“Well, maybe your logic isn’t quite so logical.” I spit out the words. “Think of this from my point of view. I know you think your life has been turned inside out, and you’re trying to figure out how to make it all work. But what about me? What about all of the plans and dreams I’ve had to let go? It’s going to be damn near impossible for me to get my doctorate with a newborn. But when I add that baby’s father to the mix, it’s even worse. Even harder.”
“Why do you think it has to be that way?” he demanded. “Just because you expected your life to go one way doesn’t mean you can’t still . . . live out that dream. You don’t have to do it alone.” He paused. “We can grow together, Willow. You can come with me, and then—”
“You’re missing the point, Dean.” This time, it was my voice rising. “I don’t need your pity offer to move in with you. Rose and I are going to do just fine on our own, thanks.”
“I have never done anything for you out of pity, Willow. I don’t feel sorry for you. Never have. And as far as you and our daughter on your own . . . do you know what I hear every time you say that? I hear that you don’t need me. That I’m . . .” He lifted miserable eyes to mine. “Not wanted.”
All of the fight went out of me. I thought of Dean and his childhood, his constant need to be better and better so that he could escape his small town. He had done everything I’d asked exactly as I’d requested, and still, at every turn, I pointed out how self-sufficient I was because I was afraid to admit how much I truly needed him.
Suddenly, all of the haze and hurt and pain cleared away, and I saw the way forward that had always lay before me.
“Dean.” I stretched my arm across the table and took his hand in mine. “The day Rose was born, before we went to the hospital, we were standing outside talking.”
He nodded, tightening his hold on my fingers. “Right.”
“What you said then—I kept waiting for you to say it again. After Rose was born. After we came home.” I shook my head. “But you never did.”
“I was waiting for the right timing,” he replied simply. “I was watching for my moment.”
“Oh.” That made a strange sort of sense to me. Letting go of his hand, I stood up and walked around the table to stand next to his chair. “Okay. Let’s go back to that day now.” I smiled at Dean. “Ask me again.”
Slowly, he stood. I saw on his face the same vulnerable uncertainty I’d noticed that day, but I also saw trust.
“Willow, I love you. You are my world, my life. I don’t want to go anywhere without you. I don’t want to be apart from you and Rose, ever.” He inhaled, long and slow. “Is there any chance that you might feel the same way about me?”
I gazed up into his eyes and stepped a little nearer, recreating our positions from that fateful day. Lifting one hand, I framed his face with my palm.
“Yes, Dean. There’s a very good chance that I love you, too.”
The smile that spread over his face was pure and unadulterated joy. “Really? You do? You’re not just messing with me?”
I tossed back my head and laughed. “As tired as we all are? I don’t have the mental power to mess with you, pal.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I do, however, have just enough energy to do . . . this.”
Angling my head, I sealed my lips to Dean’s, kissing him with all of the love and desire I’d been stuffing back down for almost a year. His arms slipped around my waist—which, happily, he was able to encircle again now—and tugged me close to him until our bodies didn’t have an inch of space between them.
“I love you, Willow,” he murmured against my lips. “Will you come with me, and bring our baby, and be a family with me?”
I tilted my head back. “Hmm. I don’t know. I always said that I’d never end up with a man who’d drag me from pillar to post. I wanted to be settled.” I brushed my lips over his again. “Good thing you’re the one man who could make me change my mind.” I pressed tiny kisses to his mouth. “Good thing that I love you and can’t live without you.”
“Actually, I have a proposition about that.” Dean’s hands flattened on my lower back and he leaned back to look down at me. “I owe the Army five years in active service. It’s a commitment I made before I ever knew you. And I don’t renege on commitments. I’m no quitter.”
I smiled. “I know that.”
“But—” He ran his lips down my jaw and nuzzled my neck. “I made a commitment to you, too.”
“You did?” I tilted my head. “When?”
“The night Rose was conceived,” he replied. “But more than that, I love you, which is a far deeper, more important promise.”
“I like the way you think,” I murmured.
“I propose a compromise.” Dean’s hand moved up my back. “We’ll serve out my time in the Army, the non-negotiable five years. We should be able to find you a doctoral program near my first posting, so you won’t have to put off that dream any longer.”
“So far, so good,” I approved.
“And after that, you’ll choose where we live, and wherever it is, we’ll stay there for the rest of our lives. We’ll sink roots and build a family. And it will be our home.”
Joy welled up within me and threatened to overflow—joy, and along with it, love. Love for this man who held me in his arms, and love for the perfect baby girl sleeping upstairs, the one who we’d created together on that life-changing summer night.
