fire. Now was the nuclear explosion…
Or the fireworks display.
“Yes!” she shouted, launching herself across the console at him, raining kisses, tears streaming down her face. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” she sobbed, veering wildly between tears and laughter.
It took a moment – or maybe a year – for her words to register.
She said yes.
She said yes!
The fireworks exploding, he poured his heart into his kisses, trying to show her without words how much she meant to him. How much he loved her. How she completed him.
Slowly, he forced himself to pull back. He wanted to see it on her finger.
“Can I?” he whispered, holding the gold band between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not what you deserve – you should have a 10-carat diamond—”
“Shhhh…” she said, pressing her finger against his lips. “I love jewelry – you know I do. But we have so many important things to focus on right now. A gaudy ring that will just get caught on everything? Not at the top of that list. I couldn’t wear a huge diamond ring at work anyway. Can you imagine the cleaning regimen? I’d have to scrub the prongs every night to get the dead and slimy leaves out of it.”
He laughed even as his hands trembled, trying to slide the ring onto her finger. She took pity on him and slid it the rest of the way onto her finger herself.
“I borrowed one of your rings,” he admitted with a guilty twinge, digging the costume jewelry out of his pocket. It’d been a ring she’d worn often on their dates – although never while at work – so he’d known when he’d pocketed it that it was a ring that actually fit her.
“There it is!” she gasped, her eyes lighting up with relief. “I’ve been blaming Bella for knocking it underneath the bed or something. You owe Bella an apology,” she scolded him. “I’ve been telling her what a bad kitty she is for weeks now.”
He reached out and stroked his hand against her soft cheek. “I’ll bring her a can of tuna to make up for it,” he promised. “Are you ready to see Jennifer and Stetson’s wedding present to us?”
“Oh!” she squealed. “I forgot! Someone,” she tapped him on the chest, “proposed marriage to me, and I plain forgot about the rest.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said with a weak laugh. Now that she’d said yes, his limbs felt rubbery, like he was trying to keep himself upright with muscles that hadn’t been used in years. He turned the truck off. “Let’s go for a little walk.”
He helped her out of the truck and then pulled her against his side – a warmth he’d never get enough of spreading through him at the simple touch – as they followed a little deer trail through the center of the clearing.
“I know it’s dead and brown right now,” he said, his breath coming out in puffs that encircled his head, “but come spring, it’s beautiful here. Stetson told me that he’d always thought this piece of property deserved to be sold off and enjoyed by someone, or maybe he’d build a summerhouse here, but it didn’t make sense to spend a bunch of money to build a house less than a mile away from his own, and he was worried about selling it to someone who’d be a shitty neighbor. His grandfather bought this parcel years and years ago when it came up for sale so he could keep people from building a house out here.”
They turned in a slow circle so Carla could take it in fully.
“Whoa,” she whispered. “How much land is there?”
“A little over two acres. Most of it is overgrown and unaccessible, but we can build paths through it if we’d like.”
“But…where are we going to live?” Carla asked. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful!” she hurried on. “It’s so sweet of them to give us this property, but there isn’t a house—”
“I’ve talked to Georgia over at the credit union.” He gave her a huge grin. If possible, this was the best part of his news. “If we own this land free and clear – and we will because Jennifer and Stetson will give it to us as our wedding present – then we can borrow against the equity in the land to build a house. It’ll be a simple house – not any more fancy than this ring.” He pulled her left hand up to his mouth and kissed it.