The Sassy Belles by Beth Albright Read Free Book Online

sterling silver tray with a round silver dome over it.
    “Your order, Mr. Heart.” Harry reached into his front pocket
and handed the man a tip.
    By this time, I was thinking, Okay, time
for a champagne toast. Harry told the waiter to set the tray down on
a nearby table. He slid his fingers through mine and looked down at me and
smiled in a way I had never seen. As if he had a secret.
    He led me over to the table and said, “Time for a toast!” He
lifted the tray top, revealing two champagne flutes full of amber bubbly.
    Handing me a glass, he said, “To us, and our future.”
    On the tray next to the glasses was an antique china plate
covered in pink and white and peach-colored rose petals. In the center was one
large pink blossom.
    “For my Southern beauty,” he said.
    As I picked up the large center rose, and lifted it to my nose
to breathe in its sweet fragrance, underneath it I saw lying on the rose petals
an amazing, large, square-cut diamond ring. The sunlight flickered in its
brilliance.
    “Oh, my God,” I said for about the ninetieth time that day.
“Oh, my God, Harry!”
    He knelt down before me, slipping my fingers through his and
said, “Blake O’Hara, I love you and want to share every breath with you. You are
the sweetest, most beautiful girl in the world. I love every little thing about
you—the way you smell and the way your hair frizzes at the slightest bit of
humidity. I love it that when you sing you continually change keys. You are my
very best friend, and I can’t imagine my life without you. I promise to take the
best care of you that I can. I promise your happiness will be what I strive for
every day. I promise I will keep you in legal pads for the rest of your life.
Will you please do me the honor of a lifetime and be my wife and partner?”
    I lost all sense of time and space and was down on my knees
before I knew it. I could barely speak. I looked into his blue-gray eyes and put
my hands on his clean-shaven face and pulled him to my mouth, kissing him before
I answered.
    “Harry, I love you more than life itself and I will never be
able to have joy without you. Yes, baby! Yes!” Between every yes I kissed him on
the lips, then the cheeks, then the lips. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ll marry you!
Yes!”
    There we were. In the courtyard of the Tutwiler. Both on our
knees. Both crying and holding each other, my tears mixed with his. In that
moment, the whole world went away and there was only us. The bees were buzzing,
the dandelions floated by, the jasmine and magnolia filled the May air. I was in
Harry’s arms, in the bosom of my hometown, and it was the single best moment of
my life.
    I was shaken away from that memory by Vivi. Literally shaken
when she grabbed my shoulder.
    “Blake, honey, you home? I’m talkin’ to ya. Your eyes are
somewhere else.”
    “Yes, Vivi. I’m here. “
    “Oh, damn,” Vivi murmured under her breath. “I get it, honey.
You and Harry. Today, it’s…”
    I interrupted, “It’s okay.”
    “No, dammit. It’s not okay. You and Harry should be kicking up
your heels. Oh, my God, and this is your spot. Oh, Blake, this is so awful!”
    “No, no, Vivi, this was all beyond your control today. Let’s go
on to the bar and get this over with.” She knew Harry and I had been in a
slow-motion free fall for a while now, but I had not even discussed with Vivi my
plans to talk to Harry during our lunch date earlier today.
    I am by no means a needy person. But I am all female and I do
like to be pursued. Romanced. Fussed over. Maybe even the center of attention.
Harry’s attention had been elsewhere for so long and every attempt to talk to
him ended with him saying, “Well, what do you want from me, Blake? You knew this
was the life I wanted when you said you’d be my partner.” Little did Vivi know,
she probably saved me from asking Harry for a separation today. But I couldn’t
decide which was worse—being at the Tutwiler to discuss a divorce, or being
there