Once they were gone, and Camellia could draw up a chair beside her husband, she sighed feelingly. “The two of them sometimes weary me no end,” she confessed.
“Yeah, me, too. Glad we’re finally alone. So, tell me,” a bit of color had risen to Ben’s bearded cheeks, “how things went for you at the store. Figured you to be home a bit earlier.”
She would be careful about which exciting suggestions for Forrester’s she broached. Realizing that Ben would not take easily to new concepts—to change of any kind, for that matter, being the resistant person he was—she would have to gradually introduce each one, and let him get used to the idea of his wife taking an active part in the business he had established, built up, and coddled.
“Ben, it was so fascinating I simply didn’t keep track of time!”
“Glad to hear it, sweetheart.”
Looking deeply gratified, he took her hand in his. Just like an old married couple, spending a quiet evening together, with nothing more compelling to do than share quiet conversation and make new memories.
Camellia was so looking forward to their future, with the sort of hushed joy that precedes some spectacular event or adventure: celebrating a spirited bout of Christmas cheer, perhaps; traveling overseas to an exotic locale; meeting and talking with an exalted personage.
For wasn’t this, embarking upon marriage to a man who, she knew, would turn out to be the love of her lifetime, the most spectacular adventure of all?
“Ben,” she said with a wide smile that promised heaven and earth, and all the realms in between, “I have finally found where my talents lie. I have found where my calling is. With you, my dearest. Always, ever and ever, with you.”
The End