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I was suddenly a panicking bundle of nerves.
“Kiera?” Johnny called, his voice gentle.
I glanced over to see him eyeing me curiously. “Yeah?”
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
Rip off the bandage. It was best to do it now, see where he stood, and deal with whatever the outcome was.
“I’d like to have children one day,” I told him. “I don’t know how many, but at least two. Being an only child, sometimes I wished I had a sibling.”
He nodded at me before he returned his gaze to the sand. That reaction only made me become more consumed with worry.
I couldn’t just let it go now. He’d brought it up, and if he didn’t intend to come out and share his thoughts with me, I was going to have to open my mouth and ask for them, no matter how terrified I was.
“What about you?” I asked, my voice coming out slightly strained.
I felt his thumb stroke gently over the top of my hand, from my wrist up to the knuckle at the base of my thumb. He did that several times before he confessed, “I’d like to have children one day, too.”
There was no way to quantify the relief I felt at his admission. A rush of air left my lungs, and I had to pause a moment to catch my breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding until that moment.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Bent over slightly, one hand resting on my knee and the other at my chest, I answered, “I thought you were going to tell me that you didn’t want children, and that there would be no way things could ever work out between us.”
“Are you serious?”
I nodded.
Johnny drove his fingers into my hair, allowed his hand to settle at the back of my skull, and urged me to stand up straighter. “Look at me, Kiera,” he demanded.
I brought my eyes to his, saw something dark and intense swirling in them, and waited. Whatever he had to say, there was no question in my mind that it was important.
“I want to give you everything,” he eventually began. “Whatever you want to have in this life, I want to be there to give it to you or to stand beside you, supporting you, as you achieve it on your own. If a family is something you want, I’m going to do whatever it takes to give it to you.”
Feeling so much relief, and overwhelmed by the love I felt for him, I released Johnny’s hand, threw my arms over his shoulders, and hugged him tight. “I thought this was it,” I said, holding on to him. “I was convinced this was where you were going to tell me that we’d never work out and we needed to end this between us.”
His arms tightened around me. “Jesus, Kiera, I love you. Even if we had a difference of opinion on having children, I’d find a way to make it work. I’m not willing to live without you, so I’d have to figure it out.”
I thought that was profound. Profound enough for me to want to ask him a question. So, I loosened my hold on him, leaned back to look him in the eye, and asked, “What if I didn’t want children, and you did?”
He smiled at me and didn’t hesitate to answer, “I never really thought much about children until you and I became anus. Something tells me that it’s because I’ve got you now that I’ve considered what the future holds.”
That was a really great answer, so I leaned forward and touched my lips to his in a chaste kiss.
A moment later, we continued our walk down the beach. The sun was just starting to dip below the horizon, and the sky looked gorgeous.
I didn’t know what was going through Johnny’s mind at that moment, but my mind was muddled with a million thoughts about what the future held for the two of us. I was so caught up in all of my thoughts that I forgot why we’d even come out for a walk.
Fortunately, Johnny didn’t.
I knew that was the case when he said, “Look at this shell.”
He kept his hold on my hand as he bent down, set the bucket in the sand, and reached out to pick up the shell. It was hidden behind the bucket, so I couldn’t see it, but when he held it up to me, I felt more shocked than I had when he’d found the scotch bonnet during our first walk together down the beach.
Because this time, he didn’t have a scotch bonnet in his hand.
This time, he held a ring up between us.
