaw became slack.
“Your chin is on the floor, dear.” Alice chuckled. Ben quickly closed his mouth.
“Hi,” Marg greeted shyly.
“Hi,” Ben greeted back, looking her over appreciatively. “You look beautiful.”
Marg felt her cheeks brighten. “Thank you. You look handsome,” she returned.
“These are for you,” he said, presenting her with a bouquet of red roses.
Marg accepted them, burying her face in their soft petals. “Thank you.” She smiled at him from under her lashes.
After placing the flowers in a vase with water, the trio left the house.
“So, where are we going?” Marg turned to ask Ben.
Ben looked over at her and grinned. “It’s a surprise.”
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
Ben laughed. “I plan to keep surprising you for as long as we both shall live,” he said with a glint in his eyes.
“Is that a part of the vows you’re writing?” Marg cocked her head to the side.
“Maybe.” Ben smirked.
Marg noted that they were traveling southwest along Route 20. Forty minutes later, they were pulling into a parking lot of the three-star Michelin restaurant, Lot 28. Marg’s eyes widened in surprise.
“How did you get a reservation here?” she turned to ask Ben, still bug-eyed.
“The owner Paul and I go way back,” Ben replied.
“How many restaurant owners do you know?” Marg asked.
Ben chuckled. “A few.”After helping her and Alice down from the truck, he led them toward the entrance.
The first thing Marg noticed when they entered the restaurant was the black and gold lace trim wall patterns and the tableware on the off-white tablecloths that matched the motif. Everything seemed so regal, and she wondered if it was legal to even sit.
Her heart swelled with joy when they were led to a secluded spot where her friends sat by a large table with the backdrop of congratulations to the newly engaged couple. Marg turned to Ben, who smiled down at her knowingly.
“Surprise.”
Marg looked out at the sea of friends and family, and her heart swelled with joy.
ChapterTwenty-One
While Erin's fingers moved the pencil around on the page, her wrist stayed rigidly bent as she drew lines and curves. Her hands moved almost as swiftly as the images did in her thoughts while she was trying to recreate them. Now, page after page was completely covered with doodles of the ideas that had occurred to her.
Since she arrived in Oak Harbor, her creative juices had been pouring like a never-ending stream, especially when she visited the gazebo with her tools in hand. She was powerless to deny the fact that this place possessed a certain mystique. Even though she had no intention of pursuing a career in design, she enjoyed the fact that she was able to continue expressing her artistic side on paper.
“Hi.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of Brian’s voice. She looked up from the sketch she had been working on to see him standing by the gazebo’s entrance with his hands in his pocket and a smile on his lips.
