Page 45 of She is the Darke

“If you marry Tyler, we aren’t just best friends anymore, Demi! We will be literal sisters. If Danielle stands in the way of my dream, I will hunt her down.”

“Oh my God, you psycho,” Griffin laughed.

Demi paused her giggling enough to say, “I love you.”

“I love you too, obviously.”

Tyler was smiling down at her with dancing eyes. “Me too.”

The smile slipped from Demi’s face. “What?” she murmured.

“I love you too.”

“Oooh,” she wheezed out, her eyes prickling with emotion. “Boy, I was not prepared.”

“Yeah you are. You’ve felt it. You knew this was coming.”

She slipped her hand into his as they approached the entrance for the pumpkin patch. “You already know I love you too. I have since high school.”

“Me too,” he murmured, dredging up all the butterflies in her stomach. “I just didn’t understand what I was feeling until I came back here.”

“They’re with me,” Demi told Ben at the gate, and he handed them four wristbands to get into the Halloween celebration at the pumpkin patch. The celebration would go until ten tonight for the kids’ events, and until two in the morning for the adults-only events. Tonight was going to be amazing.

Tyler held her hand and led her toward one of the firepits near an apple-cider stand. Perhaps he was cold and needed a warm-up before they hit the haunted house, or the haunted corn maze.

But when they drew closer, she recognized some of the faces of the people sitting around this particular firepit.

Her parents were here, as well as Mr. Durock and his wife, and all of Rachel’s brothers.

It was the Darke and Durock families here, and no one else.

Confused, she slowed. “Mom?”

Her mom lifted her chin higher into the air. She had an emotional smile on her lips, and tears in her eyes. She nodded. “Hey baby.”

Baffled, she looked up at Tyler, and he was already grinning down at her. “I asked our families to spend some time together.”

“What? Why?” she asked as the first inklings of a suspicion took her.

“Because they are going to have to get used to holidays together.” Tyler knelt down on one knee and looked up at her. “Look, I have like four acorns, three paperclips, and sixteen pennies in one pocket, and I can ask you to be my girlfriend right now, on Halloween, your favorite day of the year. That’s your first option.”

“What’s…what’s the other option?”

“I can ask you the question I really want to. It’s too soon, I know. Rachel said you might freak out. I know what I want, and I will ask you on one of these Halloweens. If you need a year to just be my girlfriend? Okay. I’m not going anywhere. But if you know what you want too, I’ve got a ring in the other pocket. It’s a shiny one. I researched what crows like, and I took my parents and my sister to help pick it out. You choose which question you want me to ask.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her eyes burned with tears as she realized what he was really proposing. She looked to her mother, and she had her hands clasped over her mouth. She nodded her approval.

“Say the ring, for God’s sake!” Rachel called over the firepit.

She laughed, and the tears streaked down her cheeks as she nodded to Tyler. “Ask me the question you want to.”

“Yeah?” he asked, dark eyebrows arching up.

She nodded, trying to control her crying.

He pulled a velvet pouch from his pocket and pulled a solitaire diamond ring out, held it up for her to see. “Crow,” he started, and she broke down, just hung her head crying. Good man. He was talking to both parts of her. “Crow,” he said again, his heart in his bright-blue eyes. “You picked me a long time ago, but I was just a stupid boy who didn’t understand. This is me understanding, and choosing you back.” He cleared his throat.“Demi. Rhone. Darke. I freakin’ love your last name, woman, but I want to change it. I want to spend it all with you. The whole life. Everything I’ve been fighting, I want that with you. Will you marry me?”

Her face crumpled, and the tears were freely streaming. She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you,” she squeaked out past her tightening vocal cords.

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