Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,95

around my bare shoulders and kissed my hair. I took in a real deep breath. I had grown up feeling like nobody wanted me, like everyone wished I were dead. But standing here, right now, I felt like I was wanted after all, like here was a man who saw past all that, who made me feel like I had a place in this world. And that was beside him.

Then we stopped at my wreck. Now that I was going to show it to Frank, I saw it through different eyes. I saw that it was falling apart and run-down and, well, belonged at the salvage yard. But it was going to give me my dream. “This is what I wanted to show you,” I said.

Frank looked around. “What?”

“This boat. Kevin’s going to help me, and I’m going to redo it and start a little lunch spot with my steamer pots.”

Frank looked shocked, but he recovered quickly. “Oh, babe, that’s awesome.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll get Steve down here. He’s been restoring boats forever and—”

I put my hand gently on his. “Frank, this is something that I have to do on my own.”

I still didn’t know exactly how I was going to get the money together. But I was going to. And I wanted that to be all on my own, not because Frank gave me a handout. I could tell he wanted to protest, but he just nodded.

“Think we ought to get going?” I asked, feeling a low rumble in my stomach that meant, if I didn’t eat soon, the nausea was coming.

Frank, he stopped and turned to me. He kissed me quickly and then, before I even knew what was happening, he got down on his knee in front of me. I was so surprised I didn’t even throw up on him.

I got chill bumps all over my arms. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d dreamed about this moment, of Frank being down on one knee, of him asking me to be his wife. And now, in front of the boat that represented the future I was moving into, I couldn’t imagine anything being better.

“Diana, I love you.”

I wanted to say I loved him too, but my throat was so clogged with tears I couldn’t talk. But my heart was about to bust wide open with joy and love for this man I’d held there for all those years.

“All I’ve wanted since the minute I laid eyes on you was to be with you for the rest of my life. I don’t want to screw it up again. I don’t want to run away again. I just want to love you until my last breath. Please, Diana, from the bottom of my heart. Please marry me.”

He put this pretty, shiny diamond on my shaking hand. He stood up and we kissed, and I didn’t even know what to do, but I started to realize that all these people, they were standing around looking at us, and a few even clapped. One walked up and said, “You’re going to be the most beautiful bride.”

It was like time stood still and flew by right at the same time. I couldn’t even comprehend that this was happening. This was real. It wasn’t a dream. He had asked me to marry him. I was going to be Frank’s wife. I was going to have Frank’s baby. He was going to be all mine. They both were. I just stared down at the pretty ring he’d put on my finger, one of them antique-looking ones with a bigger diamond in the middle and a couple of smaller ones on the sides. Oh, it was beautiful. We were walking again toward Full Circle, where we were having dinner, and Frank stopped.

“Babe,” he said. “Do you know you haven’t said yes yet?”

I laughed. “Oh.” I turned and smiled and kissed him. I felt that familiar fear that maybe this was too good to be true, that this could all be taken away, that it could be over as quickly as it started. But my girls had said, and I knew it too, that living in fear wasn’t a life. “Yes, Frank. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you and have your baby and love you with all I’ve got until the second I die. The rest of my life isn’t enough for how much love I’ve got to lay on you.”

He laughed and kissed me again. “Well, then, I’d say that