Page 182 of The Ampersand Effect

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Tobin probed.

Grier slid her palms along Tobin’s arms and hugged them tighter across her torso, grounding herself in Tobin’s support. She’d find a new way to propose—one that carried just as much meaning as the morels in this clearing.

She turned in Tobin’s arms to face her and tipped onto her toes to kiss her on the cheek. “I was just really hoping to find some morels today.” She looked into Tobin’s eyes. The returning gaze bore into her soul with an understanding that took her breath away.

“Because it’s our anniversary?” Tobin asked, her face a confusing mixture of concerned eyes and a concealed, smug smile.

Grier stiffened in her arms. “You remembered?”

Tobin’s smile turned obvious, and her eyes brightened with the mischievous swirl of greens and browns Grier loved to watch unfurl. “You thought I’d forget?”

Grier could hear the mild hurt in her voice. Of course Tobin would remember—she shouldn’t be surprised. She fought the smile spreading across her face, but only briefly.

“I shouldn’t have,” she scolded herself.

Tobin’s eyes grew brighter. Grier watched her lift her head, breaking their eye contact to scan the clearing, as if looking for something.

Grier furrowed her brow, confused. Tobin returned her gaze to Grier’s, and warmth radiated from her eyes, filling Grier from the inside out.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Tobin admonished lightly, before kissing Grier—her soft, warm lips sliding confidently over Grier’s. Then she stepped back, grabbed Grier’s hand, and tugged her along. “Come on.”

Grier didn’t have time to think. She’d follow Tobin blindly. The woman literally pulled her out of a wildfire—her trust in Tobin was absolute.

“Where are we go—,” Grier’s words caught in her throat as she comprehended their direction.

Tobin stopped and squeezed the hand she’d been holding, then dropped it to remove her seed pouch and hiking pack.

Grier stared, somewhat disbelieving, as a plan began forming in her mind.

This is just as full circle as the morels…

I could propose here…

The possibilities circled in her mind’s eye as she spun on her feet. She could hear the rush of water plunging over the cliff into the pool below. She could see the mist rising above the cliff face, cooling her skin from the heat of the afternoon sun. Aside from the blackened rock—evidence that the wildfire had tried its best—this part of the forest was relatively unscathed. There was no fuel to feed the fire here, and the small stream bubbled with excitement at its grassless freedom.

It filled Grier with an effervescent confidence as her finger closed around the cool metal ring inside her pocket, pulling it out as she completed a final arc and turned to face Tobin.

But Tobin wasn’t standing in front of her.

She was kneeling.

Grier gasped. Her hands flew to her face, and in her shock, the ring she had slipped loosely around her index finger loosened. She watched in disbelief as it arced through the air, landing with a soft clink before beginning to roll. The ring moved as if guided by instinct—or destiny. It traced a course of its own design until it circled in three concentrically shrinking loops, wobbled, and finally came to rest—two feet in front of Tobin’s bent knee.

“To—”

“Grier,” Tobin interrupted, shaking her head. She smirked, and Grier immediately understood: Tobin knew. Of course, she knew. Somehow, Tobin had figured out that Grier was planning to propose—and had beaten her to it. Payback for the last time they’d been in this clearing, before the fire, when Grier had confessed her love and stolen the words right from Tobin’s mouth.

“You had your chance…” Tobin’s smile was self-satisfied. She was gloating.

“Grier,” she started again. Her emotion catching in her throat and her name ending on a squeak. She didn’t bother clearing it.She persisted, “You are everything I’ve wanted and everything I never thought I could have. You’ve shown me that it’s safe to dream again. I fell for you, faster and hotter than any wildfire.”

Grier watched through teary eyelashes as Tobin choked up, steadied herself, and then gestured with her head to the cliff edge behind her. “But that’s the thing about you—everything seems possible. You are my perpetual ampersand, my promise of fantasy and infinite tomorrows. The last time we were here, you jumped ahead of me, commanding me to follow. I did then, and I have every day since. Now, I want to know if you’ll leap with me intoeveryadventure. Will you marry me?”

Grier hugged herself, smiling—beaming—at the woman in front of her. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and took four confident steps forward toward Tobin. She knelt in front of her, bending decisively to pick up the ring that had given away her plans.

And then she laughed—an airy, light, tear-filled laugh that settled the butterflies in her stomach just enough for her to answer Tobin with a question of her own.

“Is this leap metaphorical, or are we actually jumping off the cliff today?”

It was Tobin’s turn to laugh. And it was infectious.

They fell into each other’s arms, laughing and kissing, until the laughter dissolved into happy tears—tears that were, in turn, lost to the urgency of their lips.

When they rose, they settled the rings onto each other’s fingers and smiled as the first firefly of the season drifted in lazy wonder around their heads.