Part 125 (2/2)
He swore he could all but feel the ring burn in his hand like a flame, like life. ”I look at you, and I see all the somedays, all the possibilities of them. I don't want to wait to start, but I will. I'll wait, but you have to know you not only helped me come back, to really see the life I wanted and could have, but you're the life I want.”
Her heart didn't stop beating, but it filled. She stared at him as the windows behind him washed pink and gold with the setting sun. And she thought, There's love. There it is. Take the gift.
”I love you, Eli. I trust my own heart, I learned to do that. I think love is the most powerful and most important thing in the universe, and you have mine. I want yours. We can make the life we both want. I believe that. We can make that life together.”
”But you want to wait.”
”h.e.l.l no.” She laughed, all but flew to him. ”Oh G.o.d! Here you are. The love of my life.”
With her arms tight around him, she found his mouth with hers, sank and sank and sank into the first kiss of the new promise.
He swayed with her, holding on. ”It would've killed me to wait.”
”Some happy you just have to grab.” She held out her hand. ”Make it official.” When he slid the ring on her finger, she put her arms around him again, held her left hand up to the sunset light. ”It's beautiful and warm.”
”Like you.”
”I love that it's old, that it's been pa.s.sed down through your family. I love that I'm your family. When did you ask Hester for this?”
”When we took her flowers, after going in to see Eden Suskind. I couldn't ask you, didn't want to ask you, until that was over. It's new now, for both of us. Take the s.p.a.ce, Abra, take me, let's just take it all.”
”All is exactly what we'll take.” She pressed her lips to his, soft, long, loving. ”And then we'll make more.”
The ring on her hand caught the last rays of the sun, flashed, as it had for Landon women for generations.
Then it gleamed in the quieter light, as it once did in an iron chest washed up from the wrecked Calypso with its canny captain, onto the sh.o.r.es of Whiskey Beach.
BY NORA ROBERTS
Hot Ice
Sacred Sins
Brazen Virtue
Sweet Revenge
Public Secrets
Genuine Lies
Carnal Innocence
Divine Evil
Honest Illusions
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