One Day in Apple Grove(97)
When her husband stood there looking down at her, Honey B. finally pushed him toward his big red pickup. “Go on. Little Mitch and I will be waiting for you.”
Deputy Jones was already at the water tower with Jack and Cait by the time the sheriff arrived. Jack looked up and shook his head as Mitch approached. “Seems somebody didn’t want their name on the water tower and used cooking spray on the ladder to keep this knucklehead from going up.”
Mitch shook his head and knelt down next to the youngster. “I ought to run you in for breaking the law.”
“Come on, Sheriff,” the boy said. “It’s not official. Me and my brothers checked it out over at town hall.”
“Well then,” Mitch said, “I guess we’ll have to have ourselves a town meeting, and we’ll add it to the town ordinances. No one but no one climbs that damned water tower unless they want to spend the night in jail.”
When the Jenkins boy just hung his head, Mitch added, “One of these days, you’re going to start using that brain…might be a good idea.”
Jack chuckled as he immobilized the boy’s ankle. “Help me get him to my Jeep, Mitch.”
“Let me,” Cait said. “Mitch has a reception to get back to.”
Jack’s father was waiting for them at the office to lend a hand. Cait kept Mrs. Jenkins calm while Jack took care of her son and was ready for the news that she’d have to drive to Newark for an X-ray.
When they finally left, Old Doc Gannon smiled at Cait. “You’d make the perfect doctor’s wife.”
Jack stared at her for a moment before he agreed. Remembering her sister’s advice, Cait just smiled and said, “Do you think there’s any cake left?”
***
Later, with Cait tucked safely against his heart, Jack tried to come up with a way to propose. He couldn’t use the water tower. Mitch had had one of his deputies go back and wrap the ladder with crime scene tape to keep anyone else from getting hurt.
Dan and Mitch had chased down their women and claimed them inside of Honey B.’s Hair Salon—kind of hard to replicate. Besides, he wanted to ask Cait in a way that would be just as memorable…something they would think back on years from now when they were old and gray.
Cait sighed in her sleep and murmured something about wedding bells and ribbon and that’s when an idea started to gel, but it had to be perfect. Thinking of something Miss Trudi had said about the returning GIs from the Second World War and those yellow ribbons tied in big bows around each and every maple tree lining Main Street gave him an idea.
Jack knew what he was going to do.
Slipping out of bed, he sent a text off to Dan, who had Meg send one to Peggy.
Raking a hand through his hair, he grinned. The plan was in place; all he had to do was sneak into town while his parents and Peggy kept Cait busy.
***
“You are a genius, Jack,” Meg told him, tying the first bow in the wide, white satin ribbon.
“Thanks. Are you sure she doesn’t suspect anything?”
Meg smiled. “She’s working on learning patience…I told her you needed time.”
Jack laughed. “OK,” he said, walking slowly from where Meg tied the bow on the railing leading to Jack’s office. “This is supposed to be a mega roll of ribbon.” He paused to loop it around the sugar maple on the sidewalk. While he made his way toward the bank, he looped ribbon around two more trees.
“Why the heck didn’t I remember how many damned trees lined Main Street?”
Dan and Meg were laughing when he ran out of ribbon outside the Gazette.
“Hang on,” Meg told him as she sent Dan to get two more rolls of ribbon. When he returned and tossed them to Jack, Jack tied a knot in it and then continued looping ribbon around trees…climbing partway up the ones on either side of Dog Hollow Road, so that anyone driving into town wouldn’t get snagged on the ribbon…all the way to Mulcahys’ front door.
“Are you sure she has no idea?”
Meg smiled. “Not a clue.”
He placed the turquoise bucket on the stoop and struggled to arrange the lilacs until Meg blew out a breath. “Let me do that.”
When she finished, he hung two huge, white crepe paper wedding bells on the door with a sign that said, “Follow the ribbon and your heart—Marry me, Cait, Love, Doc.”
Meg’s eyes filled as she stood back and looked at the bucket of lilacs, wedding bells, and the sign.
“Is it OK?”
“Perfect,” she reassured him.
He worried all the way back to his office. “Are you sure I shouldn’t go back home and then bring her into town?”
Meg frowned at him and Dan said, “This way you’ll be waiting at your office when she gets to the shop and finds your surprise.”