One Last Breath Page 32
He picked up her hand. “So ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“Why I wimped out.”
She looked up at him. “You don’t need to be ashamed of it. I think what you did took a lot more courage.”
He rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t courage. It was selfishness, pure and simple.”
“How’s that?”
“I knew no matter how careful I was, there was always the chance I’d get caught. I know from being a cop, people always leave a trail. I knew the risk, but I’d never cared about it until now.” He was watching her intently, and she held her breath. “I looked at this guy, and I wanted to squeeze the trigger, but I kept thinking about you. About how I’d rather spend my life with you than rot in some jail cell.”
He gazed out at the pool. “And then I thought about Kaitlin.” His voice broke on her name, and Feenie squeezed his hand.
“It’s okay to cry, Marco.”
He cleared his throat and waited a few beats.
“She’s already lost her mom, and she’s pretty attached to me. I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t throw everything away. And even if I could, it wouldn’t bring Paloma back. So I came back here.”
He looked at her again, his eyes tentative. “And ever since I got home, I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you…to make you understand, I don’t know, the way I feel about everything. About you.”
Feenie’s heart hurt. But it was a good hurt, the kind she’d been waiting for for a long time. She watched Kaitlin and Duke splash around in the shallow end, making waves and disrupting the hot stillness of the afternoon.
She smiled. “You know, this is the first time I’ve watched a child play in my pool. I like it. This is a great yard for kids.”
He shook his head. “Shit. You don’t listen, do you?” He leaned closer and looked her right in the eye. “Feenie, I love you.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “I love you, too.” And then she kissed him.
When she pulled away, the silence stretched out. She knew he had something left to say, and she wasn’t going to do it for him. She’d accepted that he wasn’t a talker, but this was one moment when he needed to find the words.
He cleared his throat. “So. Like I said, I love you.”
She couldn’t repress a laugh. “Yeah, I heard you.”
“Since you feel the same way about me, I think we should, you know, get married.”
She grinned at him, loving the discomfort on his face and the fact that he’d gotten over it for her. “Married, huh?”
He narrowed his eyes, as if he thought she was making fun of him. “Yes. I think you should marry me.” He nodded firmly and looked away. And the next time he glanced at her, his face was wary. “Don’t tell me you want some live-together bullshit. I want kids with you, Feenie. I want everything.”
“Marco, it’s okay. I want everything, too.”
He sighed, obviously relieved. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because.” She smiled. “I needed to hear you say it.”