"Oh, yeah."
"How much more?"
"The other half."
"Wait a minute," I said, feeling almost awake now. "Are you telling me you hadanotherfifty thousand dollars?"
"Give or take. But there was no way I was turningthatover."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't want you telling me that I was spending too much."
I considered the timetable. He'd given me that cash before Derek's threat had driven us apart, before the moving truck, before the parking lot, before all of that.
In a tone of utter disbelief, I said, "Wait a minute. Does that mean you were planning this before that whole moving truck fiasco?"
"I wasn't just planning it," he said, "I'd already picked out some rings."
"Somerings?"
"Well, I figured you might want to pick your favorite."
It was so crazy that I couldn't help but smile. "Actually, I didn'thaveto, becauseyoudid. I absolutely love it." My voice softened. "And you know what?"
"What?"
"I would've married you, even without a ring."
Now, he sounded insulted, sort of. "The hell you would've."
"I'm serious."
"Yeah? Me, too."
I wasn't going to argue. I loved him. He loved me. So there, in the moonlit room, I drifted off to sleep with love in my heart and a smile on my face.
Somehow, everything was going to work out perfectly. I just knew it.
