“I want to show you something,” Joe told her. “That is, if you can spare a few more minutes?”
———
Curious, Lauren watched Joe’s expression shift between eager and earnest. “Of course. What is it?”
“Come with me.” With a subtle smile, Joe led her out of the lecture hall and in the opposite direction from the exhibition.
“Is it a secret, where you’re taking me?”
All he did was smile.
In the corridor dividing the Great Hall from the Egyptian wing, Joe stopped beside a sarcophagus. “This is where we first met,” he said. “The place where I first knew it was my job to take care of you.”
Lauren warmed to the memory. “I’ll never forget it.” She paused, looking around. They’d been here together many times since then. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”
His grin deepened. “Only partially. This way.”
From there, he led her into the Great Hall, through the entrance area, and to a locked door. Joe positioned himself beside it with his back to the wall, facing the doors.
“The coat-check room?” she asked.
“On the days I arrived at the museum first and didn’t find you in the Egyptian rooms, this is the place I stood and waited for you during your Christmas breaks. I figured you’d come here first to check your cloak.”
Her eyes misted as she thought of his steadfast patience with her. “Are you taking me on a tour of our Metropolitan affair?”
That smile again, the one that held some secret, but a secret that promised to be good. The one that quickened her pulse and made everything else fade away.
With a hand to the small of her back, Joe guided her into the Great Hall once more. Beneath soaring arches, they walked between marble statues from the ticket counter toward the grand staircase. “This—” he gestured forward and backward with his arm—“this is part of the path I sprinted the day I came back for you, October 16, 1925. I literally chased after you and found you on your way through Central Park. That was the day you agreed to help me with my forgery investigation.”
“So that’s why you were sweating,” she teased, though she’d noticed no such thing. “I just thought you were nervous.”
“You have no idea.”
At the bottom of the staircase, she paused. “Going up?” She could think of several memories they’d shared on the second floor of the Met.
“We could.” Joe stopped. “I could show you places all over the museum and tell you what happened there.”
Nodding, she began to climb.
“But none of those matter as much as what happens here.”
She turned around and saw that he hadn’t followed her.
“This is the place I tell you that even though the future may be uncertain, I am more than certain about who I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t want to wait any longer to begin our future together.” Joe knelt.
Knees softening, Lauren gripped the brass railing and descended the few steps that had separated them.
He took a small box from inside his tuxedo jacket and opened it. “I love you, and have loved you, across the span of miles and years. I’m asking you to be my wife, for however long the Lord grants us. Will you have me?”
Her breath caught, then shuddered. “With all my heart.”
Joe stood, and she threw her arms around him. He captured her to himself and lifted her off the stair, his lips claiming hers in a kiss that sealed the promise. A kiss that ensured they would forever remember this spot as the place where she said yes.
“Soon,” he whispered, and set her down, fitting the ring on her finger.
“Yes,” she agreed, and the diamond winked up at her. They’d waited long enough. She kissed him again, and he returned her warmth with the tenderness of hope fulfilled and with longing for all their tomorrows.
Joe stepped back with a smile and shining eyes. “I’ve kept you from the exhibition long enough,” he said. “Ready?”
