The Hidden Heiress: Married to My Ex's Brother novel · Chapter 30 of 32

Chapter 30: On Purpose

I looked down at him on his knee in the puddle.

At the old blue box. At the ring inside, a small square stone in a thin worn band.

My mother had told my father to ask again when he'd fixed the boat.

It took him a year.

"My mother made my father wait a year," I said.

Rem's face didn't change. "I know. I'll wait."

"You fixed six pilings."

"At cost."

"You held my stern line."

"I'd hold it again."

"You ate my grandfather's chowder twice."

"That," he said, "was the hardest thing I've ever done."

I laughed, and it came out as a sob, and I didn't care.

"Yes," I said. "Yes. Get up, your knee's wet."

He stood up and put the ring on my finger above the plain gold band.

It fit. Of course it fit. He knew my size.

Then he kissed me in the middle of my car deck.

Down on the pier, three hundred people lost their minds.

The deckhand kid hit the ship's horn.

The whole waterfront jumped, and somewhere a car alarm went off, and the old engineer yelled, "That's a federal offense, son!" and hit it again himself.

We had dinner at the Halyard that night.

Walter. Dina. Rem and me.

The window table. The manager brought oysters nobody ordered and wouldn't take Rem's card.

"Ms. Conway doesn't pay here, sir," he said. "Neither does her fiancé."

"Husband," Rem said.

"Both," Dina said. "He's both. It's disgusting. I love it."

She'd made Rem show her the ring four times.

"Your grandmother had good taste," she told him. "You, I'm still deciding."

"He fixed the pier," Walter said.

"He walked out at the lake."

"He came back on the last ferry."

"He burns eggs."

"So did my wife," Walter said. "Fifty years. I ate every one."

Dina pointed her fork at Rem. "If you ever make her cry, I will write about you. With adjectives."

"I'd deserve it."

"You would." She turned to me. "When's the wedding? I'm maid of honor. I'm not asking. I'm telling."

"On the pier," I said. "At the end. Where my father asked."

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