“As far as I’m concerned, my mom and Aunt Lou have made all things possible,” Gina said. “I don’t know how either of us would have raised our kids without them. You, Sarah, doing it on your own as you have...my hat’s off to you.”

Cooper put an arm around her, giving her a squeeze. “She doesn’t give herself enough credit. She’s amazing.”

Cooper noticed that she looked down, nodded and murmured something about Landon being a wonderful kid. In spite of the happy occasion there seemed to be a sadness about Sarah and he began to imagine she was hiding even more dire problems Maybe she was sick. Terminal! There was something terrible going on to cause her to withdraw like this.

After dinner, Cooper and Sarah walked the happy couple to Mac’s truck, bid them farewell and wished them a great weekend. After they had gone all Sarah said was, “It was so lovely. So lovely.”

“Let’s go for a little walk,” Cooper said, his arm around her shoulders. “Just around this block to the waterfront. To finish watching the sunset.”

“We should get home, Cooper....”

He stopped and turned her toward him. “No, baby. We have to talk about whatever is eating you.”

“I should figure out what to do before I dump it on you....”

“Maybe you could use some help with whatever it is.”

She took a deep steadying breath. “I’ve been notified that...I got reassignment orders, Cooper...soon. I haven’t had the guts to talk it over with Landon yet. This isn’t going to go down well.”

Shock widened his eyes. It was the last thing he expected. “I thought you had another year here.”

“I should have. That’s what I thought when I came here—that’s what we had all predicted. But there’s a pressing need for someone at my level of command and I’m the most logical person to fill it. And it’s for a south Florida Coast Guard station.”

“Whoa.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Could they give you a more distant assignment?”

“They don’t have Coast Guard stations on the moon yet,” she murmured.

“Well,” Cooper said, thinking for a moment. “You’re right, this is going to go down hard. I was moved right before my senior year and I’m still pissed about it. And I didn’t have a shining football career ahead of me. I was just an ordinary high school kid.”

“This will devastate Landon,” she agreed.

“Is it at least a decent job? In Florida?”

“Depends on your definition of decent. It’s a good position and I’m in line for a promotion. It will mean less flying and more administrative time. But I’m good at both, so...”

He thought maybe they should continue walking...and thinking. But for some reason his feet were rooted to the ground. “Maybe it would help if...I could get him down there early, like right away. We could look around, make sure he gets into a good school with a good football team and give him a chance to adjust before school starts. By the time you get there, maybe he’ll be human about it....”

Her eyes were round and her mouth actually hung open. She shook her head as if to roll the marbles back into place. “You would do that?”

“Of course I could. Or I could take care of him here. He only has one more year. But it would be so damn far for you to travel to see him. That would be really hard on both of you. I mean, you’re a team, you and Landon. But there’s another fact you have to face—in one more year he could choose a college on the other side of the country. He’s going to leave your care eventually. But if things stay as they are now, I think he’d probably opt for the left coast....”

“Live with you...here?”

He grabbed her arms and looked into her eyes. “Okay, maybe you don’t want me to be a part of this. But if that’s what it is, you have to tell me, Sarah. I’ve been bent out of shape worrying that you want to dump me. We’ve been together nine months. You know I love you—you know I want to spend my life with you. If you don’t want that, you have to tell me.”

“But you have a business here! A son!”

“I haven’t lived with my son for the last ten years. He wouldn’t be devastated if I only visited. In fact, there’s no guarantee Spencer and Austin will stay in Thunder Point—that all depends on if this job works out to be a good thing for them both. You and Landon, that’s a different situation. It’s just the two of you and you’re real tight.”

“And the bar? The beach?”

“Ah...I love the beach and the bar is working out, but I’m not more tied to that than to you, for God’s sake. I could sell it. I could even sell it responsibly, so it doesn’t hurt the town. Or I could rent it so there’s something to come back to. You do understand that if I had to make a choice...”

“You’d be giving up everything you love!”

He just smiled at her and shook his head. “Not everything I love.”

“What if I quit?” she said. “What if I didn’t take the assignment and just resigned my commission and didn’t have an income? What if I turned out to be just a part-time barmaid who couldn’t pay her own rent just so Landon could finish school here?”

He laughed. “Don’t tease me,” he said. “Sarah, don’t you know by now? There’s no deal breaker here. I’ll take any part of you—career Coast Guard pilot or simply my wife. And I’m not asking you to give up anything you love or have worked hard for.” He grinned. “I know how controlling you are. And I also think you love me. You love us together. If you don’t, you have a good fake going on.”

“Cooper...” she whispered, her eyes misting.

“Hey! How long have you been carrying this around? This worry and burden?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I got wind of it a couple of months ago, when it was just rumor, when there was still hope that—”

“A couple of months? Aw, baby! We could’ve talked it out a long time ago! This has been eating you up! Sarah, honey, you don’t have to manage everything alone anymore. You can count on me, don’t you know that?”

He looked around uncomfortably. They stood on a sidewalk under a restaurant’s neon sign. The surf was audible, but so was passing traffic. He grunted, reaching into his shirt pocket. “This isn’t what I planned. Man. I’m no great romantic, but I thought I could do better than this. And I don’t know if it will help your decision or just make it harder, but...” He produced a ring. Not a box, just a ring. But he thought it a damned beautiful ring. “I’ve been carrying this around for a while now, but you were so bitchy. Sorry to say that, but really...” He held it out, in his palm. “Please don’t make me get down on my knees,” he said. “The ground is wet.”

A laugh sputtered out of her through her tears. “You’re not kneeling?”

“On a wet, cracked sidewalk, in the mist, on a busy street? Only if it’s the difference between yes and no. I’ll kneel for you later.... Sarah, I want to marry you. I want to bind you up and take you off the market. I want you to trust me with your problems. I want to be your other half. I want us to share the same life, whatever that means. The only caveat is that I will always visit Austin, wherever he lives. But you? You, I want to be with every day. And I will never ask you to give up anything for me—just say you’ll be my wife.” He picked up the ring and slid it onto her finger so she could look at it.

“Is it real?” she asked.

“Of course it’s real! It’s not a custom design or anything, so you can exchange it for something you like better. It’s damn hard to pick a ring for a woman who never wears jewelry and who goes to work in combat boots, so I can be flexible here. But you have to say yes first.”

She looked up at him. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

“I know you are,” he said softly. “Plus, you hold a grudge. It takes a lot to piss you off, but man, when you get there... Look, I know you’re scared, but I’m not. For the first time in my life, I’m not nervous about commitment like this. And eventually you’re going to stop being scared because there’s not one thing about us that’s suspicious or scary or risky. Everything works with us. We’re solid. And you know it. You should take a chance on us. We can be happy, I know we can.”

She blinked and a tear escaped. “Then...yes,” she said in a whisper.

He lifted her chin with a finger and kissed her, at first lightly, then with hunger. His arms went around her waist while hers went around his back, molding her to him. Their mouths fit perfectly, searching and caressing and devouring, the taste of her tears on his lips.

A horn honked and someone yelled, “Get a room!”

They broke apart on a laugh. “Let’s get a room,” he suggested.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

He kissed her again. “Home,” he repeated. “Sounds good to me.”

* * *

It was hard for Gina to say goodbye to an idyllic weekend at Joe’s little cabin on the lake, but Mac said, “He promises that any time we can get away and it’s not in use, it’s ours.”

They headed home, as man and wife, all ready for a new adventure in Thunder Point. They would have dinner with Carrie and Ashley, at which time Gina would pack up what was left of her toiletries and a few other personal items and bring them over to Mac’s place. School might be out for the summer, but Gina and Mac both had to get back to work on Monday morning.

As they pulled onto Main Street sawhorses had been set up with detour signs hanging from them. “What’s this?” Mac said. “I wasn’t told about this. I wonder if there’s trouble in town.”

“Why would they close the street through town?”

He put the truck in Park. “I couldn’t tell you. Broken water main? Fire? Maybe they’re moving a wide load through town? Let’s go have a look, Mrs. McCain.”

They walked the rest of the way into town and as they got closer they spotted the Sheriff’s Department SUV, lights flashing, blocking the street in front of the diner. There were people everywhere, milling around the closed off street.

“Oh, Mac, this doesn’t look good....”

They took a dozen more steps when someone yelled, “It’s them! They’re here!” And a surge of people moved toward the police vehicle. Behind the crowd a banner was raised between the diner and Carrie’s Deli that said, Congratulations Gina and Mac! Suddenly they were being embraced into hugs, slapped on the back by laughing, smiling, happy friends and neighbors. Since neither of them could move, they were pulled into the center of town. There were long tables full of food, wide grills steaming, a Sno-Kone machine, an ice cream truck. Wayland had a bar set up outside his bar and Cliff, wearing an apron, waved from behind one of the grills. And music floated toward them—“Here Comes the Bride” rang out on electric piano and guitar. There was a band set up on a platform at the end of the street! And right in front of Carrie’s deli, on a special table, was a very large wedding cake. Large enough for a town.

Ashley pushed through the people. She was grinning. “Told you we could throw a wedding together in a week or two.”

Gina looked up at Mac and the only thing she could think of to say was, “I’m wearing jeans.”

He grinned at her and said, “I like you in jeans.” And then to the pleasure of a cheering crowd, he grabbed his wife and kissed her senseless.

* * *

Not far away, another car was parked outside the roadblock. It was a ten-year-old Pathfinder with a lot of miles on it. Cee Jay was driving, Maddy was in the passenger seat and their luggage was piled in the back. Cee Jay got out of the car and looked down the road into the town. The banner had been raised, the music played and it appeared there was dancing in the street as the sun made a lazy decline over the rocky Pacific coast. Kids and dogs ran amok, laughter rang out, a couple of fireworks shot into the sky.