Читать книгу Wild Spirits - Rosa Jordan - Страница 14

9

TWO PROPOSALS

Kyle called on Sunday morning and asked Wendy if she wanted to go for a drive.

“Sure,” she replied. “What time?”

“Right now,” he replied. “Soon as I can get there.”

It was unusual for Kyle to call out of the blue like that and ask her to go somewhere that wasn’t a regular date, like to a movie or a party. But they had barely seen each other for the two weeks he had been on the night shift. It pleased Wendy to think that he was missing her so much that he wanted to be with her the first chance he got when he was off work at the same time she was.

“So where are we going?” Wendy asked.

“You’ll see,” he said, and hung up before she could ask more questions.

• • •

They drove along a narrow paved road for about ten miles. It was like the area where Wendy had grown up on the other side of town. There were a few small patches of woods, but most of the trees had been cleared for farming. Wendy was a little surprised when they turned onto a dirt lane that led to a two-storey farmhouse set a good distance back from the road.

“Who are we visiting?” she asked, as they stopped in front of the house.

“Nobody,” Kyle said. “The old folks who own this place are at church. I just wanted to check it out.”

“For what? To see if a couple of church-going old folks are growing marijuana on the back forty?” Wendy joked.

“Has happened,” Kyle reminded her. “But these folks don’t have forty acres. Just ten. I doubt there’s anything besides weeds growing back there. The place is up for sale.”

“Are you thinking of buying it?” Wendy asked in surprise.

Kyle shrugged. “Come on, let’s take a look around.”

There was a small vegetable garden behind the house, but most of the property looked abandoned. The bird nests in some of the taller bushes and the rustle of small animals as they walked through the weeds made it seem as if it was already being used more by animals than people. At the very back, along the property line, there were a few trees. Some were so ancient-looking that Wendy thought they might have been part of the original forest.

Wendy was silent as they headed back to the car. She didn’t know what Kyle might decide, but she knew that if she had the money to buy a house out of town like this, with a little land around it, she’d do it in a heartbeat.

“Well?” Kyle asked. “What do you think?”

“Too bad they didn’t leave more trees,” Wendy said. “But the few at the back are nice, and there is that big shade tree in the front yard. I like the way the house is set back from the road, too.”

“I’ve already looked at the house,” Kyle said. “It’s in pretty good shape. Still, we’d have to do a lot of work to fix it up the way we want it.”

“We?” Wendy repeated in astonishment. Then she laughed. “Kyle Collins, are you proposing to me?”

Kyle’s face turned red all the way to the roots of his sandy crewcut. “Well, considering how your folks and my folks and Mrs. Armstrong and everybody else is waiting for us to set a wedding date, I don’t think we could very well move out here together without getting married.” He hesitated, turned a shade redder, and stammered, “That is, if you want to.”

“So is this a definite proposal?” Wendy teased.

“It’s a definite proposal,” Kyle confirmed. “And if you really like this place,” he turned and swept his arm over the acreage, “we could buy it and —”

Wendy laid a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, Kyle. Not so fast!”

Kyle let his arm drop, and looked at her. “What? You don’t like it? Or — oh, of course. You want to see the inside of the house first.”

Wendy shook her head. “I don’t care about the house. It’s the land that matters. What I’m wondering is whether we can afford it. Because — have I got this straight? You’re counting on my salary from the bank to help make the payments?”

“Well, yeah,” Kyle admitted. “I’m due for a raise at the end of the year, and then I might be able to swing it on my own. But the property’s for sale now, at such a good price that it’s going to get snapped up like that!” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “That’s why I was thinking that together, with both our salaries —”

“The thing is,” Wendy said quietly, “I am about to quit the bank job.”

Kyle didn’t say a word and didn’t even ask why. Although she hadn’t discussed it with him, she knew he would know why she had made that decision. Months ago he told her that carrying all that cash across the parking lot in plain view of traffic going by on the street was just inviting trouble.

Kyle’s face had turned sad with disappointment, but Wendy was pretty sure he was glad that she had made up her mind not to take that risk anymore. He would not ask her to stay on at the bank even if it meant missing a chance to buy his dream farm.

Wendy looked out across the land again. “It needs to be fenced,” she said. “And the sooner we get some trees in, the sooner we’ll have some real forest back there.”

Kyle shook his head. “You should quit that job,” he said. “But if you could find another one right away —”

“What we could do,” Wendy interrupted, “is use my savings to make a bigger down payment. That way we might be able to handle the payments on your salary alone. Or something. We need to sit down with the owners and crunch some numbers.” She grinned at him. “Working at the bank, I have learned a few things about financing.”

Kyle put his arms around her and hugged her so tight that she yelped from the squeeze. “You can do the negotiating,” he told her. “You’d probably be better at it than I am, anyway. Just make sure you keep back enough money to fence the place. I know you’ll want a horse, and —”

“Not a horse.” Wendy’s blue eyes smiled up into his hazel ones. As she lifted her lips to his, she said softly, “A llama.”

Kyle drew back in surprise. “A llama?”

“That’s my proposal,” Wendy said. “I’ll help buy the place and live out here with you as long as a llama, and any other animals I want, can live with us.”

“Deal!” Kyle said, and kissed her before she could begin to list all the other animals that might end up living with them.