Page 50 of Summer Weddings
“The name’s Jack. I don’t understand why my daughter hasn’t seen fit to invite you into the house, young man.” He cast an accusatory frown in Sally’s direction. “Seems you’ve come a long way to visit her.”
“It doesn’t look like I was as welcome as I thought I’d be,” John muttered.
“Nonsense. It’s Christmas Day. Since you’ve traveled all this distance, the least we can do is ask you to join us and give you a warm drink.”
John didn’t need anything to warm him. Spending time with the McDonald family would only add to his frustration and misery, but Jack McDonald gave him no option. Sally’s father quickly ushered him inside.
Swallowing his pride, John followed the brawny man up a short flight of stairs and into the living room. The festivities ceased when he appeared. Sally’s father introduced him around, and her mother poured him a cup of wassail that tasted like hot apple cider.
“I don’t believe Sally’s mentioned you in her letters home,” Mrs. McDonald said conversationally as a chair was brought out for John.
He felt his heart grow cold and heavy with pain.
Forcing himself to observe basic good manners, he thanked Sally’s brother for the chair.
All those months while he was pining over Sally, he hadn’t rated a single line in one of her letters home.
Although he’d told her their making love had been no big deal, it had been.
For him. He loved her. But apparently their relationship wasn’t important enough for Sally to even mention his name.
“I told you about John,” Sally said.
John wondered if that was true, or if she was attempting to cover her tracks.
“John’s the bush pilot I wrote you about.” Sally sat across the room from him and tucked her hands awkwardly between her knees as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them.
“Oh yes, now I remember. Don’t think you said his name, though.” Her father nodded slowly. And her mother sent him a bright smile.
John drank the cider as fast as he could. It burned going down, but he didn’t care. He drained the cup, stood and abruptly handed it to Sally’s mother.
“Thank you for the drink and the hospitality, but I should be on my way.”
Jack bent down to the carpet and retrieved something. “I believe you dropped this, son,” he said.
To John’s mortification, Sally’s father held out the engagement ring.
He checked his pocket, praying all the while that there were two such rings in this world, and that the second just happened to be in Sally’s home. On the floor. Naturally, the diamond Jack held was the one he’d bought for Sally. Without a word, he slipped it back inside his suit pocket.
“It was a pleasure meeting everyone,” he said, anxiously eyeing the front door. He’d never been so eager to leave a place. Leave and find somewhere to be by himself.
Well, he told himself bitterly, he’d learned his lesson when it came to women. He was better off living his life alone. To think he’d been one of the men eager to have the O’Hallorans bring women north!
One thing was certain; he didn’t need this kind of rejection, this kind of pain.
“John?” Sally gazed at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Only this time he wasn’t about to be taken in by her sweetness.
He ignored her and hurried down the stairs to the front door. He’d already grasped the door handle when he realized that Sally had followed him. “You can leave without explaining that ring, but I swear if you do I’ll never speak to you again.”
“I don’t see that it’d matter,” he told her, boldly meeting her eyes. “You weren’t planning on speaking to me anyway.”
He gave her ample time to answer, and when she didn’t, he made a show of turning the knob.
“Don’t go,” Sally cried in a choked whisper. “I thought…that you’d gotten what you wanted and so you—”
“I know what you thought,” he snapped.
“Maybe we could talk about this?” It sounded like she was struggling not to break into tears. He dug inside his back pocket, pulled out a fresh handkerchief and handed it to her.
“Could we talk, John?” she asked and walked down the second flight of stairs to the lower portion of the house. “Please?”
John guessed he was supposed to accompany her. He looked up to find her mother, father, brother and a few cousins whose names he’d forgotten leaning over the railing staring at him.
“You’d better go with her,” Sally’s younger brother advised. “It’s best to do what she wants when she’s in one of these moods.”
“Do you love her, son?” Jack McDonald demanded.
John looked at Sally, thinking a response now would be premature, but he couldn’t very well deny it, carrying an engagement ring in his pocket. “Yes, sir. I meant to ask Sally to marry me, but I wanted everything to be right with us. So I thought I’d introduce myself and ask your permission first.”
“It’s a good man who speaks to the father first,” Sally’s mother said, nodding tearfully.
“Marry her with my blessing, son.”
John relaxed and grinned. “Thank you, sir.” Then he figured he should give himself some room in case things didn’t go the way he hoped.
“In light of what’s happened, I’m not sure Sally will say yes.
She wasn’t planning on returning to Hard Luck—I’m not sure why, but she hadn’t said a word about it to me. ”
“I believe my daughter’s about to clear away any doubts you have, young man. She’ll give you plenty of reasons not to change your mind.”
“Daddy!” This drifted up from the bottom of the stairwell.
John winked at his future in-laws. “That’s what I was hoping she’d do,” he said and hurried down the stairs, his steps jubilant. “Oh, and Merry Christmas, everyone!”