Cooper

A salty breeze brushed across us, kissing our skin, kicking up the ends of Maggie’s hair as if it wanted to carry her away. The tendrils danced in the current, curling like smoke.

We sat in a cove just west of the Hamptons, enclosed by a curving rise of land, generous by Long Island standards though nowhere near what one might call a cliff. But it was enough to shelter us.

The sun chased the horizon, dipping closer to the sea with every minute. It had been cloudy all day, and as the light slanted through the atmosphere, it painted the sky in golds and pinks, blues and yellows, in a mix of color so saturated and luminous, it defied my senses.

My gaze shifted to Maggie. Her eyes were soft and heavy with wonder and contentment, her cheeks pink and sun-kissed and glowing.

All afternoon, we had sailed, moving like a single unit, tacking and jibing, adjusting the lines, taking turns at the helm. We’d also taken the time to just be, to stand on the bow, to sit on the deck, to feel the thrill. There was a moment where I’d stood at the helm, hands on the wheel, as she tightened the mainsail. Her hair had been in a braid down her back, but it never stayed put, the wild curls always working their way loose. When she’d turned to look back at me over her shoulder, her smile shining and eyes alight, those strands across her face like streamers, I’d felt the truth I’d always known, felt it so deeply, I’d braced myself and locked my knees against the force of emotion.

She was everything I’d ever wanted. She was the sum of my universe, my reason for everything.

Maggie turned to look at me, the pink that smudged her cheeks from the sun deepening with a flush. She smiled. “What?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

“You’re perfect,” was all I could say.

Her smile fell, though her face didn’t darken. Her brows tilted together. “There’s no such thing as perfect, Coop.” The words were quiet, touched with some meaning, some context I didn’t understand.

My heart lurched in my chest. “But there is.”

She watched me with curiosity as I rose. Curiosity turned to surprise when I took a knee at her feet. Surprise turned to a deep, stunned gasp when I pulled the box out of my pocket and opened it in display. Her hand flew to her lips.

“I have been waiting for this moment since I first held you in my arms. I’ve known since the beginning that I loved you, and I only hoped that someday, you’d love me too. All I want is you, forever. Marry me, Maggie. Marry me and make my dreams come true. I’m yours. Say you’ll be mine.”

Her eyes were full of love and tears, but the color had seeped from her face, leaving her gray and waxen. She didn’t speak, just stared at the ring, her hand clamped over her mouth.

Three heartbeats, and the muscle clenched painfully. Five more had it throwing itself against my sternum.

“Mags,” I said gently, “please, say something.”

Her eyes flew to mine, wide with panic, before she shot out of her chair and bolted for the edge of the boat.

For a split second, I didn’t register her retching for what it was, but the moment I did, the ring box was back in my pocket, and I was at her side. I gathered her haphazard hair and took it from her hand, resting the other on her back.

My brow quirked as I soothed her. She’d been seasick all day, which wasn’t like her at all. We’d sailed a hundred times and in far worse conditions, and never had she gotten sick. Inexplicably, it had stopped her from the champagne at dinner and left her picking at the salmon I’d cooked us for dinner.

When she finally emptied her stomach, she straightened up. I pulled her into my chest, smoothing her hair. Her small hands clutched at my shirt under her palms as she tried to catch her breath.

“Water,” she croaked.

I guided her back to the chairs and handed her a glass.

“I think I saw a boot come outta you,” I said with a chuckle as she took a sip, swished it around and spit it over the side of the boat, then found her way back into my arms. “You all right?” I asked, trailing my hand up and down her back.

Her face shifted against my chest. “Coop, I …”

Again the vise on my heart clamped tighter. She didn’t finish.

“What’s the matter, Mags?”

Another shake of her head. She pulled away, her face down and hand slipping into the pocket of the palazzo pants she’d put on for dinner. When it reappeared, a black velvet box rested in her slender fingers.

Maggie opened the box with a creak and met my eyes, hers face filled with even measures of hope and fear.

On the bed of velvet lay an irregular pearl, creamy and shining in the golden sunlight. I knew it on sight. We’d gone pearl-diving in Bahrain. I’d found a dozen. She’d found only the one.

“When we went diving that day,” she started, her voice unsure, “I thought I’d find the perfect pearl. That it would be brilliant and white, a flawless sphere, an exact replica of the vision in my mind. But one thing I’ve learned is that there is no perfect time. There is no perfect pearl. But its imperfection doesn’t make it any less beautiful.”

My gaze shifted from the pearl to her face. I searched it for answers through the pause.

“Cooper,” she breathed, “I’m pregnant.”

A zip of lightning shot down my spine and all the way to my heels, melting them to the deck as the world tilted on its axis.

I blinked. “You’re …”

A flicker of a smile was at the corner of her lips. “I’m gonna have your baby.”

My lungs emptied painfully. “My … baby?”

She nodded, her smile blooming. “Uh-huh.” She nearly cooed the affirmation.

I looked down at her stomach as if it would confirm what she’d said. With a shaking hand, I pressed my palm to the space below her belly button. “My baby,” I breathed. “Our baby.”

The shine of her eyes amplified the color, a blue as deep as the ocean. “Our baby. Of course I’ll marry you. I’d marry you a thousand times. I’d say yes a thousand ways on a thousand shores. Cooper, I love—”

I stopped her with a kiss, swallowing her words and breathing her promise. I held her in my arms on the deck of our ship with the future on the horizon where the sun met the sea.

She was the one to break the kiss. There was nothing that could have convinced me to end that perfect moment. Because that was where she was wrong.

Perfect did exist. I held it right there in my arms.