Page 339 of Wild Card 13

I drew in a breath.

It shook.

Then I read.

“Dear Lucy, If my grandson is doing this correctly, he is sitting beside you and looking about as calm as a man trying to defuse a bomb with oven mitts on.”

A sound escaped me that was half laugh, half sob.

Ty dropped his head.

I kept going, even though the words swam. “I told him he was not allowed to ask you anything until you read this, partly because I am old and enjoy having power.

“Love is not proven only by the first yes. It is proven by the ones that come after. The yes after a hard day. The yes after silence. The yes when pride would be easier. The yes when life changes shape and you decide to reach for each other anyway.

“Second chances are not scraps, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. Sometimes they are the whole feast. Sometimes they arewhat happens when two people grow wise enough to recognize the gift they were given twice.

“Now please look at him. I imagine he is close to passing out. With all my love.”

By the time I reached the end, I was crying hard enough that I had to laugh because there was no graceful version of what my face was doing. I lowered the note into my lap and pressed one hand over it.

Dottie sat up suddenly, because apparently tears were a breach of household order. She shoved her head between my elbow and Ty’s knee with all the delicacy of a collapsing bookshelf.

“Oh,” I said, laughing through another tear. “Thank you. Very helpful.”

Ty let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like relief and scratched behind Dottie’s ear. Dottie wedged herself farther between us, then tried to sniff the ring box.

“No,” Ty said, pulling it back. “Absolutely not. This is not for you.”

Dottie looked offended.

“She thinks everything is for her,” I sniffed.

“She’s not wrong often enough to learn humility.”

I laughed again, and the sound loosened something in me. It did not make the moment smaller. It made it ours. The dock. The lake. The dog with no boundaries. The note trembling in my lap. Ty beside me, nervous and sweaty and impossibly dear.

He shifted then, not away, only enough to face me fully. He took the note gently from my lap and set it beside my notebook, weighting both with my coffee mug so the breeze could not steal them.

Then he picked up the ring box. His hands were not quite steady.

My heart turned over.

“I had a better speech,” he said.

“I’m sure.”

“It involved fewer dog interruptions.”

“That seems unrealistic.”

“I see that now.” His mouth curved, small and nervous and beautiful.

Then he looked at me for a long second, and whatever joke had been waiting disappeared.

“I love our life.” Ty swallowed. His thumb moved once more over the edge of the box before he held it open between us. “I love waking up with you here. I love your books on my shelves and your glasses in places that make no sense. I love that our kitchen has two kinds of coffee because you said mine tasted like regret.”

“It did.”