Wilde Fire by Kat Austen

was the journalist.”
    “True, but I’ve got a pressing question only you can answer for me.” I shifted so I could access my pocket. I’d been nervous as shit ever since I’d stuffed it in there, worried it would fall out.
    “What question can I answer for you? Mr. Wilde?” She smiled at me, and I swore the whole Seattle skyline got brighter.
    “Just one,” I said, moving my hand toward her. Then I twisted it around to reveal the ring I was holding in my fingers. “Will you let me spend the rest of my life taking care of you?” I had to pause because my throat was doing something funny and I wanted to get this right. “Will you marry me?”
    She was looking at me. Into my eyes. She didn’t even see the ring yet. Her eyes started to get shiny like she might cry, but the rest of her face lit up. “Are you serious?”
    Her response made me laugh—classic Bree answer to a guy asking her to marry him. “So serious even if you say no today, I’m not going to stop asking tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that one, until I have this ring on your finger.”
    Her hand, still in mine, started to tremble. I’d surprised her. I’d made her happy. I loved knowing that. We hadn’t talked openly about marriage, but I think it had just been understood that no matter what, we belonged to each other. Marriage was the fine print of that kind of commitment.
    “Will you, Jake Wilde, let me take care of you the rest of my life?” She swallowed, like her throat was giving her a hard time too.
    “Baby, you’ve been taking care of me my whole life already. Of course I’ll let you keep doing the same. I’d be lost without it. I’d be lost without you.”
    She bobbed her head then, shoving her coffee aside. “Yes,” she said in a loud voice. “Of course I’ll marry you. I don’t know where we’ll have the wedding or where we’ll live or how often we’ll see each other, but I don’t care. Just as long as I have you, that’s all I need.” She shoved out of her chair and practically threw herself across the table at me.
    When she landed in my lap, my arms wound around her to keep her from falling. I was pretty sure we’d gotten the whole coffee shop’s attention, but I didn’t give a shit. The woman I loved had just agreed to marry me. I didn’t care about anything but that.
    She kissed me hard on the mouth, and I couldn’t tell if the water I felt drip onto my face was from her tears or rainwater from her jacket. “When?” she asked softly against my lips.
    “When?” I repeated, because whenever we were like this, I was lucky to speak in one word sentences. Comprehension was another thing. “Now. Tomorrow. Next month. Whenever you want. Just tell me the when and where and I’ll be there.”
    She wrapped her hands gently around my neck and leaned back enough to look into my eyes.
    She took my breath away. Looking at the woman who’d just agreed to be my wife. I was one lucky bastard.
    “I have some time off coming up next month and was thinking maybe I could join you on one of your big globe-trotting adventures.” I was planning on waiting to tell her this on Monday when we were at the airport saying goodbye because that was always the worst part of our relationship. The goodbye. Having something to look forward to in the middle of that made it easier.
    I’d been planning on waiting, but I clearly couldn’t.
    “Really?” She leaned back a little ways farther, like she was gauging me to see if I was being serious.
    “Really.”
    “You could come to Baja with me?” She was smiling again, lighting up the room, the city, my whole life.
    “I will come to Baja with you,” I said, wiping my thumb across her cheek because those were tears. “And pencil me in for a few other excursions this year because I think it’s about time I started seeing all of these great places you keep talking about.”
    She kissed me as sweetly as she ever had. “You’d do that?”
    “Bree, I’d do fucking