One Night to Remember by Kristin Miller

night wore on. Still, I feel I owe you my life. Thomas gave me his life vest. He said it was courtesy of you.”
    “I’ve done nothing,” Elizabeth droned, her heart slowing to a dull rhythm. “But I am glad you’ve made it safely, sir.”
    “You as well.” He bowed and made his way down the stairs leading to the bow.
    Why would Thomas have given his vest to a stranger? Did he not think he’d make it and gave it to save another? Elizabeth’s stomach clenched as Lady Grace squeezed her arm.
    “Come on, dear,” she said, “Let us disembark. I’m anxious to set my feet on solid ground.”
    “No,” Elizabeth shook her head, still fixated on Thomas’s last act of generosity. He was heroic. One of a kind. She could feel her core weakening, her knees beginning to tremble. “I think I need a minute. May I meet you on the pier?”
    “Of course.” With another light squeeze of her arm, Lady Grace made her way onto the crowded bow with the others.
    Elizabeth shuffled to the rail and leaned over the edge, gazing out to sea. Tears stung her eyes as she realized there was nowhere she could go to say goodbye. No gravesite that’d embrace Thomas’s body. No cement marker she could lean on when her knees gave out thinking of him. There was only the sea, murky blue and quiet, lapping against the hull of the ship.
    “Goodbye, Thomas.” She pinched her eyes shut. Though she’d only known him a single night, Elizabeth knew with utmost certainty she’d never forget Thomas for as long as she lived. “If only we’d had more time together…” who knows where their courtship might’ve led.
    There was a rustling of wind in her hair, the quiet thumping of footsteps and then, “Elizabeth,” from behind her.
    She spun around, heart in her throat. Everything faded away. Thomas wrapped her into his arms and held tight, squeezing her against him.
    He was here. He was alive. He was cold, his body shivering beneath a blanket that’d been tossed around his shoulders.
    “I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, and kissed his cheek, his nose. She caressed his shoulders, his back. “I searched every corner of this ship…you weren’t here.”
    “I was secluded in the infirmary.” He ghosted his hands over the hair framing her face. “They told me they’d find you and send word about my condition.”
     “They didn’t. I had no idea. I thought that…” It didn’t matter what she thought. She wrapped him up, blanket and all. “My God…are you all right?”
    “Nothing to worry about now. I had a mild case of hypothermia.” He nuzzled into her neck, breathing warm into her ear. “Everything is going to be fine.”
    Yes . It was. Part of her still couldn’t believe he’d made it. “You’re here.”
    “Where else would I be?” He pulled back and brushed his lips against hers, jumpstarting her heart all over again. “You made me promise to meet you when we docked.”
    “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
    “I’m not keen on breaking promises.” Thomas pressed Elizabeth against him as if he was trying to melt them together. It did not matter that there was a deck full of people watching. “I want to ask you so many things, Elizabeth. If you reached that ship on the horizon, when you turned back, but I don’t care about any of that. Not right now.”
    There were questions Elizabeth wanted to ask him too. How he’d survived the night and how she’d inspired him to give his life vest away. But before she could address any of them, Thomas kissed her more passionately than he ever had before.
    When he finally pulled back, Elizabeth gazed into the chocolate depths of his eyes and saw… love . “Right now, in this moment that I thought would never come, there is one question I want answered most.” He brought her hands to his lips and warmed them by brushing his over the top. “May I take you to dinner tonight?”
    Elizabeth smiled, the chill in her heart thawing faster than she could’ve dreamed.