Declan
The next day, Winona spends the early morning driving into town for a coffee with her sister. The guys and I hang around on the deck, but my eyes constantly flick toward the door, waiting for her return.
When she gets back, I stand, walking to her and pulling her into a hug.
“Ready to go back to Trunk Bay?” I ask her.
“What’s everyone else going to do while we leave them stranded so we can sneak away together?” she asks. Her eyes sparkle with playful teasing.
“They’ve scheduled a glass-bottom kayak tour for after lunch.”
“Okay,” she says. “My guilt is assuaged. Let’s go.”
Winona hugs Cass and Daisy and then we head to the ferry. The weather is warm, but the breeze keeps us cool, and Winona leans into my arms on the boat ride and the van to the bay.
We snorkel and swim around in the clear water, pointing to fish and holding on to one another as we explore. The day is perfect—one we’ve needed after being surrounded by our group of friends and family for the past two days.
We’re drying off in the sun on a small strip of beach after a few hours in the water. I picked a spot that’s set apart from the other tourists and visitors.
I roll over on my towel and face Winona.
She’s kneeling, rubbing sunscreen on her arms. Her hair is still wet, falling in waves down her back. She smiles down at me.
I glance up at her, and I can’t wait another second.
I don’t even have the ring with me. It’s back at the villa.
But she’s here. And the words are on my tongue like a physical urge.
I don’t even take a breath. She’s looking at her forearm, rubbing in a patch of white where the sunscreen went on heavy.
“Marry me, Winona.”
“What?” She looks down at me, dazed for a moment. And then she smiles and says, “Okay.”
I chuckle. “No. I’m serious.”
I lift myself so I’m kneeling in front of her. I take her hands in mine.
“Me too.”
I laugh harder. “I’m proposing right now.”
“And I’m saying yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”
My smile tugs at my cheeks. I wrap my arms around her, falling backward and tugging her down so she lands next to me with my arms around her.
“Aren’t you supposed to squeal and jump around?” I ask.
“Aren’t you supposed to get on one knee and pop open a black box?” she retorts, laughing lightly.
“I’ve got a ring.”
“I don’t care about a ring, Declan. I just want to build a life with you.”
“Me too. That’s all I want.”
My eyes dart between hers and then I lean in and kiss her.
She melts into me, pushing me onto my back and rolling so she’s hovering over me.
“You proposed!” she says, laughing and shaking her head lightly.
“I did. It wasn’t at all what I had planned.”
“I loved it.”
She leans down and kisses me. I tug her close, savoring the feel of her in my arms, the way she fits with me—unexpected and perfect. She runs her hand down my arm and back up again, threading her fingers through my hair.
I run my hand over her back, down her sun-warmed skin and damp hair.
When she pulls back, she’s smiling. “Winona O’Connell.”
“I love the sound of that.”
“Should we elope? Tomorrow?”
I laugh, half-tempted to take her up on it.
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes. And … no.” She smiles, smoothing her hand down my cheek.
“I want to marry you and live with you—to start our life together. But I want a wedding too. All of it. The fluff and silliness of picking out flowers and dresses and taking dance lessons, going to cake tasting, the whole thing. We’re only doing this once. ”
“You’ve got that right,” I say. “Only once. Only with you.”
We lie on the beach together, her draped across my chest, me running my hands in lazy strokes down her hair and back.
I could stay here forever, but after a while, that feeling of too much sun starts to kick in, so we pack up, grab a smoothie at the stand near the safari bus, and take the drive and ferry back to St. Thomas.
“I’m going to be your wife,” Winona says again as we’re pulling into the driveway of the villa.
I just chuckle. “That isn’t a surprise to you, is it?”
“Your proposal was.”
“It surprised me too,” I admit.
She reaches out when I kill the engine and cups my face. “Look at you being all spontaneous. Declan O’Connell, I hardly recognize you.”
“You’ve bewitched me body and soul,” I say, wagging my brows and quoting the movie she forced me to watch a few weeks ago.
“Quoting Darcy?” She smiles and kisses me, leaning over the console, then rising to her knees to better reach me. Her elbow connects with the horn and the sound blasts through the courtyard in front of the house, bringing our friends running out onto the driveway.
“Oh my gosh!” Winona shouts, covering her hands with her face.
“Let’s go share the news,” I say.
“Okay,” she says. “We may as well, now that I’ve sounded the horn.”
I chuckle. Life will be many things in the years ahead. None of it will be boring.
Winona jumps out of her side of the car, rushing over to Cass and Daisy and shouting, “Declan proposed! I said yes!”
Daisy grasps her hand and looks down, with good reason, for a ring.
“Oh, yeah. Well …” Winona smiles over at me. “We don’t have a ring.”
“I do. It’s just …” I stride past our friends into the villa. “Give me a minute.”
I head to my room, pulling the box out of the top drawer in my bedroom. Then I rejoin our friends out on the driveway, dropping to my knee in front of all of them.
“Winona, will you marry me?”
“Yes, again,” she says. “Yes to every time you ask.”
I slip the ring on her finger and stand, pulling her to me for a hug. She holds her hand out for her friends to look at the ring. The guys clap me on the back, congratulating me.
Later that evening, after dinner, Winona and I are snuggled together on the hammock while our friends play chicken in the pool.
She holds her hand out, admiring the way the ring reflects the light.
“I was going to get something bigger, but I knew you’d want something you could wear when you’re working with patients,” I tell her.
“Bigger is not better, O’Connell. This is perfect.”
I kiss the top of her head and then I glance over at the pool.
The sun is dropping lower over the bay.
The sky is all oranges and pinks reflected in the water.
The hammock sways gently beneath us. I tug Winona to myself, she nestles her head under my chin.
Below us, boats are beginning to glow with tiny lights reflected in the harbor.
Our group of friends are laughing and splashing in the pool. Marcus is being ridiculous, trying to win chicken on Jaxon’s shoulders. He’s trash-talking Cass, who is on Treyvon’s shoulders, and seems to be taking no prisoners. Cass and Marcus grip forearms and push at one another.
Winona whispers, “You never did give me that swimming lesson.”
“You swim like a mermaid,” I tell her, my attention drifting from the pool to the woman in my arms.
“A mermaid?” she smiles. “I like that.”
“You like being a creature who sings songs to lure a man to his death?”
She laughs. “No. I’m like the Little Mermaid. I fall for the prince and learn to live on land so he and I can live happily ever after.”
“Mmm. Lucky prince.”
“Lucky mermaid too.” She lifts her head and places a kiss on my cheek.
“Declan?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re marrying me.” She runs her fingertip across my brows and draws a line down the side of my face. Then she drops her head back onto my chest.
“Got that right,” I say. “The sooner, the better.”
I kiss the top of her head. “And you’re marrying me.”
“The only man I ever wanted.”
There’s a commotion in the pool and then a loud splash as Cass falls from Harris’s shoulders.
Treyvon shouts, “That’s cheating, Delaney!”
“Fair and square, man!” Marcus shouts back. “I’m the best man now.”
“That’s not how weddings work!” Treyvon shouts back. “I demand a rematch.”
“Sounds like something a loser would say,” Marcus says.
Cass shouts at Marcus, “Nothing says I’m a grown man like calling another grown man a loser!”
“Are they honestly fighting over who gets to be your best man?” Winona asks me.
“Looks like it,” I say with a laugh. “Joke’s on them. I’m asking Patrick.”
The commotion in the pool gets louder.
“Rematch! Rematch!” Treyvon starts chanting. Cass joins him.
“Best of three matches to determine the best man!” Treyvon shouts.
“Maybe we actually should reconsider eloping,” Winona says, her eyes full of her smile.
“The idea is growing on me,” I say.
Winona settles against my chest and I tighten my arm around her.
“No,” she says. “We need this ridiculousness. They’re our people.”
“We do,” I agree. “Though I don’t mind having you all to myself.”
“You have me to yourself, Declan. I’m not going anywhere.”
Our friends and family duke it out in the pool. We laugh privately, tucked away from the chaos.
The warm Caribbean breeze rocks our hammock.
I close my eyes and press a kiss into Winona’s hair. The soft strands lift and tickle my face. She tucks them back, lifting her face so I can look into her eyes.
Her smile says everything—this woman who blew into my life at the worst possible moment with her total lack of interest in football and her matter-of-fact ways. She was the one thing I never saw coming. The one I didn’t know I needed.
Down the hill, on the horizon, the last streaks of orange melt into the sea.
Lights flicker to life across the harbor.
I sigh, closing my eyes. A feeling of the deepest contentment I’ve ever known spreads through me.
“You’re everything to me,” I whisper into the top of her head.
“We are everything,” she says. “Together.”
But WAIT! There’s more …