Rosemary's Double Delight Read Online Free PDF Page B

floor, in a swirling paisley pattern.
    The office next door contained two large desks with hutches, laptops open at both stations. Pointing at the messy desk, she said,
    “This is your desk.”
    Grinning, he asked, “How did you know? Did you see your picture on it?”
    She glanced back to the desk and saw the picture he referred to.
    The framed photograph was taken at Bowie Lake when she was sixteen. Her curls were wild and wind-blown, and she was dressed in a periwinkle blue bikini. All these years, he’d had a picture of her sitting on his desk.
    Ignoring the hitch in her chest, she said, “No, I didn’t. I saw the Darth Maul PEZ dispenser I gave you years ago. You still have it?”
    “It’s a collector’s item now, but it’s precious for other reasons, too,” he replied, kissing her. If he kept saying things like that she was going to blubber some more.
    Stepping over to Evan’s neat and tidy space, Rosemary saw something that nearly did make her bawl again. In freshman art class, their teacher had them experiment with plaster casting, and she’d cast her right hand for him, to use as a paperweight. She’d worried that he might think it was creepy, but Evan had loved it. It sat there, all these years later, atop a stack of orderly manila files. There were fingerprints all over it, like he’d actually used it on a daily basis.
    “You and I weren’t the only ones holding on, I think,” Wes murmured. “Let me show you the rest.” Wes led her down the hall and showed her the bathroom, which had been redone, and the third bedroom, which they used for a game room and home theater.
    Indicating an empty oak shelving unit with his hand, he said, “I added this especially for you, for your DVD collection.”
    “Thank you,” she murmured, understanding what he was trying to communicate. There was room in their house for her.

    36

    “We can have movie parties and entertain back here if you want to. The arcade games actually work.”
    “You are too much, Wes Garner. This is wonderful,” she said, hugging him happily.
    “The popcorn machine works, too. The sound quality on the theater system is unbelievable. We need to watch a movie together sometime soon so you can see how great it is. Our friend Sam installed it for us and did a top-notch job. He’s wired the rest of the house for theater entertainment as well as sound. He can come back after you get settled and put in whatever you want in the master bed and bath, kitchen, and your office.”
    “ M y office?” she asked incredulously.
    “Sure. Why not? I figured you’d want a room for your own personal use. We can build whatever sort of furniture you’d like in it.
    You can decorate it however you want.”
    “Are you asking me to move in?”
    “No. Yes. Evan needs to be here for that conversation,” Wes said a little lamely.
    Rosemary grinned and said, “I’m not living in sin with you, Wes Garner. I haven’t held out all this time just to become your live-in girlfriend.”
    Wes smiled down at her and kissed her, saying, “No one said that was what we wanted, now did they? Patience, princess. Come on.” He led her down to the end of the hallway.
    He reached inside the darkened room and flipped on the light switch. The walls were painted in the same neutral taupe and the floors were the same medium-toned hardwood as the rest of the house. What stood out about this empty room was the hanging light fixture.
    “I know you like Italian blown glass. I found this at an estate auction. I thought you’d like it. Baby, you’re gonna catch flies like that,” he chuckled, reaching out a finger to close her open jaw.
    “Wow.”

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    He grinned triumphantly. “I guess that means you like it?”
    “I—I love it.” Hand-blown colored glass globes held the light bulbs. She saw magenta, light blue, orange, red, electric blue, bright green, yellow, and purple mixed with milky translucent glass and shaped in an artsy, random pattern. “This must’ve