Page 61 of Dark Rover's Gift

"I have something for you," he said, pulling the box from his pocket and setting it on the counter between them.

She looked at the box, then at him, her expression shifting from curiosity to something more guarded. "Din..."

"It's not a ring, so don't look so panicked." He ran a hand through his hair. "I bought this fifty years ago. A week after we met, actually. I saw it in a shop window in Edinburgh, and I knew that you had to have it. Don't ask me why. It was an impulse, an odd gut feeling."

Her hand moved toward the box, then stopped. "You held on to it through all those years?"

He nodded. "After the blowup, I swore I'd give it to the next woman I dated, but I could never go through with it. I carried it with me through every move, and I never found anyone I wanted to gift it to." He pushed the box closer to her. "Please. Just open it."

As she picked up the box with careful fingers, he felt like a cosmic circle was closing, and when she opened it, her soft intake of breath made all those years of waiting worth it.

"Oh, Din." Her finger hovered over the Celtic pattern, not quite touching the silver. "It's beautiful."

"It's Scottish. Late Victorian. The shopkeeper told me the pattern means eternal love—no beginning and no end." He wasbabbling now, but couldn't stop. "I know it's tarnished, but I didn't want to clean it. Seemed wrong to erase all those years. Like they are part of its story now. Our story."

She looked up at him, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I can't believe you kept it for me even though you couldn't have known I was even alive."

He reached out, covering her hand with his. "It made no sense, and sometimes it just lay forgotten for years, but then I would find it again when I was packing, and I'd tell myself to donate it, sell it, give it away. But I never could."

She lifted the brooch from its velvet nest, holding it up to catch the kitchen light. The amber glowed, warm and rich like honey, like whiskey.

"I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." He took the brooch from her, fingers clumsy as he worked the old clasp. "May I?"

She nodded, and he moved behind her and gathered a bit of fabric from her black top, careful not to damage the delicate lace detail as he pinned the brooch just above her heart. The metal was cool under his fingers, but where his knuckles brushed her skin through the fabric, she was warm.

"There." He took a step back.

She turned to face him, one hand going immediately to the brooch. With the backdrop of her dark clothing and dark hair, the silver and amber seemed to glow, drawing the eye like a star in the night sky.

"How does it look on me?" she asked.

"Perfect." His voice sounded rougher than intended. "Absolutely perfect."

She rose up on her toes, pulling his head down for a kiss that was soft and fierce at the same time. Din could taste coffee and emotion, and for a moment, he thought that she might say the words he longed to hear.

When her lips parted, he held his breath.

"Thank you," she said instead. "I'll look at it properly later, really look at it when I can take my time. Thank you for never giving up on me."

Later, when she had time, her psychometric abilities might let her see more than just metal and stone. She might see the years of waiting, the hope and heartache, all the moments he'd held it and thought of her. All the times he'd almost given up but didn't.

"You're welcome," he said for lack of anything better to say. The words felt so inadequate for the magnitude of the moment.

She touched the brooch again, a gesture he suspected would become a habit. "I don't know if I should wear it to work. It's so distinctive that Atzil might have a problem with it."

"Tell him it's a present from me and I insist on you wearing it at all times as a good talisman." Din picked up his forgotten sandwich. "I actually believe that it is. Who knows, maybe holding on to it for fifty years was what brought you back to me."

"Perhaps it did." She looked down at the brooch. "It's gorgeous."

It wasn't the candlelit dinner he'd once imagined, it wasn't the perfect romantic gesture, but as he watched her clear their plates, the brooch glinting against her black top with each movement, he thought perhaps this was better.

Not a fantasy, but reality. Not perfect, but theirs.

Just like everything else about them, it was imperfect and absolutely right.

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