Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor 2)

“I was going to get cleaned up for you,” Sam said.

“I’ll help you shower.” Standing on her toes, Lucy said near his ear, “I’ll even take care of your hard-to-reach places.”

Sam let go of her just long enough to pay the cabdriver. In another few minutes, he had said good-bye to his grinning crew and informed them not to show up before noon the next day.

After carrying Lucy’s suitcase into the house, Sam took her hand in his and led her upstairs. “Any particular reason you’re here two days early?”

“I managed to wind things up and pack a little faster than I’d expected. And then when I called the airline about changing my flight, they waived the change fee because I told them it was an emergency.”

“What emergency?”

“I told them my boyfriend had promised to propose to me as soon as I reached Friday Harbor.”

“That’s not an emergency,” he said.

“An emergency is an occasion requiring immediate action,” she informed him.

Sam paused at the second landing and kissed her again.

“So are you going to?” Lucy persisted.

“Propose to you?” His lips curved against hers. “Not before I take a shower.”

* * *

In the early hours of the morning Lucy awakened with her head nestled against a hard masculine shoulder, her nose tickled by the light mat of hair on his chest. Sam’s warm hands drifted over her, raising gooseflesh.

“Lucy,” he whispered, “I don’t think I can let you leave me again. You’ll have to take me with you.”

“I’m not leaving,” she whispered back. Her palm slid to the center of his chest, the morning light catching the sparkle of an engagement ring and causing brilliant flecks to dance on the wall. “I know where I belong.”

As she rested against Sam, his heartbeat strong and steady beneath her hand, she felt as if they were a pair of far-flung stars, caught in each other’s orbit by a force stronger than luck or fate or even love. There was no word for it, this feeling … but there should have been.

As Lucy lay there steeped in happiness, pondering nameless wonders, the panes of a nearby window slowly pulled from their wooden framing, their edges curling, the glass turning luminous blue.

And if any passersby had happened to glance in the direction of the bay at that early hour, they would have seen a stream of butterflies dancing into the sky, from the white Victorian house at the end of Rainshadow Road.