If he hadn’t sat there on the deck in the misty rain pondering his own idiocy for so long, he might have at least had a chance to get down on his knees to her before she left for LA.
He took his phone out of his pocket.
It lit up with a text in his hand.
A text from Maddy?
Not possible. No way could he get that lucky. His blood roared in his ears and his heart did something impossible inside his chest, as he read,Turn around.
What the...?
Slowly, hardly daring to hope, he faced the tiny terminal.
And there she was, inside the terminal, her unforgettable face pressed to the glass.
They took off at a run, simultaneously. She burst through the glass doors as he reached the walkway leading up to them.
“You came to get me!” She squealed like Coco did when he tickled her, and threw herself into his wide-open arms.
“Maddy.” He gathered her in, hard and tight, buried his face in her hair and breathed in the scent that belonged only to her. The rain kept drizzling down. Neither of them cared. “Maddy...”
She lifted her head to breathlessly explain, “I sent Dirk in the plane, back to LA. I couldn’t leave without trying one more time. I thought, well, if that makes me a crazy, love-addled nutjob, I don’t care. I thought, I’ve got two weeks in that cottage and I’m taking them. Your sister said she didn’t give two shakes about the paparazzi. So did your dad. They said to stay, that one way or another, we would work it out, together. That all I had to do was justnotto leave yet. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought they were right—oh, Sten. Were they? Were they right?” Those turquoise eyes searched his.
“Yeah.” He cradled her precious, rain-wet face between his hands. “But it wouldn’t have mattered in the end if you’d flown off before I got here. One way or another, I would have tracked you down to tell you that I love you, Maddy. That you’re everything to me, that I was so wrong and I know that now, and would you please just give me a chance to make everything right?”
She let out a cry and surged up to press her sweet mouth to his.
That kiss? It was everything—a promise. A vow.
For now and tomorrow and all their tomorrows.
When she dropped back to her heels, she said, “Therewassomeone else, wasn’t there? Someone who hurt you?” At his slow nod, she commanded, “Tell me. All of it. I need to know.”
And he did tell her. He explained everything about Ella—or at least, he made one hell of an attempt, right there in front of the terminal, as the misty rain dribbled down on them. “She, well, she texted me that Sunday night when you were at Daniel’s for your DNA party. And she showed up at the Boatworks last week to try to get something going with me again.”
She gulped. “Were you...tempted?”
“Hell, no.”
“But you said that she was between us...”
“Uh-uh. It was my failure with her—that was what got between me and you. That she was the wrong choice for me all along and I refused to see it. It screwed with my head, to have to realize how completely I’d misjudged her. While I was with her, I wouldn’t let myself admit the truth about her. I ignored all the signs that it was never going to work with her. Because I had chosen her and by God, I needed to be right in my choice. My pride wouldn’t let me see that I was only a convenience for her, a placeholder until she could get the other guy to take her back. Then hedidtake her back and I had to face what a chump I’d been.”
She put a hand to his cheek. “Too bad for her. She blew it. Her loss, my gain.” Maddy’s smile was slow and full of satisfaction—but then she frowned and chided gently, “You should have said something, explained all this earlier. It would have helped me to be more patient, to understand.”
“Yeah.” He turned his face into her hand and pressed a kiss against her soft palm. “I messed up. And I am so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Of course I forgive you. I love you and I always will.”
He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m so glad. That you’re here. That you didn’t go.”
“But see, that’s because I’m not like that other woman. I don’t have secret goals. Iownmy goals out loud and proud. I go after what I want and for me,youare the goal, Sten Larson. You’re the one that I want.”
“You mean that.” It wasn’t a question.
And she knew it wasn’t. “I love you.”
“Maddy, you were incredible yesterday, telling me you loved me, trying to reassure me that we could work it out. And me? I was nothing but a coward. But not anymore. I get it now. I do.Youare the one for me. I just want to be beside you, whatever the future brings. I understand now, how it is, how it will be. You are always with me. In here.” He pressed their joined hands to his heart. “I love you. And I want everything with you—to marry you, to have kids with you. All of it.”
