Page 306 of Falling Backwards
His hard swallow.
His gently earnest blue eyes, which have a glisten to them.
“I don’t just love you, Maggie,” he tells me.“I like you.I want and need you.I respect you.I treasure you.I joyfully grow as a person…I lovemyself…because of you.”
God, what those significant words do to me—especially the last ones.I feel them all from him and for myself towards him; I have for so long.
Alongside the welcome ache they bring, hopeful nervousness is thundering through me now.
Is this…isthis what I think it is?Is this what itfeels likeit is?Or do I have it wrong?
My voice is reduced to a whisper.“All of that is exactly how I feel about you.About us.”
Luke smiles and my throat constricts from it and what I’ve said.Even if I am misreading things, the way I feel about him remains the same; whether this is the significant moment I hadn’t dared to dream of for today or simply a heartfelt one, he is my home.
I tug on his hands, urging him to mirror me in taking another step in.He does and we meet in a firm kiss—twofirm kisses, then a softer one from him to the corner of my lips, from me to his cheek.
He frees his hands of mine.I get ready to wrap him in a hug—but he takes hold of one of my hips and sinks down into kneeling.
My hopeful nervousness bursts into ecstatic amazement that has real tears coming on fast.
It feels like my heart stops and breaks into a wild sprint at the same time.
I take a soft, deep breath and splay my own trembling hand over my L necklace—splay myrighthand over it because Luke didn’t leave my left one lonely for long.
He holds it while his other pulls a ring straight out of his pants pocket, a small bit of gorgeousness I had absolutely no idea he’d been carrying around.The elegantly arranged stones on it sparkle even in this shaded area as he holds it between us.
Its splendor doesn’t come anywhere close to that of the honest, expressive love in his eyes.
“Marry me, then?”he asks.“Take our rightness for each other one step further?”
I want to scream,‘Yes!’for all of the Water Rocks and trees and lake and sky to hear.I even take a big breath to do it.
Then it huffs out of me just for him, just for me: “Yes,Luke.”
It shouldn’t be possible for that splendor of his expression to heighten, but as an eye-crinkling grin comes to life on his face,it does.
And as I soak it up, that grin spreading to me, I love him impossibly more.
A throaty, exultant laugh fires out of him and out of me, too, and he slips the ring onto my finger and whooshes to stand upright.We kiss, kiss, draw each other into a hug, stop hugging so I can take his face in my hands and he can hold my wrists and we can kiss again.Then he pulls my left hand off his cheek and we admire my ring—except my vision is quickly becoming too blurred with tears for that.
It’s perfect, though, I know.It fits me in every way.
Just like Luke.
After we’ve wiped away both my teardrops and the ones that have escaped him, I get a long look at this glittering token of our promise to each other; it’s stunning on my finger, and I already can’t wait to see its companion on him.I tell him so and he agrees with a lighter laugh.
“My God,” I say next with a sniffle.“I’m so happy we’re here.”
“So am I.”He sighs, then chuckles.“Engaged at the Water Rocks.”
I meet his eyes again.“This was the exact right place.”
“I knew it was.Had to bring us full-circle.”
My nod is brief because he’s taking my chin in the notch of two fingers, tipping it up as he inches in and down.
His voice dips lower.“Had to be out here with you when I told you…” he thumbs at my bottom lip, “…that I was the first person to kiss you and I’m gonna be the last.”
