Page 170 of Confessions

With a half smile, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a tiny box.

“What—?”

He handed her the box and she opened it. A single clear diamond winked up at her. “I’d like to say that I bought this eleven years ago and kept it all the time, ’cause I’d planned to go out and buy you a ring the night Kevin... Well, anyway, I didn’t get around to it.”

Her hands were shaking so he slipped the ring out of the velvet liner and slid it over her finger. “Will you marry me?” he asked and her throat was so full, she could barely answer.

“Of course I’ll marry you, Ben. I’ve been waiting to hear you ask me for as long as I can remember....”

Epilogue

December

CARLIE HEARD A soft cry and burrowed deeper under the covers before she was suddenly awake.

“Want me to get her?” Ben’s voice was groggy.

“I’m up.” She leaned over, kissed her husband and felt the milk in her breasts start to let down. “Coming,” she whispered, nearly tripping over Attila who lay at the foot of the bed.

The cabin still smelled new, the scents of wood and paint lingering as Carlie picked up her baby and cuddled the warm little body to hers. She crept downstairs, turned on a switch that caused the tiny winking lights on the Christmas tree to sparkle to life.

In an old rocker, near the window, she held her daughter to her breast and smiled at the tiny face with sky-blue eyes and a cap of dark curls.

“Here you go,” she whispered and kissed Mary on her downy head. From the window, she could look across the lake and see the mist rising over the water as dawn approached. She felt an incredible calm.

Nadine had insisted on giving them this cabin as a wedding present. Ben had declined of course, but worked out some deal with his sister so that they could afford to live here. Nadine, caught up with twin girls and preadolescent boys, had finally realized that she didn’t need a second home.

It was satisfying, Carlie thought, smoothing one of Mary’s downy curls with her finger. They were all parents now. Turner and Heather had a second little boy, the spitting image of his older brother, Adam, and Rachelle and Jackson were the proud parents of a son. A new generation for Gold Creek.

And though some couples had divorced, others had married. Ben’s father, George, had married Ellen Tremont Little, and wonder of wonder, Thomas Fitzpatrick was squiring Tracy Niday around, though Carlie had little hope that their affair would blossom into anything other than what it was.

“Hey, you two, how about a walk?”

“Now? I’m in my robe,” Carlie protested as she gazed up the stairs. Ben was dressed in jeans and his leather jacket and he was carrying a snowsuit for Mary and Carlie’s long black coat. “It’s freezing.”

“We’ll be fine.”

Wondering what he was up to, Carlie finished feeding and changing her daughter, then put the infant into the heavy snowsuit. Ben and Attila were waiting outside on the porch. “I’ll carry her,” he said, taking the baby from his wife’s arms and walking toward the lake.

The sun was rising over the mountains to the east and mist danced upon the smooth water. “What’s going on?”

“Just honoring a time-honored tradition.” At the shore, he bent down and scooped some water into his hand.

“You’re not serious.”

“Absolutely.” He pulled a champagne glass from the pocket of his jacket, bent down and scooped some of the water from the lake, then held the glass to Carlie’s lips. “I think we’ve been blessed by the God of the moon—”

“Sun,” she corrected.

“Whatever. Drink. But not too much.”

She sipped and then Ben took a swallow before dunking his finger and spilling a few tiny drops on his daughter’s forehead.

“Hey—wait—”

“Christening her.”

“I don’t think Reverend Osgood would approve.”