Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal
“I get it. I do. I’m just kidding… but you were quite rude to me. I never thought that you would be the sort of man to do this.” She makes a sweeping gesture with her hands. “I mean; this is utterly incredible.”
“Well, I wanted to do something nice for you. I think that you deserve it.”
“The food looks delicious.” She peers over my shoulder. “It smells nice too. Can we eat?”
My heart pounds harder, I know that I won’t be able to eat a damn thing until I have asked the question. I’m terrified to ask it, even though I’m not sure why. I do feel like she is going to say yes.
“Wait.” I grab on to Raelyn’s arm, feeling a delicious shiver racing up and down me. That chemistry between us is seriously intense. Even now after all this time, it hasn’t gone anywhere. “Before we eat…”
“What’s going on, Carter? Is everything okay? You look really stressed out…”
I drop to one knee before her mind can wander. I know that she’ll head to danger, no matter how much we’ve moved passed things, and I need to make sure that doesn’t happen. She still doesn’t seem to get what’s going on until I pull out the ring box, then her eyes well up with intense emotion.
“Raelyn Owens, to me you are perfect. I hope you know that, I try to tell you every single day. You are the love of my life, the most important person to me. The day that you walked into my life, in this very room, you flipped everything upside down and changed my opinion on everything. You forced me out of my shell and made me see that the world wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. You made me see that love could be wonderful.”
Tears roll down her cheeks, and judging by the wetness of my face, I’m crying too.
“Raelyn, I love you. I didn’t want to be in love, but here I am, head over heels for you. I want the wor
ld to know that you belong to me, that we’re in love with one another, that you’re my wife. Raelyn Owens, I love you so much, so I guess what I’m really asking you is do you want to be my wife? Will you marry me?”
She doesn’t answer me for a beat too long. She’s too emotional to get the words out. But she nods a few times so at least I know the answer is a positive one.
“Yes, of course I will,” she finally blurts out. “I would love nothing more than to be your wife.”
“Thank God.” I pull out the ring and slide it onto her finger. “Because if you said no that would kill me.”
It looks perfect on her finger, and it means that a bigger part of her belongs to me. We’ve always belonged to one another but now we really are each other’s spouse.
“Of course I would say yes,” she gasps. “I desperately want to be your wife.”
“Well, I just want to warn you that Mom is already crazy for the idea. She wants to help plan the wedding…”
“Oh, let her. If that’s what she wants. I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter to me.”
I lean down and kiss her gently, my heart exploding with love. She’s so perfect. To say that, to include my mom in this, it shows just how well she fits in. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to spend the rest of my life with.
“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,” I tease her. “But I appreciate it. I love you.”
“I love you too.” She grins. “Husband to be.”
“Mmm, I really can’t wait to drop the ‘to be’ part.”
“No, me neither. That sounds amazing.”
Our whole future sounds amazing. I can’t wait for all of it. Starting now.
Epilogue – Raelyn
One Year Later…
I glance at my engagement ring, wondering what it’s going to be like to add another ring to it. It’s been a long year and I’m really attached to this gorgeous ring now. I will keep it on forever for sure. It just symbolizes so much, it reminds me of how incredible our past has been and our future will be. The future that starts right now.
Bang, bang!
“Hey, Raelyn, are you okay in there?” Abbi calls through the bathroom door. “I’m worried about you.”
“Err, yeah, I’m good.” I straighten up more. “I will be out in a moment. It’s just hard to navigate with a wedding dress on, that’s all. I know that I don’t have a poofy number on, but it still isn’t easy.”