“I know that now.”
“I was saving it,” she says. “Diana called me that afternoon. I was so happy.”
“I hope you’re still going to do it,” I say softly.
“I’m thinking about it.”
I reach into my jacket pocket. The stone is warm from being carried so long. I set it on the ground between us.
She looks at it for a long moment.
“I’ve been carrying it since that first night,” I say. “I know what it means. I’ve just been taking a while to say it.”
“What does it mean?” she asks quietly.
“It means I’m not very good at slow.” I look at her. “What I want is you. Not your Instagram. Not your photography for the resort. You.”
The spring gives off its faint glow. The sky moves from pink to pale gold, and the Florida sun is about to blaze hot and white.
“I love you,” I say. “I should have said it before any of my other plans. I was excited and skipped over the most important part.”
Lauren is very still.
“I want us to explore this,” I say. “Not in business. You should photograph what you love. Take the gallery show. Travel if you need to. Whatever you choose, I’ll be there.”
She finally looks at me. Her eyes are bright in the early light.
“I don’t want to travel,” she says. “I mean… I’ll travel. But I don’t want to run. I’ve been running for a long time and it doesn’t fix anything, it turns out.” She almost smiles. “I think I want to stay. In one place. With —” She stops.
“With?” I say.
“With the guy who carries a heart-shaped rock in his pocket.”
She reaches for the stone and presses it into my palm. I close my fingers around it.
“I love you too,” she says. “I should have said that instead of everything else I said that night after your parents’ dinner.”
“You were upset. You had reason to be.”
She's quiet for a moment, looking at the water. “I've spent a lot of time being angry at people who weren't you and taking it out on the wrong person.”
“I wasn't blameless.”
“No.” She almost smiles. “But you weren't my dad, either.”
I pause. “I realized something else. I should probably stop judging Damien and Kate for falling in love quickly. I seem to have no immunity to it myself.”
She laughs, and it bounces off the water.
We sit at the edge of the spring as the light comes up properly — gold and green through the cypress canopy, the water turning from turquoise to something almost silver and sparkling. Lauren picks up her camera and takes one more photograph. A few early morning swimmers drift in, yelping a little at the cool water.
After a while she says, “Can we go find coffee?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
She takes my hand and we walk back up the path toward the Magnolia Grand. The resort is beginning to stir and we see a contractor’s truck in the lot.
At the back door to the resort, she stops.
