Ramsey grinned. “And?”
“He said he was certain that whenever I was ready to go back to work, the Comfort Cove Police Department would have a place for me.”
She was going to have to see Sandy. To come to terms with the love she still felt for the woman who’d stolen her life from her. But there was time for that.
“I have an idea,” Ramsey said, his gaze warm and open as he held her.
“What?”
“Why don’t you and I get married and then we can just call you Mrs. Miller and be done with the whole name thing.”
Mrs. Miller.
A week ago, she’d have said she was never going to be “Mrs.” anything. But, if she’d been honest with herself, she’d also have said she was in love with Ramsey Miller.
“Don’t you think it’s a little soon?” she asked.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then…”
“Are you proposing?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes. I think you and I should get married.” Not because of how she felt today. Or last night. Or even yesterday morning. But because of how she’d felt before she’d ever left Aurora.
“I love you, Detective Miller.”
“And I love you, Lucy-Claire.”
“Lucy-Claire,” she repeated. “I like that. A lot.”
“No matter what we end up with, sweetie, there will always be a part of Lucy here, with us. And a part of Claire, too.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“All I need is you.”
They were the words that opened up the last lock on her heart and set her free.
EPILOGUE
O n the day Chris and Emma Talbot announced that they were expecting their first child, Ramsey and Lucy-Claire Miller announced that they’d eloped. They told her family first. Rose and Frank, who’d eloped the week before, were at home. They called Cal and Morgan from their house. And stopped by to see Chris
and Emma.
From there they got in their car, already packed with their suitcases, and set out for the long drive to their honeymoon in Florida.
They made a brief stop on the way. In Vienna, Kentucky, where Mr. and Mrs. Miller, Sr., welcomed them with tears and open arms. While they were there, Ramsey’s mother pulled him aside—to warn him to be good to this girl who was too good for him, Ramsey was sure.
Instead, she apologized for blaming him for something he couldn’t possibly have prevented. Diane could just as easily have taken those pills if Ramsey had been right there at the party with her. The choice she’d made was her own. Not Ramsey’s.
And then she asked him, again, what town he lived in now. She was fading. But she was at peace. And she loved her son.
Before they left, Ramsey promised his father, and himself, that he and Lucy-Claire would make frequent visits to Vienna from that point forward. Life was too short, and too precious, to waste.