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Run. Stop. Run. Stop. Ooh! Ahh! Ooh! Ahh!Click. Click. Click-click-click.
And, all the while, Ken followed, silent and patient, as I fangirled over a dead castle.
I glanced back at him a few times to make sure he was still there. To see if he was still mad at me for calling him an asshole. But he seemed fine. He smiled back. He looked around. And he reminded me that, if I wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone, I should probably do it before the bus left.
“Oh my God, the Blarney Stone!”
I’d been so wrapped up in the magic outside that I’d totally forgotten about the whole reason for coming. Grabbing Ken’s hand, I dashed up the hill and into the castle, shocked to discover that it was just as sunny and grassy inside as it was outside. The roof was completely gone. Remnants of old rooms and staircases clung to the exterior walls, but the interior space was completely wide open to the spring sky.
Falling in line with the other tourists, we climbed up a tiny, twisty stone staircase, walked across a crumbling catwalk to another spiral staircase of doom, and emerged on top of the castle. The wind whipped through my auburn hair as I looked between the notches of the turret down at the pond and hills below. All that remained up there were the four exterior walls and a narrow stone ledge going around the perimeter. A ledge that we had to walk across to kiss the fabled Blarney Stone.
I can’t believe you don’t have to sign a waiver for this, I thought, trying not to look down at the gaping hole in the center of the castle as I advanced with slow, careful steps.
When I finally got to the fabled stone, I discovered that it was set into a wall.
That was separated from the walkway by a good three feet.
Of nothing.
Nothing but a ninety-foot drop to the lush green earth below.
Oh, and I would have to bend over backward and lean across the gap to kiss it while a nice old Irishman held me around the waist.
Because that makes sense.
“Why am I doing this again?” I grinned at the twinkly-eyed little leprechaun helping me get into position.
“For the gift of gab, las!” He beamed, wrapping his confident hands around my middle.
I laughed and pointed at Ken, who looked completely comfortable, standing on the edge of a derelict building almost a hundred feet above the ground. “Make sure he kisses it twice then.”
As I arched my back and placed my lips on the same stone my Irish grandparents had kissed decades before, my heart swelled with gratitude for the handsome, quiet man who’d brought me there. The one who didn’t want to get sand in his suitcase. The one who quietly went about making all my dreams come true without ever expressing any of his own.
I snapped off a dozen photos as Ken took his turn, graceful as ever, and laughed out loud when I caught him pressing his lips to the wall a second time.
Drunk on love, I clutched Ken’s firm bicep for stability as we meandered back down the stairs of doom, careful not to die before I had a chance to thank him for the trip.
As soon as we exited the castle, Ken slipped my camera strap off my neck and said, “Wait here. I’m gonna get somebody to take our picture.”
Aw, I thought. Ken wants a picture of us together. That’s kind of sweet.
I watched as he approached a group of ladies clustered about twenty feet away. Their eyes lit up as he spoke to them—I assumed because he was so damn cute—and they beamed as they glanced from him to me and back again.
I just love this place. Everybody’s so friendly.
Ken hustled back up the hill as I turned and faced the woman holding my camera. I held my arm out to wrap around Ken’s waist, but he didn’t slide into my side.
He knelt by my side instead.
Jeez, Ken. This lady’s waiting. Do you really need to tie your shoe right—
I turned to figure out what the holdup was. Ken wasn’t tying his shoe. Nor had his contact lens popped out. He wasn’t picking a dandelion or doing any of the other hundred things that had run through my mind when he bent over in front of Blarney Castle that day.
Ken was down on one knee, holding a black velvet ring box, squinting up at me in the afternoon sun.
My hands flew to my gaping mouth as I floated above the earth, suspended in my disbelief that this could actually be happening.
It had taken nine words to get me to move in with him, but it only took eight to get me to agree to be his wife.
