Working slowly, I guide the sleeve over his injured arm, then stretch up while he ducks down so I can put the neck over his head. Then, I hold the shirt steady so he can slip his good arm into the hole.
“Better?”
“Much. Thanks.”
“No problem.” With a smile, I head back into the kitchen to retrieve the fruit tray. Then, I return to the living room where Sawyer is already sitting on the couch. I take a seat beside him and fold my legs up underneath me before popping a grape into my mouth and offering him the tray. “Hey, do you remember the day we met?”
“At the airport?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He considers. “You were wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that said, ‘God’s In Control. Just ask Jonah,’” he replies. “Oh, and your hair was longer then, and you’d braided it in long pig tails.” Sawyer takes a strawberry from the tray and takes a bite while I stare up at him, trying to recall what he’d been wearing. Even with the dream, I can’t quite recall.
“How do you remember that?”
“One doesn’t forget a major turning point in his life.”
“A turning point?”
He nods. “That was the moment I met you. Everything changed after that.” The tone he uses is so casual, but the words are anything but.
“If you knew you liked me back then, why did you wait?”
He arches a brow. “I tried to ask you out back then. Before I could get the question out, you started telling me all about your dating hiatus and how all men sucked. Then I realized I wouldn’t ever quite match up to what you deserved. I was a soldier with cigarette burns on my back and nearly half a dozen arrests on my juvenile record, and you were the princess of Stormwatch Landing.”
I snort. “The princess of Stormwatch Landing?”
“Oh yeah. That was clear from day one.”
“You’re perfect for me, Sawyer. You know that now, right?”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t fight for the right to be,” he replies. After a moment, he clears his throat. “Anyway, I didn’t want to risk losing you in my life, so I kept my mouth shut and waited.”
“A long time.”
“It all worked out, though, right?” he grins and slips a grape into his mouth.
“So many years, though. We could have been together. Who knows where we’d be now?”
“Oh, I know exactly where we’d be.”
I turn toward him. “Really?”
He nods. “Married. Couple kids. A white picket fence.”
I nearly choke on the grape I’m eating. “Did you say marriage?”
“Sure.”
“You sound so confident.”
“Because I am.” He eats another grape, then takes the tray out of my hands and sets it on the coffee table. Then, he tugs me closer with his good arm, pulling me into his lap. “There is not a single possible way that this doesn’t work out between us.”
My heart leaps with joy as my pulse kicks into overdrive. “Most men run at the thought of marriage.”
Sawyer leans in closely. “I’m not most men. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am quite excited about this whole middle part, too. Just know, that’s where my head’s at. In case you were wondering.”
I wrap an arm around his neck and lean in to kiss his cheek. “That’s good to know. And just so you know where my head’s at, I’m excited about this middle part, and looking forward to what comes next.”
