Chapter 32
Emma
Colin took us to what I assumed was the living room, dropped me gently on the sofa, and wrapped our nude bodies in a blanket from the back of the couch after he’d come down beside me.
“I’m not even going to ask the question. You’re going to marry me and put me out of my misery. If you don’t, it’s going to kill me,” he said grumpily as he held up a box and opened it.
I gasped as he unceremoniously slid a beautiful diamond ring onto the ring finger of my left hand.
The ring was breathtaking, a gorgeous engagement ring fashioned in an art deco style with an enormous diamond in the center.
“Colin?” I questioned breathlessly.
He shook his head. “You love me. I love you. We should have been together a long time ago, Em. We’re getting married.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.
His proposal had been so typically Colin.
When he decided he was going to do something, he did it without a lot of fuss or fanfare.
“Do I have a say in this?” I teased.
“No,” he said flatly. “Only if you really don’t want the same thing. You said that you love me. I should have said it first back in Michigan, but I was worried that you didn’t feel the same way.”
“I do love you,” I said hesitantly. “But what about our little geography problem? And I came here because I was worried about you. Are you sick? Shelby says that you aren’t yourself right now.”
He’d taken me by surprise, but my heart was enthusiastically agreeing with his proposition.
I wanted to marry Colin.
I wanted to be with him more than anything else in the world.
But we still had the same issues.
“There’s nothing wrong with me that you marrying me won’t cure,” he said huskily as he pulled me into his lap.
“My heart isn’t into anything I’m doing here right now.
All I can think about is how stupid it was for me to leave the woman I loved and my daughter back in Cherry Cove.
I’ll move to Michigan, Emma. I’ve already spoken to my partners, and they’re willing to do the missions from headquarters.
I can sell my place here and get us a bigger place there. ”
Wait! What?
My heart flipped over inside my chest.
Was he really saying that he was willing to give up his entire life here to live in Michigan?
Last Hope had been everything to him for years.
I leaned back so I could see his face.
His eyes were dead serious.
He was going to give everything up for me and for Wren.
Tears filled my eyes, and my heart squeezed hard inside my chest.
He cared about us that much.
He loved us that much.
I stroked his jaw as tears plopped onto my cheeks. “You can’t just give up everything you care about here.”
“I can,” he said nonchalantly as he gently swiped a tear from my face. “Nothing here comes close to the way I love you and my daughter. I can’t be happy here without you. Shelby was right. I’m not myself here anymore because you’re in Michigan and I’m here in California.”
For him, it was just that simple.
For me, it was complicated.
Because I loved him, I didn’t want him to give up Last Hope for me.
“You’ve never asked me if I’d be willing to move to California,” I mused. “It would be a better environment for Wren. Better schools with advanced programs for her. She has friends here, and my mom is here.”
“I can’t just ask you to uproot your entire life in Michigan,” he grumbled. “What if I had asked?”
I sighed. “I would have wanted to do it. I thought about moving after my mother moved here. Wren and I miss her. I knew there would be more opportunities for Wren’s education, and the weather is nice in Southern California year-round.
Money was always a deciding factor for me.
It’s expensive to live here, and I’m a single mother. ”
“What if money wasn’t an issue and I asked you to move here?” he asked.
“Then I’d move in a heartbeat,” I confessed. “Wren and I would have missed our friends in Michigan, but we’d have you and my mom here. I can make new friends and see the old ones when I can. Wren is already complaining about missing California.”
“She just started school,” he argued.
I rolled my eyes. “Are you really worried that she’ll fall behind from the move?”
His arm tightened around my waist. “Will you marry me and move here?” he asked hesitantly.
I laughed as I touched the beautiful ring on my finger. “You’re finally going to ask?”
“I’m asking,” he confirmed.
There was a vulnerability in his tone that touched my heart.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “I think we’d all be happier here.”
“If you marry me and move here, I’ll make damn sure that you never regret it,” he stated solemnly.
“I know I’ll never regret it,” I said as I happily snuggled up against him. “We’ll be together.”
“We should have been together years ago,” he griped. “If I’d made it back to you before you left Virginia Beach, I never would have let you go.”
“It’s a miracle that we’re actually getting a second chance,” I reminded him.
I didn’t want to think about what our life could have been like had things gone differently.
I was just grateful that Colin was here with me now.
“I’m not complaining about that,” he assured me. “I guess I just want you to know that I’m not stupid enough to do the same thing twice. I’m always going to hold onto what should have been ours years ago. When are you going to marry me?”
“It’s going to take a while to plan a wedding, put my place up for sale, and get us moved here,” I mused. “I need to get Wren enrolled in school here.”
“I’ll take care of the details here,” Colin offered. “Put your house up for sale and I’ll hire some movers. I’ll admit that I’m impatient with this whole situation, Em. I want you and Wren here with me.”
I didn’t really want to wait, either.
I’d spent years missing Colin, and I didn’t want to waste any more time missing him when I didn’t have to do it.
I wanted him.
Wren wanted to be with her father.
My heart wasn’t in Michigan anymore.
It was here in California with Colin.
“I’ll put my place up for sale when I get back to Michigan,” I told him. “We can wait a little longer, right?”
“Probably not,” he said grumpily. “If you wait too long I’ll be back in Cherry Cove to visit. How long can you stay here?”
My heart soared because I definitely wasn’t going to argue about a visit while we had to be apart. “Not long,” I admitted. “Brock will spoil the crap out of our daughter while I’m gone. He gives her whatever she wants. I only came to see if there was something wrong with you. I was worried.”
“Nothing is wrong with me except that I was regretting being an asshole and leaving you,” he assured me. “I should have put a damn ring on your finger when I was in Cherry Cove. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to commit to a future together.”
“I wanted it,” I answered. “I just wasn’t sure what you wanted. All of this happened so fast.”
“Not that fast,” he countered. “It’s been fourteen years, Emma.
I think I knew what I wanted back in Virginia Beach, but I had nothing to offer you.
I’d spent my life dedicated to service in the US Navy.
I was gone most of the time, and my mind was always on a mission.
I thought that you deserved a guy a lot better than me. ”
Frustrated, I moved until I was straddling Colin and staring into his beautiful gray eyes. “You were completely focused on me in Virginia Beach. There never was and never will be another man for me.”
He grinned back at me, and my heart melted.
“You were one hell of a distraction,” he replied. “You still are.”
“I love you,” I whispered as I fell into his intense gaze.
“I love you, too, Em,” he said roughly. “There’s never been another woman for me, either.”
“I know you’re not a big believer in fate,” I answered. “But I am. I think fate threw me the man I needed after being completely destroyed by one who wasn’t the guy for me. I’ll always be grateful for that. You were always good to me and good for me, whether you realize that or not.”
There was no better man on the planet for me, and I wanted him to know that.
“I’ll always be good to you, Emma,” he promised. “It’s too damn late to worry about whether or not I’m good enough for you. You’re stuck with me.”
I smiled down at him. “I want to be stuck with you. I love my ring, but the diamond is enormous.”
I loved it, but I knew it had been costly, and as a single mom, I’d always worried about money.
It was going to be an adjustment for me not to think about finances and raising a child on my own all the time.
He shrugged. “You’re going to marry me, and I want every guy out there to know you’re already mine.”
I snorted. “You say that like every guy is going to want me.”
I was forty-six, plump, and not the woman of every man’s dreams.
But…when I was with Colin, I did feel like the woman of his dreams.
He’d probably never know how amazing it was to feel that way.
“It doesn’t matter if they want you,” he said. “You’re already mine. Now tell me when we’re going to make that official.”
“As soon as possible?” I suggested.
He flipped us until his body was covering mine on the sofa. “Not good enough, Emma. I’m getting that date before you go back to Michigan.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and wriggled my hips against him. “Then we have a little time to figure it out.”
“Emma,” he said in a warning voice.
My heart stuttered as I realized that he was as hard as a rock.
“Make love to me, Colin. We’ll figure everything out. I need you. I just need to be with you right now.”
“How am I supposed to argue about that?” he asked gruffly.
“You’re not supposed to,” I said in a seductive voice.
“Hell, you make me completely insane,” he said in a voice that told me he didn’t care if he became a lunatic.
As soon his lips met mine, neither of us cared about anything else for quite some time.