Page 108 of Our Lips Are Sealed
Taking pity on her, Samuel cradled her face with his hands, kissing her with a fierceness that sent electric shocks of heat through every muscle and fiber of her being.
“Do you know what I want out of life?” he murmured against her mouth. “How I want our future to play out?”
Evie didn’t answer. She was too busy trying to kiss her future husband, who, for some reason, thought now was a good time to talk.
“I want us to walk through the good and the bad together,” he went on. “To care for each other, like we were made to do.”
The sting of tears burned in her eyes, and Evie slammed her mouth back to his in an effort not to cry. His words, the ring, and the enormity of what was happening were threatening to turn her into a crying mess, and she had to do something to keep from ruining the proposal.
The proposal.
Samuel was proposing.
Oh. My. God.
Then again, it’s not like she didn’t know this was coming. They talked about the future all the time. But now, with the moment here, she was totally unprepared.
“I want the lazy mornings and the long nights. I want the hard days and the easy ones,” he said hoarsely, wiping at the streaks of tears on her cheeks with his thumb. “I want to make a home and a family with you.”
Witty responses played through Evie’s head as he talked. Clever little ways to tell him how she would give him all that and more. But when he flipped her over to lie beneath him on the couch cushions, and all she could feel was the beat of his heart hammering in time with hers, words failed her again.
“But do you know what I want more than anything right now?”
She shook her head, stupidly in love with him.
“I want to hear you say yes.”
A type of snorting laugh exploded out of her and directly in his face. Combined with the tears, the noise she made had them breaking into hysterics.
And right there, in a cabin on a mountaintop so very far from Haven House, Evangeline Eddins agreed to marry Samuel Fairweather.
“Yes,” she said, rolling on top of him. “My answer is yes to everything.”
Epilogue
“Becarefulonyourwalk, Mrs. Fairweather.”
Since the day they were married, Samuel had taken to calling her Mrs. Fairweather whenever he was happy.
And he was happy all the time.
Gathering the bouquets of flowers she’d brought to Haven that morning, Evie waved at Ben, waiting on the patio for her. “We won’t be long,” she said, kissing her husband goodbye. “Good luck with Annabeth.”
Going outside, she passed Ben some of the bushels in her arms. “Samuel won’t be joining us. Annabeth corralled the men into bringing down the formal Christmas dinnerware from the attic.”
Ben chuckled as they headed across the lawn. “Let her have some fun. This is the first Christmas we’ve all spent together since you guys were kids. But man, I hope it’s not too much for Cohen to handle.”
“What is there to handle? Annabeth’s plans involve us eating non-stop and playing party games, where I’m sure everyone will accuse me of cheating.”
“Come on, kid. You know damn well you cheat.”
“And I know damn well who taught me how.”
A chilly gust blew in off the water, and Evie pulled her jacket tight. “Did you hear that Annabeth went into the bookstore last week?”
Ben moved ahead of her to block the wind. “You told me during our session yesterday, remember?”
Over the summer, she and Ben began meeting with a therapist by the name of Dr. Lowell, where Evie worked on tackling her newly developed fear of the forest trails. After Toby, going into the woods had become difficult, even with Samuel at her side.
