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She kicked off her sandals and walked slowly down the aisle that I had created with the Christmas lights on either side, strung from the trees and ending right at the beach. It was a preview of what I hoped I would see when this moment was fulfilled, when the question and the answer were in the past and the actual day had arrived. The day I would make her my wife.
Melanie had tears in the corners of her eyes, and as she reached me, I wiped them away with my thumbs before embracing her. She was soft and warm in my arms, and when I pressed a kiss to her lips, it was like drinking from the cup of life itself. This day had been planned to be one of the most monumental of my life and the most special of hers, and it was living up to it. Every second, every stolen breath from the angels themselves were precious.
“It’s the cabin,” she said. “How did you know?”
“I have my ways,” I said, glossing over the agony of the research in an effort to spoil her. She never had to know the effort that went into just the most basic part of this evening. I didn’t need her to. She just needed to feel special.
“This is amazing,” she said.
I nodded.
“You described it very well,” I said. “Will you take a walk with me? Just down to the next property and back? I feel like walking.”
“Sure,” she said, slipping her arm into mine. “Let’s go.”
Our steps were rhythmic, side by side and in step with one another, which was indicative of everything else about us. We were together, but we were more than that. We were one.
“While I was gone, I had a lot that I had to do and it brought up a lot of bad memories,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she replied.
“No, you don’t have to be. It’s good that those memories came. Because I was able to follow them with new memories. Memories of you. Plans that I had for you. Things that I was excited for and wanted to focus on. Every time something popped into my mind that made me angry or sad about how my life there had been, I was always able to follow it with the thought, ‘Yes, but it is so much better now.’”
“I like that,” she said.
“So do I,” I responded. “Over the first few days, the stress was pretty high, and there was lots to do. But your face, your voice, it kept me going. Knowing I could speak to you on the phone kept me focused. Knowing I could come back home to you kept me motivated. I thought about this day, about this moment, all the time. I thought aboutyouall the time. By the end of the first week, you were all I could think about.”
“I missed you too,” she said, curling into my arm and squeezing.
“It was more than missing you,” I said, grinning. “I’ve never missed someone the way I felt for you while I was gone. As a matter of fact, I’ve never felt for anyone anything resembling what I feel for you all the time. You are the center of my thoughts, my most primary concern, all the time. And happily so. There is no one else that I would want to think about, no other subject I would rather delve into. No one has captured myheart or my mind the way you have. No one has ever churned the feelings of love in my heart the way you have. Not even in the best of times has anyone even come close to making me so delighted, so damn giddy to spend the rest of my life admiring them. Loving them. Worshipping them. Only you. Ever.”
I stopped as we reached the torches again, having walked down to the line where the property ended and back again. I could keep going, bringing her to the edge of the property on the other side, where the lake snaked up the hill and then washed back away again, heading toward another cabin, but I wouldn’t. This place was perfect. Not as perfect as Melanie, but perfect.
I pulled her in tight and kissed her softly, then took a single step back. Her breath hitched and I felt like she saw it coming. I smiled. I loved that she anticipated it. I loved that she knew how much I loved her and part of her expected this to happen.
I knelt down, placing one knee firmly in the sand and keeping one hand in mine. My other hand reached into my pocket and pulled out the box that I had gotten on the third day I was back in my old town. I knew what I wanted right then. There was no question, even that long ago, and it was torture to wait. But this was worth it. The heavy breathing, the eyes that were watering and the white dress, clinging to her body as the light breeze blew it tight to her skin.
“Melanie, I love you more madly, more passionately than a man should be allowed to love. I don’t ever want to spend that much time away from you again, and I want the whole world to know that I don’t ever intend to. Will you do me the privilege, the honor of allowing me to make you my wife?”
Her hand trembled as I took the ring out of the box and placed it at the tip of her finger. Her face was a mask of emotion, andshe was beaming through the tears that now streamed down her face. These tears I would not wipe away. They were earned.
“Melanie, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, nearly breathlessly. “Yes, I will.”
I slipped the ring onto her finger and stood, embracing her again, but this time with the promise between us. The promise of a future that I could not wait to begin.
26
MELANIE
Iwas overwhelmed with happiness, unable to fully wrap my mind around this incredible life that was unfolding in front of me. Looking down at my hand, I watched the beautiful glow of the sunset sparkle on the ring Victor had just slipped onto my hand. It fit perfectly. I didn't know how he knew what size I wore, but it was exactly right. Everything about it was exactly right, like he'd designed it himself and had it crafted just for my hand. Something told me that was just what he did.
But as beautiful as the ring was, and as much as I knew I'd be staring at it constantly, it wasn't the most amazing thing about the moment. I couldn't believe how far Victor had gone to create this experience for me. Asking me to marry him would have been wonderful no matter how he had done it, but the fact that he had brought me out here to the lake to do it was beyond special.
He'd listened to everything I told him and knew what I valued the most throughout my life, and that was more meaningful to me than I could even begin to describe. When I was younger, and the girls around me were getting dreamy-eyed about their future boyfriends and the kind of man they'd like to marry, theyall talked about the same things. They wanted a handsome man with a lot of money who would sweep them off their feet and carry them off to their fairy tale.
Of course, those things sounded nice. I liked the idea of the handsome man and the beautiful life. But I knew even then I wanted something more. I wanted a man who listened to me, who really knew me. When I thought about spending my life with someone, I knew it needed to be a man who was going to make me feel like he valued everything about me and was going to make sure I knew I was special to him because I was me.
