Page 102 of Losing Wendy

I bite back my smile.

“Wendy,” he says, taking my hand. “I just got back from a harrowing journey to the other realms. Where men and women are slaves to time, constantly chasing ambition until the clock ticks down, the sand runs out. They watch what they love slip between their fingertips because they wait too long. They strive and work by the sweat of their brow, then their heart gives out on them before they can enjoy the pension they’ve set up for themselves. I don’t want that for us. You and I? We don’t have to heed time. What we do today, tomorrow, it doesn’t make a difference. We’re on whatever schedule we desire here. Just you and me. We make the rules.”

“I have to admit, I like the sound of that.”

“I thought you might. But you still look disappointed. Why?”

I gaze up at him, openmouthed as I grasp for the words. It’s a silly notion, but it’s tugging on my heart, causing the slightest ache of disappointment. “It’s just that I always imagined that the man asking for my hand would be kneeling.”

“You want me to kneel?” Peter’s scoff is tinged with playfulness. “Why?”

“Because. It’s just what’s done,” I laugh, my nerves coming through. “It’s how I always imagined it would happen.”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek as he grins. “Were you imagining me proposing to you, or was it all those suitors of yours?”

“It was usually a faceless man proposing to me,” I admit with a chuckle.

Peter knits his brow playfully. “I do fit that description on occasion.”

“I suppose.” My fingers interlock with his, swinging his hands back and forth. “But it’s what I’ve always dreamed.”

“My, my, you are traditional-minded, aren’t you?”

My face flushes. Peter’s such a free spirit; I don’t want him to see me like he did before. I don’t want to go back to being the girl who teetered on the edge, clinging to the surface without ever letting myself jump.

Peter must note my embarrassment, because he slides his thumb over my finger, slipping his hand over the metal, then pocketing the ring. My stomach plummets as I lose sight of it, but then he pulls me close and brushes a kiss on my forehead. The salty breeze picks up, meaning his kiss is the only warmth around. “What if I have a better idea?”

Before I can answer, he shoots us into the air, the black sand beach a streak of charcoal against a blue and green canvas below us.

Thousands of feet above Neverland, he asks again. “Wendy Darling, will you marry me?”

“Of course,” I say, as I lose myself in his kiss. The rush of his lips on mine is so intoxicating, I almost can’t feel the ring he slides back onto my finger.

CHAPTER 38

“Thinking about someone?” The captain’s voice breaks me out of my wandering thoughts, of Peter kissing me breathless in the sky. I’ve got him propped against a boulder in the back of the cave. I’ve been spoon-feeding him cold boar stew for the past several minutes. Normally I’d be pestering him with questions, and he’d be pestering me with insults, but today my mind has been elsewhere.

“What makes you say that?” I ask, the affront obvious in my voice.

The captain’s eyes wander, tracing the golden freckles of my cheek with a precision that makes me feel as if he’s glimpsed more flesh than just what’s on my face. “Because you’re trailing your finger over that Mark of yours like it’s the wooden notches on the casket of a loved one you’re about to bury.”

I wrench my hand from my cheek, embarrassment flooding me.

“You didn’t realize you were doing it, did you?” There’s a taunting condescension in his gaze, but that might just be his face. Now that I think of it, I can’t think of a time he’s ever looked at me like I had any semblance of a brain.

I ignore him, then go back to stirring his stew.

“I used to do it too, you know,” he says, rubbing his thumb against the ruined Mark on his wrist. That’s about all he can manage with his hands right now, because of the rushweed. “Hated what a hold a girl I’d never met had on me.”

Irritation springs up in my chest. “Doesn’t matter. No one ever meets their Mate anyway. Except for you, I guess. And you already told me it was a misfortune.”

“So he’s not your Mate, then?”

My heart drops out. It’s just a question, but I feel like I’m an animal who’s just stepped in a lure and been yanked into the trees. “You could have just asked me directly if you were so interested. No need to trick me into it.”

Captain Astor’s smile is almost sickeningly innocent. “Yes. Because I’m sure a clever girl like you isn’t used to being tricked into things you don’t want to do.”

He holds my stare. A silent challenge.

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