Chapter 9 - The Cottage on Geneva Lake
The private point on Geneva Lake in southern Wisconsin was a three-acre peninsula of ancient, towering sugar maples and white pines, their leaves ablaze in an extraordinary, fiery canopy of scarlet, liquid amber, and burnt gold.
The cottage on Black Point was a historic nineteen-twenties cedar-shake home with a wide wraparound porch, fieldstone chimneys that puffed fragrant birch smoke into the crisp afternoon air, and a private wooden dock where a classic mahogany Chris-Craft motorboat bobbed gently against the fenders.
I sat on the porch railing, wearing an oversized gray cable-knit sweater, dark denim trousers, and warm shearling slippers, holding a steaming mug of spiced cider in both hands.
The silence here was not the heavy, terrifying vacuum of my parents' house on Crestview Court.
It was a living, breathing peace—the rustle of falling maple leaves, the gentle lap of clear lake water against the limestone shore, and the distant, clear call of a loon across the bay.
In four weeks, my world had completely regenerated.
Under Julian’s masterful strategic guidance, the logistics cooperative was already outperforming every quarterly projection my father had ever managed. The house on Crestview had sold at auction for one million two hundred thousand dollars, fully funding the pension guarantees and leaving a three-hundred-thousand-dollar educational trust for the local drivers' children.
My parents had moved into their two-bedroom apartment in Aurora, living quietly on their state pension, completely severed from the social circles that had once fueled their vanity.
And Brianna... Brianna had called me two days ago from a small apartment in Evanston.
She had left Trevor. She had realized that a marriage built on social convenience and corporate cowardice was an empty shell, and she had enrolled in a master's program in landscape architecture at Northwestern, funding her tuition through her own student loans.
She hadn't asked for money. She had simply asked if we could have coffee sometime in the spring.
I had told her yes.
Footsteps moved softly across the cedar porch boards behind me.
Julian walked out through the screen door.
He wore a dark gray fleece over a white shirt, dark trousers, and leather moccasins, carrying a plate of warm cinnamon scones he had baked himself in the country kitchen thirty minutes earlier.
He set the plate on the wicker table, walked up behind me, and wrapped his strong, warm arms around my waist, pulling me back against his broad chest.
I leaned my head back against his shoulder, exhaling a long, contented sigh, closing my eyes as his familiar, intoxicating scent enveloped me completely.
"You're staring at the water again, Waverly," Julian murmured, his deep baritone rumbling warmly against my ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below my jaw.
"I’m watching the leaves fall, Julian," I smiled, resting my hands over his where they lay crossed over my stomach. "For thirty-six years, I thought that peace was something you had to earn by being invisible. I thought that if I was quiet enough, nobody would throw me into the water."
Julian turned me gently in his arms until I was facing him.
The crisp afternoon sunlight filtered through the maples, catching the silver at his temples and illuminating the magnificent, radiant warmth in his gray eyes. He looked down at my face—at the healthy, rosy color that had returned to my cheeks, at the bright, fearless clarity in my eyes, and at the gentle curve of my lips.
He reached up, his calloused thumb softly tracing the line of my cheekbone with that infinite, tender reverence that had healed my soul.
"You were never meant to be invisible, Waverly," Julian whispered.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, heavy square box covered in dark navy velvet, and held it between us.
My breath caught in my throat. My mug of cider stayed suspended in my hand.
Julian did not drop to one knee like a performer on a stage. He stood before me as an equal, as a man who had cleared the ground, built the fortress, and was now offering the keys to the kingdom.
He popped the brass clasp open.
Inside, resting on a bed of cream silk, was an antique platinum ring set with an extraordinary, four-carat emerald-cut diamond, flanked by two deep-blue sapphires that caught the autumn sun like twin drops of pure lake water.
"On Saturday night at that vineyard, Waverly," Julian said softly, his voice trembling with an emotion so deep, so vast, and so utterly unreserved that it brought tears to my eyes, "you looked at your father and told him to remember the moment."
He took the heavy platinum ring from the velvet, holding it between his long, elegant fingers:
"I want you to remember this moment, Waverly Mick. I want you to remember the moment when the man who loves you promised that you will never stand alone, you will never apologize for your truth, and you will never fall into the dark again."
He looked deeply into my eyes, his entire heart resting open in his gaze:
"Will you marry me, Waverly? Will you share this house, share my name, and let me spend the rest of my days keeping the wolves away from your door?"
Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and sweet, tracking joyful paths down my smiling cheeks.
I set my mug down on the porch railing, reached out with both hands, and framed his handsome face, my thumbs tracing the line of his jawline.
"Yes, Julian," I whispered through my tears, my radiant smile illuminating the porch.
"Yes. A thousand times, yes."
May you like
Julian let out a breathless, joyful laugh that echoed across the quiet bay, slid the heavy platinum ring onto my fourth finger, and pulled me into his arms.
He lifted me off the porch floor, his mouth finding mine in a deep, passionate, and commanding kiss that tasted of sweet cider, autumn wind, and an unassailable, eternal future.
