Catching Fireflies(118)

Laura couldn’t seem to keep her jaw from dropping. “That’s what you’re doing?”

He nodded. “Making a real mess of it so far, huh? You can’t even tell what I’m up to. How pitiful is that?”

Even though her heart was pounding and she was trying valiantly to keep from shouting yes, she managed to look him in the eye. “Is that what you really want to do, to propose?”

He nodded. “I never expected this. You, me. Falling in love.” He groaned. “I am so sorry. This is such a disaster. I should probably wait, start over another time. Take you out for a romantic dinner or something.” He frowned. “We’ve never even had a romantic dinner, not really. Why would you want to marry a man who hasn’t even courted you properly?” He raked his hand through his hair, leaving it charmingly rumpled. “What is wrong with me?”

She smiled. Beamed, in fact. “You’re doing just fine,” she assured him. “And, believe me, there is nothing wrong with you. I’ve tried to find something, just so I could protect my heart in case this went nowhere.” She shrugged. “But, sorry, J.C., no flaws. I haven’t found a one.”

“I could list them, you know, in the interest of fair disclosure and all that.”

She barely managed to contain a chuckle. “Or I could make it easy on you and just say yes.”

He blinked at that, took a step back, then came closer, his gaze narrowed. “Did you just say yes?”

“I did, unless you’ve changed your mind and decided not to ask, after all. You seem to be trying really hard to talk yourself out of it.”

“But I wanted to do the whole romantic, down-on-one-knee thing,” he protested.

She stood up and moved into his arms. “This was better. This was you being sweet and sincere and scared to death. Seems to me any sane person committing to forever ought to be scared to death.”

“But you did it without even a blink of the eye,” he noted.

“Because I’ve wanted this since the first day I walked into your office and you warned me off,” she said. “Just shows how perverse I am. I’ve always been drawn to the unobtainable. There was a time when that didn’t work out so well, but this time?” She smiled at him. “This time I think it’s going to turn out exactly right.”

He picked her up and spun her around until she was dizzy. “I just knew today was going to be the luckiest day of my life,” he said. “Now all we have to do is undergo a cross-examination by half the town. They’re all going to have something to say about this, you know. Maybe we should skip Thanksgiving dinner and celebrate right here, by ourselves.”

“Not a chance.” She looked into his eyes. “Anybody in that crowd who hates your guts or knows any deep, dark secrets?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, frowning.

“Ditto with me,” she told him. “I think we’re good to go.”

“Have I mentioned that I love you, Laura Reed?”

“No need,” she told him. “It’s been in every word you’ve said and everything you’ve done for weeks now. It just took you a while to figure that out.”

He laughed. “Having you around to read my mind is definitely going to make my life a whole lot easier.”

“And having you in my life is going to make me happier than I ever expected to be. I think that makes us a pretty good team.”

He held her gaze, then said quietly, “We’re going to be unbeatable.” His expression sober, he added, “One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve never said that you’d like to find your child, but I think I know you well enough to understand that not knowing where she is has been eating away at you. If you want to make an effort to find her, to make her a part of our lives in whatever way she’d like to be, that’s okay with me. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

Laura blinked back tears at his words. He’d just touched on so many raw emotions. “I don’t know, J.C. Maybe she won’t want to know me,” she said voicing her greatest fear.

“You won’t know until you’ve tried to reach out. And what I know with absolute certainty is that she’d be the luckiest girl in the world to discover that she has a biological mom who was brave enough to give her up.”

So many times over the years Laura had thought of trying to find her child, but she’d thought it would be selfish. And maybe she’d been just a little bit afraid of what she’d find—a young woman who wanted no part of the person who’d given birth to her, then given her away. Perhaps now, with J.C.’s love and support, she could risk that.