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“Yeah, I suppose that’s it, which is weird because I never felt the need to be married before. But maybe I need the extra security of knowing you can’t just disappear.”
“Does this go back to Charlotte?” she asked, sitting up to look at me. “Would you be doing this for the right reason? Was the real reason you asked me to marry you about your own insecurity? If you’d been married to Charlotte, do you think she’d have cheated on you?”
“It didn’t stop Logan,” I replied and saw how much my words stung her, but it was the truth as I saw it. “My belief is that if someone’s a cheater then they were always open to temptation. This has nothing to do with Charlotte but everything to do with how much I love you, how I felt after I left you in the wine bar that day. Now since I found you, and learned more about you, I never want to lose you. Being married to you is showing my commitment to you and to tell the world I have no need for anyone else.”
“Which is the correct answer,” she said, patting my chest with a beautiful smile. “Sawyer, I love you, and I love you more than I ever knew I could love any man, which is crazy considering what I’ve gone through in the past couple of years. My feelings overwhelm me at times when I think about you. Which is why I need a little time before we get married. There are insecurities on my side too. It’s not even a year since my divorce. I want …”
“What do you want? A year, five? What is a respectable time for a divorcée to wait to get married again?” I blurted out, thinking perhaps she wasn’t as certain about this after all.
“Three months. May wedding?”
“Three months is late April,” I reminded her.
“How about May 3rd?” she countered, smiling.
“I can live with that,” I told her, knowing she had made the concession.
“Where will we live?” I asked, knowing I preferred my place over hers.
“There’s Colby’s school to consider,” she offered, with a shrug.
“There is, but I’d rather not live in the same house where you have unhappy memories of being married to somebody else.” Billie stared at me for a moment and swallowed like she hadn’t considered leaving her house, like it was the final part of the old life she’d known. I relented when I thought there may be some happy times too. “I get you made happy memories in your home …”
“It’s not that,” she argued quickly. “It’s my security,” she exclaimed.
For a second I sat stunned, a little unsure of the connotation her statement suggested. “What are you saying, Billie? You need to spit it out for me.”
“What if I sell it and we don’t work out? I’m not thinking like this for myself, I’m thinking about it as a mom, for Colby.”
I shifted her off my knee and stood up, ran my hands through my hair and paced in front of the fire. “Why won’t we work out, Billie? Your thinking and mine are very different. Let me explain what I see this relationship is about, and at the risk of sounding like Logan, let me tell you what I want from this.”
“Don’t, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, it’s just that …”
“Let me finish. What I want is to wake up each day and see my beautiful wife happy because she’s with me. I want her and her son to feel loved and secure. I want us to live in a place where we can build memories of our own and forget the horrible times you’ve endured because the man you both trusted let you down.”
“It’s still possible—”
I held my hand up because I wasn’t finished. “I want to live in a house where my wife doesn’t feel uptight and worried her son is going to hear her reaction every time I touch her body, because I intend to do this very often. Now for all of this to happen, I need the woman I love to place her trust in me to give her that. I asked you to marry me, when in fact, the question you should have been asking yourself is can you place your trust in me, because if you can’t there’s no point in setting a date.”
I knew by the tone of my voice both my frustration and hurt had come through, but I was scared Billie had made a commitment and had begun to talk herself out of it.
“I just don’t want Colby’s life to change right now,” she said quickly.
“Even if it’s for the better? Colby will be fine, like you he figures in my thoughts, I’m not marrying you to the exclusion of him.”
“Then I do trust you, and I don’t care where we live,” she replied.
“If no barriers, then I’d ask you to consider the house that I have as our family home when I’m not touring. However, before you say anything, I know it’s too far for work and school, so the solution I have is this. We buy a house close to where you live now and live there during the week. This way, Colby’s schooling, friendships, and such aren’t interrupted, and you are still close to your work. On the weekends we live by the beach.”
“That’s a lot of expense …”
“It’s only money and another property would add value to our lives. The money is sitting in the bank doing nothing, and I can afford it,” I replied. I’d had the money for almost four years and I saw this as a good use of some of it to get us off to a good start in our married life.
“If you’re sure, then I’ll try not to worry about anything else,” she said quickly, as she rose up out of the chair, stepped forward, and hugged me. Pushing her back to look at her, I stared adoringly into her big blue eyes and felt as if the final barrier to us being together had finally been resolved between us.
