“Violet, I am in love with you. You are my mate.”
“So I didn’t ruin this permanently?” She could hardly believe her ears.
“No. I just need this to go slowly. For my own peace of mind. I’m not ready to jump into anything. I know that the first time around I probably pushed you too hard. I was so eager to start my life with you as my mate that I didn’t listen to the actual problems that you had. I just forged ahead, assuming because I wanted to be a mate that you would too,” he confessed. “That’s all I’ve ever seen. That’s all I knew. You tried to tell me, but I couldn’t hear it.”
“I understand now why it was so hard for you to understand,” she said. And she meant that. “Now that I’ve been around your pack. It’s easy to tell someone facts, but until they experience it and they live that reality, day to day, it’s really hard to conceive of.”
“That’s true.” He picked her hand up and held on. “Why don’t we just keep going out? When I come get Arabella, you come with us. Then, a couple nights a week, we can leave her with your pack or mine and go out, just the two of us. How does that sound?”
As a matter of fact, his plan worked out really well. They did everything he suggested, and before she knew it, she found herself ready to tell him that she wanted to be his mate.
She didn’t just blurt it out to him.
She waited for a particularly romantic dinner. She thought about arranging one herself, but he seemed to take great pleasure in picking out a restaurant or finding a spot for them to picnic in the woods. So she just patiently waited until they arrived at a restaurant with white tablecloths and candlelit tables. She was glad that Onyx had taken her dress shopping. She’d helped Violet pick out something sexy – a fitted black dress with a necklace that Everleigh let her borrow.
Tristan pulled her chair out for her as usual. “How was work today?” he asked. He was always so sweet to ask about her job with the fishing boat.
She usually filled him in on the sillier stories, and they both laughed about it. His work stories were usually pretty dramatic, a lot like the night he saved her and the owners of the boarding house. He didn’t really get to spend a lot of time with the people he saved. He usually got them out and handed them over to medics.
Sometimes, like the owners of the boarding house, he got to see them again and they brought him gifts and wrote him letters. But overall, it was a very different job because it was an actual matter of life or death. Even if there were no people involved, he still had to preserve the land and property.
But her job was low-stakes. On certain days, there was a lot of vomiting. They kept a stash of anti-nausea medicine, peppermints, and ginger candies just in case.
Sometimes they had marriage proposals. They often had birthday and anniversary trips. Sometimes they had gender reveal parties, sometimes they had bachelorette and bachelor parties, and once they even had a divorce party. She wasn’t sure why a deep-sea fishing boat screamed ‘let’s party” but it seemed to have that effect on people.
Some of her clients were regulars and some had saved up money for years to be able to make their special trip to Alaska.
“Anything crazy today?” he asked.
“Yes. We actually had a wedding today.”
“A wedding? Wow. Did you know ahead of time?”
“No. They didn’t tell us ahead of time.”
“How does that work?”
“Well, they came on with a minister and their paperwork for the marriage license and two witnesses.”
“Did they have music or anything?”
“Yes, they actually brought someone with a harmonica.”
“A harmonica!” He chuckled.
“Yes. It was actually quite nice. It was hard to hear over the ocean, but it was interesting.”
“Did they actually do any deep-sea fishing?”
“One of the bridesmaids and the groomsmen did. But the bride and groom had no interest at all. We took photos and video and they gave us permission to put it up on the website later so I’ll show it to you.”
“I’d like to see that.”
Both of them laughed for a minute. “It keeps my job interesting, that’s for sure. When I signed up to help with deep-sea fishing and being a tour guide, I had no idea I would mostly be a party-planning chaperone.”
“Did anyone fall overboard today?” he asked.
“No. We kept an eye on them.” Because of drunken shenanigans, their guests often decided it was time to go for a swim.
He put his hand on top of hers and just slowly rubbed his fingers back and forth over her knuckles.
Now was her moment. Would she actually be able to get the words out? Would she actually be able to express herself? She swallowed hard. She took a sip of her wine. And then a sip of her water. “I am.” She bit down onto her lip. “I. Um.”
Stop being such a wimp. You’ve survived so many hard things – you can do this.
“Are you okay? Is something wrong?” he asked.
Poor guy. He was probably conditioned to think there was always something wrong with her.
“I’m good. I’m really good. I was just going to say that…” She laughed quietly and pressed her hand against her mouth. “I was just going to say that if you were ever interested in getting more serious with me, um, then I would be up for that discussion.”