Page 111 of Silver-Tongued Devil
Russell joined them first, because that was how fast he walked these days. “You did good, son,” he told Blake. “Keep her on her toes.”
“Hey,” Dakota protested.
Blake’s parents followed close behind Russell. “Well,” Margaret said as Elliot handed over the beach bag Blake had left behind, “that was fun.”
“I’d call that the highlight of the trip so far,” Elliot said, picking up his mojito and taking a sip. “Although the drinks aren’t bad.”
“No,” Dakota said, “that wasn’t the highlight. That was the best thing ever. That was one from my bucket list.” She smiled at Blake, he smiled back at her, and her heart turned over one more time. “Thank you. I love you. Have I mentioned that?”
“Just because I took you to swim with dolphins?”
“Maybe.” She was so happy, she thought she might float away. “Or maybe because you do all those things Evan said once. You look good, you talk good, and you sound good. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s more than that. Maybe it’s that you make me laugh and hold my hand and make my life so much better. Maybe because you’ve got the sweetest heart a man could ever show a woman, and you keep showing it to me and telling me it’s mine. Maybe because I’m so grateful to have you, it scares me.”
Everybody else was smiling, but Blake wasn’t. “That’s a pretty good declaration, darlin’,” he said. “Sounded like you meant it, too.”
“Because I’m reckless,” she said. “I’d have to be, to say that in front of everybody. But then, Dad told me something once, too. He said that if people didn’t like all my Dakota, I should go find better people. And I did. I found you.”
“You did.” He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was rummaging in the beach bag, and she got a pang of unease. That probablyhadbeen too reckless. Too much, as always. Too intense. Putting him on the spot.
He stood up, and she thought he was going to make an excuse to walk away.
Reckless. Wild. Too much Dakota.
He didn’t walk away, and he didn’t make an excuse. He was kneeling on the patio. On his good knee. And he was holding a box.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.
He took her left hand right there in front of everybody, and when he started to talk, he was trying his best for his usual amused drawl, but he wasn’t making it. Maybe because his voice wasn’t quite steady.
He said, “Seems to me it’s almost Christmas, darlin’. And you’re probably thinking, what do I give Blake? Can’t give him a robe, because he won’t wear it. Can’t give him a tie, because it’ll never make it out of the closet. So I have this real good idea. Seeing as I love you more than life itself, and being where you’re not is doing its best to kill me, I think you should marry me. That’s what I want for Christmas, for you to come to Virginia again and marry me out there. Turns out I’ve got a church and a minister just waiting to do it.”
He opened the box with his thumb, then. And she stared. That… thatring.It was three intertwined circlets studded with diamonds, and there was a stone in the middle that was… that was…
She couldn’t look at the ring anymore, though, because she had to look at Blake. She asked, “You mean… now? What? ForChristmas?That’s… uh… less than two weeks away.” The hand he was holding was shaking, and Blake’s eyes were shining gold.
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “But I should say the words, I guess.” He laughed, and that wasn’t steady, either. “Miss Dakota, I truly do love you, and I surely hope you’ll agree to marry me.”
“Yes,” she said, and watched his smile come. Watched it grow. “Yes. Of course I will. Of course I do. I love… I love you. But, uh…” She couldn’t think. She had a hand over her mouth, and she couldn’t hold herself together. There was no way. “But… Evan. A dress.”
He sighed. “We’ll get Evan down there for it. I hereby accept Evan, even though I’m not sure he accepts me. And I tell you what. My grandma had this dress, sort of a mermaid deal, and I think it’d look real pretty on you. Seems my mom’s been hanging onto it, because it did all right by her own mom. There’s sixty years of marriage in that dress, and seems to me we could probably take it over a hundred. We could even pass it on if we wanted. I’m going to want some babies, and I hope you’ll want to make them with me. I sure would like a little girl, and if I got a son, too… well, I’d have just about everything a man could want.”
“But… but…”
He was still talking. “I hear you thinking it, because I thought it, too. What about your adventures? What about your work? See, the good thing about babies is, they’re portable. You can carry them through rainforests, and you can walk through Paris in the rain with them. I want to give you adventures, and I want to give you babies. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
She was smiling, or she was crying, or both. And so was his mother. Russell and Elliot were just sitting there looking smug. And Blake was sliding that ring onto her finger and threading his fingers through hers.
“Here’s an idea to ponder,” he told her. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, ever since my mom asked me some questions that got me started. We don’t get one life. We get lots of lives. Lots of choices. We’ve already had one of ours, and now we’re looking at another. And we’re lucky, too. We’re lucky all the way around. We get to start on that new life together, and we get to pick how it’ll be. We get to live our best life. Our choice. Our rules.”
“But… your work,” she said. “Your traveling.”
“I haven’t been doing it so much lately. You notice that?”
“Yes, but…” She didn’t know what to say. She got adventureandbabies? And Blake? It was too much.
“Seems I was running around,” he said. “Trying to fill up my life. But I’m thinking I was looking in the wrong places. I want to try it differently now. I want to try it with you, because I have a feeling that’ll turn out better. And someday, when we have a baby or two and it’s time for them to go to school? Then we decide what our next stage looks like. In the meantime, I’ve got all these houses just going to waste, and I’ve got a couple boats, too. If Russ wants to use that one sitting at the dock in Wild Horse to do some guiding, that’d be good. Meantime, you and I’ve got some cruising around Hawaii to do, and I’ve got some houses that need glass studios built in them, so you can get inspired and go to work.”
She knew what she was doing now. She was laughing. “Blake.” She stood up, tugged him to his feet, and went straight into his arms, and he held her. So close, so tight, and a whole lifetime’s worth of secure.
She put her palms on his face, smiled into his eyes, and said, “Silver-tongued devil. I don’t need you to sell me. I’m already sold. You had me a whole long time ago. You had me jumping off the rocks, and you’ve had me ever since.”
He smiled down at her, and there was a lifetime’s worth of tenderness in that smile. “Badasses gotta badass.”
Surely one heart couldn’t contain this much happiness. It was impossible. But it was real. “Yes, they do,” she said. “They surely do. And they gotta do it together.”