He saw her breeze through the front door from across the room. She strode with purpose toward a table near the bar and sat down with her back to him. She must eat here often, he deduced as she looked up at the t.v. in the corner above the bar. His heart began skipping beats here and there as he watched her fish through the suitcase of a purse she carried.
The years had been good to her, he thought; she was more beautiful now than she’d been when he saw her last. And so meticulous! He watched, fascinated, as she fiddled with her cell phone and set it down to her right; next, she pulled a small notebook from her purse and set it squarely in front of her; finally, she pulled an mp3 player from a coat pocket and set it precisely halfway between the notebook and the phone. Once the waitress had taken her order, she opened the notebook and began to write.
What she wrote, of course, he had no idea, but he imagined sweeping vistas and far-off places, mystery and intrigue, and adventure of all kinds. Little did he know that she wrote of love: love found, love lost, love found again.
He studied here for close to half an hour, observing, unnoticed, as her soup and tea arrived, as she traded pen for spoon, as she slowly sipped and savored her chamomile tea. He was so absorbed in watching her every move that he physically jumped when the thought occurred to him that he might miss this opportunity to talk to her if he sat there much longer. He felt as though he’d been slapped by an unseen hand and the sensation was more than enough to spur him to action.
He left some money on the table, collected his coat, and closed the gap between them. As he fell into the booth behind her, he noticed that the earbuds were no longer in her ears, the notebook was no longer on the table, and she appeared ready to leave at any moment. And so, without thinking, he clapped his hands over her eyes and whispered in her ear, “Emma, darling, how I’ve missed you! It’s been ages!”
She jumped, then quickly put her hands up to her face to examine the hands covering her eyes. She knew those hands, knew every callous and every rough patch. It had been ages since Emma had seen Frederick Wentworth and oh, how she’d missed him! But she wasn’t about to let him know that, not yet. She gently pried his hands from her eyes. “Frederick, what are you doing?” she asked, doing her best to sound annoyed with him. She turned to face him and her breath caught in her throat. When they had parted, she had never expected to see him again and now here he was, seven years later, handsome as ever, with a look in his eye she dared not believe. “Frederick, what are you doing here?” she whispered.
He lost himself in those lovely blue eyes for a long moment, caught in a fantasy of what might have been. He had loved her deeply and still did, and he was determined to marry no one if not her. It had been a long and lonely seven years for him.
Emma returned his gaze, though quizzically, and he suddenly realized she’d spoken to him. “Excuse me?” he murmured, forcing himself to concentrate.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated, a plaintive tone creeping into her voice.
“I was just passing through town and stopped for something to eat,” he explained. “I saw you come in. I just couldn’t leave without saying hello.” A short pause. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, fine,” she lied. “And you?”
Frederick saw right through her. There was something she wasn’t telling him, something that maybe she just couldn’t bring herself to say. He wondered what that something was; perhaps he could find out. “Miserable,” he replied. “Emma, I want you to know…I love you. I always have, I always will. Maybe someday – “
Emma, with tears in her eys, gave up on trying to maintain her reserve. She placed a finger on his lips, silencing him, as the tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Oh, Frederick, how I’ve missed you,” she whispered. She felt her heart breaking anew as she recalled their last parting. “I should never have ended things. These seven years have been so long, so lonely without my best and truest friend. I was a fool, Frederick, and I have been heartily sorry for it.”
Frederick brushed the tears from her eyes as a newfound joy surged through him. “May I assume, then, that your feelings are not the same as they were seven years ago?” he asked cautiously.
“No, they remain unchanged,” she replied. Seeing the look of utter dejection etched on his face, she quickly added, “But you see, that is where I have been a fool. Instead of listening to my heart and trusting to the good Lord that things would work out, I succumbed to my fear and I have long regretted it.”
Daring now to hope, Frederick looked up at her and asked, “Then will you marry me?”
“Nothing could make me happier,” she replied.
(c) 2008. All rights reserved.
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