Fiona
Shane and I were back at the Irish pub, eating Guinness pies with my dad and talking about how much things had changed since Shane showed up in our lives. It had been almost a year to the day. Even though it wasn’t an official anniversary, we’d been celebrating a sort of anniversary week for the past few days. Reliving our date at the Irish Pub was day four of the festivities.
“Drew missed a damn good meal,” Shane said, pushing his empty plate away from him.
My father laughed. “He finally found a girl who could keep his attention for more than a week but they’ll meet up with us later.”
“Yeah,” I said. “After he and his girl finish their date at Fields of Fire. Way to be original, Drew.”
Shane smiled. “Drew swears that it’s the secret to why you and I are still doing so well. The joke’s on him. You totally shut me down after that date.”
“Did I?” I asked, grinning.
“Oh, yeah,” Shane said. “It was brutal.”
I reached beside me and squeezed his hand. “Well, I hope I’ve made up for it since.”
My father cleared his throat loudly. “I’m sitting right here, guys.”
We all laughed. He didn’t really mean it. My father had gotten used to how affectionate we were together. It was just one of the nice things about life in Mystic now.
Although my father’s life was doing well, too. He had paid off his debts with the money Shane gave him, invested some of it in the renewable energy side of Perkins Enterprises, and donated the rest to the Ruth Hall Foundation for Brain Cancer Research.
“So when’s your next trip to Houston?” my father asked.
Shane shook his head. “Not for a while. I promised a certain someone that I would keep travel to a minimum, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“You’ve been great about that,” I said. “Although these days, I don’t mind the trips so much.”
“Because I force you to come with me,” Shane said, grinning.
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to force me.”
He shot me a look.
“Okay,” I said, giggling. “Maybe the first couple of times. But now I like to go so I can check in on the Foundation and spend some time there.”
“How’s that doing, by the way?” my father asked.
“Great,” I said. “Mom would be so proud. It’s going strong and actually making some breakthroughs.”
My father’s eyes misted over at the mention of my mother but he smiled. “She really would be thrilled about it. Not to mention that her daughter spends her free time volunteering for them online.”
I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“You’re helping people,” my father said. “That’s always a big deal.”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “You could help a lot more people if you quit your job at the hardware store and took up a full- time remote position working for the Foundation.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
I’d already decided to take the job with the Foundation, but I hadn’t told Shane yet. I was planning on doing it later, as part of the anniversary celebrations, which had been going on all week. The whole anniversary week thing had been Shane’s idea. No one could accuse him of not being romantic, as much as he objected.
Over the last few days, he’d made a point of taking me back to all the places in Mystic that had come to mean something to us, back in those tumultuous days when we were falling in love and fighting it with everything that we had. I was ridiculously happy we both lost those fights against ourselves.
The past year was the happiest I’d ever been, and Shane claimed he felt the same. We spent every spare minute that we had together, and while I kept my promise to my father of not moving in with Shane, both our places were littered with the other’s things, and we spent most nights sharing a bed at one house or the other.
Since that fateful morning Shane had finally made things right with my father, there was no more talk of or even jokes about marriage. I had been dropping hints to Shane about it recently but he was ignoring them. Or blind to them.
My bladder pulled me from my reverie and brought me back to the present, where Shane and my dad were debating about fishing while demolishing their Guinness pies and steadily draining the pitcher of beer. Their relationship was better than ever, and it warmed my heart to see them talking so openly and easily. Unfortunately, my bladder didn’t care about my heart.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to pop into the bathroom quickly,” I interrupted them.
Shane flashed me his panty-dropping smile and pulled me close for a quick kiss.
“Hurry back,” he whispered before releasing me.
I swooned. He did the cutest damn things sometimes.
I did as he asked and was headed back to the table in a flash. Only, Shane wasn’t in the booth. He was in front of the booth. On the floor. Down on one knee.
My heart felt like it had grown wings as it hammered in my chest, fluttering against my ribs like it was trying to get to the one person it belonged to. My world narrowed, and everything around me fell away until there was only Shane.
It was incredible to think that we were in a packed restaurant, and there were probably a hundred eyes on me but I only cared about him. The rest of them completely disappeared.
It kind of felt like that moment just before you go over the edge of a water slide, when gravity takes over, and there’s no turning back.
The next second, I found myself standing right in front of him, watching him beaming up at me as he reached for my hand.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, my voice shaky.
“I thought that was pretty obvious. I told you that you would know it when I proposed.” He smirked but there were tears in his eyes and emotion cracking in his voice. “I love you, Fiona. Before I met you, I felt like the world was spinning out of control. But I didn’t really care because I didn’t feel like I was a part of it. You are my center of gravity, my north, south, east, and west. I would follow you to the ends of the earth or stay completely still, as long as you were with me. We fought with each other and for each other, and forged our relationship by fire, or at Fields of Fire.”
That brought a smile to my lips, even though my mind was spinning.
“I want to spend the rest of my life fighting with and for you, and proving to you that I am the kind of man who deserves you. Will you marry me?”
Shane flipped open a ring box that had been resting on his knee, revealing a beautiful, solitaire-style ring.
I glanced at my dad from the corner of my eye and was vaguely aware of the fact that he was wearing a satisfied smile and nodding at me. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Shane.
“Yes,” I breathed.
He broke out in the widest, most gorgeous smile and rose, sweeping me up in his arms and spinning me round and round before setting me down on my feet and sliding the ring onto my finger.
I stared at it sitting on my finger, stunned. Then I was overwhelmed with happiness, gratitude, and thankfulness. I felt like I just won the lottery. The man of my dreams, the one who I knew without a single doubt in my mind was the one for me, was finally my fiancé.
The other diners in the restaurant cheered and hooted congratulations but the only voice that I could focus on was Shane’s, whispering how much he loved me into my ear and holding me like he never planned on letting me go.
After what felt like an age and still seemed all too soon, Shane loosened his hold and turned me to face my dad. There were happy tears shining in his eyes, and his voice was gruff as he congratulated us.
“I’m so happy for you, honey,” he said. “Your mother would be, too. In fact, I think she’s over the moon right now because you felt that pull. You allowed the universe to click you into place.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I said, giving him a tight hug.
My dad and Shane exchanged a one-armed, back-slapping hug. “I knew you were the one for her, and I’ll be proud to have you as my son-in-law.”
“I can’t wait to officially be part of the family,” Shane said, sounding really excited about it.
“You’ll have to start fishing with me and Drew,” my dad warned.
Shane grinned. “I’d love that. Speaking of Drew, we should get to Fiona’s place.”
“Why?” My curiosity piqued.
“They actually went to Fields of Fire last night,” Shane told me. “He wanted to do something for us.”
Apparently, the men had settled the check while I was in the bathroom, so there was no need to wait. My head was in the clouds when we walked back to the truck. I didn’t let go of Shane’s hand for so much as a second.
“You happy, baby?” he asked, once we were buckled in and headed to my house.
“Unbelievably,” I practically squealed.
“I was so fucking happy when you started dropping those hints that you were ready,” he admitted. “I’ve been ready since that first morning we talked about it.”
I arched a brow. “I thought you were ignoring the hints, or just not getting them.”
“I always get you. You should know that by now.” Shane smirked, twining our fingers together and squeezing tight.
“You do.” My heart gave a happy little lurch because I knew that it was true. “I should’ve known that you were up to something. How did I miss it?”
“You didn’t. Remember the other day when you asked me what I was talking to Bart about for so long?”
“Yeah.”
“I was having him get my grandmother’s ring resized and shipped over,” he confessed.
I gaped at him. “This is your grandmother’s ring?”
“Yup,” he said, smiling with a faraway look in his eyes. “She wore it for fifty-five years of happy marriage before she passed away.”
“Wow.” I stared at the ring again. “It must mean a lot to your family. Are you sure it’s okay that I wear it?”
“Fiona, it was left to me to give to the woman I’d be happily married to for at least fifty-five years. That woman is you.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“And it’s yours.” Then he paused. “If you want something more modern, that’s okay.”
“No! I love it.” I brought my hand to my chest as if defending the ring from being taken away from me. “I just, I can’t believe that you would give me something that means so much to you.”
“You mean everything to me.”
“And you mean everything to me,” I said, my voice cracking. I reached across the truck and squeezed his thigh. “So, Drew’s organizing something at my place?”
“Yeah, it’s only going to be me, you, your dad, Drew, and Drew’s girl though,” Shane said.
“Sounds perfect to me.” It really did. There was no one that I wanted to celebrate with more.
“Speaking of your place, you know that this means we can move in together, right?” He glanced at me before continuing. “I spoke to your dad about it when I asked him if I could marry you, and he said it would be okay.”
I was stunned again. “You asked my dad?”
“Of course, I did.” I was touched that he had not only thought about it but actually followed through on what I thought he would see as an old-fashioned gesture. “He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t.”
“True.” I smiled. “We can really move in together?”
“We can. You just need to decide whose house you want to move into.”
“You’d move into mine?”
“I told you, I would follow you to the ends of the earth. Or just to your house. I’ve been thinking, though. Maybe we should get a new place?”
“You want to buy a house?” I asked.
“Sure. A new place to signal the start of our new life. Together.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed, loving the symbolism of the idea. “In the meantime, though, I think we should live at your place.”
“You do?” He lifted a curious eyebrow.
“I do. There’s not enough space at my place for two people, and besides.” I flashed him a grin. “My dad and Drew are likely to hang around, talking for hours.”
“And you have other plans for later?” he guessed.
The mood between us changed instantly. The air thickened in the cab. He leaned over as we pulled up to my house, slanting his mouth over mine and kissing me until I was breathless.
“That’s my girl.”