his hand and rushed out of the sunroom, back toward our bedroom. I heard him jogging back and watched the door for him. When he came around it, he was smiling. I gasped when he dropped down to one knee in front of me and reached out for my left hand, “Eliza, will you marry me?”
My mouth dropped open in shock when I saw that he held my mom’s engagement ring between his finger and his thumb. I felt the tears streaming down my face and I just let them, too stunned to care.
“I talked to your mom and she gave me this. She said this would mean more to you than anything I’d come up with because it’s the one your dad proposed to her with. I love you, Eliza. I want to marry you.”
“Oh, Rason. I love you too,” I whispered around the lump in my throat. “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”
Rason slipped my mom’s engagement ring onto my finger and then kissed the back of my hand. I dropped down to my knees in front of him and put my mouth on his for a long, sweet kiss.
“That was a much better proposal than the one in the judge’s chambers.” I laughed when I pulled back. I reached up and wiped the tears off my face with one hand, the other one still held firmly in Rason’s. “I want a big wedding with all of our family and friends there.”
“Done.”
“And I want your babies, Rason. I want lots of your babies. I want them to look like you, and I’ll tell them how ugly they are when I really mean they are the most beautiful babies in the world.”
“Can we start on that now?” Rason pulled me to him and kissed me again, his hands going around me so that he could gently lay me on the floor. He made slow love to me right there underneath the vine that had started it all and then held me close to his side as we laid there trying to catch our breath again.
“It’s almost pretty with the lights on it.”
“Eliza, that plant is ugly as sin, but it’s beautiful to me because it’s what brought us together.”
“That’s why I saved it,” I admitted. “I thought that if I could just keep it growing, I could keep us growing and then finally tell you how I feel.”
“I was going to propose to you on Sunday when I took you out to my parents’ house for lunch.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I found a few rings I really liked in some of the magazines that Reba had at her house. I figured I’d sneak away tomorrow and buy one to give to you on Sunday.”
“I like this one that came from my dad,” I whispered as I held my hand up and watched the lights make the diamond seem to twinkle.
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about in that judge’s office today?”
“We’re going back to Hank’s house for lunch tomorrow. I have to tell him and Mesha I talked to our birth father. Hank’s not going to be happy because he doesn’t trust him at all, but I think he’ll understand. He might even just be a little proud of me.”
◆◆◆
RASON
“I like your new place,” I told Atlas as we sat down on the deck behind his new house. He and Jaz had shown me their new place, and Eliza had stayed inside with Jaz talking about furniture. “Are you renting it or buying?”
“I’m renting for now. I still want to find one of my own and so does Jaz, but we figured we’ll both live here for a while and save some money. It belongs to a couple who are friends with my stepdad. I guess he knew the guy’s dad for years before he died. They were neighbors or something.”
“That is one big ass garage.” I laughed. “Are those apartments up there or just more storage?”
“Apartments,” Atlas replied. “There’s a guy moving into that one on the right next week, I think they said. His sister is buying the house next door. Maybe renting, I’m not sure. The other one is empty, but they said they’ll let us know when they approve someone to move in.”
“What about your sister’s house?”
“They already sold it and the house you were living in too. Some man made an offer for the whole block. He’s going to tear them all down and build townhomes.”
“I remember what my house looked like. There’s not