Page 202 of Protecting Peyton

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

Sheepishly, I nodded and wiped under my eyes.

He took me into a hug and rubbed my back to comfort me as he alwaysdid. “Do you know what a HALO jump is?”

I nodded into his chest, having heard of the scary jumps out of a perfectly good airplane into dark nothingness at thirty thousand feet.

He pulled my chin up to look me in the eye. “This is your HALO jump moment. It’s time to have faith and take that step into the unknown.”

Serena had warned me that being with a SEAL meant hanging on as you dove into a full-throttle life.

“But what if… the nightmares come back?”

“What if they do?” he interrupted. “What if I get hit by a truck? What if I get shot at my job? What if I get crushed in the next big earthquake? What if I get bitten by a rabid raccoon? There’s a million things that could happen. I will not allow my life to be dictated by what ifs, and you can’t either. Angel, are you listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t love you just a little bit, I love you so much I don’t know how I could possibly live without you, nightmare or not. I want to wake up next to you each and every day for the rest of our lives.”

I swallowed hard.

“You told me once you wanted to have a normal life, eating popcorn on the couch watching a movie together ,kind of normal. Well…” He pointed to the side wall. “The TV is going right there, and over there is where the couch is going. I brought you here because I bought this place for us. It’s a place for us to be normal and to make a family.”

The idea of a baby, Zane’s baby, growing in my stomach tugged at my heart. I hugged him tighter, looked up into his eyes, and took that leap into the unknown. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I want the popcorn and a movie. I want it all. I’ll marry you.” I’d thought those would be scary words to say, but instead, they lightened my soul. My tears began again.

He lifted me up and spun me around. “You’ve just given me the third happiest day of my life.” He set me down and pulled the box from his pocket again.

My brow scrunched. “Third happiest?”

He opened the box and pulled the ring from the velvet. “Ready?”

I extended my hand, jittery with excitement. It was hard to believe this was really happening.

He slid the ring onto my finger. It fit. “You’re mine, Angel. And now everyone will know it.” A second later, he wrapped his arms around me and took my mouth with his in a long, hard, possessive kiss.

“I’ll always be yours,” I answered when he broke the kiss. I’d neversaid truer words. Then questions hit me. I leaned back but didn’t let go of him. “You bought this place? How? I didn’t even know you were looking.”

He smiled devilishly. “It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I told now, would it? Closed escrow yesterday. It’s ours now.”

“What bank did you rob?” Everybody knew that houses on the beach, even small ones like this, cost a fortune.

“Remember when I told you about my grandmother in Los Altos?”

I nodded. “Karla’s mom?” He’d only mentioned her once, and I’d thought it sad that the woman spent her days at the zoo visiting the primates, but refused to talk to her own daughter or grandson.

“She passed away and left the house to Mom and me. Everything else she gave to the San Francisco Zoological Society. The lawyer handling the estate sent us checks last month.”

“You sneak. You didn’t say a thing.” I felt warm inside knowing that he’d gone to all the trouble of hiding this from me so it could be a surprise today. “Hey, wait a minute.”

“What?”

“You said this was only yourthirdhappiest day.”

He kissed my forehead. “The second will be the day you show me a pregnancy test with two lines.”