“You said that before, but it doesn’t explain anything. I don’t know what you want that I don’t.”
She stopped walking. Something like pain pulled at her expression. “Youwanted whatIdidn’t.”
Too many people stood nearby. Miguel motioned her to a quieter corner of the concourse. “What I wanted was to spend the rest of our lives together. You didn’t want that?”
She shook her head, but the pain and confusion hadn’t left her eyes. “I didn’tnotwant that.”
“Jane.” He sighed in frustration. “That doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then.”
She paced away. “We were going along fine, getting closer and stronger. You were so sure about marriage being the next step.” She rubbed at her neck as she turned away from him. “You were ready to take that huge leap. I’m not a ‘huge leap’ kind of person, Miguel.”
So it was marriage that had scared her off. “We’d been dating for a whole year, and, like you said, we were happy together. Things were great.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “‘A whole year’ you say, as if that’s an eternity. It took my parents ten years to figure out that they hated each other.”
“And you think that’ll happen to us?”
“No. Maybe.” She held her hands up in helplessness. “My parents regretted marrying each other. My sister hates her ex. None of my grandparents stayed married. Only one aunt is still married, but she and her husband are just as unhappy as all the others were.”
Things were starting to make more sense. “My family doesn’t have a perfect track record,” he said. “But there are a lot of happy marriages there.”
She turned away again. “Rub it in,” she muttered.
“No, that’s not what I meant.” He stepped around and faced her. “Marriage didn’t feel like a huge leap to me, so I didn’trealize it was for you. All you said was you didn’t want that— you didn’t want to marry me. You never said why.”
“What was I supposed to say?” She looked away. “That while you think marriage is this wonderful, happy thing, it scares me half to death? That while I want to believe we would beat the odds, when I look around my family, I can’t help wondering if those odds are even beatable?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I needed you to say.” He gently tipped her head back so he could meet her eyes. “If I had realized all of this, I would have happily stepped back and taken things slower. I just didn’t know.”
She didn’t look surprised, thankfully. But she did look embarrassed. “I guess I couldn’t admit that my family and my childhood were this messed up, especially when you were so sure.”
Miguel set his hands on her arms. “What I am sure of isus.All I need from you is to stick it out with me. I’m not asking for huge leaps, just a hop now and then.”
Her brow pulled in tight. “But you shouldn’t have to give up what you want.”
He shook his head at her misunderstanding. “Youare what I want, Jane. Us. Together. What can I do to help you believe that?”
She set her hands on either side of his face. “Time,” she said. “And baby steps.”
For a second, the enormity of what she’d said didn’t hit him. Time. She was saying she would give them time. She was coming back. He was getting another chance.
“I’ll give you all the time in the world,” he promised.
Her hands slid to his chest, her eyes remaining locked with his. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
He answered, not with words, but with a kiss. A kiss filled with months of missing her and loving her alone, filled with the reliefthat came from having her back. She wrapped her arms around his neck as the world around them disappeared.
Chapter Seven
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin boarding our Denver flight in about thirty minutes.”
Jane wasn’t quite awake enough to make sense of the announcement at first. She shifted, her back loudly protesting the night she’d spent on the airport floor. She forced one eye open, and then the other. Miguel didn’t look any more awake than she did, and he looked far more uncomfortable.
“I told you not to sleep sitting up,” she said groggily.
“The way they designed this terminal, I don’t know that there were many other options except the floor.” He turned his head from side to side, as if working out a kink. “Booths as far as the eye can see.”
Jane sat up. Miguel’s sweatshirt slid off her shoulders. He’d insisted she use it as a blanket. “We’re boarding in half an hour.”
