Shirley Jump - The Virgin's Proposal

“Make it two and you have a deal.” Olivia laid some money on the counter for a down payment.

Sarah nodded, her gaze on the cash. “Okay.”

“Wonderful.” Olivia handed Katie a foil-embossed business card. “Call me when they’re ready.” Then she left.

When the door shut, Katie let out a breath. “This is great! It’s the break we’ve been waiting for!”

Sarah took the card, turning it over and over in her hand. “That could be a great account for us. It would get our name in front of people with money to spend, the same people who buy loads of flowers for their houses and churches. People like the Callahans and the Simpsons and the Websters…” Sarah’s jaw dropped. “That’s right! Olivia’s our direct ticket to them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you remember? Olivia Maguire used to be married to their son…” She waved her hand, searching for the name. “Matt! That’s it. The one who was always in trouble. Maybe you don’t remember him. He was a few years ahead of us in school and I barely remember what he looked like myself.”

“Funny you should mention him.” Katie took another sip of her pop. “The man who was here earlier—”

“The incredibly gorgeous one?”

Katie laughed. “You noticed?”

“I’m pregnant, not blind,” Sarah replied. “What about him?”

“He said he was Matt Webster.”

“The Matt Webster?” Sarah picked up the card again. “Olivia’s Matt?” She rubbed her belly absently. “Didn’t they break up after they lost their baby? The family kept everything hush-hush. It’s been what, ten years, since then?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t exactly have an in-depth conversation under the awning.” Katie smiled. “All I saw was, well, his eyes,” she admitted.

“Did you ask him out?”

“Sarah, I was wearing a banana suit.”

“So? Doesn’t mean you can’t be spontaneous.” She wagged a finger at Katie. “Try a little spontaneity, you might like it.”

“Spoken by the queen of spontaneity herself. Heck, you even got married on the spur of the moment.”

“Eloping is exciting and romantic,” Sarah said with a flourish of her hand. “I like to live for the moment, rather than let it pass me by.”

Katie considered Sarah’s words as she worked on the roses in the cooler. She changed the water and added floral preservative before placing the flowers back into the containers. The banana suit, while embarrassing, had also emboldened her and given her the chutzpah to exchange witty repartee with a sexy stranger. It had been a new feeling, a liberating one. In her twenty-four years, she hadn’t taken many chances and the ones she had—Steve, the store—hadn’t exactly been successful. Maybe if she changed her approach, the outcome would be different.

For too many years, she’d been Conventional Katie, always predictable, never stepping out of bounds, even when the ball was hurtling toward her head. That kind of reliability had led her to a broken heart and a year of lonely evenings.

“I’ve been thinking,” Katie said. “You know what today is, don’t you?”

“Uh huh,” Sarah replied with a sympathetic look. “I didn’t want to mention it, though. Figured it might make it hard for you to be a jolly banana.”

Katie laughed. Sarah had always been able to erase Katie’s blue moods. Lord knew there’d been plenty of those in the last year. “It would have been my first anniversary, if Steve hadn’t left me at the altar.”

“In the end, a very good thing.”

“I didn’t think so at the time, but I do now. If I’d married him and then he’d taken off with someone else, it would have been worse.” Katie plucked a pale peach rose from the bucket and sniffed the delicate fragrance. Sarah’s motto sounded like the perfect antidote for Katie’s stagnant life. Live for the moment, before it passes you by. And leaves you old and alone, she amended. “I’ve been moping long enough. It’s time for a change.”

“Good for you!” Sarah settled back on the stool. “What kind of change are you thinking about?”

“First, I’m going to overindulge in chocolate,” Katie said. “And then, well…” She thought of Matt Webster and how a smile from him had set off fireworks in her belly. “I might just go for something a little more decadent.”

Fate sure had a twisted sense of humor. There wasn’t a single Hershey Bar or Sara Lee double chocolate layer cake in the seven-aisle store that passed for a supermarket in Mercy. Katie supposed it was a mark of small-town charm, but for a girl craving chocolate and calories, it left a lot to be desired. Being mid-week, the shelves and freezer case were already empty of anything remotely indulgent. Muttering in defeat, Katie grabbed a box of fruit-flavored Popsicles and laid it in the row of groceries in her basket, arranged in order of her coupons.

She wandered up and down the aisles, in no hurry to return to her empty apartment. As she rounded a display of spaghetti sauce, she heard a familiar voice. Then another. She stopped in her tracks and peeked beyond the jars.

“Oh, Stevie, get the extra cheese popcorn,” purred a woman draped on Katie’s ex-fiancé’s arm. The feline vixen in a lavender dress was none other than Barbara—ex-bridesmaid and traitor.

In tenth grade, Barbara and Katie had met in a study group that managed to ace Miss Marchand’s biology class. They’d become friends and stayed in touch during college. When Barbara returned from four years in Boston and had trouble finding a job, she’d seemed depressed. So Katie often invited her along to join her and Steve as a threesome, or with a friend of Steve’s, thinking it would be the boost Barbara needed. Too trusting by far, Katie later realized she’d been the conduit to a secret affair instead.

Why hadn’t she put the pieces together when Barbara caught a sudden case of the flu the morning of the wedding? While Katie was standing in front of a hundred people waiting for a groom who never came, Barbara had been off consummating a different union.

On Katie’s honeymoon. With Katie’s groom.

And Steve—he’d probably been drinking their champagne in the crystal glasses her mother had bought, toasting another woman in a negligee. An eager woman. One who wouldn’t make him wait until the vows were said and done. And he’d probably been finding the exact kind of excitement he’d told Katie she lacked.

She’d heard they’d moved to Lansing, Michigan. But clearly, they were back, and sharing their love—based on a mutual admiration for wrestling and Coors beer—with all of Mercy. Ugh.

A year’s worth of anger, which Conventional Katie had kept under a tight, polite lid, boiled up inside her. She’d vowed to go on with her life, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten. They’d betrayed her, even going so far as to keep the shower gifts, and she’d taken it all without a word, while Barbara sipped from Katie’s Waterford and kissed Katie’s groom.

She wondered if she could be arrested for assaulting them with an extra-large box of Orville Redenbacher’s.

“Excuse me, miss.”

Katie wheeled around. Standing directly behind her, with a shopping cart full of the gastrointestinal nightmares that only bachelors seemed to buy, was Matt Webster.

She was now in her own clothes, no banana suit to hide behind. It was a perfect chance to test the waters of her new spontaneity resolution, right in front of Barbara and Steve. Take a chance. Dip a toe in the wild side.

A second peek around the corner and she saw Steve, one hand on Barbara’s waist, strolling down the aisle, debating popcorn choices. They were going to see her in a minute—the lovey-dovey couple encountering the lonely, jilted bride. She imagined the pity on their faces, the knowing smiles that said she was the unfortunate one, the one who hadn’t gone on, a year after the fiasco.