I slammed the door shut before he finished his sentence.
When I pulled up to Julianna’s house a few of her neighbors eyed the car. Even though she lived in a nice neighborhood, it wasn’t precisely vintage-luxury-car nice.
Caley’s face was in the window before I even put my finger on the doorbell, which I didn’t have to do because I heard her yelling. “Aunt Annie, he’s here! Jakey’s here!”
Annie came to the door a few minutes later and let me inside.
I bent down in front of Caley, who came running enthusiastically toward me. “How was your day, Caley?”
“It was okay, but now I’m sad.” She folded her arms across her chest and made a pouty face.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because you and Mommy are gonna go out without me. I’m gonna be all alone.” She buried her face against Annie’s leg.
Annie put her hand down and patted her head, then smiled at me. “Now, Caley, you and I are going to have a lot of fun tonight. I brought a puzzle, we’re going to make a pizza and then watch one of your favorite movies.”
“Make a pizza? Oh, wow, Caley. I’m kind of jealous of you. I haven’t made a pizza in a long time.” She started to smile as she looked at me, the same kind of smile she had when she told me about her gummy worm sundae.
“Aunt Annie lets me put olives and peppers on it so that it looks like a face!” She then put her hands up to her ears and tried to scare me, which I played along with by jumping up in the air.
Just then, Julianna came downstairs.
“Wow,” I breathed. “You look amazing.”
She was wearing another one of her wrap dresses, this one was black, and her cleavage seemed a bit more voluptuous. She was also wearing the same pair of high heels with the red bottoms.
“Thank you, so do you.” She walked over to Caley. “What do you two have planned for tonight?”
“Scary face pizza, Mommy!” She jumped up, and Julianna wrapped Caley's little legs around her waist.
The longer I looked at the two of them, the more I realized that I was, in fact, in love with Julianna.
“And what about you two?” Annie took Caley from her mother, directing her question to me.
“I actually want to surprise Julianna tonight,” I said with a smile.
She grabbed her purse and gave Caley a kiss on the cheek. “You be good, okay, Sweetie?”
I walked out behind Julianna, giving Caley a silly face as they watched us leave. Then I held the door to the car open, and she slid in, admiring my brother's toy. “I recognize this from your brother’s garage. He certainly loves his cars, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, to say the least.”
I held her hand all the way to our destination, which was a piece of land that my father owned. And at the top of the hill was a quaint old cabin. Inside, I had set out a table for two with candles across from the stone fireplace.
As we approached, Julianna stared out the window in awe. She pointed to the top of the hill where the land evened out. “Is that a cottage?”
“Yes,” I said as we pulled up the driveway. “It’s just you and me tonight, all night.”
I got out of the car and opened her door, tucking her arm in mine as she picked her way carefully along the stone path in her heels. As we approached the cottage, Julianna was caught off guard by the pond that was initially hidden from view. She immediately looked at it and grinned.
“Oh, wow, this place is so unique and truly amazing,” she said, walking closer.
Julianna bent down to look into the pond as if searching for fish or anything else that might be beneath the surface. Then we walked back toward the little cottage — that wasn’t really that little.
It was light blue with white shutters, two floors, and plenty of windows to let in the light. None of the blinds or shades were drawn inside of the house. Up there on this hill, there was no need to block out such a beautiful view. She put her hands around her eyes and peeked inside through a window.
For a few moments, I slid my hands inside my pockets and admired Julianna. She looked so beautiful as she went from window to window, eager to see inside almost like I imagined Caley would do. “Let’s go in so you can see my surprise.”
