Page 46 of Dangers of Love

After a couple weeks, however, seeing those words carved there made me feel uncomfortable and a little guilty, especially when my parents or siblings came into my room. Finally, two months had passed, and I’d been tired of seeing it all the time, so I’d asked Da if I could get a new dresser. He’d said no and handed me sandpaper. He’d told me that once I’d sanded the entire dresser to the point where the words couldn’t be seen, I’d be allowed to paint it.

I’d never vandalized anything else.

“What’s that look for?” Aline asked. “Is there a story here?”

I chuckled and then told her what I’d been thinking about. She laughed too and stepped farther into the room, reaching out to touch one of the few things I had on my walls. A picture of my family a few months after Maggie was born. It was the last that we had of all of us together. Ma died six or seven months after it had been taken.

“Your biological mother?” Aline’s voice was soft.

“Shannon.” Familiar sadness went through me as I said her name.

“That one’s you, isn’t it?” Aline pointed.

I nodded. “Yeah, the one with the big ears.”

She laughed, but it was a sweet sound, the kind that said she understood that while I loved this picture, it hurt me too.

“She was beautiful.”

“She was,” I agreed.

I took Aline’s hand and just stood there for a moment before continuing with the tour. The master bathroom didn’t look much different since all I’d done was put out a few things and some cheap towels. Linen and stuff like that were things that I thought Aline would like to choose.

“There’s one more thing I want to show you,” I said.

We moved from the bedroom, and I let go of her hand to open the door to the room across the hall. My palms were sweaty, my blood rushing in my ears. This was it, the main reason I’d asked her over this evening.

I flipped on the light and heard her gasp.

“I didn’t do a lot because I thought we should plan it together, but the one thing I saw in my head when I pictured the nursery was a rocking chair like the one Ma had when I was a baby.”

“Oh, Eoin.”

I finally looked at her, and her eyes were filled with tears, but she was smiling.

“It’s perfect,” she whispered.

I’d needed to see how she reacted to the chair before I could know if the next part of my plan was a good idea. She loved the chair, so it was time.

I dropped to one knee as I pulled a small box out of my pocket. A trip to the jewelry store I’d be guarding this weekend had led me to the simple but elegant engagement ring I held out to her.

“Aline, from the moment I saw you, my life was changed. I looked into the future and saw you. Now I see you and the family we’ll have together. Will you marry me?”

Twenty-Six

Aline

I was still asleep,and the stress of the last couple months was giving me strange dreams. That was the only explanation I could come up with as to why Eoin was down on one knee, a beautiful ring in a velvet box in his hand. Because there was no other possible scenario that led to him saying such sweet, romantic things and then proposing.

Right?

Except I remembered waking up and having breakfast with Martina before we both went to work, her for a ten-hour shift and me for five. Silverton Designs wasn’t as packed as most retail places the day before Christmas Eve, but it was busy enough for Martina to pick up some extra hours and give me something to do so I wasn’t sitting around, worrying and wondering what would happen when I finally talked to Eoin…

Maybe that was what was happening here. I’d sat down after my shift ended, and exhausted, had dozed off. Since I’d already been thinking about Eoin and what he could have planned, my overworked brain had created the current situation.

Except marriage hadn’t even been on my radar. At all. Yes, I’d been thinking about how Eoin and I might work things out so that he could be a regular part of our child’s life no matter what stage we were at in our relationship, but a proposal tonight hadn’t crossed my mind. Honestly, I even would’ve been surprised if he’d simply mentioned us moving in together, probably with me having my own room.

Only seconds had passed, thoughts firing across my synapsis almost too fast to fully process. The shock I was certain showed on my face allowed me those few moments without turning things awkward, but I couldn’t stretch that out forever. I needed to respond.

---