Cherry considered how many times the sun would have to set and rise before that could happen. ‘Feels like ages. In the meantime, all you’ve done is intrigue me. I want to know more about what goes on up there.’ She raised her hand to Sean’s temple. ‘Every neural impulse that makes you Sean Butler.’
Sean lifted his hand to meet hers. ‘I’ll tell you all about those impulses. And likewise, Cherry Paradise.’
After the cruise, they caught the subway north to Columbus Circle and walked into Central Park, where they meandered the numerous pathways, the rich smell of cut grass mingling with the aroma of hot dogs and honey roasted nuts, all enveloped in searing summer city heat.
‘What’s your mum like?’ Cherry asked as they passed a mother trying to placate two squabbling children.
Sean seemed to laugh at so much in life, and this question was no exception. ‘Really? Is that question on the fall in love list, too?’
‘It might be, but I’m curious.’ She rubbed the back of her neck, clammy in the heat, and noticed the loose strands of hair stuck there. ‘People’s relationships with their mothers intrigue me, possibly due to my own being a bit mercurial. Also, it can tell you a lot about a man.’
‘No judgment then.’ Sean walked tall with the confident air of a man who couldn’t care less about being judged. ‘My mum’s great. She’s weathered a lot. Escaped her first abusive husband, raised seven kids – three of whom were adopted at once – helped grow the distillery with my dad, dealt with the premature loss of him to a horrific disease. We’re all protective of her because we know what she went through to get where she is today, but she’s a trooper.’
Amanda did sound like a powerhouse of a mother. ‘Seven kids is amazing,’ Cherry said. ‘What was it like growing up with six siblings?’ She would have loved even one,had often dreamed of the hubbub of brothers and sisters barging into each other’s rooms, staying up all night giggling. Home would be a place you felt crowded but never lonely.
‘I think the only word is mental.’ Sean chucked some loose change into a busker’s guitar case. ‘It’s quite nice having a big family, now we’re all grown up, although I’ll maybe stop at two when I have my own.’
‘You want kids then?’ She hoped she didn’t sound like a clingy female trying to pin a man down. But Sean’s response suggested he heard nothing of the sort.
‘Aye, definitely. You said you wanted to stick their pasta art on the fridge, didn’t you? Your kids’ pasta, that is? Or mine. Or ours. Who knows?’ He slung his arm around her shoulder.
‘I did say that.’ Cherry was comforted by the closeness. ‘I want a full-length portrait of me, with slender penne limbs and a mix of wholewheat and normal spaghetti hair, framed on the fridge. Or in the Met.’
‘It will happen; you just have to believe.’
It was uncertain if this was a response to the Met idea orthe pasta on the fridge. Either way, Sean sounded convinced.
‘Yes, well, so they say… So you’re after a country wife then?’
He stopped on the path, moving out of the way to let people pass, but perhaps it was an excuse to look at her with a suggestive smile. ‘What’s a country wife? If she’s like you, then yes.’
Cherry pretended she hadn’t thought about this a million times already. ‘I think she’s someone with childbearing hips who bakes scones barefoot and is sexy in wellies on the school run.’
‘Hmm.’ Sean feigned contemplation, but the corners of his mouth lifted again in amusement. ‘I like a good scone, and...um, childbearing hips…’ He brushed down the cotton of her dress at her hips with reassuring palms. ‘But she doesn’t have to be from the country. In fact, I might prefer something different. I just like the idea of a family. A house filled with love, you know?’
The sweet scent of roasted cashews and summer heat wrapped around them. Sean’s character, and the image he conjured up, was so visceral that Cherry was almost in that home with him. She saw the two of them standing by a Scottish hearth, holding each other. Fast forward to winter, if that were the case.
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she said. What he wanted was what she wanted too. The sticking point for some time had been how to make it gel with her itinerant poker career. But Sean seemed to shift the pieces of her life puzzle so that the end picture became clearer. Achievable, even. Something that felt this right couldn’t go wrong, surely.
As the afternoon drifted on, they lazed under a tree on the Great Lawn in Central Park, Cherry’s head onSean’s lap, the sense of being completely at ease and totally electric with arousal not passing her by for a moment.
‘Cherry.’ He stroked the hair at her temple.
‘Mm-hmm.’ She was too warm to do anything more than murmur.
‘Would you sit up for a second?’
The seriousness of his tone brought her round. She shuffled up to face him. What was going on? There was something in those green irises that she hadn’t yet experienced. A wavering. A seriousness underpinned by uncertainty. Was he about to say that he was terminally ill? Already had a girlfriend? A wife?
‘Cherry, will you marry me?’
Cherry’s heart ricocheted, and her breath hitched so tight she nearly choked.Oh my God!They’d talked about this but, somehow, Sean had managed to take her completely by surprise.
‘I’d get down on one knee, but I don’t have a ring and… Well, this isn’t the most conventional proposal anyw––’
She grabbed his face, the words bursting out of her. ‘Yes! Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Sean.’ There was no need for a bended knee or a ring to know the answer. Sure, they could go back to Scotland together and be boyfriend and girlfriend, but that seemed lacking somehow. Juvenile. Her feelings for Sean were not juvenile. They were whole, fully formed and very adult.
He searched her face as if to check she was serious. ‘Oh, thank fuck. I was scared for a second that you’d say no––’
