AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had painstakingly selected every detail of this house, from the wide oak plank floors to the white-washed beadboard cabinets and black hardware in the kitchen, the pale cream walls, the three oversized sofas in the living room, the sprawling office with workstations for both me and Cal, and the playroom in the back corner.
And that was just the first level.
Upstairs were four bedrooms, including the master with an en suite, two that shared an adorable Jack and Jill, and a guest room with its own bathroom next door.
Cal spun in a slow circle, taking it all in. There was, admittedly, a lot to see. Lucky for us, we had a lifetime here. He had all the time in the world to poke around, to learn the layout, to teach our daughter to ride a bike on the front lawn. To hose her—and Skye—down in the mudroom when they came in sandy from the beach. To fill this house with endless memories that would make it a home.
There were boxes everywhere, and I was silently impressed by the moving company and how quickly they worked. The instructions had been simple: pack up our entire house while we were at Cora’s party and move everything here. I’d packed us bags of toiletries and jammies earlier, and if the moving company did their jobs, our bed and Cora’s crib would both be setup. We weren’t spending another night anywhere but here, in our forever home.
“I still don’t understand,” he said at last, turning to look at me. “This is…ours?”
I nodded. “When I was eighteen, my dad signed the legal title to this forty acre section of land we’re standing on over to me. For the last twelve years, it sat vacant. I could never figure out what I wanted to do with it.”
After spending nearly five years in Europe, I discovered how much I loved traveling, and though I came home for the express purpose of taking over management of Delatou, Inc., I just hadn’t been ready to put down those kinds of roots. It seemed silly to me to spend all that money building a house I would live in alone. I couldn’t bear it.
And then Cal came along and everything changed.
“I didn’t even know I was ready for a family until you gave me one,” I said, giving him a watery smile. “I never pictured this life for myself, never imagined I’d get this lucky. But I want to spend the rest of our lives right here in this house. I want to decorate these walls with family portraits and Cora’s art projects. I want our babies to grow up here, and for this to be a place where they feel safe and loved and happy.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“Marry me.”
Now it was my turn to blink in shock.
“What?”
“Marry me,” he said again, digging into his pocket as he stepped away from me, then dropping to a knee right there in the entryway of our new home.
“Cal…”
“Just…let me say this.” He took a deep breath, and the tears I’d only just dammed up fell down my cheeks once again. “The night we met, if you would’ve told me we’d end up here, I would’ve called you crazy. But you have continued to surprise me at every turn, have continued to be the strongest, most intelligent, infuriatingly sexy woman I have ever laid eyes on. I wake up every morning praying that when I open my eyes, our life together hasn’t been a dream. You coming into my life was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I love you more every day.”
He sniffed, his eyes lined with silver. “And then you had to go and make me a dad, and watching you bring our daughter into the world and be the best mother imaginable to her has simply reinforced that I don’t deserve you, and I’ll never understand what I did right to end up here. But”—he opened the velvet box clutched in his hand, flashing the stunning square-cut solitaire on a simple gold band—“I promise I’m going to spend forever loving you and Cora the way you deserve to be loved and cherished. So please, Mar. Take my name. Take everything I have. Marry me.”
“Yes,” I said before he’d even fully finished speaking, and he choked on a laugh as he shakily slid the ring on my finger, then scooped me and our daughter into his arms and twirled us around. Cora squawked, clearly pissed off that her dad was interrupting her beauty rest.
Once he returned us to our feet, I fused my mouth to his. “As soon as possible,” I said against his lips. “I want your last name before I start showing too much.”
Cal pulled away and swept his gaze across my face, his entire heart and love for me and our daughter—and now our unborn child—shining brightly in his eyes.
“When are you due?” he asked quietly.
“Late October or early November. I haven’t gone to the doctor yet. I actually just found out yesterday.”
“You’ve been sitting on this for twenty-four hours?”
“I wanted to tell you today. One more gift in a day full of them.”
Cal grinned at me. “Fuck, I love you.”
“I love you more,” I said, rising up to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I was thinking of having a beach wedding in May. Right out there.” I pointed toourbeach. “How does that sound?”
Cal wrapped his arms tightly around me and our daughter and said, “It’s a date, Princess.”
