This time, I drove. I pulled my car up, hugging the curb. It was a clear, summer day. All up and down Hutchins Street, you could hear laughter and splashing from kids playing in backyard pools. It wouldn’t last, of course. They’d probably all be on their screens within the next couple of hours. But for now, the place was transformed. I rolled down my window and slid my sunglasses further up my nose.

“Can you see?” I said, leaning back in my seat. Chase sat beside me. He slid his aviator glasses down his nose and looked over my shoulder.

Two little girls tumbled out the front door of the house. Olivia and Elise Corbin. Their parents were Shane and Marie. Shane worked for the gas company. Marie stayed at home. Olivia was five and the ringleader. She had a shock of blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders in ringlets. Elise, the two-year-old, had stick-straight brown hair but two of the biggest blue eyes you’d ever seen. She ran as fast as her chubby little legs would carry her, diving in the wet grass and letting the sprinkler hit her full in the face.

Chase laughed beside me. “She’s gonna break her nose.”

“She’ll be fine. Kids are less breakable than you think.”

He gave me a doubtful snort but kept watching. Olivia threw her towel to the ground and raced after her younger sister. The Corbins had bought the house for five thousand dollars above list price. Leslie Marion earned the hell out of her commission. Marie Corbin had put bright pink geraniums in the window boxes in the front of the house. Shane had installed a basketball hoop in the driveway.

“It’s perfect,” Chase said. It had been his idea to come here the first time. He wouldn’t go inside again before we closed on the place. He hadn’t believed me at first when I told him about the Corbins. It seemed almost too good to be true. But now we found reasons to drive by and stop every now and again. We caught glimpses of them putting up their Christmas tree in the front window a month after they bought the place.

“It really is.” I sighed. I knew why it mattered to him. Seeing laughter and light filling this house helped him drive the demons of his past away. Whatever echoes remained of the horrors that happened here, now the walls were filled with cheer and Olivia’s princess wallpaper border. It was good. Normal. Sweet.

I squeezed Chase’s hand then brought it to my lips. Lacing my fingers through his, I leaned back and put my head on his shoulder in the space where it fit best.

The light caught the diamond I wore on the fourth finger of my left hand. It was still so new, I couldn’t stop looking at it.

Chase had asked me to marry him on the first day of spring. That seemed fitting too. We’d gone to the beach that day. He knew a spot, tucked away and hidden by the dunes. No one came there. It had been just the two of us.

I made love to my man on the beach with the waves crashing all around. Thinking about it now made my sex throb with heat. He might forever have that effect on me. At least, I hoped so.

“You’re so beautiful,” he’d said as the sun lit his hair in shimmering gold. Only I saw him this way. Naked. Strong. Powerful. I had straddled him, letting him spear me and fill me to the brim.

“Baby,” I’d said. I never knew how he could stay so still and calm as each wave of desire churned through me. He made me a wild thing, throwing my head back and shouting to the sky. Chase reached up, gently kneading my nipples between his fingers, heightening my pleasure.

I begged for him. Screamed for him as my orgasm thundered through me. His would come soon after, his seed hot and thick. I took it in. The tide had rolled in, spraying us. We collapsed in laughter. It’s never as sexy as it looks in the movies. In reality, the power of the ocean knocked us sideways and filled my nose with sand.

We went out into the surf together. Chase held me close. I wrapped my legs around his waist and floated on the waves.

I held a secret inside of me along with his seed. That day, it had been just a casual thought. Not something I’d planned, but something that was solid and real like the beating of my heart now that it truly belonged to Chase.

Then Chase popped the question. “Marry me,” he’d said simply.

Yes. The answer had been yes since the moment I first took him home. We would face hell together over and over. Everyone does. But I knew Chase would always come for me. And I would always come for him.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, hooking my chin between his fingers and drawing me back to the present.

“Nothing,” I said. “Everything. You.”

“Is that all?” he teased.

A newspaper lay on the seat between us. A small headline in the corner of section “B” had been the thing that drew us back to Hutchins Street today. The investigation into Marco Rivas’s disappearance had been closed. Rochelle Raines’s murder had been closed again too. The police theorized that Marco went into the wind after he found out he’d soon face a murder indictment. His dealings with the club died with him. That was good news, but I knew it made things complicated. I promised Chase I wouldn’t ask too many questions, but Jenny had filled in some of the big picture. She knew now there was a moll in the department. Someone had tipped Marco off about the DNA results. Things were quiet for now, but she was on her guard. The ATF investigation collapsed too, but I knew something about it worried Chase. Again though, he wouldn’t say and I learned from Josie not to ask.

I turned in my seat and put a hand on his cheek. “Are you sure?” I asked. I’d asked this question at least a dozen times since Chase first told me his plan.

He kissed my palm. “Baby, I’m sure. You more than anyone should understand why.”

I looked back at the Hutchins Street house. It belonged to the Corbins now, fully and completely. Rochelle Raines could truly rest in peace.

I restarted the car and drove away from the curb. It was only four blocks to Mulberry Street and the house we would call home together. That was the question I asked him over and over. We would live there. We would raise our family there. We were both north siders through and through. Only little by little, we’d changed what that meant. It was clean and good and right.

It was the perfect time to tell him. I parked the car in the driveway. Chase got out and opened my door for me. I took his hand and slid into his arms. Then I laced my fingers through one of his hands and pulled it down, spreading it over my stomach. He’d asked me to marry him on the first day of spring. It was now the first day of summer. I’d waited until I knew it was safe, not wanting to risk even a chance of sorrow.

At first, Chase just smiled down at me. I kept his hand in place over my stomach. Tears of joy filled my eyes. I bit them back.

“Ariel?”

“Yes, baby.”

His eyes went through a kaleidoscope of changes. First calm, then worry, then widening with understanding. Finally, they filled with tears. “When?”

“That day on the beach,” I said. “When you asked me to marry you. At least, I think. The doctor says I’m due right around Christmas. We can put up an even bigger tree this year.”

A tear did spill down Chase’s cheek. My throat caught as I reached up to wipe it away. “I love you,” he whispered. “But how the hell ... why the hell do you put up with me?”

Sighing, I went up on my tiptoes and kissed him. “You know me, baby. I’m a sucker for fixer-uppers.”

He laughed at that and twirled me in his arms. Then we walked into our home on the north side of town together.