“Let’s celebrate,” he said, standing. “I brought dinner.”
She watched him grab the bags he’d left at the door then pour everything out. A flood of M&M’s, Cracker Jack, Starburst, Life Savers, Aero bars, and whatever else he’d been able to find rolled over the cherry-red couch. He knew her so well.
“I think this might be the best day of my life,” she said, laughing with more tears.
“Oh, and this.” He presented her with a bottle of champagne, cold and wet with condensation. “I thought we might—”
“Grab two glasses, then follow me,” she purred. “I know where we should drink that.”
The champagne led them to her bedroom, and the candy became dessert after the main course. When he held out a second Cracker Jack box, she held up her hands.
“Stop! I’m going to die of too much sugar.”
He peered into the box. “Only two pieces left and the prize.”
“You take the popcorn. Give me the prize.”
He did, then he rested back against the headboard, hands linked behind his head. When he moved, the sheet slipped off his chest and pooled around his hips, and she felt a passing sympathy for Davey. His body had nothing on Tom’s. Then she realized he was observing her the same way.
“What are you looking at?” she teased, tearing into the little prize packet.
“You, Sassy. I could look at you the rest of my life.”
Heaven swirled inside her, mixed with all the candy. What a day. Joey was coming home, Marion was coming home, and Tom… she was pretty sure he loved her.
Did she deserve to be this happy?
That perfect, black, James Bond eyebrow lifted. His eyes were on the Cracker Jack prize now. “What did you get?”
She recalled the envelope in her fingers and finished opening it, then she pinched the sides together so she could peer inside. At first, she frowned, unsure of what she was looking at. She hadn’t seen anything sparkly inside a Cracker Jack box before. Then she knew, and she couldn’t breathe. Slowly, she pulled out the little gold ring and blinked at its diamond.
Sassy had decided long ago that she would never get married. She didn’t need anyone else, she knew, and she valued her freedom too much to share it. The only way she would ever marry anyone, she’d promised herself, was if they loved each other as fully and as perfectly as her parents had loved each other. She looked at the ring, letting its glittering promise reach for her heart, then she lifted her gaze to Tom’s.
His face tightened. Something new simmered in his eyes. Doubt?
She took a deep breath, then she handed him back the ring.
Defeat crept into his expression. “No?”
She’d always enjoyed teasing him, pushing just far enough to get himriled up so they could spar. But not today. She couldn’t let him hurt like that.
“You have to ask the right way,” she told him primly, holding her emotions tight.
Instantly, light filled his eyes, and he rolled off the bed, dragging the sheet with him. She rushed to the side, laughing with delight as he dropped onto one knee.
“Marry me, Sassy. Please be my wife.”
She held out her hand, but he didn’t move.
“Well?” she asked.
He held the ring between his thumb and finger. That little curl at the side of his mouth lifted roguishly. “It’s your turn. If you want this, you can’t just stick your finger out. You have to answer the right way. Let’s try this again. Will you marry me, Sassy Rankin?”
Love whooshed from her toes to her lips, and she shared all that she had with him. “Yes, Tom Duncan. Make a respectable woman out of me.”
forty-eightMARION
Hal, Stu, and Joey sat in the row behind Daniel and Marion, still gaunt but clean and happy. Marion watched all three like a hawk, on hand for any physical or mental doctoring, and wondered how they could possibly process everything. After months of unimaginable combat and survival in the jungle then weeks of abuse and starvation in a rotted old hut in the deep of Vietnam, they’d collapsed in a frantic but effective hospital in Da Nang. Now they sat on upholstered seats in an airplane and nodded every time a stewardess asked if they’d like something to eat or drink. They wore brave expressions, laughed when it was called for, but Marion feared it was too much.
