Twenty
They ate leftovers in the living room, watching the televised news conference regarding the murder of Bobby Ramsey. The FBI spokesman announced that they had identified the two men responsible, and stated that one man had died during the arrest and the other was in custody.
At Trey’s request, no mention had been made of his part in the event, or of the Mystic police in general. No one needed to know that his officer was the one responsible for locating their whereabouts, or that he was the one who’d taken them down. He wanted Sonny Dalton behind bars without him ever knowing who was really responsible.
While Trey was watching the report, Dallas fell asleep beside him eating Betsy’s apple pie. The plate was sliding out of her lap when he caught it and set it aside. He cradled her hands, looking at her battered palms, and the scratches on her arms and legs, and wondered how much more she could actually take.
She moaned, and he couldn’t bear it. He scooped her up and carried her to bed.
“Are you coming to bed with me?” she mumbled, her eyes already closing again as he pulled the covers up over her shoulders.
“I’ll be in later,” he said, as he kissed her good-night. “I have some calls to make.”
“’Kay. Love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said softly, and turned out the light.
He went back into the living room to clean up their dishes, but his thoughts were in free fall. He needed to find a way to help her. At this rate, her body wasn’t going to hold up to digging that much ginseng alone in such a short time, and even worse, now everyone knew it was there.
He started the dishwasher and was cleaning off the cabinets when his cell phone rang. It was his mother.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hello, honey, I’m not going to waste time with chitchat. I’m calling about Dallas. I know you said earlier she was all right, and that those men didn’t hurt her, but is she really okay? She looked so worn-out yesterday when I was there. Is her shoulder paining her so much she isn’t getting any rest?”
“It’s not that,” he said, and took the phone into the living room, where he plopped down in the recliner. “We’ve been keeping a secret, but since the gaggle of Feds and most of the officers from the county sheriff’s office were on the mountain today, word is going to spread like crazy, which means the secret is basically out.”
“What secret?” she asked.
“Long story short, Dallas found out how Dick was planning on saving the farm. He had a secret ginseng patch that hadn’t been harvested in something like forty or fifty years. He was going to pay off the farm with the money, upward of a hundred thousand dollars, or so the buyer told Dallas. She’s been digging it by herself, wanting to pay the bank back her dad’s way, and being up there alone nearly got her killed. She’s so worn-out right now she can barely move, and the kidnap attempt today about finished her off. I put her to bed like a baby, but I know she’s planning on getting up tomorrow and doing it all over again.”
His mom was crying, and Trey heard it.
“God bless her sweet heart. Dick and Marcy raised themselves a real good girl. So how many days does she have left before the loan comes due?”
“Less than twenty, I think, and that’s if we don’t have a bunch of poachers getting into her crop. I think the park service has someone watching the patch tonight out of gratitude for our help in catching Bobby Ramsey’s killers. But that’s a onetime thing.”
“I think I can fix this,” Betsy said. “You tell Dallas not to leave the house in the morning until she hears from me, okay?”
Trey was leery. His mom could come up with some real harebrained schemes. “What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. Just make sure she doesn’t leave.”
* * *
Trey was already gone, and Dallas was dressed and waiting for Betsy’s call when she heard a car coming up the drive. She sighed; it was likely someone wanting eggs, which would delay her even more. She went out on the porch to wait for their arrival, then recognized Betsy’s car as it came into sight. And then she saw another car right behind her, and another one behind that one, and another and another, plenty of them pickups and SUVs, so many that she lost count and simply stared in disbelief.
Betsy got out with a smile as Dallas came to meet her.
“It is so good to see you’re still in one piece,” Betsy said as she hugged her carefully.
“What on earth?” Dallas asked, watching woman after woman getting out of their vehicles, people she’d known all her life, coming into the yard.
As soon as they had assembled, Betsy made her announcement.
“We came to dig with you, girl. You’re trying to move a mountain a teaspoon at a time to honor your Daddy’s memory, and that kind of thinking sits good with us. Every woman here knows what to look for and how to dig. Most of them dig their own sang every year, and we’re not leaving your place today until yours is out of the ground.”
Dallas was stunned. Her eyes began welling.
“I don’t know when I’ve ever been so grateful,” she said, and then went through the crowd one by one, personally hugging everyone and thanking them for what they were about to do.
“You’ll want water,” she added.
Betsy threw up her hands, laughing. “Oh, honey, we came prepared. We brought bags, digging tools, first aid kits, and enough food and water for a picnic. You get your stuff and give us a few minutes to shift our loads. We’ll leave the cars here and pile into the pickups and four-wheelers. All you have to do is lead the way. You’ve got girl power behind you today.”
Dallas flew into the house, grabbed her water bottle out of the refrigerator and dropped it in her backpack as she went out the kitchen door, heading for the shed. The house was locked, the chickens and cows had been fed and she was on a mission.
She tossed her things in the pickup, then drove down toward the barn as vehicles began lining up and following behind her. She took them across the cattle guard and through the pasture with a joyful heart and the blue sky above her promising a clear day.
They joined Dallas in parking along the fence. Then they began helping each other through the wire, shouldered their gear and waited for her to show them the way.
Dallas eyed the weathered faces of the older women and the clear-eyed gazes of the younger ones, and felt a kinship with them that she had never felt in Charleston.
“It’s about a fifteen-minute walk up,” she said.
“Lead the way,” Betsy said. “We’re right behind you.”
Dallas pushed past the clump of bushes and started walking. She heard the women talking and chattering behind her, and for the first time since her father’s death, she felt a promise of better days to come.
When she reached the patch she moved through it to where she’d stopped digging, then waited for the last of them to catch up.
One by one, as the women saw the honey hole, their chatter stopped, and by the time the last few reached the destination, the only sounds to be heard were the rustling leaves above their heads.
One voice came out of the crowd that said it all.
“Sweet Lord have mercy. I have never seen such a sight.”
“Pick a spot and start digging, and if you please, plant a seed back in the hole as you go,” Dallas said.
The women dispersed themselves across the patch in a long even row so that they would move up the slope in unison without missing any plants.
Dallas dropped her backpack, grabbed her trowel and one of her bags, and knelt in front of the nearest plant. She worked the blade carefully downward into the dark, rich dirt and then thrust her fingers in behind it, feeling for the neck and the roots of the plant hidden deep in the earth below. And when it finally came free in her hand, she threw back her head and laughed.
The women heard and understood.
* * *
The last ginseng root went into a bag at fifteen minutes after five. The woman who’d dug it made a little whoop of delight, and then she stood up and let out a rebel yell that made the hair stand up on the back of Dallas’s neck.
She took in the sight of the work-weary women scattered about the mountain; they all looked as tired and dirty as she felt. But it was done.
“It’s over. You did it. We did it!” Dallas said.
And then she put her hands in the air and did a little celebratory dance that had the women hooting and laughing in pure joy.
And then, just as quickly as they had celebrated, the reality of the moment hit them. They still had to get all that ginseng home. They began gathering up their things and started the long trek down.
Someone started singing, and then someone else joined in. They trooped down the mountain, singing the truth of their day as they went.
“‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...’”
Dallas was walking blindly, her vision so blurred with tears of relief and gratitude that she could hardly think.
“‘He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.’”
One by one, with long weary steps, they went, their voices blending in song just as their hands had joined together on this day to right the world of one of their own.
And just when Dallas thought she’d seen it all, they walked out of the forest to their cars and found a dozen armed men with Trey at their head, waiting.
Betsy began to explain. “You’re not done yet, honey. Taking this to sell on your own would be like asking to be shot. We’re taking this to town together, all of us.”
Trey could tell she was in shock, but he was heartily glad that this was almost over. He gave her a quick kiss and a hug.
“Did you know about all this?” Dallas asked.
“Not at first,” Trey said. “But when word got out what the women were doing, some of their men contacted me, wanting to help. What you have here is an armed escort to the buyer, who is waiting for your arrival. And even though it’s almost closing time, our fine banker, Gregory Standish, has two employees waiting with him inside the bank to make sure the money you receive tonight is locked up inside his vault before you go home. So hustle your backsides, ladies! We have sang to sell!”
“What about the ginseng I had in the cooler?” Dallas asked.
“I put it in your truck.” He shifted his attention to the women behind her. “Are you in it until it’s over?” he asked.
“Yes!” they said as one.
“We want to watch this sell!” another shouted.
“We just helped make history,” Betsy said. “The size of this crop is something that’s never been seen around here. Of course we’re going.”
Trey called out to the men, “Break out those empty boxes so they can unload the bags.”
The men lined up the plastic boxes as the women began dumping in the roots and fastening the lids before the men started loading them into Dallas’s truck. When hers was full they began filling up the next truck, and the next and the next, and when there were still bags of ginseng but no more boxes, she made a quick decision.
“Put the bags in the pickup beds in a single layer. Given that we’re not going far, they should be fine.”
When the last bags were loaded, she turned and shouted, “That’s it! We’re ready to go, and we have an escort all the way back to town. Lead the way, Chief. We’re right behind you.”
They followed Trey back through the pasture and across the cattle guard, and then Dallas remembered her little hens.
“Oh, no! The chickens need to be fed and put up.”
Betsy reached for her phone. “I’ll call Otis Woodley. He’ll be happy to help, and he knows what to do.”
“I am going to owe so many favors to so many people that I’ll grow old and gray before I can pay them all back,” Dallas said.
Betsy grinned as she began making the call while women spilled out of the pickups and SUVs and began moving to their own vehicles to follow the crop into town.
When Trey reached the blacktop he hit the lights and siren for the hell of it and headed for the highway with a long line of vehicles bringing up the rear. He’d done this countless times leading a funeral procession to a cemetery, but he’d never escorted a group like this.
The drive into town turned into a parade. Everyone in Mystic had heard about the dig, and when they found out Dallas Phillips was bringing her ginseng in to sell under police escort, they began lining the streets from the bank all the way to the feed store.
The buyer was waiting there with his own armed guards, a suitcase full of money and a refrigerated truck to haul away not only what was coming in, but what he’d been buying all month.
Betsy was in the seat beside Dallas when they hit the city limits.
“What on earth?” Dallas asked, as she saw the people lining both sides of the street.
Betsy laughed. “You, my sweet girl, are making history here in Mystic. Just wave and smile.”
“It’s all because of you,” Dallas said.
“No, baby. It’s because of you. Anything would have been easier than what you chose to do. You have to know that today you made your daddy proud.”
The mention of her dad made Dallas teary, but she was too happy this was over, and too damned tired, to cry. People were shouting and waving and taking videos and pictures as they drove through town, and when they pulled up at the feed store, the drivers all began looking for a place to park.
A tall, skinny man with a thick head of dark hair got up from the steps of the feed store and started walking toward Trey’s police car.
“I’m Marsh Webster,” he said, as he shook Trey’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Trey said, and pointed at Dallas, who was coming toward them. “That’s the lady you’re waiting for.”
“Mr. Webster, I’m Dallas Phillips.”
He’d heard everything there was to know about this woman while he’d been waiting. From her success in front of a camera to the heartache of her father’s murder, her near-death dance with a vicious dog and yesterday’s attempt to kidnap her. He saw the dark circles under her eyes and the crowd of women behind her, and for one of the few times in his life, he was in awe. He held out his hand.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Dallas grasped his hand firmly. “I’m pleased to meet you, too. I understand you buy ginseng.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I do. And I was given to understand you had some to sell. The scales are in the feed store. If you’ll bring in your harvest, we’ll start getting it weighed.”
“It’ll take a bit,” she warned, and then waved at the women. “Start carrying it in.”
The armed men formed a protective line between the crowd on the street and their women and what they were carrying.
Trey stood on the top step of the feed store with a watchful eye on the crowd. He spotted Officers Lonnie and Carl Doyle watching it from the back.
Marsh Webster smiled when he saw what was coming in and began examining the ginseng with growing delight. As Dick Phillips had promised, both the age of the roots and the quantity were staggering, and the women had brought the crop in fine condition. He began weighing and marking each lot, and just when he thought he was through, they would bring in another box, and another and another, and then they began handing him bag after bag. The silence inside a room filled with this many people was unusual, but every woman wanted to be present, to be able to tell the tale down the years of how they’d saved a family’s heritage with a honey hole of sang.
Dallas lost count of time and pounds, and was leaning against Trey for both strength and moral support when Marsh Webster jotted down the last weight and looked up.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Dallas said.
Marsh shook his head. “Glory be,” he mumbled. “Give me a minute to total up these weights. I believe we talked about four hundred dollars a pound,” he said.
“No, sir. We talked about five hundred dollars a pound,” Dallas said. Her expression was firm, her gaze locked on his, and she wasn’t backing down.
He grinned. “Maybe we did,” he said, and pulled out a calculator.
A slight murmur began rolling through the crowd as excitement grew.
Dallas watched him punch in every amount, and as he did, he checked it off with a neat red mark to prove he was keeping things honest. When the total came up, he whistled softly under his breath.
Dallas’s nerves were shot. She was tired and dirty and as hungry as she’d ever been, and yet standing here in this place at this moment was something she would never forget.
Trey watched Webster multiply out the weight times five hundred, and when the buyer’s eyebrows went up, he watched him do it up again.
Finally Webster was done.
“Monroe! Bring me the money,” he yelled.
One of his guards went running and came back quickly with a big brown case.
Webster gave Dallas a copy of his work sheet, then wrote out a bill of sale for the total amount and handed that to her, as well.
“You set a record in West Virginia history that I doubt will ever be broken,” he said. “As of this moment, I owe you one hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars for two hundred and sixty-four pounds of prime green ginseng.”
The room erupted in chaos. Women were laughing and crying as Dallas stood beside the table watching him count out the money. All she could think was that this day should have been Dad’s.
When Trey saw the sadness on her face, he put a hand on the back of her neck to remind her she wasn’t alone.
Dallas picked up one of the boxes Webster had emptied, and when he was done counting out the money, she put it into the box, one stack at a time, and then snapped the lid shut.
The click was a signal of the end of their transaction.
“Thank you, Mr. Webster.”
“Thank you, Miss Phillips. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Keep me in mind now, you hear?”
“You won’t be seeing me here again. The Phillips ginseng saved the farm. I think we’ll just let it be.”
“Tell me something,” Marsh said.
“If I can,” Dallas said.
“How the heck did you manage to keep a patch like that untouched?”
“I don’t know that myself,” she said.
And then one of the older women who’d been digging with Dallas stepped out of the crowd, waving her hand.
“Oh, I can answer that,” she said. “Anyone who’s ever been up on that side of the mountain knows that the poison ivy is solid from the survey marks on the Phillips property outward and up all the way around to the other side. It’s so thick we used to joke how someone must have let it grow to hide a still back in the old days. Didn’t any of us question the reason or want to wade through nearly a quarter of a mile of it to see if the story was true.”
Finally Dallas smiled. Her ancestors had been brilliant. Poison ivy, a barrier that kept growing and spreading with every passing year.
“We need to get going,” Trey said. “We’re keeping a banker waiting. Dallas, honey, if I may, I’d be happy to carry that money for you.”
“Much appreciated,” she said, and followed him out.
The crowd saw them emerge, and with so much money for their harvest that they were carrying it in a box. People erupted in cheers. Once again the procession reformed as the women drove all the way back to the bank with Dallas, determined to see the deal through.
Gregory Standish knew he, too, would become part of history and was planning how that would fit into his campaign for mayor when he finally saw them coming. He began shouting orders.
“They’re coming! Get ready. Get her account pulled up.”
The tellers were at their stations, ready to receive and deposit the money into Dick Phillips’s checking account.
But when the chief and Dallas came in the door, the tellers were taken aback by the swarm of bedraggled women who came in with them, then a little uneasy at the sight of the armed men who stood barring the door.
Gregory Standish put a hand under Dallas’s elbow and urged her forward.
“Right this way, Miss Phillips. These are my two best tellers. They will be counting out your money and depositing it into your account.”
“Count it all,” she said, “but I want the exact loan amount paid to your bank today. When I go to sleep tonight, I need to know my land is free and clear of any debt.”
“Yes, certainly,” he said, and went to work right along with the tellers, pulling up the loan amount and then waiting for them to total and deposit the whole, before they could deduct the amount she owed.
Finally the counting was done, matching Marsh Webster’s total, and the money was deposited. At that point they began a series of debit and credit actions that made her lose count of what was going on.
When Gregory Standish finally handed her the loan paper marked Paid In Full, she turned and thrust it in the air.
“We did it! We saved the farm! My dad would be so proud.”
The women began laughing and cheering, while Standish and the tellers grinned from ear to ear.
Trey stood by smiling, struck by the power of the female bond.
When they began to leave, Dallas suddenly remembered what she’d intended to do and began calling them back.
“Wait! Wait! I want to give each—”
They answered en masse with a resounding “No!”
“We did this for you. Not for the money,” Betsy said. “Just live a long and happy life on that land, and make me some pretty babies to spoil. That’s what we want.”
“No, Mom. That’s what you want,” Trey teased.
The women were still laughing and joking as they walked out of the bank. It had been a long hard day, but they were satisfied with their work and the final outcome.
As for Dallas, her reward had become more than paying off the loan. As of this moment, she was almost eighty thousand dollars to the good and had the deposit slips from the tellers to prove it. And today Dallas and all those women had done more than dig up a mountain of ginseng. They had forged a bond of kinship that would never be broken, something no amount of money could buy.
“Thank you for this. Thank you for giving me time you would have spent with your families.”
Gregory Standish just kept beaming. “It was my pleasure...our pleasure to do this. Dick was a friend.”
Standish followed everyone out, and then locked the bank doors and remotely reset the alarm before going home.
Night had come to Mystic while Dallas was putting her world back together. She paused at the curb for a quick word with Trey. “Are you done for the day?”
“I sure am, baby. You and Mom head home. I’ll bring up the rear.”
Dallas climbed slowly back into the truck and then glanced over at Betsy as she started the engine. “You do know that you’re working your way toward being the best mother-in-law on the planet, right?”
Betsy giggled. “I do what I can.”
As Dallas pulled away from the curb, she felt like the weight of the world was gone from her shoulders. She also felt like she wanted to sleep for a week.
After all the elation, the drive home was oddly quiet. All the energy that had followed their success had been used up. As soon as Dallas drove into the yard, Betsy started gathering up her things.
“Just let me out here, honey. I’m ready to go home, too.” She leaned across the seat and gave Dallas a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to the family, sweet girl.”
“Thank you again for everything,” Dallas said, then sat and waited until Betsy transferred her things to her car and drove away. Dallas drove around to the back of the house and was putting the pickup in the shed when Trey pulled in.
The night air was chilly, the black sky ablaze with stars to infinity, the kind of night for making love, but she was almost too weary to stand.
Trey met her at the porch, walked her in the back door and once again pointed at the washer.
“Strip for me, honey.”
“Don’t bother with my clothes, Trey. Just leave them on the floor and I’ll deal with them in the morning. Come wash my back and talk to me. I don’t want to cry again.”
Trey locked up as she walked naked through the dark house. He heard her in the shower. The scent of her shampoo drifted out across the hall. He put up his weapon and began to undress.
By the time he entered the bathroom, she was standing beneath the jets with her eyes closed and her arms braced against the wall in front of her, letting the water run down her back.
“Coming in,” he said softly.
She reached back and clutched his hand, needing an anchor. Her head was spinning. She had been trying to count the number of days since she’d left Charleston, but she kept losing track. In the short time she’d been home, life had given her a crash course in gratitude. Some would say she’d reconnected with Trey out of fear and grief. But she knew better. Her crash course in life hadn’t scared her into commitment. All it had done was to show her what had been missing.
He slid his hands around her waist and then traded places with her. Now he was the one under the pelting spray and she was in the lee, just out of range.
She watched the water flatten his hair like a silky black cap, and then drip from his eyelashes and down onto his cheeks. She might have thought he was crying except for the heat of passion in his eyes.
“Make love to me, Trey.”
He hesitated even as he pulled her to him. “You look so hurt. I don’t want to make it worse.”
Her hand was splayed across her breasts. “The worst pains are in here, and I think only you can make those better.”
His nostrils flared. “Standing up or lying down?”
“Here and now,” she said.
“We can do that,” he said. “Put your arms around my neck.”
So she did, then responded to the pressure as he cupped the backs of her hips and lifted her up.
“Put your legs around my waist,” he said.
She settled on the jut of his erection with a grateful sigh. This was what it felt like to belong. This was what it felt like to be home.
“Hold on tight, Dallas Ann. You are going for a ride.”
And she did, riding him straight up to glory, wrapped in his loving arms. The pulse of the water jets was a tease to the blood pulsing through their bodies. And as he began to move inside her, her body became supersensitive to touch. Everything she felt turned her on, from the pelting flow of the water to the rough brush of his unshaven cheek against her breast, then the hard thrust of his body as he drove her need for a sudden and mind-shattering climax.
Dallas lost focus on everything except what Trey was doing. Every kiss he gave her seared her skin, marked her soul. She wanted to catch fire in his arms. She could never get enough of this man. And when the feeling finally came upon her, she gave up to the blood rush and died the little death in his arms.
Trey felt her climax coming and finally let go, spilling his seed until his body was weak and his legs were shaking.
She unlocked her legs and slid down, then took a washcloth and washed every inch of his body until he was as clean as she felt.
He turned off the water, and as they stepped out together he grabbed a towel to dry her off. She stood motionless beneath his care until he was satisfied.
Then he kissed her healing shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Go take your medicine, baby. Your body has been through a whole lot of hell, and what we just did didn’t make it better. I sure don’t want you sick.”
Dallas glanced in the mirror. So much had happened since the dog attack, and in such a short span of time, that it felt as if it had happened to someone else.
She went through the house to get the antibiotics and took them in the kitchen, standing naked in the dark as she took them. Then she dug the loan paper out of her backpack and carried it with her to her room.
Trey walked in behind her as she laid it on the desk and then, without saying a word, fell into bed as he crawled in behind her.
He waited until she’d fallen asleep, then got up to retrieve the engagement ring he’d picked up earlier and went back to bed.
She slept with the abandon that only total exhaustion can bring, and Trey brushed a kiss along the curve of her cheek that she didn’t feel while he told her a story she didn’t hear.
“For six years, four months, three weeks and two days I went to bed thinking this moment would never come, and yet here you are, so beautiful, and yet so beaten and worn by what life has done to you that I can’t say this to your face without coming undone. I love you more than my life, Dallas Ann. Thank you for wanting to be my wife.”
Slowly he slipped the ring onto her finger, and when it went all the way without effort, it felt like a sign.
“Perfect fit, just like us,” he said, then stretched out beside her and closed his eyes.
* * *
Trey was in the kitchen making coffee when he heard her scream. He grinned at the sound of running feet as she came up the hall.
She flew into the kitchen buck naked, holding her hand out as if it had turned to stone, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“Did I forget this happened? Is this a dream and I’m still asleep? Talk to me, damn it! Am I engaged?”
“Well, you are naked,” Trey said, “and you have an egg customer down at the barn, and yes, ma’am, you are engaged to me with a promise to wed.”
She slapped her hands across her breasts.
“Oh, son of a bitch,” she muttered, and flew back down the hall to get dressed and then ran out the door to deal with her customer.
Trey threw back his head and laughed, and he was still laughing when she came back with the money and a smile.
He swung her up in his arms, kissing her soundly before he sat down at the table and pulled her into his lap.
“You had a need to know this land was free and clear before you went to bed last night, and I had a similar need to officially put my name in the bright lights of your life before I closed my eyes. And then you passed out and I couldn’t sleep, so I engaged you to me. I didn’t think you would mind.”
She started laughing and crying, and then she threw her arms around his neck and proceeded to kiss him on every inch of his face. After which she stopped, looked at the ring and did it all over again.
“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed.
“Just like you,” he said.
“Oh, Trey, oh, honey, I am so proud to be marrying you,” Dallas whispered, and then buried her face against his neck and hugged him.
“You’re not crying, are you?” Trey asked.
“No. I’m just taking this all in. I came home to bury Daddy and thought I’d lost everything that mattered. Instead, I find out everything that mattered was just waiting for me to come home.”
He saw her face, and just for a second, instead of the smile, he saw the terrified look from yesterday as she came running down the trail.
“Life is precious, baby. I don’t want to waste another minute of it without you. So, now that you’re wide-awake and listening, will you marry me, Dallas Ann?”
And just like that, everything that had been in turmoil within her slid into place.
She touched her forehead to his.
“Yes, I will marry you, and thank you for asking.”