"Baxter...?” she murmurs.
"Open it," I tell her. And she does as she is told, a smile curling up the corners of her mouth as she flicks open the box. And when she sees what is inside, her lips part with shock.
"Is this...?” she asks me, looking up at me with abject surprise on her face. I nod.
"Yeah, it is," I reply. "I meant it when I told you that I wanted to marry you, Bailey. I know that I should have given this to you on prom night, but – but I’m not going to pass up the chance to give it to you now."
She stares at the ring for a moment, and then looks back up at me, her eyes shining with what look like happy tears. I realize that I am holding my breath. Even though I know how she is going to answer, I will not be able to relax until I hear the words come out of her mouth.
"Will you marry me, Bailey?" I take the ring from the box and hold it out to her.
And slowly, surely, she nods. "I will," she replies, hardly able to keep the big-ass smile off her face. I take her hand, slide the ring down over her finger, and she stares down at it, twisting her hand this way and that as she admires her new jewelry.
I reach out to cup her face in my hand, and she tilts her head towards me and closes her eyes for a moment.
"I can’t believe any of this is actually happening," she confesses. "It’s just... so much."
"I know," I murmur. "But it’s just making up for lost time. I know that I left you with no explanation before, and I need you to know that I’m never going to do that again. Not as long as I live."
"You better not," she replies, and I can tell from her playful tone that she is only kidding. She knows me too well to believe that I would have put this ring on her finger without meaning it. All I want in the world right now is to make her my wife. To take her on all the adventures that we promised each other back before I was forced to leave her behind.
"I love you," I tell her. Even though it has been so long since I have said those words to her, they still come as naturally to me as they ever did. They feel right, coming out of my mouth, like they’re obvious. She kisses the center of my palm softly.
"I love you, too," she replies. "I – I never thought I would get to see you again, Baxter. I thought you were gone for good..."
"And I’m sorry I ever let you believe that," I murmur. "But I’m never going to do that again. I’m never going to leave. I’m never going to go anywhere that you can’t follow me. We have a lot of making up for lost time to do, and I think we should start here. Right?"
"Right," she agrees, and I pull her into an embrace. The feeling of her warm, naked body, even beneath the covers, is enough to make something carnal light up inside of me, and I press my lips to her shoulder. She smiles and leans into me.
"We should probably get something to eat," she remarks, and I brush my lips up her neck, towards her ear, to that sensitive spot where her throat joins her jaw. And I can tell from the way that she reacts that food is the last thing on her mind right now.
No, we have far better things to think about for the time being – and I intend to do every little thing that I can to make sure that I keep her in this bed for as long as is humanly possible. Because I am not ready to share her with the rest of the world. Not yet. Not until I know that I have had my fill of her.
Epilogue 1
Bailey
Nine months later…
As I lie back on the sun lounger and let the warm, late afternoon Spanish sunshine flood my body, I can’t help but smile.
Even though I’m nine months pregnant, and it sometimes feels as though I can hardly move without risking popping this girl out before I’m ready, I can’t think of much better in the world than this, right here. The sunshine, the sound of the waves lapping at the golden beach behind me, of Baxter inside the house, humming to himself as he makes us up something delicious to eat. It’s everything I’ve always wanted. And frankly, after waiting ten years to get here, I feel like it’s the very least that I deserve.
Baxter has been true to every bit of his word from the night that we met again. He told me that he was going to marry me, that he was going to take me to Spain, that we could live out all the fantasies that we had promised each other when we had been teenagers and so in love that it hurt. And now, that’s just what he has gifted to me: a life that has been spun entirely from the dreams that I had as a girl, falling in love for the first time, so sure and so certain that everything seemed downright obvious.