With her notebook clutched to her chest, Kelsey joined him on the floor. He tucked a quilted throw around her legs. The thoughtful gesture stirred something deep within her. She placed her notebook on her lap but held on to the edges. She was desperate to do something to keep from touching him.
Shadows from the fire danced on his face. “Do you need another blanket?”
“I’m fine.”
Or at least she would be once her stomach stopped doing cartwheels and her heart stopped hammering in her ears.
He grabbed another throw from a chair anyway and set it on the floor. “If the electricity stays off, it’ll get cold. We may not have any other choice but to sleep down here.”
Sleep here together. Not by accident, but by necessity. Her pulse quickened.
Who needed a fire or a blanket to keep warm? She didn’t. It was getting downright toasty.
“What about a poem?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“We could use lines of a poem as part of the wedding vows. Something romantic, something lasting. Know any good ones?”
Kelsey closed her eyes. She pictured herself standing next to Will at the altar, about to be married. The image was so clear, so vivid. “‘Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…’” The words flowed from her lips.
“That’s beautiful.”
“Yes.” As was the image in her mind. Perfectly wrong. She wasn’t the bride. She was a long way from being a bride. Kelsey opened her eyes and saw Will’s smiling face. She gulped. Hard.
“I’m impressed you can recite Browning.”
“Don’t be impressed. I wasn’t reciting anything.” Heat flooded her cheeks, and she was thankful the light was from the fireplace and candles. “I read the line in a potpourri catalog and must have memorized it for some reason.”
“I love how you come up with this stuff.” Will laughed, and the rich sound sent shivers of delight down her spine. “Always the cynic, aren’t you?”
She didn’t want to be a cynic. Not anymore. Something was happening to her. Something Kelsey didn’t understand. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away.
“What if we rewrite some of the traditional vows?”
What if they forgot this entire thing? She swallowed around the lump. “You mean, ‘I, Faith, take you, Trent, to be my husband. To have and to hold from this day forward’…yadda, yadda, yadda.’”
“Yadda, yadda, yadda?”
Kelsey concentrated on the vows. Losing herself in her work had always been so easy. Maybe too easy. “‘For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer.’”
“Cherish, promise, pledge, vow,” he said.
“Honor, respect, that sort of stuff.”
Will grinned. “All the stuff that gives you the willies?”
Forcing a smile, she nodded. “Do you want to start?”
“I’d be honored.” He scooted closer to her. Too close for her own good. The space in front of the fireplace wasn’t large, but it was big enough for him to keep his distance. “I, Trent, take you, Faith, to be my wife.”
“I could have come up with that.” Kelsey wrote down the words. “Wait a minute, I already did.”
He chuckled. “I’m just warming up. Your turn.”
She glanced up from her notebook. “My turn?”
“We’re in this together. I come up with a line, then you come up with one.”
