Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I touched my chest. “Just reach in and rip my heart out next time. It will be quicker.”
He smiled. “Come sit with us.”
Wearing just a T-shirt, I went over to the couch and cuddled up beside him, laying my damp head on his shoulder. “How’s dad life so far?” I asked.
“Fucking perfect. My brother Gianni was right—which is not a sentence I enjoy saying at all.”
“What was he right about?”
“He said something about how I wouldn’t even remember not wanting to be a father. And I don’t. I can’t believe there was even one second where I didn’t want this.”
Placing a hand across his stomach, I thought back to the day I’d told him. “We were sitting right here on this couch when I told you. Remember?”
“Yes. Pretty sure I was about to put the moves on you.”
I laughed. “Your moves are what got us into this in the first place.”
“True.” He was silent a moment before dropping a kiss on my head and stroking Nicky’s little round back. “I know this isn’t what either of us planned. But now that we’re here, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
“Me neither.”
Nicky made a sweet little noise, and we looked at each other in amazement, like he’d just solved a very complex mathematical equation. Then we laughed.
“You know, I’ve never been able to picture my life after hockey before,” he said, shaking his head. “Now everything I really want is right here in this room.”
“Same,” I said softly, happiness cascading from my heart like a waterfall.
“Does that mean you’re ready to marry me?”
“Maybe I am.” I smiled and snuggled closer. “You’re the one, after all.”
“Damn right, I’m the one.”
“Although you really need to stop proposing to me without a ring.”
“Who says I don’t have a ring?”
I froze. Then I picked up my head. The grin on his face had me gasping. “Joe. You don’t.”
“Hmm. Maybe you should take the baby so I can check my pocket.” He placed Nicky in my arms and stood up. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small black velvet box. “Look at that.”
“Oh my God.” It was a good thing I was seated, because my legs would have given out had I been standing.
He went down on one knee and opened the box. I wasn’t sure what had me squealing louder—the sight of Joe, shirtless and messy-haired and sexy as hell, holding out that open box, or the ring inside it, which was almost an exact replica of the one I’d admired on his mom’s hand. I stared at the ring until it grew blurry, and then looked up at the love of my life. “I can’t believe this.”
“Mabel Jane Buckley, the day we met, you said you’d never gotten married, you’d never had kids, and you’d never had a hot one-night stand with a stranger. I can’t say I knew right then and there I was going to check all those boxes for you—in reverse order, because I like forging my own path—but I can say right now that I love you, that I’ll take care of you forever, and that it would mean everything to me if you’d be my wife. Will you marry me?”
By now I was ugly crying, but I nodded and held out my left hand. Joe slipped the ring on my finger, and we both looked at it.
“This is a design almost identical to my mom’s,” he said, “which was a replica of a ring my great-great-grandfather gave his wife. My parents said they were madly in love and married for nearly seventy years.”
I smiled and sniffed. “I saw your mom’s ring at Christmas and asked about it.”
“She told me,” he said sheepishly. “Yours has a few new touches, because you deserve your own ring. But I know how much you love history and how important family is to both of us.”
“It’s exquisite,” I whispered, staring at the way the diamond caught the light. “It’s absolutely perfect. But how did all this happen?”
“After you said you’d marry me the first time, I got the idea. So I called my mom and asked her to send me photos of her ring, then I took them to a jeweler to have a custom version made.”
“Joey! How long have you had this?”
“Only for a week. But believe me, the moment it was in my possession, I wanted to put it on your finger. I was trying to force myself to wait until the season was over, like we said.”
“But you couldn’t.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t. When Nicky was born, I just—” His eyes filled. “I just couldn’t wait any longer.”
I placed my palm on his cheek. “You don’t have to.”
He leaned forward and kissed me, then sat on the couch again, his arm circling my shoulders. “So what do you think about eloping?”