Page 24

Olive thought she might go stir-crazy. It had been six days since Mertie’s wedding, and Doyle had insisted that she spend most of all of those six days in bed.

She had agreed to it, mostly, because she did want to be better for Amara’s wedding which was tomorrow. But other than him allowing her to get out of bed twice each day to go for a walk, right beside him in case she fell, she hadn’t gotten out at all.

She did not hold that against Doyle whatsoever. In fact, she appreciated the fact that he had brought all of his work things and spent a good part of each day either outside of her room or downstairs working, taking care of the baby, and making sure that she had nourishing meals.

Most of those meals had been provided by Cassie, who had even delivered a few.

She wouldn’t say that she and Cassie were exactly on the greatest terms, but she was still trying to be a friend to her. She thought that perhaps Cassie resented the fact that when Olive left like she’d asked, Doyle had moved out too.

That was not Olive’s problem, though. She didn’t ask for it, and she wasn’t going to ask him to leave her, especially after the care and concern he’d shown her the last few days.

Maybe it was just a matter of the patient falling in love with their caretaker, but she thought that she might be developing feelings for Doyle, if she hadn’t already had them.

She wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject though, since he hadn’t the entire week that he’d been taking care of her.

Although he had held her in his arms at the wedding and seemed to want to keep her there. But that might have been because he was trying to make sure that she did what he wanted her to.

“How are you doing this afternoon?” Doyle said as he peeked his head in her open door.

“Ready to get out of bed,” she said, trying not to sound like she was whining or complaining, but truly tired of staring at the four walls. He had taken her down and allowed her to sit and enjoy the view of Lake Michigan, and she’d spent a little bit of time in the living room, but not nearly enough.

“We have some company, and if you don’t mind, I have a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?” For her? Is that what he meant?

“For the three of you,” Doyle said as he walked in the room followed by Amara and Mertie.

“So that’s why you invited us here,” Amara said, narrowing her eyes at Doyle before hurrying to Olive’s side and giving her a hug.

Olive pushed herself up in bed, swimming through the dizziness that almost always occurred as she sat up. The doctor had said that it would eventually go away, once she got a little stronger. But all of her tests had come back negative, other than the test showing that she had had malaria, but it was inactive.

“Sweetie. Your cheeks are rosy, and you have some color back. That makes me happy,” Mertie said, giving her a hug from the other side of the bed. Both her sisters pulled chairs next to her, and each of them held her hand.

“I don’t want to take up all of your time, because I know you guys want to visit, but I’ve been talking with my lawyers and my accountant, and I’d like to make an offer on this house. You don’t have to do any more work on it, unless you want to, of course. The normal inspections don’t have to apply since I’m buying it outright, but I would like to have them so I know what I’m dealing with.”

“Wow. I wasn’t expecting that,” Mertie said, looking a little relieved.

Olive figured that she and Garnet probably didn’t make a whole lot and would appreciate the money from the sale since the money that they were supposed to be getting from their parents’ business had been held up, although as far as she knew, that was working out, and it wouldn’t be long, maybe another month or two, until it was straightened away.

“I would love to have you buy it. It would be great to have it go into the hands of people we know. I thought about buying it myself, but Hobert really wants to stay down by the shore, and while he would live here if I wanted him to, it seems kind of ostentatious.”

Olive smiled. Amara had changed so much since becoming involved with Hobert. All changes in a good way. He’d been such a great influence on her, bringing her back from being a workaholic and hardly ever around her family to wanting to have relationships with all of her sisters.

“I’m willing to pay fair market value. I’ve talked to several real estate agents, and they have a figure in mind, but as long as your figure is in the ballpark, that’s what I’ll pay.”

“Well, it’s funny you should mention it, because I just got the appraisal back from our agent yesterday. It’s actually here on my phone,” Mertie said, picking up her phone and scrolling through until she found the email she was looking for.

She listed the amount that her agent had said.

“That’s actually less than I was quoted. I’m totally fine with that amount, as long as you guys are. I don’t want anyone to feel like they were cheated. And I don’t want you to give me any kind of breaks just because...” He looked at Olive but didn’t say anything.

Olive looked back at him, then glanced at her sisters, who smiled knowingly.

She wanted to tell them that things weren’t like that, but she supposed they probably looked that way since he had basically been staying here to take care of her.

“We won’t. We promise,” Mertie said, breaking into Olive’s train of thought.

“All right. I just wanted to throw that out there. I’m not in a huge rush, although I wouldn’t mind getting it settled before fall. That will give me the winter to make any changes that I need and... I’ve been thinking about buying the house I’m living in.”

That was news to Olive, and her brows lifted.

“We can talk about it later. I had a big phone call this morning and didn’t have a chance to chat with you before your sisters came.”

“That’s fine. I appreciate you letting me know,” she said, although not sure why that applied to her. He certainly didn’t owe her anything and definitely not information on his business dealings.

But she didn’t go into all of that with her siblings sitting there.

Once the door closed behind him, Mertie squeezed her hand. “That’s amazing. How did you talk him into buying this house?”

“I didn’t. Although I guess I did know he was thinking about it.”

“She’s been in bed this whole week. She’s supposed to be resting so she can make it to my wedding and do more than stand on the dance floor and look like she’s going to faint,” Amara said, patting Olive’s hand.

“You’re not even going to have a dance floor,” she said, remembering that the last time she had talked to Amara, they were going to get married at the church and have the dinner on the grounds, asking people to bring their own lawn chairs and a dish to share. They had a few tables they could set up to hold the food, but everybody was going to be eating from paper plates on their lap.

“Have you seen the weather for tomorrow?” Amara asked as she pulled up her phone.

“If it’s supposed to be sunny, God will handle it, and if you get rain, you know who’s in charge of that too,” Mertie said, not in a dismissive, lecturing way, but in a tone that was most likely designed to make Amara feel better.

“I know you’re right. I just need to have faith that God’s going to work it out, but I really, really want a sunny day for my wedding.”

“God knows that too,” Mertie said.

She couldn’t remember too many times where she and her sisters had sat and talked growing up, but Olive couldn’t think of too many other things she’d rather do than sit and listen to them.

“So are you guys going to be living here?” Amara asked.

“Livvy and me?” she tried to clarify, not quite knowing who else she might have meant by “you guys.”

“And Doyle. He’s buying the house.”

“No. We’re not going to live together. I mean, it’s a big house, I know that, but that’s not right.”

“After you get married,” Amara said, her tone almost saying that Olive was being dense.

“We haven’t talked about getting married.”

“You haven’t? I guess I just assumed—”

“I assumed too. That’s the story that’s going around town anyway.”

Olive sat against the pillows, leaning her head against the wall. How could the story have started? She hadn’t said anything.

Would Cassie have been spreading stories about her? Surely not.

“I’m not sure how that got started, but we haven’t talked about marriage at all. We haven’t really talked about much of anything.”

“You didn’t need to talk at my wedding. You were dancing so close.”

“That’s because he was afraid I was going to fall over if he let go of me. It really didn’t have anything to do with how much he likes me or anything about our relationship.”

“You can tell yourself that if you want to,” Mertie said, lifting her brows like she knew better.

“About the house,” Olive said, wanting to get the conversation off her and Doyle. She had no idea where their relationship was.

“Hasn’t he been taking care of you all of this time?” Amara continued like Olive hadn’t changed the subject.

“He has. He’s been doing everything. All I had to do is get myself to the bathroom and take an occasional shower. He feeds the baby, he’s woken with her at night and fed her then, changed her diapers, and bathed her. He’s brought me food or had Cassie do it, and he’s walked beside me every day when we got out to get a little air in the morning and again in the evening. I couldn’t have found a better caretaker.”

“Do you think a man would do that for just anyone?” Amara asked. It was a leading question, Olive knew that, but... She wasn’t quite sure how to take it.

“Well... No. But—”

“Okay, so, no, a man doesn’t do that for just anyone. He does it for the woman that he cares strongly about. Maybe even loves.” Amara looked down her nose at Olive, as though daring her to disagree.

“But Doyle is different. Doyle is the kind of man who helps anyone who needs it with anything that they need. He’s not going to just dump me on the side of the road because I can’t take care of myself.”

“He’s not going to move in, take care of your every need, as well as every need of your two-month-old baby, unless he has some pretty strong feelings about you. Feelings that I believe begin with the letter L.”

“He hasn’t said anything about it,” Olive finally said, not knowing how else to respond to her sisters. They seemed to be insisting that Doyle felt something for her that he hadn’t mentioned at all. And it was true that he had held her in his arms, and they had danced together, and it was also true that he had asked her why she came back, but that didn’t really mean anything, did it? She didn’t want to make assumptions, because she didn’t want to get hurt.

“I know I’m very fond of him. Very fond.”

“Fond? Is that the best you can do?” Amara said, crossing her arms over her chest like Olive was being a bratty child.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what it feels like to be in love. I had a lot of strong feelings for Ricardo, Livvy’s father, but... They evaporated as soon as he left me. It wasn’t like I pined for him. And he didn’t really inspire me to want to be better. In fact, he convinced me to be worse than what I knew to be good.”

“And that’s not true love,” Mertie said firmly, drawing Olive’s eyes to her. “I think that love needs to be less of a feeling and more of what Doyle has been doing. Acts of sacrifice, service, showing how he feels, rather than just saying it. Acting on what’s right, rather than how he feels.”

“I guess we’ll just have to talk about it. I know that I’ve never met anyone else who’s treated me as good as what he has. He seems to love me...even when I can’t figure out why. And he’s definitely taking great care of my daughter, which probably means more to me than anything else.” It was so true. She felt like she could trust Doyle with her daughter, like he truly cared about her, like he loved her like she was his own, and that was probably the thing more than anything else that pulled at her heartstrings and made her want to be the very best she could for him.

“Maybe he hasn’t said anything because of you being sick. It’s also been only a couple of weeks that you’ve been back. But I’ve never thought it’s been a good idea to wait for a long time when you know for sure you’re with the one God has for you. If you have the same values, and you’re sure that you’re following God’s leading, dating, or the equivalent, is a bad idea. We should make a decision and follow through with it.” Mertie nodded her head to emphasize her words.

“But you definitely need to make sure that it’s God’s will. Because it’s a major, life-changing decision. And one that you can’t get out of.”

“Well, you can,” Olive said, looking at Amara.

“You know what I mean,” Amara said, and Olive had to agree. She didn’t even want to think the D word, but that was the only way to undo a bad decision of that magnitude. And it had implications that stretched not just between the couple who was divorcing, but their children and their families and generations to come, because the family would be split. Hearts would be broken, and there would be pain in every corner. She didn’t want to do that to anyone, not to her sisters, most especially not to Doyle.

“Guys, I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. Doyle hasn’t said anything at all about getting married.”

“I think all Amara and I are saying is that he will.” Mertie looked smug, and then she completely changed the subject. “So, how do you guys feel about selling the house to Doyle?”

“I’m in. I don’t care what he pays. It’s not like we need the money.” Amara’s words were firm.

“I don’t want to make a rash decision, but I agree with you. It doesn’t really matter what he gives us, although it’s very fair of him to give us exactly what our realtor says it’s worth. And I’m totally fine with it.”

They both looked at Olive. Like she had a deciding vote.

She enjoyed the moment for just a minute, because moments with her sisters had been few and far between.

“Are both of you staying in Raspberry Ridge?” she asked.

Surprise registered on both of their faces, probably because they weren’t expecting her to change the subject, and they both nodded.

“I don’t know where God might lead us, but for right now, we have zero plans of ever leaving the town we love. This is where we plan to put down roots and raise our family. And serve the church as long as they’ll have us.”

“This is where I grew up, and where my best memories are, and it’s where Hobert grew up too. We have no plans of leaving. He’s going to continue to fish, and we’ll keep the money that we get from my parents aside, just in case regulations ever force him out of the water. Then we’ll have something to fall back on. But hopefully that will mean that we can stay here. Because that’s what we want.”

“That’s what I want too. I was hoping that I would be able to buy the house, with my equity in it and especially after hearing that we were supposed to be getting money from our parents’ business, but... I can’t afford it. Not now. Maybe if we held off for six months.”

“You want us to?” Amara asked gently.

She shook her head. It wasn’t fair for her to keep the sale of the house from going through, when they had a buyer and he was eager. She knew her sisters seemed to think that Doyle and she were inevitably going to get married, but she didn’t have that impression, and he hadn’t said a word. But she supposed there wasn’t anyone she would rather buy the house, and she also was sure that he would be fine if she lived in it until she could get back on her feet. Or at least until the payments from her parents’ business started coming in.

“Yes. I want Doyle to buy it if that’s possible. I’m all in.”

The conversation turned to Amara’s wedding and the plans that she and Hobert had for their house on the beach. It was simple, beautifully so, and there was going to be so much love in the house that Olive figured it didn’t really matter what it looked like, although it was going to be beautiful.

Amara had that way of being able to take what she touched and turn it into beauty.

“We’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?” Amara said after two hours had gone by and they were ready to leave.

“I’m feeling really good. And I’m really looking forward to it. If there’s anything that I can do to help, you’ll be sure to ask?”

“If we have any last-minute things that need to be done, I’ve got you on speed dial,” Amara said, holding up her phone before shoving it in her pocket and walking out the door in front of Mertie who blew a kiss at her as she left.