When I opened the box I let out a small gasp. There were a set of beautiful pale-pink pearl earrings. “This is too much,” I protested.
Sadie waved off my protest. “You can’t come to Hawaii and leave without pearls. We insist.”
“They’re so beautiful,” I said. “Thank you so much.” I’d had many brides give me gifts, but nothing like this.
“My turn,” Camden said, reaching for the last present on the table. It was oddly wrapped, and he placed it in my lap.
“This isn’t a flip phone, right? Because I don’t need to chat with Ulysses S. Grant.”
That made him laugh. “I’m not telling you what it is. You’re going to have to open it up and see.”
CHAPTER NINE
There was an outer layer of wrapping paper and inside were two items wrapped in tissue. I opened one and saw that it was a ceramic, four-inch-long potato.
“What?” I asked.
“Open the other one.”
When I unwound the second item, it turned out to be a ceramic tomato, about the same size as the potato.
It took me a second to understand what he had done, and then it hit me like a tsunami. If I’d been standing, I might have fallen over.
Oh . . . how did he . . . I couldn’t finish my thoughts, let alone say actual out-loud words.
Somewhere off to my right Krista said in a delighted tone, “Aww. So sweet!”
“They’re salt and pepper shakers,” he said and I could feel tears forming at the edges of my eyes.
“But why a potato and tomato?” Sadie asked.
Krista piped up with, “It’s something Rachel says,” at the same moment Camden said, “It’s an inside joke.”
An inside joke. We had an inside joke.
Something happened inside me. A break or a tear, where there had once been a firm commitment to a path I’d chosen for myself and my employees. Light was shining through, filling me up. It suddenly seemed stupid that I was staying away from Camden when he so obviously got me.
His present made me feel seen, and it had been a very long time since a man had done that.
“Do you like them?” he asked.
Like them? There weren’t words strong enough to express how very much I adored his gift. It was so thoughtful and just . . . amazing. “I thought the no-interrogation thing was my present.”
He nodded, looking very pleased with himself. “I figured this was better.”
“How did you even get it?”
“Dan and I went out for a bike ride this afternoon and we stopped at this store that only sells salt and pepper shakers. It was easy enough to find a tomato set and a potato set. I bought both and mixed them up. Which means I have the only other potato/tomato set of salt and pepper shakers in the world.”
“It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect,” I told him. “I kind of want to name my firstborn child Potato Tomato, now.”
“I think we just got upstaged by produce,” Dan told Sadie, who nodded and gave me a knowing smile.
There was a part of me that didn’t ever want me to be happy. Maybe it was the same bit that sounded like my mother, always reminding me of all the ways I’d fallen short. Whenever things seemed good, there was always a way to mess up my potential happiness.
“Why did you do this?” I asked him.
“What? The present?”
“Yes.” I needed to understand. Would Camden really take things this far? Was he so dedicated to unmasking me that he was willing to completely mess with my head and my heart?
Because he had definitely affected me. I wanted to show him what this meant to me, how my heart had been touched. And there was only one way I could think of to properly convey what I was feeling.
To kiss him.
Which could not happen.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I thought you’d like it.”
But there was more to it than that. Even if he wanted to make it sound like it had been no big deal, it had been the biggest of deals ever.
I wondered if he had his own internal Mom Voice that was holding him back from saying more.
Sadie handed me a plastic knife. “You have to make the first cut of the cake,” she told me. I was having a hard time holding my hand steady, keeping my breathing even. I didn’t know what to do with everything—how sweet Camden was being, how I was reacting to him even though I shouldn’t.
After I made the cut I handed the knife back to Dan and let him do the rest. He started cutting up the cake, handing me one of the corner pieces. That was always the best because it had the most frosting.