“I know, and there’s no pressure. I just wanted you to have this place in your head while you’re deciding about your schedule. I talked with Tank about what it would take to open a shop, and, babe, you could totally do this if you wanted to. You’d be close to Abby, and the beach, and your favorite coffee shop, and it could be all yours to work as little or as much as you’d like.”
She looked at the shop and then at him, and her eyes took on that dreaminess he loved so much. “I can’t even tell you how I feel half the time, and you go to the ends of the earth for me.” She shook her head. “I still think you’ve lost your marbles, but thank you!” She threw her arms around him, and he kissed her.
“You’re welcome, babe. This is what couples do. We open doors and help each other find all the things that make us happy.”
“What makes you happy?”
“You. The light in your eyes. Your smile. Your laugh. Your kisses. The way you get sarcastic and sassy one minute and sweet as sugar the next.” He looked down at Scrappy. “And our boy. The way you love him.” The way you love me.
“Brant.” She barely managed the whisper.
He pulled her closer. “Want me to keep going? Or do you want to check this place out?”
She looked at the newsstand, her smile widening to the kind of smile a kid might make on Christmas morning, and man, that made him happy. He gave her a quick kiss and took her hand, leading her to the entrance. “Go on, babe. Explore.”
As he’d expected, she didn’t run in to check it out the way other women might. She stepped inside tentatively, fidgeting with her hands as she tipped her head back and looked up. “There are skylights!”
Her gaze moved over the interior, and she didn’t say a word for two or three minutes, but he could see the gears in her head churning.
She pointed to the left. “That’s where I’d put a desk. A thin one, or maybe a counter all the way across with file cabinets beneath it instead of a desk. Yeah, that would be best. More counter space. I’d put a reclining chair here instead of where it was in the sketch.” She moved around the space, pointing as she spoke. “And my worktable here. My stool would go there, and I’d need a sink.”
“There’s a powder room behind you. It would be easy to bring a pipe through the wall.”
She spun around, eyes dancing with excitement, and opened the powder room door. “That would work.” She turned again, studying the space on either side of the front door. “I could put shelves on both sides, or shelves on one and a cabinet on the other, and two chairs for people to wait right here. If I put the table here, I could put the desk over there . . .”
She moved swiftly, changing her mind about what might go where, and he could see her getting lost in the design just as she got lost in her drawings. It was a beautiful sight.
She spun again, beaming at him. “Oh, Brant! Thank you for doing this. I can’t commit to anything right now, so I feel bad about wasting Charmaine’s time. But just standing in here with you and thinking about it makes it feel like one day I might be able to!”
“That’s what dreaming is all about, angel. Half the fun is thinking about it, striving for it, and making plans with the hopes that one day those dreams will come true.”
“This is . . .” She looked around with awe and disbelief, then turned those gorgeous, suddenly serious eyes on him. “No.”
“No?” Shit, what happened?
“The space is amazing, but it isn’t the best part of what I’m feeling.” She wound her arms around his neck. “What I meant to say is that you are unbelievable. You’ve opened more doors for me, literally and figuratively, than anyone ever has. You make me want to dream.”
“Then dream, baby, because it sure looks good on you.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers pressed a little harder on the back of his neck, and she licked her lips. “How does it look if I want to dream with you?”
His heart somersaulted. “There isn’t a word big enough to describe it. I’ll have to show you.” He lowered his lips to hers, soaking in every ounce of her excitement and feeding it with his own.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“ALMOST DONE?” BRANT asked for the tenth time in the last hour.
“I just need a few more minutes.” Cait huddled over her sketchbook, putting the final touches on the mural she was presenting to the mayor and the committee next week.
It was late Saturday afternoon, eleven days after Brant had surprised her with a visit to the Daily News stand, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of renting it and opening her own shop. She still hadn’t made any decisions about her winter schedule, but she had time. They’d spent all day together mulling over the idea of opening her own shop and talking about the mural. They’d gone for a hike at the wildlife refuge, had lunch at Trista’s café on Main Street, and then they’d come to the park to play fetch with Scrappy. But he’d run after the ball and then lay down in the grass with the toy between his paws. At least they’d gotten some cute pictures, and now they were sitting beneath the umbrella of a large tree.
Brant leaned closer, and she clutched the sketchbook to her chest.
He frowned. “I’m dying over here. Come on, babe. I gave you tips for wedding dress shopping with Abby tomorrow when you were nervous about it.”
She gave him a deadpan look. “Telling me not to tell Abby she looked fat in any dresses and to nod a lot aren’t exactly stellar tips.” Deirdra was meeting Cait, Abby, and Leni on the Cape to go bridal gown shopping tomorrow. Cait was going to stay on the Cape and work at Wicked Ink Monday and Tuesday.
“At least I tried.” He chuckled. “The suspense is killing me. You’ve been working on that drawing for three and a half weeks and you haven’t shown it to me once.”
“What if you hate it?”
“That’s ridiculous. I haven’t hated any of your sketches.”
That was true. He’d loved them all, and when they’d gone to another barbecue with his family, he’d even raved to them about her drawings. She’d surprised him with a sketch of that evening the next day. She’d drawn his parents mooning over each other at the table and his grandma Millie leaning forward in her seat holding Tessa’s hands as she’d tried to convince her that she needed to make more time for dating. She’d drawn Ford giving Randi a piggyback ride by the gardens with Scrappy chasing them and her and Brant sneaking kisses by the side of the house. Jamison, Rowan, and Joni hadn’t been there, but she didn’t feel right leaving them out, so she’d drawn them in a heart above the others to signify that they were always in their hearts. When she’d given the drawing to Brant, he’d gushed over it and immediately took pictures with his phone and sent them to everyone in his family. He’d since framed the drawing, and even though she’d given Abby and Aiden pictures and they’d framed them, this was different. Better. This was the kind of happiness that nestled into her chest.
“Okay, I’ll show you,” she relented. “But you have to promise that if you don’t like it, or you think the committee won’t like it, you’ll be honest, because I can take it.”