“Where are you going with this? Because I’m getting hungry.”
Frustration threatened to overwhelm her. “Where the hell do you think I’m going with it? I’m trying to say that the reason I haven’t had any luck with the online dating services is because you weren’t registered.”
“You were looking for me?” he asked.
“Not you.” She groped for the words. “Not consciously. I was looking for someone like you. Sort of.”
“Are you trying to say that I’m not the man of your dreams? If so, I gotta tell you that kind of thing can be awfully rough on a man’s ego.”
Now she was getting mad. She clutched the front edges of his unzipped windbreaker in two fists. “What I’m saying is that I haven’t been looking for a dream man. I’ve been looking for the real thing. Only I didn’t realize it until I walked into Fletcher Hardware and saw you again.”
He cupped her face in his hands and smiled his slow, heart-stopping smile. “Well, why didn’t you say so back at the start of this conversation? You know I’m not good when it comes to verbal communication.”
“Stuff it, Fletcher. You do just fine when it comes to verbal communication. Except when you don’t want to do just fine with it.”
“I don’t see the problem here. You found me.”
“Yes. And it’s perfect, at least for now.”
“You’re thinking short-term?” he asked, his voice going hard and flat.
“Yes.” Lucy smiled, a glorious sense of daring rushed through her. “Nothing lasts forever. I want you to know that I’m not asking for a lifelong commitment. I’m going to practice what Aunt Sara taught me—I’m going to live mindfully and in the moment. No more trying to control the future. I’m going to break the risk-averse pattern if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting that we carry on with what we’ve started, which is, when you get right down to it, an affair.”
“Yes. Right. Exactly. An affair.”
“Well, damn,” Mason said. “You just ruined my whole day.”
Shock reverberated through her. “I did?”
“See, I suggested this trip to the coast so that I could ask you to marry me, or at least think about it.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She stared at him, stunned. She could not seem to catch her breath.
“I know it’s too soon,” Mason said. “I know you’re trying to get over your so-called risk-averse issues. I know you want to try to do the Zen thing and live in the moment. And I’m okay with that. For now. I’ll give you time. But you should know that I’ve got my own agenda. I love you, and that’s not going to change. That means I’ll take you any way I can get you, but what I really want is to marry you. I want to have a life together. I want to have kids with you.”
She used her grip on his windbreaker to try to shake him. It was like trying to move a very large boulder.
“Damn it, why didn’t you say so?” she yelped.
“Let’s see. Maybe because you were doing all the talking?”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m through talking. For now.”
He touched his fingertip to her lips. “You can’t stop, not just yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because we poor communicators have to have things spelled out.”
“Okay,” she said. “I will spell it out. I love you and I am making a commitment to you. To us. Not just for now but for a lifetime.”
“That spells marriage to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “It spells marriage to me, too.”
“You said you spent the past thirteen years getting your act together so that you could take the risk of finding the right man. I’ve spent the time searching for something as well. I just didn’t know what I was looking for until you walked into Fletcher Hardware.”
“What were you looking for, Mason Fletcher?”
He traced her cheekbones. “My own personal guardian angel. I met her thirteen years ago. I’ve been looking for her ever since. Now I’ve found her again, and I’m not going to let her go. I love you, Lucy. That being-in-the-moment thing is all well and good as far as it goes, but when it comes to us I want now and forever.”
“Now and forever,” Lucy said.
Mason kissed her there in the forever light that flashed and sparked on the surface of the ocean. Lucy realized that they had both just spoken their vows. Later they would make it formal and legal and there would be a celebration. But promises had been made and she knew they would be kept.
Now and forever.
OTHERWISE ENGAGED
London
Amity blamed herself for failing to realize until too late that there was a man concealed in the shadows of the cab. It was the rain, she concluded. Under most circumstances she would have been far more observant. Traveling abroad, she made it a point to pay strict attention when she found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. But this was London. One did not expect to be kidnapped straight off the street in broad daylight.
True, she had been distracted when she left the lecture hall. She was still fuming because of the countless inaccuracies in Dr. Potter’s lecture on the American West. The man was a benighted fool. He had never so much as set foot outside of England, let alone bothered to read her pieces in the Flying Intelligencer. Potter knew nothing of the West, yet he dared to present himself as an authority on the subject. It had been too much to take sitting down, so of course she had been forced to stand up and raise some serious objections.
That had not gone over well with Potter or his audience. She had been escorted out of the lecture hall by two stout attendants. She had heard the muffled snickers and disapproving sniffs from the crowd. Respectable ladies did not interrupt noted lecturers with the goal of correcting them. Luckily, none of those in the audience were aware of her identity. Really, one had to be so careful in London.
Irritated and eager to escape the dreary summer rain, she had leaped into the first cab that stopped in the street. That proved to be a serious mistake.
She barely had time to register the odd, shuttered windows and the presence of the other occupant before the man wrapped an arm around her neck and hauled her close against his chest. He pressed the tip of a very sharp object to her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that he gripped a scalpel in one gloved hand.