Rainshadow Road(95)

She smiled through her tears. “But you’re part of my dream.”

Sam wrapped his arms around her, and rested his cheek on her hair. “It doesn’t matter where you go now,” he murmured. “No matter what, we’re together. A binary star can have a distant orbit, but it’s still held together by gravity.”

Lucy’s chuckle was muffled in his shirt. “Geek love talk.”

“Get used to it,” he told her, stealing a hard kiss. He glanced at the terminal. “You want to go in and reschedule your flight?”

Lucy shook her head decisively. “I’m staying here. I’m going to turn down the art grant. I can do my glasswork here just as easily as I can there.”

“No you’re not. You’re going to New York, to become the artist you were meant to be. And I’m going to spend a fortune in plane tickets to see you as often as possible. And at the end of the year, you’ll come back here and marry me.”

Lucy looked up at him with round eyes. “Marry you,” she said faintly.

“The formal proposal comes later,” Sam said. “I just wanted you to be aware of my honorable intentions.”

“But … you don’t believe in marriage…”

“I changed my mind. I figured out the flaw in my reasoning. I told you it was more romantic not to get married, because then you just stay with each other for the good times. But I was wrong. It only means something when you stay during the bad times. For better or worse.”

Lucy pulled his head down for another kiss. It was a kiss about trust and surrender … a kiss about wine and stars and magic … a kiss about waking up safe in a lover’s arms as the morning climbed past the flight of eagles and the sun unraveled silver ribbons across False Bay.

“We’ll talk about New York later,” Lucy said when their lips had parted. “I’m still not sure I’m going. I’m not even sure that I need to, now. Art can happen anywhere.” Her eyes sparkled as if she were pondering some secret knowledge. “But right now … would you take me to Rainshadow Road?”

For an answer, Sam picked up her suitcase and put his arm around her as they walked to the truck. “Something happened to that window you made for me,” he told her after a moment. “The vineyard is changing. Everything is changing.”

Lucy smiled, seeming not at all surprised. “Tell me.”

“You have to see it for yourself.”

And he took her home, on the first of many roads they would travel together.