“I took a red-eye flight from Chicago.” Blue pulled back enough to look deep into her eyes. “I turned down the job.”
She blinked up at him, not comprehending what that meant for her.
He brushed back her tousled curls. “I’m not taking Ty’s offer in Chicago. Crown Island is my home.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure of a lot more than that now.”
She waited. This time, it was his turn.
His arms still held her, and his eyes were clear and calm. “I’m choosing you, if you still want me and all my issues.”
Jo’s chest tightened. She’d waited so long to hear those words that her own eluded her.
“I have a lot to apologize for,” Blue said, his words tumbling out now. “I thought about what I wanted to say the entire flight home, so let me say it. I let my pride cost us something we can’t get back, and that’s on me, not you.”
“How do you figure that?” she asked, her curiosity and natural defenses rising. She still wasn’t sure she could trust what he had to say, but she needed to hear all he had to say first.
Blue folded her hand into his and kissed it. “I wanted the Yosemite trip to be everything for us. The view and a moment we would never forget. I wanted to be the one who did the asking, so I’d have a good story to tell our kids someday where I looked like the hero.”
Jo’s heart softened at his words. With a small nod, she urged him on.
He shook his head, as if the memory embarrassed him. “That’s a stupid reason to lose the one you love. When you came over for dinner, you asked me the hard question, and I froze because it wasn’t happening the way I’d pictured it in my head. My pride nearly cost us everything.”
She studied his face, looking for the old evasiveness, the twitch of the eye he used to get when a conversation veered too close to the truth. It wasn’t there.
“I need to know about the photo,” Jo said. “The one your sister posted of you and Athena.”
“Sadie staged that.” He didn’t flinch from it. “My sister choreographed that, asked me to put my arm around Athena and snapped pictures. I didn’t stop her fast enough, because everyone in that house wanted it to be true.”
“And is it? True?”
“No.” He said it firmly. “Athena is in love with someone else. A teacher named David, a widower with two little kids. She’s been terrified to tell my family for months because she thought it would feel like losing Charles all over again for them.” His jaw tightened, then eased. “I told my family that Charles would’ve wanted her to be happy. I won’t live in his shadow. I loved him, and I’ll always miss him. But his life isn’t mine to finish.”
“I’m sorry I let myself believe it,” she said. “Even for a night.”
Blue stroked her face as he spoke. “I’m not the man who left on that ferry. I know what I want, and I don’t want to waste any more time.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.” A small smile broke through, the first one she’d seen from him in a long time that didn’t look like an apology. “I don’t want to be engaged without a date. I want to set one soon.”
She opened her mouth, yet he kept going, like he’d rehearsed this part on the plane and didn’t want to lose his nerve.
“We could have a small ceremony like Maileah and Sailor. Here on the beach with a few people, if that’s what you want. Or a big wedding at church with everything you’ve dreamed of. I know it’s time for us to commit and live together, whether at my home or yours or another one we buy together.”
This was the Blue that Jo remembered, but now he had clarity that hadn’t been there before. She liked that.
“Ask me again,” she said with a small smile. “Properly this time.”
Understanding dawned on his face, and he did exactly what she wanted.
Blue sank down onto one knee on the wet sand, oblivious to anything and anyone around them.
“Josephine Dufour.” He took her hand in both of his. “I love you. I should have told you all this before, and I’m sorry it took me this long to get here. Will you marry me?”
She looked down at him and saw the outline of a ring box in his pocket. This time, he was serious.
