Letting Go (26 page)

“I remember finding it, seeing that you wrote ‘yes’ and grinning like a moron the rest of the day.”

She slid a finger over the waxy hearts, as though trying to pull even more memories from the card.

“So, Quinn,” Luke said, pulling her attention back to him again. “Is your answer still the same? Will you be mine? Forever?”

In her surprise, it took her a moment to realize what was happening. While she’d been looking away, at the card, Luke had pulled a small gray box from his front pocket. He slowly opened it. Nestled inside was a ring.

Quinn gasped in surprise. She clutched the card in one hand and reached for Luke with the other. She pulled him in for a kiss.

“Is that a yes?” Luke asked as her lips pressed against his.

“Yes,
that’s absolutely a yes!” she said. The bed bounced with her excitement.

She threw her arms around Luke yet again
, squealing in excitement.

“Can I put the ring on you?” he asked.

She released him and backed away. She held out her hand to him and he took it. When he’d held up the box, she hadn’t taken a good look inside. She’d known it was a ring, of course, but she hadn’t gotten a good look at it.

Now that she had, now that Luke was putting it on her finger, she felt a tear trickle down. “Oh, Luke! It’s beautiful! I mean, it’s gorgeous…it’s perfect…it’s…I love it!”

“Yeah?” he asked. His relief was written all over his face. “You don’t even want to know how many antique stores I went to,” he said with a laugh. “I had it narrowed down to three and then had Carly give me some input. This was actually the one I liked the best, too.”

She gazed at the ornate design of the vintage ring. “I could not have picked out a better ring if
I’d done it myself. Luke…” She took a deep breath. “There really are no words. I’m at a loss. Other than to say, I love you. I love you so much.”

He pulled her in for another quick kiss. “
I love you, too. But you know that. And because I love you, I’m not willing to spend another night without you.”

She let out a sigh as she glanced at her ring again. “I would never hear the end of if I moved in with you before we were married. My mother would never forgive me.” She gave a small shrug. “But I just might not care. I—”

“I don’t want to cause any more problems with your mom. That is why…” He faded off as he leaned toward the drawer again. “I have this.” He pulled out another envelope.

She laughed in giddy anticipation. “You are just full of surprises!”

“Please tell me you still like surprises,” he seriously said.

“Love them!”

“Then I really hope you love this.”

“What is it?” she anxiously asked.

He hesitated wondering if this would be going just a bit too far. He pushed ahead anyway. “Plane tickets and resort reservations.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to figure out exactly what he was trying to say. When she couldn’t, she gave her head a slight shake in confusion.

“Remember, you love surprises,” Luke said nervously. She motioned for him to continue. “So, if you’re agreeable, I think I have one hell of a surprise for you.”

She smiled despite herself, wishing he would hurry things along. The suspense was going to make her insane. “Go on!”

“In here are two airline tickets to the Cayman Islands. Waiting for us there is a honeymoon suite.”

“A…honeymoon suite?” She took a moment to process that. “You want to get married in the Cayman Islands?”

He nodded. “It was Carly, actually, that suggested a wedding away. She said that since you’ve already had a big wedding, you had told her once you didn’t want to go through that whole process again. As for me, I don’t really care. I just want to marry you.
However
, I want it to be something amazing and fantastic. I want it to be something that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. So I thought why not get married in a tropical paradise?”

“I…That’s…
When
?” she finally sputtered.

“We can leave in the morning.” Luke looked at her hopefully.

“In the morning? Which morning…?” Her head was spinning and her heart was pounding but not in a bad way. “Not
tomorrow
morning?”

“Surprise…?” He offered by way of explanation. When she hesitated, he barreled ahead. “If we’re going to do this,
why wait?”

“Why wait.” She wasn’t questioning. She was simply letting the words sink in. “What about Carter?”

“Mom and Dad are on standby. In fact, if you’re agreeable, they want to have us over for dinner tonight. You can give him all the hugs and kisses that you need to. I know it’ll be hard to leave him. But we’ll be back in five days.”

“What about the house?
Moving
?”

He shrugged and patted the bed. “We can get through the night just fine. We’ll deal with the rest of the move when we get back. I don’t want to be in this house without you. But if it really is too much, I understand. I thought it might be. I just,” he made a hopeful face, “wanted to be ready, just in case.”

“What about Carly? Aren’t we supposed to drive her back to school tomorrow?” It was four hours, each way. The task would take up an entire day.

“It’s taken care of,” Luke assured her.

“How?”

“Jesse, actually. I told him I might have a timing conflict. He offered.”

“And Carly’s okay with that?” Quinn’s surprise was evident.

Luke laughed. “She said for you, she’d agree
to be stuck in a car with Jesse. They both promised to play nice.”

“You’ve really covered all the bases, haven’t you?” she asked.

He grinned. “I hope so. Dad’s still around the office. He said time off right now wouldn’t be a problem. It we go, we’ll leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow and get in pretty late tomorrow night. We can get married Sunday afternoon. All of the arrangements have been made through the resort. Carly helped with a few of the details so everything is ready to go.”

“Wait, I need a dress! I can’t get married without a wedding dress,” she frowned.

“All the bases covered, remember?” He pointed to her enormous suitcase.

“You bought me a dress?” she asked in disbelief.

“What? No. Not me. Carly. She said she wanted it to be her wedding gift to you. She said it would go great with the ring.”

A huge smile spread across Quinn’s face. “That means it must be vintage. And Carly does have good taste. She knows exactly what I like…”

“So…?” Luke asked. His voice was so full of hope. Quinn couldn’t have told him no even if she had wanted too. Fortunately for both of them, she didn’t want to say no.

“Let’s do it,” she said quietly. “Let’s get married.”

“This weekend?” he asked, needing to be sure.

“This weekend. You’re right.  I love you and I’m not going anywhere. Neither are you. So why wait?”

Epilogue

Five months later…

“So tell me honestly,” Carly said, “how is it, working for your husband?”

Quinn laughed. “Well, if you ask him, he’ll say I don’t work for him. I work
with
him. But either way, it’s been nice. Perfect, really. I love being able to work from home.”

Carly swirled her lemonade in her glass, causing her ice cubes to clink against the side. It was a scorching August afternoon. She was visiting Quinn before leaving to head back to college.

“Are you excited to be going back to school?” Quinn asked.

Carly shrugged. “I’m only anxious to be going back to school because I want to be done. One more year,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “But mostly, I’m anxious to be going back because I miss Nolan like crazy.”

“I’m sure you do,” Quinn said sympathetically. Now that Quinn and Luke were married, Margo had seemed to realize she needed to accept the fact that they were together. While she still had her snippy moments with them—as she did with everyone—she was much more understanding than she had been. Quinn had decided she needed to give her sister the same courtesy. While her thoughts about Nolan were mixed, Carly clearly loved him. Quinn had been making a concerted effort to give him the benefit of the doubt. Considering that he hadn’t been home again with Carly since spring break, it was easy to do. He wasn’t around to rub her the wrong way.

She had finally convinced herself that perhaps Nolan had just been nervous about meeting Carly’s family.
Perhaps his ostentations behavior was just overcompensation, hoping to try to make everyone like him. It would make sense, given all he’d heard of them. Quinn couldn’t blame him if that were the case.

“I’ll be so nice to be back, living together again so we can see each other every day.” Carly’s eyes lit up, just talking about it.

Quinn laughed. “You are so lucky Mom and Dad bought your story.”

Carly had claimed that she wanted to live off campus with some friends
. As a senior, she argued that she was simply too old to be confined to the dorms. Pete and Margo had hesitantly agreed. They even agreed to pay her rent. Fortunately, since Carly went to school so far away, they’d never gone to visit. Carly felt fairly confident that she could pull off living with Nolan until the wedding and not ever have her parents know.

Carly shrugged. “What can I say? I’m pulling a Quinn.” She was referring to the year Quinn had lived with Jake, prior to their parents knowing. “And if they do find out, there won’t be much they can do about it. It’s already too late to get into the dorms. In fact, even now, it’s too late in the year to find housing anywhere even remotely close to the campus. But they’re not going to find out.”

She sounded so confident that Quinn had to ask, “And if they do?”

“Well, there won’t be anything they can do about it. Besides, the wedding is next June. I just have to get through the school year.” She threw her head back and closed her eyes so she could soak up the sun.

“You seem really happy.”

She didn’t move but a smile spread across her face. “I am.
I never thought I could be this happy. I never actually thought that someone would want me the way Nolan does.”

“Carly,” Quinn said in a warning tone. “A man would be stupid not to want you.” Without going into further explanation, she left it at that.

“Enough about me,” her sister said as she looked to Quinn again. “The house looks incredible, now that you’re all settled in.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said with a nod. “I’m happy with it. It took forever to unpack. The first few months, I was constantly moving things around. But now, I finally feel settled.”

Carly laughed. “Settled for now. But if I recall, you’ll probably start that nesting business again real soon.”

Quinn laughed as she settled a hand on
her stomach. The bump was so small that it was almost unnoticeable. Though she would swear she looked bigger now than she had been at this point with Carter. Margo and Nora assured her it was perfectly normal to show earlier with subsequent pregnancies. “You’re probably right. I went a little crazy on the house before Carter came along.”

“The
new nursery is adorable. And I’m so glad you have a spare room for me,” she added with a teasing smile. “You can bet that as soon as that new little niece or nephew of mine comes along, I’ll be coming home again as much as possible.”

“I am so glad to hear that. You know you’re always welcome to stay here. But,” Quinn said as she glanced at her watch, “speaking of the baby…”

“I know, I know,” Carly said. She finished off her lemonade and then stood. “I better get going so you can get to your appointment.”

~*~*~

As Quinn drove to the clinic to meet Luke, she couldn’t help but think how blissfully perfect her life had been the past several months. She was married to her best friend. He was a wonderful husband to her and a loving father to Carter.

Their wedding had been picture perfect, with the
Caribbean Sea providing the most incredible backdrop. The honeymoon had been amazing. Luke had been right. It was a tropical paradise. And an event that Quinn knew she would cherish for the rest of their lives.

After they’d returned from their honeymoon,
they’d both been busy. Quinn listed her house and it sold within a few months. It had been just enough time to let her pack and move at a leisurely pace. Though she and Carter had spent their first night back with Luke, in their new home. And every night after that as well.