“How’d it go?” Jimmy asked, drawing on a pair of boxer briefs.
“I’m afraid she’s going to keep you away from me.”
“Let her try.” He yanked his jeans on.
“She can. You don’t work at Blue Ridge anymore. She might ban you from visiting and I won’t even know it. Or I will, but it’ll be buried where no one can hear me.”
Jimmy sat on the bed beside me. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop her—”
He kissed me. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”
I did worry. I knew my Antony would fight Delia for me. He’d fight too hard and she’d have him arrested.
“It’s that damn conservatorship,” I said. “If I knew she didn’t have power over me, I’d feel a lot better about…”
Sliding back into oblivion?
I shuddered.
“There is a way we can take the power away from her,” Jimmy said slowly. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, actually.”
“A coup? A sneak attack? Put eyedrops in her coffee?”
“We get married.”
My eyes widened and my heart began to beat so loud, I could hardly hear myself.
“Married?”
“I don’t expect… I mean, it’s fast. I know that. But legally, she can’t keep me from seeing you if I’m your husband.”
My husband. Jim Whelan will be my husband. I’ll be his wife.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course, I would. It doesn’t have to be for real,” he added quickly. “If you don’t want it to be.”
I glanced down at the flowered bedspread, tracing a line of a lily. “What if I want it to be?”
A soft inhale of his breath. An exhale. “Do you?”
I nodded and raised my eyes to his. “I think I do, Jimmy. I’m never going to love anyone like I love you. Ever. I know that in my heart. My soul. But you’re right. It’s so fast and—”
“Then it’ll be real.” His fingers stroked my cheek. “Because I want that too. I love you, Thea. I’ll never love anyone else.”
My face crumpled as I kissed him, bittersweet happiness flooding me, followed by reality.
He’d visit me every day. Disrupt his life. Maybe not go back to school.
“Wait, Jimmy, we shouldn’t.” I held his hand in mine. “It’s not fair to you. It’s not right to chain you to me like that. We have no idea how long it’ll take before Milton makes a new drug. Years, maybe. Or never.”
“I don’t care how long it takes.”
“I know you don’t, but I want to be your wife, not your job. I want you to go back to school. I want you to pursue your dreams. I want you to be a speech therapist who does open mic nights on weekends. I want you to have friends you can talk to about me. I want you to have a place you can go on Thanksgiving. I want you to have a life.”
Jimmy’s voice was low and steady, his gaze strong.
“I will. I’m going to take care of you, and I’m going to go out and build a life so you have a place to come back to when they find a new drug. When. You’re coming back, and I will be here the whole time, waiting and building. I’ll never give up on you. I’ll never leave you alone in the desert or sealed up in a tomb.”
He kissed me urgently, then slid off the bed, to get down on one knee.
“Oh my God,” I said. “You’re really doing it, aren’t you?”
He took my hands, a heartbreaking smile on his face.
“With no shirt on.” I was sniffing and laughing now. “That’s bribery.”
His expression became intense, his dark eyes holding mine.
“Althea Hughes,” he said, “will you m-m-marry me?”
His head bowed at hearing the stutter, and he murmured a curse. I lifted his chin in my palm.
“You stutter when it’s important,” I whispered, my eyes and heart full. “Yes, Jimmy. I’ll marry you. Nothing will make me happier than to marry you.” A watery laugh burst out of me. “I even have the white dress already.”
Now Jimmy laughed, and we kissed again. Happiness defeated fear, and we lingered in the victory as long as we could, kissing and holding each other until it seemed the ticking clock in the room grew louder and louder.
I showered while Jimmy looked up the requirements for getting married in New York State on his phone. I was lacing up the front of my white sundress when I heard him mutter a curse.