Page 146 of Secret Paths

The word is rough.

I swallow. “Yes?”

“Yes.” He kisses me again, softer this time. “Yes, Mandy.”

“Oh, thank God.”

He laughs against my mouth. “Were you worried?”

“No. I am an emotionally balanced woman who proposed beside a cooling cottage pie.”

“Very balanced.”

“Extremely.”

His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, then down my arms until they cover mine around the box.

“You bought us rings.”

“Yes.”

“You chose them.”

“No, Bernard chose them. I took him to Skipton for his refined opinion.”

Peter laughs properly then, and I breathe for what feels like the first time in five minutes.

“Give me your hand,” I say.

He does.

There is no hesitation.

I take his ring from the box. My fingers are not entirely steady, but neither are his. That helps.

The ring slides over his knuckle and settles at the base of his finger.

We both stare at it.

It looks right.

Not because a ring fixes everything. Not because marriage turns us into people who never annoy each other or never get scared or never need a door closed between one day and the next.

It looks right because it is on Peter.

Because he is standing in my kitchen with tomato on his thumb, flour on his forearm and my ring on his hand.

He lifts that hand slowly, turning it as if the light might change the truth of it.

Then he looks at me.

“My turn,” he says.

My stomach flips.

I hand him the other ring before I can make an unhelpful joke.

He takes my left hand.