I would not allow Nikolai Vasiliev to haunt me here. This camp was part of my legacy, and for the first time, I knew this was where I belonged. It was my home.
The trees thinned, and the lake opened in front of us. The water was black and still, with a line of silver on it from the dock to the island.
I stopped where I’d gone down on my knees earlier.
The sand had been raked. There was no body and no boat and no sign that anything had happened here.
Bishop stood by me, holding my one hand while his other arm was around my shoulders.
“I want to start my life over. Here. Tonight. Like a rebirth.”
He studied me but didn’t speak.
“I want you to be part of that life, Bishop. If you want to.”
He smiled and cuddled me close. “I didn’t practically jump off the second level of the boathouse to save your life just to let you go live it with someone else.”
He took my right hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed the ring I’d worn on my third finger since the day my babushka passed away.
“It fits you,” he said. “Not just in size. It’s more like it was made for you.”
I looked down at it. I’d never been a woman who noticed jewelry. But my grandmother’s ring was impossible to ignore. The band was blackened metal, the setting intricate and worn from decades on my grandmother’s hand. The center stone was an alexandrite—Russian, like my grandfather. In daylight, it ran cool and dark. By firelight, it shifted to a deep, smoky violet. Small green stones flanked it on both sides.
Mikhail Stepanov had brought it from Russia when he was posted to the Soviet Embassy in London. A family piece, maybe the only one that survived. He’d given it to my grandmother before they married, and she’d never taken it off. I never would either.
“You said you want to start over.” Bishop kissed both my eyelids. “Here.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Tonight.” I expected my lips to be next, but he went to each cheek instead. “With me.”
“I did.”
“Then, marry me—let everything after this moment be the genesis of us.”
“Our genesis,” I said.
“That’s right. What do you think of the idea?”
“It’s the best one I’ve ever heard.”
He lifted my right hand and slid the ring off. “I’d never find anything more perfect to propose with,” he said as he slipped it on my left.
“I wouldn’t want any other one.”
“Kitten?”
“Bishop?”
“Say, yes.”
“Yes, let’s get married.” I smiled. “I have one request, though. Actually two.”
“Anything,” he said, pulling me so my body was flush with his.
“I want to go away.”
He leaned far enough that he could look in my eyes. “You said you had two requests.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
Bishop rested his forehead against mine. “That’s the second best idea I’ve ever heard.”
