“To kick off our wedding countdown, I want to present Julie with a very special gift in front of all of you.”
Julie grew warm as thirty or so pairs of eyes studied her. Did she look excited? Happy? Not as if someone had just scrambled the meager contents of her stomach? At a gentle, under-the-table kick from her mother, Julie forced her mouth into a smile, the rest of her face numb.
Please, oh please, let it be something she liked. She was the absolute worst at faking.
“Darling, would you stand?”
Julie drained the last of her wine, rose and gripped the table’s edge.
Mason draped an arm across an easel behind them, an empty canvas covering something framed. She’d noticed it earlier but assumed it belonged to the restaurant. A painting they had yet to hang.
Could the present be something as innocuous as a picture? Her chest loosened. Possibly. Mason referred to his condo as a bachelor pad. Maybe this was his way of bringing her eclectic style into the austere space. Still, without her opinion, how would he know she’d like it? The instant the question occurred to her, she answered it.
He usually jumped in and chose for her when he saw her waver, unlike Austin, who’d always insisted she make up her own mind.
A loud crash sounded behind her and everyone jumped as a blushing waitress bent down to pick up the overturned easel.
Mason quickly moved between them, blocking Julie’s view. “Just a second, folks,” he remarked, his face still wreathed in an excited smile.
“I’m so sorry!” cried the young woman.
“It’s fine,” Mason assured, his tone confident, He always made it easy to follow his lead since he seemed so certain of what was best...especially when she never could be sure what she wanted. Lately, though, it’d begun to grate as the choices grew more important, his will more vocal. Of course, they wanted the same things...but should he always assume as much? He seemed to think her approval was guaranteed.
No. Taking a while to make up her mind didn’t mean others could race ahead and decide for her. But she’d let that happen with Mason. And it had to stop.
Finally, with a flourish, Mason ripped off the covering to reveal a real-estate picture of a near replica of her parents’ house. Colonial blue, though, instead of white. The word Sold was scrawled across the top.
What?
She glanced between her beaming father and an expectant Mason.
“This is our new house, Julie. Where we’ll raise our family. Soon, I hope.” He winked and squeezed her cold hands.
“But how?” she managed to say, her mind hurtling through thought after thought, too fast to make sense of it all. The room exploded into cheers and applause. Mason’s disabled veteran brother, Michael, punched the air with his remaining arm and circled it, whooping.
A bit of light faded from Mason’s eyes, but his smile stayed strong. “I found it around the corner from your parents’ house after Thanksgiving. The owner’s Mrs. Beele. You know her, right? She was struggling to wrap garland around her banister, and when I stopped to help, she mentioned this would be her last year decorating since she planned to sell. I got ahold of her real-estate agent, made an offer and the rest is history.”
“I didn’t know Margaret was selling,” Dianne said in a low voice to her husband, her eyes narrow. “Did you put him up to this?” she hissed under her breath, her voice barely audible.
“Mason came to me and asked that I keep it quiet until now.” Julie’s dad slipped his arm around his wife’s rigid shoulders. “Julie, I know how much you’ve always loved our house, and since this one is so similar and you’ll be in the same neighborhood, well, I knew you’d be happy with this surprise. No risk at all,” crowed her clueless dad.
Julie looked down at her hands, hiding behind her eyelids. Wasn’t that exactly the problem, though? No risk. Nothing unexpected. Of course this would be her home. The predictability should comfort her. No unknown variables in this equation.
Yet she took a step back from the picture and dropped Mason’s hands. The sounds in the room grew muffled, the tapering applause snuffed out by her drumming heart.
She didn’t want this.
The thought squirmed in her spine, poked her up from the carpet. No equivocation. No what-ifs. She did. Not. Want. That. House. Her certainty startled her—the shock felt like a splinter jamming under a nail.
“Julie. Are you okay? Would you like some water?” Mason sounded concerned as he leaned close, his musk overwhelming.
“No. Not okay,” she mumbled, her voice tamped down to a whisper. Austin would have insisted she have a say in their future home. And as much as she would have struggled with making such a difficult choice, she would have preferred it to this. Another traitorous thought.
“I don’t understand. It’s what we always talked about. Exactly what you said you wanted.” Mason rubbed her bare arms exposed by her sleeveless black dress.
Had she? Mason must be right, but at this moment, she couldn’t agree. Her gaze ran over the Cape Cod–style home, a red maple tree in the front yard, a curved walkway up to the stone entrance steps. A colorful grapevine wreath hung on the welcoming door and a brass mailbox rested beside the doorbell.
She could have drawn this home in her sleep. She fast-forwarded through her life with Mason in her mind. A couple of years when she decorated the house and they took exotic vacations, the eventual decision to start a family, her struggle to raise the infants then toddlers alone while Mason worked, and the loneliness when the children went to school and Mason grew increasingly preoccupied with his demanding schedule. Day after predictable day. The weight of her future crushed her as she saw how it, and she, would turn out.
She studied the photograph. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Not to her. There was a danger to knowing how it all ended.
Her gaze swept to the French doors and windows along one wall of the restaurant. The dark night outside was just the escape she needed.
“I’m so sorry. Excuse me. I need air.” She turned, but Mason’s hand halted her flight.
He ducked in front of her and led her outside, his hand on the small of her back. The arrival of tiramisu diverted the open-mouthed guests, covering their flight. Nevertheless, Julie sensed her mother’s eyes following her. What must her parents be thinking? She couldn’t disappoint them...but she wouldn’t be untrue to herself, either.
This rejection of the house was the first absolute decision she’d made in a long time and it felt right. But it went deeper than that. She didn’t want the life that went with it, either. Did that include Mason? It seemed impossible to separate the two.
Outside, the cold wrapped its frosty fingers around her and made her shiver, the night sky clear and frozen and smelling of pine.
“Julie. What happened in there? I thought you’d love it. Do you want another house?”
She jerked away when Mason pulled her close.
“No.”
His fair brows crashed together. “So you want the house?”
“No.”
“No,” Mason repeated. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, his eyes searching the stars. “No, as in you don’t want me to buy another house? No, as in you don’t want me? Don’t want to get married?” His voice broke.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, each word sawing through her. What was she