My own smile was impossible to hide as I looked at the beach again just in time to track a great blue heron as it waded in the water. Ireland slid closer to me as I watched it, resting her head on my shoulder.
“The crutch?” she asked quietly.
“Temporary.”
She sighed against me, then pulled away.
I slid my gaze to her, watching as she rolled her lips together and fixed her gaze on the water again.
This time, it felt… different.
“I have questions, Adair.” Her voice was so quiet, but flat, as if she was bracing for impact.
I reached into my pocket as the Gulf breeze swept away the speech I’d agonized over for weeks.
“With everything they had.”
Beck’s words came easily, and this decision even more so.
I only had me, and that’s what I would offer her.
“Ireland.”
She raised her gaze to me, her hair blowing across her face. I reached for her, tucking her soft hair behind her ear.
“My Indigo Girl.”
Her lips parted, and I took a step back on the ankle I’d had repaired for this exact moment.
In one controlled, smooth movement, I sank to one knee.
My ankle held even as my hands shook, and I opened the wooden ring box.
Ireland’s deep blue eyes widened before brimming with so muchreliefthat my soul ached for her. For her pain. For everything that’d happened to make our meeting possible.
For all that would come.
“I have a question too.”
One tear slipped loose, painting her cheek, and then she nodded.
“Will you marry me?”
A small sound escaped her before her shoulders caved in.
I didn’t panic. I didn’t even move. I’d ask her seven times if I had to. In seven different ways, with seven different rings.
Her gaze finally traveled to the ring, and she studied it for several seconds before she lifted her gaze to mine again in silent question.
“Pops proposed to Grams with this ring. Two weeks after meeting her.”
Her tears streamed down hard as she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper, “Why?”
The same question she’d asked that day in the Cadillac when she didn’t understand why my heart raced for her.
I looked right at her as I gave the same answers I hadn’t voiced then, and the ones I’d discovered since. “Because I look for you in every room. And in every dream.”
I lowered the ring, and her eyes flared with panic, but I kept on.
