“Have I told you I love you?”
“Not for ages.”
He grinned and kissed the tip of my nose.
“In that case, Anabelle Rowley, see, I know your name now. Anyway, in that case, I love you.”
“I love you too, but for a long time I couldn’t remember your last name.”
He laughed, a full real laugh.
“But you do now.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I love you, John Ethan.”
I grinned.
“I should get going. It’s late.”
I didn’t want him to go and told him.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“In that case…” He fiddled with the bed covers until I was underneath them and then climbed in alongside me. I sighed with happiness. I’d missed him terribly and now I didn’t want us to part ever again.
John must have been thinking along the same lines because he said, “I want to stay with you wrapped in my arms forever, Ana. I hate being apart from you.”
“I guess we’ll have to work out something that satisfies us both.”
“I’m sure we will.”
He kissed me a few dozen times. Then we kind of spooned and fell asleep. All I knew was I was deliriously happy and I’d never been this way in my entire fifty-five years.