The Christmas Wedding - James Patterson [10]
Then Tom got up and stood right in front of me. My God, what was going on? He was the most intense of all—but Tom is always intense—and his face was red when he confessed that he’d probably been in love with me for twenty years—but he said it in the sweetest way imaginable. He’s always been confident in athletics but a little shy in some social situations.
“I can’t let you go to Marty or Jacob without at least telling you how I feel. I adore you, Gaby. I just didn’t know if you were ready yet. If you are…will you marry me? Will you at least think about it?”
I was stunned, flabbergasted, speechless, and I finally said that, well, I would have to get back to them. I didn’t know what else I could possibly say.
They were all so sincere, and I care deeply about each of them. I couldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings, and I wasn’t even sure how I felt at that moment. It all happened so fast and was so unexpected.
But now I know what I want—whom I want. I don’t think I’ve ever been surer of anything in my life. I am utterly in love with the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Okay, look. Enough jibber-jabbering about me. I’ve got a few chores to do around here.
So there’s just one thing left to say: See you at Christmas, and see you in my dreams. I love you all so much.
Chapter 11
GABY DECIDED SHE would make the DVD dupes later, then take them to the FedEx store. Right now, she had to get out to the barn. Her workday had officially begun.
She stopped for half a second to check herself in the hall mirror. “Not too bad,” she said, “for being up half the night.”
She was going to the barn to feed breakfast to twenty or more homeless folks from town. She’d been doing it every day for over twenty years. Her parents and grandparents had done it before her—made breakfast for migrant workers who came in the autumn to pick apples and pumpkins, and for families overwhelmed by the Great Depression, then for unemployed workers from the glove and hat and shoe factories across the border in upstate New York.
One of the best parts was doing these breakfasts with her friends, her buds, male and female. What made it even more enticing these days: Three of them had asked for Gaby’s hand in marriage. She hadn’t said yes, but she hadn’t said no either. And none of them had taken back his offer. In fact, they were all pressing her for an answer. There had even been an argument or two between them.
Tom Hayden owned a local farm. He was a former professional hockey player, handsome as sin. And possibly the sweetest man around. Jacob Coleman, the rabbi at Am Shalom Temple in Great Barrington, was another do-gooder like Gaby. He was a serious man, but with a terrific sense of humor. No one could make her laugh like he did. Marty Summerhill was Peter’s younger brother. Her pal for years. Always, always there for Gaby. The fourth friend present was Stacey Lee Pashcow, a middle-aged divorcée whom Gaby had grown up with. Hardly a day passed that she and Stacey Lee didn’t have lunch or coffee together, and a couple of times a month they’d go to Boston to hear the symphony or maybe a Dave Matthews concert. Once or twice a week Gaby stopped by Stacey Lee’s restaurant/store, the Farmer’s Wife, in Stockbridge, where she helped out—chopping chicken breasts, fluting pie crusts, icing the county-famous Chocolate Tart Stacey Lee.
This morning her latest video performance had made Gaby late, so she jogged toward the cooking area in the barn. What was it that Emily always said—Run, Emily, run?
“Hate those powdered eggs,” she said to Jacob, who was stirring a pot of yellow goop on the woodstove in the corner.
The good-looking rabbi leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I know you do, purist that you are. But until those ten hens of yours can produce forty eggs a day, this is the best we can do. Maybe a nice Christian miracle would help? Can you arrange that?”
Gaby patted Jacob’s shoulder and smiled at Marty, who was about to pass out silverware and napkins to the hungry-looking people sitting around three wooden