“For heaven’s sake,” Aidan said, but Dylan noticed his hand had moved to cover the ring box protectively.
“It would solve the scandal,” Raven mused, her elegant features arranged in false innocence. “You did spend the night together. Unchaperoned. In a cabin. During a blizzard. Very romantic, but also very?—”
“Very none of anyone’s business,” Dylan finished, but her heart was racing because everyone in the room was looking at them with expectation that felt like gravity, pulling them toward something inevitable. “And we’re adults. In the twenty-first century. It’s not 1892. No need for a shotgun wedding.”
“It’s Laurel Valley,” Sophie said as if that explained everything.
“Though if you were engaged,” Anne went on as if no one else had spoken, “it would certainly quiet any inappropriate speculation about last night.”
“Mom,” all five brothers said in unison.
But Anne O’Hara hadn’t raised five boys without learning how to read the unspoken, and her gaze found Dylan’s with surprising directness. “I’m not trying to pressure anyone. I’m just saying that sometimes storms bring clarity. Sometimes being forced to stop running and just…be still with someone…shows you what’s been true all along.”
The words hit Dylan like physical things, each one finding its mark. She’d been running for thirteen years. Last night, trapped in that cabin with nowhere to run, she’d finally understood what staying might feel like.
“Speaking of storms,” Mick said quietly. “There’s another one coming midweek. Supposed to be worse than last night’s.”
“Better get the important things done before then,” Duncan said with studied casualness. “You know, in case anyone gets trapped again.”
Dylan looked around the table at these people who’d become family without her quite noticing—the brothers who teased but would defend, the wives who’d pulled her into their circle, the parents who’d made space for her at their table before she’d even known she wanted it.
Then she looked at Aidan, who was watching her with those green eyes that had undone her from the beginning, his expression a mixture of exasperation and something deeper, warmer, more permanent.
“Are you proposing?” she asked him directly.
The room went still as held breath.
Aidan studied her for a long moment, then his mouth curved in that slow smile that had been undermining her defenses for five years. “Would you like me to?”
“I asked you first.”
“So you did.” He stood, pulling her to her feet with him, the ring box still in his hand. Around them, his family leaned forward like flowers toward sun. “Dylan Flanagan, would you like me to propose to you in front of my entire meddling family and half the town, or would you prefer something more private?”
“I’d prefer honesty,” she said, her voice steadier than her pulse. “Are you asking because they expect it, or because you want to?”
“I’m asking,” he said, his free hand coming up to frame her face with a tenderness that made her chest ache, “because you captivated my attention when you walked into my garage five years ago looking for a job. Because knowing you, being friends with you, captured my heart. And because loving you has been an honor I’ll cherish for the rest of our lives.”
“Wow,” she said, hearing sniffles from the onlookers. Tears streamed down her own cheeks. When was the last time she’d cried? She couldn’t remember. But she could trust Aidan with her heart.
He dropped to one knee right there in The Lampstand’s private dining room, with his entire family as witness. “I’m going to do this properly.”
He opened the ring box, the ancient silver catching light like captured stars.
“This ring has been in my family for three hundred years. It’s seen famine and feast, crossings and arrivals, love and loss and love again. It’s not just a ring—it’s a promise that some things endure. That some loves are worth the storms. That some people are worth staying for, worth building with, worth choosing over and over again.”
Dylan’s vision blurred, but she didn’t need to see clearly to know what her answer was. She’d known it last night in the cabin. Known it this morning when she’d woken in his arms. Maybe known it five years ago when she’d reorganized his disaster of an office and he’d laughed instead of getting angry.
“I need you to know,” she said, her voice carrying clear despite the tears, “that I’m not saying yes because we got caught in a storm, or because people think I’m a fallen woman, or because your family expects it. I’m saying yes because you’re the reason I stopped running. Because you made Laurel Valley feel like home. Because I love you, and I’ve been loving you so long I forgot what it felt like not to.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked, though his grin suggested he knew.
“Yes, Aidan O’Hara. Yes to the ring, yes to your overwhelming family, yes to staying, yes to all of it.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger, the metal warm as a blessing, fitting perfectly as if it had been waiting for her all along. Then he was standing, pulling her into a kiss that would probably be talked about in Laurel Valley for the next fifty years—the kind of kiss that made married couples remember their own beginnings and single people believe in possibilities.
When they finally broke apart, the room erupted. Anne was crying openly, Mick was shaking Aidan’s hand with the vigor of a man who’d been waiting for this moment, and the brothers were engaging in the kind of cheerful chaos that suggested celebrations and bachelor party planning.
“I call best man,” Wyatt announced.
