Page 129 of Drifting Dawn
For a moment, my heart stopped.
Had I been too certain she’d say yes?
Oh fuck, was she going to crush me in front of our entire family?
“Yes!” Taran suddenly yelled comically, the word bursting out of her. “Yes! Y-yes, y-yessuh!” It ended on a sob as her face crumpled with tears.
My chair slid out behind me as I quickly launched from it and hurried to the other end of the tables to pull my crying fiancée into my arms. “Is that a yes?” I teased, pressing kisses to her wet cheeks.
She nodded, unable to speak, and buried her face in my chest as our family cheered and clinked glassware together. “I love you so much,” Taran mumbled against my shirt, holding on to me for dear life.
“Oh, Mo luaidh …” I bent my head to speak softly in her ear, “No word exists in any language to describe the depth of my love for you.”
She sobbed a little harder but finally lifted her head to kiss me with everything she felt, uncaring of our audience.
When Heather and Angus interrupted to throw their arms around us, I pulled them in close, assuring my son all was well. This was better, I promised him. This was perfect. Proposing to Taran with my children here was symbolic of how far we’d come. Of who we were now. Of what our love had become.
We were two halves of a whole, Taran and I, incomplete without the other. But my other half was incomplete without Angus and Heather.
I wasn’t myself without each of them.
It was finally the end of a nineteen-year existence of feeling like something was missing.
With Taran at our side, I was myself in my entirety.
Wewere ourselves in our entirety.
And when you had that kind of certainty in life, it made you strong enough to anchor yourself against any storm that blew your way.
Taran and I would never be blown adrift from each other ever again.
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