Page 120 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

The easy statement filled her heart with hope. Bright, beautiful, determined hope. Maybe it was too soon for this question. But why not put it out there and see what happened? She could wait, if that’s what he wanted. But she was through being a coward about asking for her heart’s desire.

‘How would you feel about making this official?’ she said.

‘Hmm?’ he murmured, still snuggling, only listening with half an ear.

‘I’d like to make Toto my daughter, and you Josh’s stepdad. You know, officially.’

His eyes snapped open.

Well, that had certainly gotten his attention.

‘What?’ he said, his voice a husky croak.

‘Not straight away, obviously.’ She twirled a fingernail in his chest hair, suddenly unable to look at him. ‘We would have to talk to the kids first. Get their take,’ she said, busy qualifying, denying.

When he didn’t say anything, though, and she couldn’t lift her gaze from his chest, she wished she could grab the words back.

Why the flipping heck had she said anything? She was mad. Of course this was too soon. She’d got all hyped up on her mum’s new relationship and Josh’s return home and Maddy’s new baby and the shop’s successful Christmas sales period and the all-around romance of the season – not to mention yet another spectacular orgasm – and completely lost her grip on reality.

They’d only been together five months. Art had always had trust issues. Did she really want to be testing him again after how far they’d come already? And her divorce had only been final for seven weeks. What was she thinking, talking about marriage again so soon? What was wrong with her?

He tucked a knuckle under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze.

‘Are you serious?’ he said. ‘You want to get married?’ She couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was pleased or not pleased, because all he looked was stunned.

‘We don’t have to do it straight away, I just thought—’

He pressed a finger to her lips, to halt the outpouring of confused qualifications.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What did you say?’ Had she heard that right?

‘Yes, let’s get married,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she said, still not sure her ears weren’t playing some sort of cruel trick on her.

‘Yes, really, but I’ve got conditions,’ he said.

‘Conditions? What conditions?’ That didn’t sound good.

He stroked her hair back from her face, gazed at her, the smile spreading across his face making her heart leap with joy.

‘We do it soon,’ he said. ‘I don’t want a ton of fuss.’

‘But I’ll want to plan a proper wedding.’

‘No way.’

She laughed as he rolled over, and held her captive.

‘No fuss,’ he added, nibbling kisses down her neck. ‘I want to get this done before you change your mind.’

Arousal surged, as she met his hunger with a hunger of her own. And agreed to every one of his stupid conditions…

But later, much later, as they sat together on the couch next to the Christmas tree and listened to Toto and Josh argue over which Christmas Eve movie to watch – Batman v Superman or The Avengers – she began planning the details of her dream wedding in her head. Her great big glorious extremely fussy dream wedding next summer at Willow Tree Farm – when she would celebrate not just her love for Art, but her love for her new daughter, and his new son, and for all the rest of her new family.

Art would come around to the idea in time, she thought, as she watched him referee the argument by shoving Arthur Christmas into the DVD player.