Falling for the Ghost of You (37 page)

I meet my fiancée(!) for dinner at Mom and Bill’s that night.  Mom is
huge
.  I almost make the mistake of joking if she’s sure there’s only one in there, but I catch myself just in time.  She’s an emotional mess—crying one minute, and sparkly and giggly the next.  Poor Bill looks terrified.

After dinner, Zane and I go for a walk.  Guess where we end up?  At the pool, where the magic all started.

“I told Helize we’re engaged today,” I say to him as we make ourselves comfortable on the chaise lounges.

“Yeah?  What’d she say?”

“She swears I have a bun in the oven.”  I laugh.  “She said that’s the only reason a young girl like me would have for getting married so quickly.  She still doesn’t trust you.  Says you’re too handsome for your own good.”

“Yeah, it’s a curse.”  Zane smiles and shakes his head.  He reaches over and presses a warm h
and over my abdomen.  “About that
bun in the oven, though…think we should put one in there?”

My eyes widen
and
I
put my hand over his.  “No!  Not yet.  I’m too young to be a mother.  I still have to go to college.”

He picks me up and pulls me onto him so I’m lying across him.  “You could do both.  You’d have plenty of help.”

I immediately snuggle against him. 
“Let’s wait a couple of years, then we’ll talk.  In the meantime, we could practice the baby-making part.  You know, just so when the time comes, we have it down pat.”

“Mm.”  Zane’s arm
s tighten around me as I tilt my head up for a kiss.  “Practice does make perfect.  And here we are
, with a pool house at our disposal.  I’m feeling kind of sentimental.  Want to go relive some memories on the kitchen counter?”

“You talked me into it.”

As h
e pulls me into the pool house, I’
m overcome with memories,
the sweetness of the beginning of our relationship
: 
the long talks, the laughter, the fights, the
…love.  It seems so perfect that we come back to reminisce over old memories, and
to
make new ones.

He kisses me in the kitchen, hands cupping my face.  “I love you, Violet,” he whispers.

I smile, my heart near to bursting.

“I love you, Zane.”