On Sunday evening, she told him so. It had been a beautiful day, mild and fragrant as was the best of early April on the Rhode Island coast, and though the air had begun to chill with the setting of the sun, an inner glow kept them warm. They were below deck, facing each other from opposite corners of a sofa with their legs snugly entwined, sipping from glasses of the wine Jared had uncorked for the occasion.
“This has been great,” she said with the kind of soft smile that never failed to make his heart turn over.
His chuckle was like the wine, light and dry. “Then you’re a glutton for punishment. I’ve made you work all weekend.”
“No, no. It’s been great. A vacation, even more so than last weekend in Florida. There’s something truly therapeutic about what we’ve done.”
He nudged her bottom with his bare foot, which was tucked there for warmth. “You hate cleaning.”
“But this was different. I’ve loved it. Really I have.” When he arched a skeptical brow, she insisted, “Really. I’d do this any time with you.”
Jared’s heart turned over again. But then, it had been turning over practically since the first time he’d seen Savannah. In some respects, she’d turned over his whole life, certainly his outlook on the future.
“Many me, Savannah.”
She caught her breath.
“I love you,” he said, and his voice was as low and deep and intense as she’d ever heard it. “You haven’t said the words, but I think you feel them, and I can’t risk letting that go. Let’s get married.”
Savannah didn’t know what to say. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had wanted him to ask, then feared that he would. Confused, she whispered his name on a broken breath.
“Is that a yes, or a no?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you love me?”
She hesitated for just a minute, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because saying it aloud implied a commitment. But that time had come. “Yes,” she said, then with greater feeling, “Yes.”
Setting his wine glass on the carpet, he leaned forward, took her under the arms, and brought her forward to straddle his hips. He locked his hands at the small of her back. “Say it.”
Savannah smiled. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you,” she said, and the smile became a grin, because it seemed so absurd that she hadn’t said the words sooner.
So she sat there grinning, loving his face with its rough-hewn features, its faintly squared chin with a ghost of a dimple, its eyes of pale blue with gray flecks, the one with its slight cast. She loved the sandy hair that tumbled across his forehead, brushed the tops of his ears, hit his collar in back. She loved the way his shirt was open to midchest, laying bare a faint sprinkle of tawny hair, and the way he sat eye to eye with her, though she was on his lap.
“I do,” she whispered. Looping her hands, wine glass and all, around his neck, she came forward for a kiss.
“Then marry me,” he said when the kiss was done.
She pressed her temple to his. “For a man who was burned once before, you’re in a big rush.”
“There’s no comparison between this and that.”
“We’re both lawyers.”
“You’re as different from Elise as night from day.”
“I have a demanding career. I won’t always be here, and when I am here, my mind may be there.”
“I don’t care whether your mind’s here or there,” he returned, “as long as you’re wearing my ring. You’re right; I’ve been burned once, and because of that I should be wary of ties that bind. But I’m not.BecauseI’ve been burned once, I know what I want, and you’re it. I can live with your career. It’s part of who you are. Say you’ll marry me.”
“I want to,” she whispered, and one part of her did. That part wanted Jared bound to her so that he couldn’t escape, so that no other woman could have him, so that all those who listened to him night after night would know he was taken. On the flip side, though, the thought of ties like that scared her. “Marriage is rough.”
“All good things are.”
