“Didn’t you check your phone? You should have twenty missed calls. I called twenty times to tell you I love you but you didn’t answer.” Drenched in raindrops and happiness, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you. I love you with my whole self. I cannot switch it off. It is the worst thing about me, I think.”
“I happen to think it’s one of the best things about you. I love your passion and your loyalty to the people you love. I love that you called me twenty times to tell me you love me. I hope you do it every day.” His voice was husky and he hauled her close and held her tightly. “I stayed away from this place because being here created so many conflicting emotions but over the summer I fell back in love with the place and you’re the reason for that. I saw it through your eyes. You’re the reason I managed to fix things with Gramps.”
“You would have done it, anyway. I just pushed you a little because love should not be a quiet thing. It is important to tell people, every day. I learned that.”
“You said it to everyone except me,” Sean groaned, kissing her again. “You said it to my brothers, to my grandfather—to anyone and everyone except me. I’d given up ever hearing you say that to me.”
“Because I was afraid of saying it. Saying it to you would have meant something very different. I always knew that. I was very scared. When you love with everything, you can lose everything.”
“And you can also gain everything.” He pulled her against him, trying to shelter her from the rain. “I always thought that relationships were all about sacrifice. It was Gramps who made me see that I was the one making the sacrifice.”
“You should not have to make a sacrifice! Your work is important to you and I wouldn’t want to change that. You are an amazing doctor. What you did for little Sam—” she shuddered “—you have such skill and you should use it.”
“I will use it, but there’s nothing to say I can’t use it closer to here. Your job is here. Your life.”
“Walter has been nagging you again. You need to make the decision that is right for you.”
“This is the decision that is right for me and it has nothing to do with my grandfather, although it will feel good to be able to be more involved with the place and see more of my family. It’s what I want for us. I’ve already talked to the local hospital about joining the orthopedic department. It’s not going to be an instant thing, of course, but we can work something out in the meantime. My car has done the journey from Boston to Snow Crystal so often over the summer it can probably do it by itself now.” He was kissing her again and she was kissing him, too, both of them pressed up against the tree.
She slid her hand under his shirt. “Perhaps we should go back to Heron Lodge.”
“Yes. No. Wait—” With difficulty he dragged his mouth from hers. “There are still things I want to say.”
“You can say them later.”
“In my pocket—” The words were muffled against her neck and she closed her eyes.
“What about your pocket?”
“Put your hand in my pocket.”
“I don’t know what you—” Her fingers encountered a small square box and she stilled. “What is it?”
“It’s for you. Open it.” Those blue eyes burned into hers. “Open it.”
Hands shaking, she flipped it open and blinked at the beautiful emerald that nestled on a bed of velvet. Her knees started shaking, too. “It’s a ring. You are carrying a ring around with you?”
“I had it with me that day I told you I loved you and it flew to Paris with me. It’s been with me the whole time. I couldn’t bear to take it back to the jewelers because that would have meant coming to terms with the fact you’d turned me down.”
“Sean—”
“Would you have preferred a diamond? It’s just that when I saw it, it reminded me of the forest and the forest is our place.”
“I love it.” She lifted herself on tiptoe and crushed her mouth to his. “I love it so much. It’s perfect.”
“And will you wear it?”
“Always and forever. I love you. And I will phone you twenty times a day to tell you that.”
“I can live with that.” He took the ring from its box and slid it onto her finger. Then he kissed her and stroked her hair away from her face. “You’re soaking wet.”
“So are you.”
“We could go to Heron Lodge or we could go to the house. It’s family night.” A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “And as you’re about to officially become a member of our family, we should probably be there.”
“Has Jackson already given away my job?”
“No, but he really didn’t think you’d be back. He suggested that we might need to find help in the kitchen and Gramps almost bit his head off. Shall we make a run for it? We’re already wet, anyway.”