An Accidental Woman (55 page)

Smiling, she began to walk forward. Her gait was as faltering as it had been on the way out, but the awkwardness was irrelevant now, because she wasn't looking at a gravestone. She wasn't looking at a memory. She wasn't looking at the past. This time she was looking at the present and the future, and that was Griffin.

Only when she was under way did he begin to walk toward her, and then he did it slowly, matching his pace to hers in the most relaxed, most nonchalant of ways. She loved him more with every single uneven step she took.

He met her halfway. Then stood there, not touching her. “I am so in love with you I can't stand it,” he said.

She started to laugh. He couldn't have said anything better.

He grinned, but the concern lingered in his eyes. It struck her then that the concern didn't have to do with whether she could walk through the mud on her own.

“I have something in my pocket,” he said, and she knew he wasn't talking about a kiss.

“Can I see?” she asked, suddenly
dying
to see.

He stepped closer. “Reach in.”

Adjusting her crutches, she put a hand in his pocket. There was only one thing there. She caught her breath.

“Take it out,” he whispered.

Her hand emerged with the ring on the tip of her finger. He slid it on
the rest of the way, then let her look, and she gasped. The diamond was emerald-cut and exquisite, flanked by single baguettes, the whole of it set in platinum.

“The center stone was my mother's,” he said softly. “I would be honored if you would wear it.”

Poppy could barely breathe. “Omigod,” she whispered. “It's
gorgeous.”
And suddenly she was tired of standing. She threw her arms around Griffin's neck as the crutches fell to the ground. He picked her right up in his arms.

“Gorgeous isn't yes or no,” he said against her hair.

“Yes.
Yes!”
she cried, but another cry echoed it. It was one she had heard a short time before, risen from the lake to mark a rebirth.

The loons had returned to Lake Henry.