Chapter 23: Same Lawn, Her Dress

I pushed the screen door open, and Kirk turned around.

He did not hide the box.

It held a plain platinum band, and a single diamond that caught the sunrise on the porch rail.

"I was going to do this tonight," he said. "I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't wait."

"You're standing on my porch with no shirt on."

"You're wearing mine," he said. "I think we're even."

I started to laugh.

He went down on one knee on Gran's creaking boards and looked up at me.

"Virginia Phelps."

"Kirk."

"I watched you walk across a church lawn barefoot with the evidence in your hand. I've been trying to catch up to you since."

My throat closed.

"I'm not asking you because you were hurt or because I owe you. I did owe you, and I'll go on paying. This is a different question."

"Ask it."

"Will you marry me? Same church. Same lawn. This time you wear your own dress, and nobody hands you a cup."

I knelt on the boards in front of him and put my hands on both sides of his face.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes?"

"I'd have said yes in the garage. I'd have said yes in the kitchen. I only needed you to stop being so careful."

He slid the ring on my finger.

It fit exactly, and I looked at him.

"I asked Gran for the size," he said. "She measured your finger with a piece of string while you slept."

"She did not."

"She charged me a loaf of bread."

I kissed him until the sun was fully over the cornfield.

The baby came home from the hospital eight days later, on a Sunday morning.

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