By noon on her fourth day at Sea Ranch, with the sun directly above her, Juliet was so hungry she could hear her stomach rumbling. She was also suddenly conscious of an annoying buzz and turned to look behind her. Dumbfounded, she spied a small, four-cornered object overhead, whirling its way in the direction of where she and her easel had been positioned all morning, perched on the edge of the cliff that overlooked the broad Pacific and the curving coastline.
“Be quiet! Go away!” she shouted at it, shaking her paintbrush at the heavens.
The move only showered her hair and forehead with the green paint she’d been using to create the stand of redwoods that appeared in the upper portion of the watercolor she’d been slaving over for hours.
The whirring machine flew ever closer—and lower—regardless of her stream of protests at having such a bucolic scene disturbed by the whooshing, insistent sounds of what could only be a pesky drone.
A drone? It can’t be...
The mechanical spider landed not ten feet from where she sat. Heart pounding, she stood up from her painter’s stool and peered more closely at a net pouch attached to the drone’s frame—now soundless—as if obeying her command. She glanced around the broad meadow behind her and squinted at the enormous stand of trees that ringed it. Disappointment flooded her chest. There was nothing unusual in view.
Probably some kid staying at the lodge... trying out his Christmas present...
Then something turquoise caught her eye. She took a few tentative steps toward the drone and saw that within the confines of the net was a small, highly recognizable Tiffany box with hand-printed letters on the outside that said, “Open Me.”
“What the—?” she murmured, advancing a few more steps. Her heart felt as if it had done a backflip above her ribs. With a trembling hand, she leaned down and liberated the box from its carry pouch. Her fingers shook even more when she opened the lid and saw that a tiny note had been squeezed inside.
I just got back from a month in the jungles of
Africa on a drone job with no Wi-Fi for miles.
P.S. You asked me to propose to you
“on another day,” so I am:
Will you marry me?
Again she scanned the meadow, a quizzical smile beginning to pull at her lips. With a whoop, she tossed aside the skinny watercolor brush in her right hand and then freed a small velvet box from inside the turquoise one made of glossy cardboard. She pried open the second box to find a vintage emerald and diamond ring that she instantly recognized—and gasped. It was the very engagement ring that Claudine Deschanel had worn all these years after the love of her life had been killed on a swift boat in Vietnam four decades ago.
“Where are you, Major Deschanel?” she shrieked to the clear skies above.
The open velvet box clutched in her hand, Juliet looked up to see a tall, familiar figure in a leather flight jacket emerge from the woods. Even at a distance of a hundred yards, she could see he was holding a black plastic rectangle with a joystick. As she had with her paintbrush, he tossed the controls aside and came galloping toward her.
“Did you see the message?” he shouted.
“Yes!” she shouted back, running toward him.
“And what’s your answer?” he demanded, heading right for her.
“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!” she yelled across the tall grass, “but how did you find me and why did it take you so long?”
And then he was a foot away. He caught her in his arms, crushing her entire length against his body.
“I was stuck in Kenya—with no Wi-Fi—in the rainforest. And your brother Jamie told me how to find you.”
“Oh, God, Finn, no Wi-Fi? I just want you to know I am never traveling to Africa!”
Between kisses he glanced around. “Man, you live in one, beautiful part of the country, and let me tell you, it’s great for flying drones! The civilian kind, I mean.” He leaned back and asked, “Where’s the ring? Did you put it on? Claudine guessed you were a size five and had it sized.” His eyes scanning her paint-spattered face and hair, he asked, “Do you always splatter paint all over yourself?”
“At least it’s green and matches the ring,” Juliet said, giddy with amazement. “I was shaking my brush at that annoying sound buzzing above my head and paint went everywhere!” She brought her right hand between them, the opened velvet box still clutched between her fingers. “Now, let’s see this ring in all its glory.” She pulled it from its nest and handed it to him.
“It was Claudine’s engagement ring.”
“I know,” whispered Juliet with a catch in her throat. “I can’t believe she took it off her finger.”
“She and I hope it fits.”
Juliet looked up at him. “How about you do the honors? Then I’ll know this isn’t a dream.”
“I’m a little creaky with my left leg, you understand, but here goes...”
Finn slowly sank onto his right knee with a barely audible groan. “Mademoiselle Juliette,” he said in an excellent French accent, “Allez-tous tous marier de moi et mon épouse bien-aimée?”
He slipped the emerald and diamond ring in its eighteen carat gold setting onto the second finger of her left hand and smiled up at her. It fit perfectly and the jewel sparkled in the noonday sun.
“I understood the first part of what you just said... ‘will you marry me,’” she said gazing down at him, one knee still on the grass, “but then—?”
“I said, ‘Will you marry me and be my beloved wife?’”
“Oh, Finn,” she said, tears filling her eyes, “oui, mon amour... absolutely oui!”
Finn grinned up at her. “We’ve got to work on that accent.”
She offered him a hand as he struggled to his feet. Once upright, he pulled her into his arms again.
“Where, exactly, have you been, again?” she demanded, her question muffled by his chest. “And why didn’t you find a way to contact me?”
Leaning back, he replied, “Like I said, in Africa. The same day you flew home, a rich client of the guy who runs the drone school in Rennes got a big assignment in Kenya. Feeling as rotten as I did after you left, I talked him into taking me with him.”
“I’m glad you felt rotten,” Juliet declared. “You went totally cold on me in Talloires.”
Finn cast her a guilty look. “I know. It took me a full week piloting these gizmos over jungles, along rivers with flying snakes, and above preserves of endangered animals before I finally realized what had happened to me in Talloires.”
“You thought I was just giving in to what other people wanted of me.”
“No. I thought you were dumping me, just like Kim had.”
“What? That’s crazy!”
“Kinda,” he agreed. “But you’d just turned me down when I asked you to marry me, and then you left. I felt left—and I didn’t like it. It brought back a lot of unhappy memories. Now I know that I went directly into zombie mode that lasted ten days.”
“But Talloires wasn’t at all like what happened with you and Kim,” she protested.
“Of course it wasn’t. It just felt like it was. My bad.”
“When I didn’t hear from you, I thought...”
“I know, sweetheart. You thought I was dumping you. Once I got it through my dumb skull that my own personal baggage had hijacked me when you flew back to San Francisco—and that your having to fly home for a perfectly valid reason wasn’t what I thought it was—I had no way of getting in touch until I got back to Paris. Then I heard all your messages as soon as my plane landed and... here I am.”
“I’m not ever dumping you—as you so elegantly put it—so don’t you dare do that to me again!”
“I promise, never again. I took the Africa job right after you left because I was a pretty sad dude and going to the back-of-the-beyond seemed like a good solution.”
“The old bear-in-his-cave defense?” she shot back. “That’s never a good solution!” She stared at him a moment and added, “But I suppose it’s better than jumping off the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge—which is what I felt like doing.”
“Or into a river with flying snakes.”
“Listen to me, flyboy, it was absolutely horrible on my end when you went into that radio silence.” She realized she had started to cry.
“Oh, sweetheart... never, ever again” he repeated, kissing both her eyelids. “You and I were meant to be together the second we crashed into each other that day.”
“You think so?” she sniffed, wondering at how disgusting she must look on her engagement day with tears streaming down her cheeks and paint on her forehead and in her hair. She clasped him even tighter, reveling in how blessed it felt to feel safe and loved.
A sudden thought made her frown and she gazed up at her newly intended.
“What?” demanded Finn, as always, attuned to her every mood.
“Where on God’s earth are we going to live? You’ve developed clients in Europe and I have committed to my parents that I’ll help with the management of the hotel. And then there’s my art, which hasn’t started to make money and—”
“Not a problem,” he insisted, seizing her left hand and admiring his aunt’s ring winking on her engagement finger. “I’m a military brat! I’ll live anywhere you want —except in Colorado or Nevada. And there’s a great VA hospital around here, I’m told.”
“I’ve never been to Colorado,” Juliet said, the rush of happiness and relief making her slightly dizzy. “I’m sure it’s a nice place, but we never have to set foot in that state, if you don’t want to. And as a girl who loves fog and cool weather, I’m fine about giving a pass to Nevada, too! But what about your work? Did you get your final certificate? And what about France?”
Finn raised his gaze from the sparkler on her hand to cast her a mischievous look.
“Yup, I passed everything in France and possess a good-as-gold commercial drone pilot’s license.” He shot her a grin. “And today, I applied for one here.”
“You did? In California?”
“It shouldn’t take long to get it, given my resume. I also had a meeting at the San Francisco Airport yesterday with a high-level security company that’s forming here with a plan for expansion as grandiose as the company in Rennes. Just like in France, they’ll be independent contractors using small drones to inspect railway lines, power plants, stadiums before big events... basically infrastructure assignments all over the country, plus Canada and Mexico. The guys I met with are also former U.S. Air Force pilots and drone operators. We signed an agreement late yesterday guaranteeing me a place as one of the partners as soon as all the paperwork is filed here in the great state of California.”
“No! You did all that since you landed here?”
Finn flashed her a grin and put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her back to her easel that still sat near the cliff’s edge.
“I started putting the pieces in place as soon as I heard and read all your sweet messages that you left everywhere for me.”
“Well, why didn’t you put me out of my misery and call me when you got back from Africa?”
“I did, but nothing went through on your phone.”
Chastened, she nodded. “Not quite as bad as Africa, but there’s spotty cell service up here.” She cast him a sheepish look, adding, “Plus I just realized... I turned off my phone in disgust four days ago and threw it in my purse.”
“Your bad,” Finn said, deadpan.
“But I hadn’t heard from you once since I’d flown home!”
Finn squeezed her hand. “I know. My bad—again. When I couldn’t get hold of you, I called Jamie and he gave me more gory details on the family fireworks finale regarding the takeover ruckus. He then told me you’d headed north to ‘lick your wounds,’ as he put it. I caught him up about what I’d been doing in Africa and that I needed time to get my ducks in a row before... well... before I showed up here on barely bended knee.”
And all that time, I’d been filled with doubt and misery. Oh, ye of little faith... she silently scolded herself.
Finn leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, murmuring, “I figured I’d better have a profession lined up before I asked Bradshaw Thayer the Third for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Juliet could only shake her head and say, “Finn... you are so amazing.”
“It feels pretty great to have as a goal keeping civilians safer in this New Normal we’ve created for ourselves.”
“Amen to that, but let’s just hope one day soon somebody designs one of these critters to fly a lot more quietly.”
“Compared to a jet helicopter, they’re whispering—but I hear ya!” He grinned. “And, believe it or not, the guys I’m partnering with are working on it.”
Juliet shook her head in wonder as she began packing up her easel and paint supplies. Finn took a few minutes to gather up his own equipment and then the two of them trudged along a well-worn path to the lodge.
“The new company has leased offices in downtown San Francisco,” he disclosed, “in one of those rehabbed piers near the Ferry Building.”
Juliet halted, mid-path, to offer him a rueful smile. “I used to stare down at the Ferry Building from my old office at GatherGames. The clock tower was practically the only thing left standing after the quake of 1906. Who’d ever dream my future husband would one day be working on the Embarcadero?”
Back at the lodge, Juliet opened the door to her room and they walked inside where Finn leaned the easel he’d carried for her against one wall next to her paint box that she’d placed on the floor. Then he deposited the small drone and the control box beside her art equipment.
“Um... and by the way,” Juliet said cautiously, “I have to ask you something.”
Ever attuned to the slightest nuances of her tone, Finn’s own countenance grew wary. “What?”
“In these months of flying civilian drones, did it ever trigger any more bad memories of your time in those unmarked trailers at Creech?”
Finn turned his back to stare out the window at the spectacular ocean view fanning out beyond the cliff. “Aren’t you really asking if it’s ever going to be safe to be with a guy like me?”
“No! I’m asking about how it’s been for you, working in the same arena that caused you so much pain before! You’ve just told me you’ve committed to a profession that deals with these machines so you could stay in California, and—”
Finn turned, his apology evident in his eyes as well as his words. “I’m sorry. It’s just that... well... the truth is, my worry that I’ll suddenly flip out is always in the back of my mind, which is why your question just got the reaction it did. But all I can say is that, so far, flying civilian drones in France and on that project in Africa became part and parcel of the therapy I did to try to rewire those memoires.”
“Rewire? How does that work?”
She sat on the edge of her bed and patted the space beside her. Finn joined her and seized one of her hands, his thumb drawing small circles in her palm. “Well, as Doctor A says, laying down good experiences can sometimes override the bad. If I start to get wiggy, I just keep telling myself that I’m flying these machines for the good of people... and that I’m using the skills Uncle Sam’s taxpayers paid to teach me for things that will help, not hurt our country.”
“You know something?” she said without fanfare, cupping her other hand on top of his. “You are the dearest and most amazing man I’ve ever known.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his doubt evident.
“Because you are one of the few males of the species I have ever met who was willing to admit he needed help—and then you went out and got it.”
“It was that or... well... you know what I thought my only other choice was back then. Thank God I figured out that wasn’t the answer.”
“And you never gave up. That’s what I so admire about you.”
Finn wrapped his arms around Juliet’s shoulders while she melted against his chest, tucking her head under his chin.
“Meeting you,” he murmured against her ear, “made me see that life could be good again. You were something ... someone... to try to get well for.”
“Oh, Finn,” she whispered. “You had to get well for yourself.”
He held her at arm’s length. “Of course, but bumping into you in front of the American Hospital made my recovery much more interesting,” he replied, joking now. “I’ll probably never be perfectly okay, you know?” he warned, serious again. “There will be the nightmares. The thousand-yard stare. And I’m sure you’ll see me diving for cover from time to time. You need to know that... and you need to be willing to accept it and live with it. So do I.”
“I do accept. And you need to accept that I often jump to conclusions and have to remind myself to get the facts, first—and be willing to act in my own, selfish interest some of the time. If it wasn’t for meeting you, I doubt I would ever have had the moxie to leave the stupid life I had at my old job and go to Paris to study art.”
Finn wrapped his arms around her again.
“By the way,” Juliet asked, looking into the dark pools of his blue eyes, “how do you feel about... living in a hotel atop Nob Hill?”
“The Bay View? The hotel your great, great granny designed and built? I’d be honored.”
“You haven’t even seen it!”
“Yes I have. I sneaked in to meet Jamie there briefly for coffee before the rental car was delivered. But I do have one question.”
“Uh oh... what?”
“Do we have to use room service all the time with this deal?”
“Sometimes we’ll want to,” Juliet answered, relieved at his amused tone, “but I’ll also wrangle kitchen privileges for you, if you want, so you can cook for us whenever you feel like it. And maybe the chef will even let you sous chef for him once in a while.”
“That seals it. You’re on!”
“Oh, and I can offer Aunt Claudine her own suite whenever she comes for a visit if,” she added with a smile spreading across her face, “you and I can spend part of each year in France, right? I still want to take more classes at L’École.”
“Boot oov course,” Finn teased in a phony French accent. “Once I help get the new company up and running, let’s plan to spend holidays, birthdays, and anytime we can afford it over there.”
“On the barge?”
Finn’s grin practically spread ear to ear. “Of course on a barge!”
Juliet threw her arms around her soon-to-be husband, kissing him soundly.
“Vive La France!” she whispered.
“I solemnly promise that we Deschanels will, upon occasion, return to our floating home in the Motherland...”
He gently pushed her down on the hotel bed, its plush coverlet a smooth landing place for them both. Juliet held her arms open and Finn soon lay beside her.
“Home?” she murmured. “It’s us, Major Deschanel. Wherever we happen to be.”