ALANA SPRAYED Windex on the outside of the storm window in her bedroom, balanced on the ledge, leaning out with the scrubber stuck on an extension pole, squeegee inside within easy reach. A fly buzzed past into her bedroom. The scrubber whooshed across months of dust and dirt cemented into place by raindrops and snowflakes. She changed tools and reached with the squeegee, missing spots, smudging others. Finally she jammed a paper towel on the end of the extension pole and tried to manipulate it into the corners, sweating and puffing in the heat and humidity.
Yup. Windows. She’d gone over the edge.
If this was love, she’d rather go back to shallow infatuation. Melanie might have figured out everything about herself and about Alana, but it hadn’t helped her any, either. Emma was apparently a cat, which meant Edgar, her best friend, had been lying to her for two years; Edgar’s brother was so sexy Melanie had wanted to drop her pants right there in Edgar’s apartment; and after all her theorizing, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Edgar what was on her mind even when she had the chance. To say she was discouraged was an understatement. She’d even been on time for work again today because she hadn’t been able to sleep.
So, for sake of argument—which argument Alana had been having in her head for the past two days, which was what made window-washing start to look pretty good—what if Melanie was right, and Alana was operating out of fear of commitment? What if she were moving to Florida because she was scared of her feelings for Sawyer, scared of the vulnerability, scared of the potential for pain, of losing herself inside a man the way Melanie constantly did, the way their mother had, over and over?
What then? She couldn’t fix it by wanting to. And she wasn’t willing to stay in town for years of therapy while she tried.
On the other side of that same coin, what if she really was leaving because subconsciously she knew staying even for someone as wonderful as Sawyer wasn’t what she truly wanted? Maybe she knew she’d worry about her grandparents 24/7 and hate herself for sacrificing them to her desire for hot sex.
No, of course, Sawyer wasn’t just about hot sex, though, um, yes, mmm. Even plain vanilla sex had been beyond anything she’d ever experienced.
Because he was a skilled lover? Because she was wildly in lust? Because this was really forever-love?
Where the hell was the manual that came with emotions? Page four: if you experience this-and-such and that-and-so-on then definitely yes, do this-’n-that. Oh, that would be so nice.
In the meantime, she had raging confusion, nightly sleeping pills—except that one night at the lake house in Sawyer’s arms when she’d slept like a baby—and…windows.
The phone rang; she bumped her head coming back inside, then scraped her hip climbing back onto the floor, and nearly tripped racing for Betty Boop. “Hello?”
“’Lana, ’s Mel.”
“Melanie?” She put her finger in her free ear and bent for ward in that stupid way people did, as if being closer to the ground would help them hear better. Was her sister drunk? “You okay?”
“M’m’s her’.” She sounded as if she were talking through her teeth.
“What? I can’t understand you.”
“I s’d M’m’s her’.”
“What?”
“Hang on.” Rustling sounds. Murmured words. Walking sounds. What the—
“Alana?” Her voice was clear now, but echoing.
“Melanie, what is going on?”
“I couldn’t talk before—she was with Edgar—I said the boss was calling so I could—she just showed up—I can’t believe—she looks totally—”
“Wait, whoa, calm down. I can barely understand you. Start over. Who showed up, a real Emma?”
“No, not Emma. Mom.”
Air entered Alana’s mouth in a weak gasp. She sank onto Melanie’s bed and jumped up again when something sharp poked her. “Mom? Our mom? Is there? With you? Now?”
“She just showed up at work out of the blue, bang, like that.”
“Oh my God.” She turned, groped on Melanie’s bed, flung a hanger off onto the floor and sank down again…then jumped up and started pacing. “Why didn’t she come here to the house?”
“She doesn’t know—she didn’t know you were there. I told her. She’s going to come see you next.”
“Oh my God.” She closed her eyes. More emotional confusion. On the one hand, Tricia was her mother. There had been happy times together, and in her own odd way, Alana was sure she loved her daughters.
But. There was another hand, and on it was years of neglect that bordered on abuse.
Forget windows. Alana was going to flip out the rest of the way and start scrubbing baseboard corners with an old toothbrush.
“She says she’s turned over a new leaf, Alana.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Ha, ha. She wants to spend time with us. To get to know us again.”
“That does not sound familiar. How much time?”
“I…wasn’t real clear on that.”
“Oh my God.”
“She does look different, anyway. She’s wearing a normal nice sundress, no cleavage, no bared legs, but it’s not a flower-child hippie caftan, either. It looks like it could have come from Talbots.”
“Oh my God.” She paced harder, tapping her fist against her lower lip. “Where is she planning on staying?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh my—”
“Alana? You’d make me feel a whole lot better if you’d say something helpful instead of ‘Oh my God.’”
“Yes. Sorry. I’m just…” she whirled around, clasping her head with her free hand “…trying to take this in.”
“I know! I was sitting at my cubicle. I looked up and there she was. I nearly had a heart attack. Hang on. Be out in a second.”
“Out?”
“I’m in the bathroom. I wanted to warn you where she couldn’t hear me.”
“Thank you. I guess.”
“Oh, I think she’s talked to Gran and Grandad recently, too. Something she said made me think she had.”
“What did—”
“I really have to go. Talk to you later.”
“Mel, thanks for the—” the phone clicked off “—warning.”
One more time: Oh my God.
She hung Betty Boop’s receiver next to her beautiful plastic cartoon self, and wandered in a daze back to her half-cleaned windows. Three minutes later, she’d gone no farther than staring at the one she’d been in the middle of squeegeeing when Melanie called.
What was she going to do? About anything? Melanie, Gran and Grandad, Sawyer and now Mom. Alana felt responsible for all of their happiness and she didn’t know what to do to guarantee any of it. She was terrified Melanie was going to go for this Stoner person over poor lovesick Edgar. She was terrified Gran and Grandad would go downhill if she weren’t there to take care of them, no matter how often Mel and Sawyer said they didn’t need her. She was terrified Sawyer’s heart would break if she left town. And what did Mom want? Reconciliation? Disappearing years ago and now waltzing back in and expecting to take up where she left off? Was Alana supposed to bury all her resentment to make Mom happy, too?
Alana groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Back to where she started from. What did Alana want?
She wanted to talk to Sawyer.
He picked up after the first ring. Hearing his voice made her shaky with relief and teary and happy at the same time.
Love was just plain screwed up.
“Hey, there.” He sounded so glad to hear from her that her shakiness began to steady into warmth. “What’s going on?”
“Where do I start?”
“Uh-oh, that bad? Hang on, I’m in my car, let me pull over.”
“You on your way home? It can wait.”
“No, I’m on my way downtown to meet with the foundation board of directors.”
“Doh.” She whacked herself in the forehead. “I’m sorry, I knew that. You don’t need me bothering you. Seriously, I’m fine, I don’t—”
“You don’t think you’re more important to me than some board of directors?”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes, surprised she could continue to stand upright since she’d just turned into goo. “Well…okay. My mom is in town. She’s decided to reinsert herself into our lives.”
“Whoa.” He whistled. “That’s intense. I take it you’re not in the mood to let her in?”
“I’m…no. I guess I’m really not.” Her voice trembled; she felt a retroactive burst of anger. “But even though she rejected us, I feel like I can’t reject her. She’s my mom.”
“So on top of Melanie going nuts over another idiot, and me making your life miserable—”
“Ha.” She fell back onto her bed, managing a smile even though not a single one of her problems had been solved. “You don’t make me miserable.”
“Well, that’s progress.”
She giggled. She’d never thought of herself as a giggler, but Sawyer had turned her into one. Could she really stand moving to that hot buggy state and that small soulless condo and living life for her grandparents?
Could she really stand to stay here and ignore their eventual decline?
“All you owe her, Alana, is to listen. You’re an adult. It’s up to you whether you want her back in your life or not. I’d be willing to bet she knows that, and knows she’s been a pretty piss-poor mother. It’s brave of her to show up and try to make it right. Maybe if you thought about it that way…”
She breathed in until her shoulders nearly touched her ears. He was right. He was very right. And very wise. And she was crazy about him. “Yes. I’ll try that. It might help, thank you.”
“And if she turns out to be looking for money or some other handout you don’t want to give her, let me know and I’ll send some boys to work her over.”
Alana burst out laughing. “Nothing like a good pounding to help people see your point of view?”
“That’s what I’ve always said. Though it hasn’t worked on you yet.”
“Ha. You’re hardly a pounder.” She rolled over onto her stomach, stroked the pillow as if he were there with her.
“Not even a quarter pounder?”
She laughed helplessly. Even his stupid jokes were funny to her. She had it bad. “Thank you, Sawyer. I really do feel better.”
“I’m glad.” He was glad, she could hear it in his voice—his pain for her, his caring, his empathy. Did she mention she was crazy about him?
“Good luck with your complete rubber stamp of a job interview today.”
“I don’t even think there’s another candidate. My dad…” He snorted. “Well, I’m going to do a really good job. I’m not sure it’s the job he thinks I’m going to do, but…”
“Can you get the foundation board on your side for the change of course?”
“I have a pretty good chance. I did research and most of them support the arts community in Milwaukee in some way or the other, either privately or through their companies. I’ll go slowly at first. Get them behind this one project while continuing on our same path for now.”
“Then hit them when they least expect it?”
“You got it.”
She smiled dreamily. “Very schmaht.”
“And of course I’ll mention that I have a brilliant woman in mind who is trying to disentangle herself from pesky prior commitments to help me in a temporary capacity…”
Alana closed her eyes while her smile died a thousand deaths. So easy. It would be so easy to say yes, go ahead. But she wasn’t yet sure.
“Why don’t you call your grandparents, Alana. Level with them. Tell them about me, tell them about the job, tell them about your concerns for them. See what they say.”
She gave the pillow a whack of frustration. “I know what they’ll say. They’ll tell me to stay here even if they need me, even if my not coming would disappoint them terribly.”
“You might be…surprised.”
She shook her head. That wasn’t the way to go. If only there were someone else who could talk to them, someone they could be completely honest with. Like…Like…
The doorbell rang. She kept her voice calm, wished Sawyer luck with the interview, then got off the phone and glanced in the mirror, smoothed her hair, tucked in her shirt, then made a face and pulled it out again, re-messed her hair, went downstairs. Like…her mother.
At the front door, even though the doorbell rang again, she hesitated. Bless Melanie for warning her, but it might have been kinder to let Alana suffer through the shock than this agony of dread.
One…two…three. She reached for the doorknob at the same time she caught sight of the picture on the foyer wall. Melanie, Gran, Grandad…and Mom. Smiling. Embracing. Her family.
On that same beach, she now had pictures of Sawyer and herself. If only all six of them plus whatever disaster Melanie hooked up with could manage to live life peacefully and constructively close to each other. As a family.
She braced herself and opened the door to the mother she hadn’t seen in four years. Her first impression was that Mom looked the same. Older, but then so was Alana. Her second impression was, as Melanie had said, that her mother looked totally different. Older not only in years, but in peace and maturity, too. Tasteful makeup, and her hair was no longer a dragging mop, but cut short and attractively in a style that flattered her small features. Her dress was green and pale yellow with small patches of light blue, and it suited her reddish-blond hair and greenish eyes. It suited her person, too—youthful without being ridiculously young, like the stomach-baring jeans she’d worn on the last trip when she was pushing fifty.
Melanie’s eyes, Melanie’s hair, Melanie’s mouth, Alana’s feminine body.
“Hi.”
“Sweetheart. Alana.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, but she obviously knew better than to offer a hug. “Melanie told you I was coming. Warned you, I suppose.”
“Yes.” She stood a second longer, then couldn’t stand being so rude and stepped back, gesturing her mother into the house.
Of course the first thing her mother noticed was the picture. She peered at it closely for a while—still too vain for glasses—and tapped on the frame. “Happy times.”
“Mmm.” She wasn’t going to commit one way or the other. That had been a happy time, yes, but mostly because there was so much empty-of-Mom time surrounding it.
“The house looks good. Clean. You must have done that.” She turned suddenly. Alana had forgotten the way she darted and swooped, like a hummingbird. Or a wasp. “Who’s in my old room?”
“Guest room still.”
“Ah, yeah. Okay.” She flew into the living room, stood in the center, seemingly lost in thought. Alana found herself wanting to know what kind of growing-up memories she was reliving, but didn’t want to ask. “I talked to Mom and Dad last night, Alana. We had a long talk. I told them I was coming home to Milwaukee for a while. They said you’re moving down there in a few days?”
“Yes.” Her voice came out husky and she had to clear her throat. “Yes, I am.”
“Melanie says you have a new boyfriend here, though. A serious one.”
“Yup.” She folded her arms across her chest as if daring her mother to bring up any obvious issues or questions. Alana had enough people to discuss her troubles with.
“Getting straight to the point.” She took a quick step toward Alana. “I know I wasn’t a good mother. But I’d like to make it up to you now.”
“Thanks, but…I don’t really need a mother anymore.”
“Everyone needs a mother.”
“I’m leaving in a few days.”
“Alana…” She reached out a hand, took a deep breath. “I’m starting over. I need your help, yours and Melanie’s. I need you not to judge me for who I was, but who I’m trying to become. Melanie said she’s trying to start over, too. She and I…I guess we’re similar. Some things you don’t want to pass along to your kids. I don’t worry about her, though. No matter what crap she piles all over herself, she’ll always find a way to crawl out. But you…”
“Me?” Mom wasn’t as worried about sister screwup as she was about her sensible, capable older daughter? It just figured.
“I left you in charge. I made you grow up way too soon. You deserve some childhood now, a time to indulge yourself. You don’t need to spend the rest of your youth taking care of your gran and grandad, Alana.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
“Not because they don’t need you, though I don’t think they do quite yet.” She pressed her lips together as if she were amused, but Alana wasn’t in the mood to ask what was so funny. “Then why?”
Tricia stood straight and tall with her arms at her sides, weight evenly distributed, and it occurred to Alana she’d al ways seen her mom leaning or curving or holding on to someone or something. She looked alone this way…but also stronger. “After I spend time here getting to know my daughters again, I am moving down to Orlando. Because taking care of my parents is my job, and I think it’s about time I did my job. Your grandparents agree. Don’t you?”
Alana stared, blinked, stared again. There was no way her mother could manage taking care of herself, let alone taking care of Gran and Grandad. The idea was ridiculous. No one could change that much.
I need you not to judge me for who I was, but who I’m trying to become. Your grandparents agree…
If Mom went down to take care of Gran and Grandad, Alana would be able to stay here in the city she loved. Working with artists at a job she already knew she enjoyed. She’d be here for Melanie, too, who needed her even if she’d rather eat rats than admit it. And…there would be nothing standing in the way of a commitment to Sawyer.
Commitment. To one man. Maybe for the rest of her life.
She put a hand to her chest as a rush of emotion nearly lifted her off her feet.
SAWYER PULLED his car opposite the house on Betsy Ross Place. His interview had gone surprisingly well. Surprising since half his mind had been on Alana the entire time. He was worried about her, both for her own sake and for his. Her mother planning to stay in the area could easily tip the balance toward Alana leaving for Florida. What if palmetto bugs were more appealing than reconciling with Tricia Hawthorne?
He wanted to meet this woman. Not hoping to become her son-in-law—he’d only been about ninety percent kidding about wanting to work her over for what she’d done to her daughters—but to get a better sense of her and whether the relationship with her daughters was salvageable. Being human was the sad fate of most humans, but the ones who really wanted to could change. Alana was changing, he felt that about her—she was loosening, relaxing. Maybe even Melanie could change someday.
Or maybe not. But it was possible Mom Hawthorne could redeem herself. He hoped so. By making peace with her daughters, she’d fill a gaping hole in Alana’s life. He knew how much better he felt finding a job solution that would please both himself and his father. Jeremy Kern had for once called Sawyer instead of his brothers to talk about the prospects for the foundation, and then actually backed down on a few points when Sawyer held his ground.
With reformed mother and dutiful daughter reconciled, Alana might even be able to eject her baggage about letting him all the way into her life. There was definitely hope.
He reached into the backseat and pulled out the basket of flowers he’d bought impulsively from a florist on his way out of town. The riotous bouquet of blues and greens reminded him of Alana in the dress he’d bought her—and yeah, of the way she looked when she pulled off that dress and flung it across his basement.
Plus he was getting desperate. Maybe she needed several pounds of chocolate? A diamond bracelet?
She wasn’t the type to be swayed by gifts, which was one of the things he loved about her. But getting her to stay would sure as hell be easier if she were bribable.
Grinning in the now-familiar driveway, he got out of the car next to Alana’s Prius and tried to peer through the garage windows to see who else was home. Who knew what her mother drove, or whether she’d taken a cab. Melanie was probably still at work.
He really wanted the chance to talk to Alana alone. Life had been busy since that blissful day at the lake. They’d been all over together photographing and enjoying the city, and when they weren’t doing that, he’d been involved in his woodworking class and Habitat one afternoon and a lot of meetings and phone calls, and when he wasn’t doing that, he’d been researching how much sex two people could cram into each twenty-four-hour period.
A lot. All of it good. All of it pulling him deeper and deeper into certainty that Alana was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
If he could just get her to stay.
He used his key in the back door, pushed it open, listening before he called out, in case Alana and her mother were talking privately and didn’t need to be interrupted.
Nothing. He put the flowers on the kitchen table. “Alana?”
No answer. Was she in the shower? He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, poured himself a glass of water and gulped thirstily. Suits should be outlawed in the summertime.
“Anyone home?”
Still no answer. He was disappointed and slightly disconcerted. Maybe she was taking a walk? Though in this heat, he didn’t see the point. Was she on the phone upstairs? The telephone here wasn’t blinking In Use but maybe she was on her cell.
He walked through the kitchen door, down the hallway, up the stairs, peeked into the bedroom that used to be hers but was currently his—the room they’d shared their first night together, heavily drugged.
The shades were drawn, the room dim and quiet. But on the bed, a long Alana-shaped lump under the sheet. Exactly how she must have looked the first night he stumbled in here and didn’t notice her.
He was about to back out, tenderly leaving her to the sleep she obviously needed after her encounter with her mother, when she moved—a leg, then an arm—and made that small sleepy sound that had woken him that first night when the drug had started wearing off.
There was no way he could walk out now. He was drawn to her like an addict to his fix. At the side of the bed, he sat and watched. The curve of her bare shoulder, the cascade of her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her midsection.
This was one beautiful, sweet and supremely hot woman. If she left him, he’d shrivel like a grape left on the vine, surrendering his full, ripe prime to dried-up raisinhood.
She moved again, made another soft noise, and Sawyer was undone. He leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the smooth skin of her upper arm, when suddenly the sheet was swept back.
He made a choked sound of surprise.
His sweet soft angel was wearing a black lace bustier, black lace garter belt, black fishnet stockings and, incredibly, black stiletto ankle boots.
“Hey there.” She smiled with the innocence of a woman who’s been around the block enough times to make it dizzy. “I’ve been expecting you.”
He gaped like a fool. A fool whose pants were getting more and more uncomfortable by the second.
“Alana. You were—I mean, you weren’t—Mmph.” She threw her arms around him, caught him in a kiss and pulled him back onto the mattress.
“No, I wasn’t.” Long legs, tanned, muscled, capped with the outrageously sexy shoes lifted, extended and landed, bent and apart, on the bed. “How was your day?”
“Uh…” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. “Getting better all the time.”
“Mmm, I’m glad. Tell me more.”
“Um…it was…oh, man…wait a second.” He made it off the bed away from her, but only to take off his clothes, unable to takes his eyes off her. That first night he’d compared her to a black-and-white movie star. Now she was a black-and-white version of the best sexual fantasy he’d ever had.
She rolled to her side, her breasts pushed tantalizingly together in the dark lace cups of the bra, and blinked sweetly. “Think you’ll get the job?”
“Uh. Don’t know yet.” His shoes were gone. Socks: gone. Pants: gone. Brain: half-gone. Bed and candles had been fabulous, he had no problem whatsoever with bed and candles, but whatever had gotten into her today worked fine for him, too. Just fine.
“Well.” She stroked her fingers up and down the valley of her cleavage. “Be sure to let me know of any new developments.”
He made an incoherent sound and threw himself back onto the bed, stroking every inch of her smooth curves. “I think there’s going to be a new development in about thirty seconds.”
She grinned wickedly, produced a condom from somewhere, who knew, at this point he could barely see, then pushed him on his back and straddled him, lowered herself slowly.
There would never be another woman for him. He knew it as surely as he knew he was going to last an embarrassingly short time, because her hotter-than-hot outfit and lack of inhibition was making any attempt at control beyond him. She started to move, up and down, swinging her hair, arching her back. Oh, man. Oh, no.
He tried to say his five-times table and couldn’t remember a single one. Five times Alana equaled…Alana. Five time sex equaled…more sex. He needed to slow down, make this good for her.
She closed her eyes, raised her arms, crossed them behind her head, riding him with new possessive confidence that was as much of a turn-on as the way she looked.
Gone. He groaned and came in bursts that made his whole body shudder.
Oh, no. Not since he was a teenager…“Alana. I’m sorry. You were so incredible, I couldn’t hold back.”
She grinned languorously, collapsed onto his chest, breathing hard, eyes closed, hair tumbling, cheeks pink. “Yeah, gee, Sawyer, I’m really annoyed that you found me so sexy.”
“Damn, woman.” He wiped his hand over his forehead, filmed with sweat. “Where did you get those shoes?”
“They’re Melanie’s.”
“Ah.” He grinned, still slightly out of breath. “So you are more like her than everyone thought.”
She looked at him oddly. “What do you mean?”
“Your gran said you two were more similar than you knew.”
“Hmm…maybe.” She kissed him, kissed him again, dragged her tongue across his lower lip. “Except for one ver-r-ry important difference.”
His body felt as if it had weights on it; he’d been pretty sure his drive was spent by that atomic blast of an orgasm, but the more she kissed him, the more he became conscious again of those miraculous black-lace-clad breasts against his chest and those hot-as-hell shoes, and the more he thought round two wasn’t out of the question after all. “What difference?”
“Melanie is afraid of commitment. It’s why her relationships are all disasters.”
He pulled back, trying to pay close attention, at the same time he couldn’t help running his hands up and down her gorgeous firm—
He suddenly heard what she hadn’t said.
“You’re not afraid of commitment?”
“Nope.” She nuzzled his neck, bit gently, then soothed the spot with her lips and tongue. His libido definitely noticed that. “To prove it, I plan to commit myself immediately.”
“Alana.” He was split in three—his head was paying attention to her words, his heart was paying attention to their meaning, his other head was paying attention only to her beautiful body. “What are you saying?”
“I love you.” She grinned at what must be the same stunned look she was wearing at Bradford beach when he used the same words. “And I’m not going to Florida.”
“You’re—” He could barely believe that what he’d wanted for what seemed like years but was only a little over a week—God, could that be right?—was about to come true. “You changed your mind?”
“I’m staying here.”
“Alana.” He crushed her to him, had to loosen his grip when she made suffocation noises against his shoulder. “What finally persuaded you?”
“Mom. She’s planning to stay awhile for the whole reconciliation project, then she’s going to Florida to take care of Gran and Grandad. When she told me, I felt the most amazing relief. And I realized that I wasn’t afraid of what was between us, I was afraid of not holding up my end of family responsibility.”
“Alana, you’ve been doing that your whole life.” He shook his head. Too many sacrifices, too hard and serious a life. If she’d let him, he’d spoil her rotten. Maybe even if she didn’t let him.
“I know. But I’m ready to stop.” She made a face. “Okay, well, I might have to help steer Melanie away from Stoner first.”
“Agreed.” He smoothed her beautiful dark hair back off her forehead. “But you’ll have me to help.”
Her smile made his whole world bright with possibilities it hadn’t had for a long time.
“So if you’re not going to Florida, how about somewhere else?” He lowered his hands to her hips and started her rocking back and forth again, heart full of what he wanted to say, though he knew she wasn’t ready to hear it yet. But he also felt with every instinct he possessed that it was only a matter of time before she was. “I’m thinking St. Thomas.”
“Us?”
“Mmm.”
“Ooh.”
“What would you think of it being our honeymoon?”
She started; her eyes went wide with shock.
He burst out laughing, unable to help it. Dirty trick. “I’m sorry, how not afraid of commitment are you?”
“I…we…it’s…”
He rolled her over, kissed her sweet, perfect mouth. “You know, now that you’ve given in to staying in Milwaukee, I’m thinking I need something new I can convince you to do.”
“Oh?” She locked her arms around him as he nestled between her legs where he belonged.
“What do you think? You stay in town and I’ll work on you, slow and steady, until you agree to marry me.”
She laughed, her eyes lit, cheeks turned pink with happiness—the sight he wanted to see every day for the rest of his life. “Sawyer, I can’t commit to anything…better than that.”