Chapter 20 #2
“Yeah.” He looked ashamed. “And I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry, Lydia. Because this morning, when I thought I’d lost you, when I couldn’t reach you, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, I realized I’d been an idiot.
I was so worried about getting hurt again, about losing someone else, that I almost pushed away the best thing that’s happened to me since Sarah died. ”
Tears streamed down Lydia’s face. “You’re not the idiot. I am. I convinced myself I was a burden, that I didn’t deserve you, that I needed to get my life together before?—”
“Before what?” Ethan interrupted fiercely. “Before you could let yourself be happy? Before you could believe someone could love you exactly as you are? Chaos and crazy ex and two kids who aren’t mine by blood but sure as hell are mine by choice?”
He cupped her face, thumbs brushing away tears even as fresh ones fell.
“Lydia, I don’t want you when your life is perfect.
I want you now. Exactly as you are. Chaos and crazy ex and all.
I want to be the person you turn to when things fall apart.
I want to help you pick up the pieces. I want to teach Eli to play catch and read Rosie bedtime stories and wake up to your terrible coffee every morning. ”
She laughed through her tears. “My coffee isn’t terrible.”
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted,” Ethan said, grinning now, his own tears spilling over, “and I spent three tours in Kandahar eating MREs that were older than some of the soldiers eating them. But I’d drink your terrible coffee every day for the rest of my life if it meant I got to keep you. ”
“I love you,” Lydia whispered. The words came easily now, no longer trapped behind fear and doubt and the voice in her head that sounded like Tom saying she wasn’t good enough.
“I think I’ve loved you since you offered us your home without even knowing us.
Since you remembered how I take my coffee.
Since you made grape juice our celebration drink because you knew about Tom, and you didn’t want to make me uncomfortable.
A thousand little moments that added up to something I was too scared to believe in. ”
“Believe in it,” Ethan said fiercely. His hands were still on her face, thumbs still wiping away tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
“Believe in us. Stay. Not as my guest, not as someone I’m helping out of pity or obligation.
Stay with me as my partner. My family. The person I choose, every single day, for the rest of my life. ”
Lydia’s heart stuttered. “Is that—are you?—”
“I’m asking you to marry me,” Ethan said, and his voice cracked with emotion.
Raw and vulnerable and so full of hope, it made Lydia’s chest ache.
“I know it’s fast. I know we should probably wait, follow the rules, date for a year and get engaged and plan a wedding like normal people.
But I also know that life is short and unpredictable and sometimes you wake up to find your fiancée dead on the side of the road.
And I don’t want to waste another second not being your husband.
Completely. Officially. In every way that matters. ”
Lydia stared at him, this man who somehow saw through her defenses to the woman underneath.
Who looked at her disaster of a life, the burned farmhouse, the alcoholic ex-husband, the attempted murder, the trauma, the chaos …
and said yes to all of it. Who offered her not just shelter but a home. Not just kindness but love.
She thought about the note she’d written this morning. Thank you for everything. How final it had sounded. How she’d been ready to walk away because she couldn’t believe she deserved this. Couldn’t believe someone like Ethan would actually want someone like her.
And she realized with sudden, painful clarity that was exactly what Tom had always told her. That she was lucky to have him. That she was too much … too needy, too emotional, too crippled. That she should be grateful he stayed, even when she was such a disappointment.
But Ethan was telling her the opposite. That her chaos was life. That her brokenness was human, was survivable, was something that could be healed with time and patience and love. That she wasn’t too much. She was exactly enough. Exactly right. Exactly what he wanted.
That she was worth choosing. Worth fighting for. Worth coming home to.
“Yes,” Lydia whispered.
Ethan’s eyes widened. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Louder now, more certain. “Yes, I’ll marry you.
Yes, I’ll stay. Yes to all of it.” She pulled him up from his knees, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him with everything she had.
All the fear and love and hope and desperation and joy tangled together into something that tasted like salt and coffee and promise.
“Yes to you, Ethan Cole. Yes to us. Yes to this life we’re building. Yes.”
He kissed her back like she was air and he’d been drowning. Like she was water and he’d been dying of thirst. Like she was home and he’d been lost for decades.
His hands were in her hair, on her back, pulling her closer until there was no space between them. Until Lydia could feel his heartbeat against her chest, rapid and strong and alive. Until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
When they finally broke apart, both breathless and gasping, he rested his chin on her head with his arms wrapped around her.
“I don’t have a ring,” he admitted, sounding embarrassed.
“I was kind of improvising here. Should have … I should have planned this better. Should have gotten a ring and done it properly?—”
“I don’t need a ring,” Lydia interrupted, laughing and crying at the same time. “I don’t need any of that. I just need you.”
But Ethan was already pulling back, already digging in his pocket with a sheepish expression. “Actually, I might have something. Not a ring exactly, but—” He pulled out an adhesive bandage. One of the waterproof ones from his paramedic kit, still in its paper wrapper.
Lydia laughed so hard she almost choked. “Are you seriously?—”
“Ever the paramedic,” Ethan said with a grin. He unwrapped the adhesive, then carefully wrapped it around her ring finger, smoothing it down with gentle touches. “There. Now it’s official. You’re stuck with me.”
Lydia looked at the adhesive on her finger, tan and utilitarian and completely ridiculous, and felt her heart expand until it was almost too big for her chest.
“It’s perfect,” she said, and meant it.
Because it was perfect. Not a diamond or a gold band or anything traditional. Just an adhesive wrapped around her finger by a man who saved lives for a living, who saw injured things and knew how to fix them, who looked at her shattered life and decided it was worth rebuilding.
It was perfect because it was them. Imperfect and improvised and held together by hope and love and the determination to keep going even when everything fell apart.
“We should tell the kids,” Lydia said, already imagining Rosie’s squeals and Eli’s cautious happiness.
“We’ll tell them together,” Ethan agreed.
“When you pick them up from Mrs. Figgs. We’ll sit them down and explain that—” He paused, suddenly looking uncertain.
“Wait. Is this okay? I should have asked them first. Should have made sure they were on board before I proposed. Hell, I’m doing this all backward?—”
“Ethan.” Lydia cupped his face, made him look at her. “They adore you. Rosie asked me last week if you were going to be her new daddy. Eli told me—” Her voice caught. “Eli told me he felt safer here than he ever did in Ohio.”
Ethan’s eyes went bright with tears. “Really?”
“Really.” Lydia kissed him softly. “You’re already their family, Ethan. This just makes it official.”
He pulled her close again, burying his face in her hair. She could feel him shaking. Not from fear or cold but from relief, from joy, from the overwhelming emotion of choosing to love again after losing everything.
They stayed like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other on the couch while the Christmas tree lights blinked and the afternoon faded toward evening. Outside, the November cold deepened. Frost crept across the windows in delicate patterns. The mountains turned purple in the fading light.
But inside, they were warm. They were safe. They were home.
And when Lydia finally pulled back to look at Ethan’s face, at his hazel eyes and stubbled jaw and the smile that was just for her, she realized something fundamental had shifted.
The fear that had lived in her chest for years, the certainty that happiness was temporary and danger was always waiting, had finally started to ease.
Tom was in jail. Michael had saved them. Ethan loved her. Her children were safe.
And for the first time since she could remember, Lydia let herself believe that maybe good things could last. That maybe she was allowed to be happy. That maybe this man and this house and this life weren’t too good to be true.
Maybe they were just good. Period.
“I love you,” she said again, because she couldn’t say it enough. Because she’d spent too long not saying it, and she needed to make up for lost time.
“I love you too,” Ethan whispered back. “Forever. No matter what comes next.”
Lydia looked at the adhesive on her finger, her ridiculous, perfect, paramedic engagement ring, and smiled.
Forever sounded exactly right.