“What do you think?”
She shrugged, then lightly touched the top of the box. “Maybe an engagement ring?”
“Got it in one.”
He was suddenly nervous. Should he have waited and asked her if it was all right to buy her a ring? Should he have taken her shopping with him? He’d actually just stopped to look when he’d seen the elegant design and had known right away that it was perfect for her.
“Open it,” he told her.
She took the box and did as he requested. Both Ashley and Maggie gasped as she drew out an emerald-cut diamond on a platinum band. Smaller baguette-cut diamonds were set into the band. Light caught the larger gem and made it glow.
“It’s gorgeous,” Ashley breathed.
“Do you really like it?”
She looked stunned for another second or two, then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Jeff, it’s so beautiful and way too expensive. You didn’t have to do this for me.”
“I wanted to.”
“Thank you. You’ve made me very happy.”
Her scent, the feel of her body, the pressure of her mouth on his were all familiar. They filled him with a confidence that he’d never felt before. In that moment he knew he could take on the world and win.
* * *
“Oh, Jeff.”
Ashley snuggled against him in his bed. She curled herself around him, resting her head on his shoulder and gazing up at her engagement ring.
“I still think you spent way too much money.”
“I don’t, and it’s my money. At least until we get married.”
She turned and looked at him. “No. It will always beyourmoney. I want you to keep everything you made before the marriage separate. That way it’s not community property.”
He frowned. “Why would you want that?”
“Because I’m not marrying you for your money. I love you. But if I start asking for things or taking what’s yours, you’ll start to question me, and I don’t want that. Everything has happened so fast. Your last experience with marriage wasn’t exactly positive. I want this to be different. I want it to be forever. So I need you to trust me.”
He smoothed her hair off her face. “I trust you with my life,” he said. Didn’t she know that trusting or not trusting wasn’t the problem?
“Good. Then keep everything you have now in your own name and it will never be an issue between us. Besides, in a couple of years I’m going to be the one making the big bucks, and then you’ll be worried aboutmethinkingyou’rein it for the money.”
She grinned and he couldn’t help smiling in return. What twist of fate had brought this beautiful, giving woman into his life? How had he gotten so lucky as to have won her heart and that of her daughter?
“Speaking of my career, or the training thereof, I have finals in a couple of weeks.” She rested her hand on his chest and her chin on her hand. “I have to really buckle down and study, so I was thinking we could get married after that. Or did you want to wait longer?”
“I will marry you whenever you say,” he told her. “After finals works for me. What do you want to do?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Something small is fine with me. Maybe just a couple of friends with a justice of the peace and then we all go out to dinner?”
“What about a honeymoon?”
She arched her eyebrows. “What did you have in mind?”
“A couple of nights somewhere by ourselves. Maybe San Francisco. Then a week or so with Maggie.”
She sighed contently. “This is why I want to marry you. You’re such a great man, Jeff. Thoughtful and caring. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to bring Maggie.”
