I looked up, trying to make out the words in the dim lighting.
“Father…daughter…banquet,” I read aloud and looked at Salt with wide eyes. “How did you…what did you…?” I couldn’t get the words out.
“I am sorry.” He shrugged apologetically. “I could not find banner that read ‘dance’ instead of banquet. Was the closest I could get.”
Suddenly it all made sense. In a startled rush, I felt myself whizzing backwards in time—back to a sad little girl who was sitting on the curb outside her house wearing her prettiest party dress and waiting for her Daddy to take her to the Valentine’s Day dance. That little girl waited until her heart broke and her Daddy never came. But Salt—my Papa—had come for me. He had dressed me up in a beautiful blue dress and taken me to the dance—the one I had never gotten to go to back when I was only nine.
“Salt,” I whispered. “Papa…”
“Dance with me, my little sweetheart,” he murmured.
I thought my heart would burst. My little sweetheart—it was what I had told Salt my father used to call me. Back when he was still in my life and everything was good.
“I…I…” I was frozen in place. Memories of the past were still swamping me. Waiting and waiting for a Daddy who never came. Wishing so hard to go to the dance and be held in his arms. And now Salt had made my dream a reality—he had righted a wrong so old it had nearly eaten a hole in my soul.
I just couldn’t believe it.
Salt came to me and put an arm around my waist. Numbly, I put my hand in his and we began to dance, just the two of us in the empty auditorium decorated with balloons and streamers and big red valentines.
“Do you like?” Salt murmured in a low voice after we’d been swaying to the music for a few minutes. “I hope it is not too much.”
“It’s…I can’t believe you went to all this trouble,” I said, looking around the dim auditorium. I still felt stunned, blindsided by the effort he’d put into this evening.
He shrugged, smiling a little.
“I wanted my Babygirl to go to the dance. The dance she missed so many years ago.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, looking up at him earnestly. “This is beyond anything I ever imagined. Thank you, so much…Papa.”
Salt cupped my cheek in his big hand.
“I must confess, I had ulterior motive for doing all this.”
“You did?” I looked at him uncertainly. What reason could he have to recreate this scene from my past?
“I did. Is this.” Salt let go of me and suddenly went down on one knee, right there on the dance floor. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a small black velvet box.
I felt like my heart had stopped beating.
“Salt?” I whispered in a shaky voice. “You’re not going to…”
“My darling,” he murmured, opening the box and holding it out to me. “Will you marry me?”
“You…you’re serious?” I took the box from him with trembling fingers. There was a gorgeous square cut diamond ring inside—I didn’t know how many carats but it looked big.
“Da—of course I am serious.” He nodded. “I want you—I have since we first met and the Captain put us together.”
“But…but what about the way we ‘play’ together?” I asked. “What about that?”
“I want that too,” Salt said softly. “I want you as Andi, my tough partner who I can trust when we are out on the streets. And I want you as mishka, my sweet Babygirl who likes to cuddle in her Papa’s lap. I want all of you—because I love you.” His voice went low and hoarse as he spoke. “I love you so much, my darling.”
“Oh…Oh, Salt…Papa…” I didn’t know what to call him. I only knew my eyes were welling up with tears and I could barely breathe I was so filled with emotion.
I sank down on the floor beside him and Salt pulled me into his lap. We sat there on the dance floor together with no one to judge us or say the way we loved each other was strange or wrong because we were alone.
Except we weren’t alone, I realized—we had each other. And Salt was asking me to make that a permanent arrangement. Because he loved me—just the way I was. Flawed and needy and with enough Daddy issues to keep a whole team of shrinks busy for years.