Chapter 26 #2
“That was before I learned what it feels like to give you the ring back.” She turned to him. Her voice trembled at the edges. “I don’t want another engagement where everyone pretends the first one never happened. I don’t want those congratulations and the look that says, She finally backed down.”
Adam managed a sad half-smile. “I would like to meet the people who think that.”
“No lists,” she said.
“A short list?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Adam.”
He pushed the leather box into his coat pocket. The motion said more than any promise: he was willing to let go of that gesture for the sake of honesty.
Lucy stepped closer. Her heart pounded in her ears. “I still want marriage,” she said. “But what I really want…” She hesitated, then added, “I want someone who notices when I disappear from a room.”
Adam looked sharply at her. “I notice now.”
She forced a small laugh. “You do,” she said. “You call if I’m more than ten minutes late.”
He blinked. “I’ve increased it to twenty.”
She shook her head, bemused and exasperated. “You asked Steven whether my flight had landed while I was still on the plane.”
“The airline’s app was inaccurate.”
Lucy held up a hand. “You can’t spend your life tallying my departures.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m working on it.”
Lucy touched his arm, letting the apology settle between them. “I know.” She cast her gaze out over the water. “Last week you came home from Boston and didn’t ask where I was for three hours.”
He glanced at her, hopeful. “I knew you were with your editor.”
“She changed the restaurant,” Lucy said.
He winced. “I didn’t know that.”
“I know,” she murmured, and this time he didn’t argue. He reached for her hand—the one that still lacked a ring.
“I want marriage,” she repeated, then drew a breath. “I don’t want a ring made out of assumptions.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he’d lost something precious and then found it again. “Am I allowed to show you the ring?”
Lucy nodded.
Adam lifted the box and snapped it open.
The diamond from her first engagement gleamed in a new, heftier gold setting, flanked on either side by two small pieces of pale-blue larimar—stones he’d chosen from the cruise port in Nassau.
Lucy’s breath caught. The diamond rested atop the pale line left by the first band, a memory now reframed.
“You used my cruise ring,” she whispered.
“You left it in my bathroom last month,” he said quietly. “I was going to return it if this didn’t go well.”
Lucy traced a fingertip along one of the blue stones. “You cut it apart.”
“The jeweler still has extra larimar,” Adam offered. “I can replace it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to change it.”
“Then let me show you,” he said. “You haven’t said yes yet.”
Lucy’s pulse spiked. He hadn’t asked—he’d just assumed her answer would follow once the ring appeared. She studied his face in the lantern light. “I thought you weren’t proposing.”
“I was giving you the chance to tell me you’re done,” he said.
Her heart twisted at the admission. “I’m not done.” She exhaled. “So use it.”
Adam sank onto one knee, as though the grass under his palms were both altar and confession. “I loved you badly once. I want to love you better for the rest of my life. Lucy Brooks, will you marry me?”
The words were imperfect, the moment shy around its edges, and precisely right. Lucy knelt beside him and placed her hand in his. “Yes,” she said, then rolled her eyes when he looked uncertain. “Yes, you idiot. Yes.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger. It caught briefly on her knuckle before sliding into place. They laughed together, breathless. The diamond gleamed between the pale bands of their past and future.
Adam kissed the ring, then stood and brushed grass from his trousers. “We’re taking the ferry back,” he declared.
Lucy reached for his arm as they started down the path. “We have the car.”
“We’ll leave it,” he said, eyes bright with relief and mischief.
“You cannot abandon a car on an island,” she protested.
“It’s high tide soon,” he replied. “I have concerns.”
Lucy laughed and tugged him onward, ignoring his muttered promise to consult the evacuation map. They passed the ranger’s truck twice on purpose, waving at him in triumph. Their tent still stood under the spruce, thin nylon a flimsy shield against the night’s dark.
Inside, Adam checked the emergency beacon one last time, his fingers brushing over the plastic case. Lucy watched the thin beam of light disappear into the tent wall. She lay down and closed her eyes.
Rain began to patter against the canvas, rhythmic as her heartbeat. Adam stirred beside her, hand reaching for the flashlight. She caught his fingers and held them to her chest.
“The roof’s fine,” she whispered.
He listened a moment. “One side sounds weak.”
“It’s just rain,” she reminded him.
He hesitated, then curled beside her. Lucy guided his hand until it rested lightly on the new ring, the oyster shell of her skin warmed by his palm. The tension dissolved in slow tides.
Outside, rain drifted through the spruce needles, the cove’s stones gleaming beyond their thin walls. The island remained tethered to the mainland by a bridge, two ferries, an emergency causeway—and one overly cautious marine radio. But tonight, they had each other.