“I love you.”
His hands stilled on her arms where he’d been running them over her to make sure that she wasn’t hurt. “Grace?”
“I love you,” she said again, already planning to say it to Dylan at least a million times over the next seventy years. “I love you so much, have loved you from the first moment you held Mason in your arms, but I was afraid to tell you. Afraid to even let myself feel that love, because I thought the only way to keep myself and Mason safe from potential danger was to be cautious. To keep my guard up. To think everything through from every possible angle. And to always stay in control.” She slid her hands through his soaking wet hair, sending salt water flying. “But you were right that going sailing with you would make everything clear. So incredibly clear that I can finally see that I’ll never be able to control everything. I’ll never be able to stop nature from rearing up, I’ll never be able to stop the waves from crashing on the shore, and I wouldn’t ever want to. Wouldn’t ever want to turn my back again on what truly matters just so that I can stay in a holding pattern that feels safer. And I don’t ever want to try to stop what I feel for you again, or settle for anything less than the truest love because risking my heart seems too frightening. Can you forgive me for hurting you?”
“I would forgive you anything, Grace. But there’s nothing to forgive. Yesterday all your biggest fears came crashing down on you at once. Anyone would have reacted the way you did. Anyone would have needed breathing room.”
“I hadn’t thought I’d let the Bentleys make me feel like I wasn’t good enough. But now I’m realizing that the way they treated me when they learned I was pregnant spoke straight to all the fears I hadn’t wanted to admit to over the years.”
“Everyone has the same fear that we’re not enough.”
“You don’t.”
He smiled, one of his beautiful smiles that always made her stomach flip-flop. “I have three older brothers who pretty much rule the world between them. And what they can’t do, my cousins can. Sometimes I think the real reason I picked up sailing was because it was all that was left. I should have built my family a boat before now, but I couldn’t. Because it turns out that I needed thirty years to realize that I could share my love of sailing with all of them without giving up who I am and what makes me special.”
Did he have any idea how much it moved her to hear him admit to being scared, too? And that he wasn’t afraid to show her his flaws? The Bentleys were so utterly consumed with being and looking perfect that they were also utterly inauthentic. Whereas life—real life the way the Sullivans lived it—was beautiful and wondrous…and sometimes messy and raw.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be this much in love with anyone, or give up this much control. I don’t know if something will happen to you on a boat one day, if you’ll sail away and another storm will take you away from me. But I’m not going to let that stop me from asking you to marry me. Be my husband. Be Mason’s father. And let us give you all of our love. Forever.”
She’d expected him to look at least as surprised by her marriage proposal as he had when she’d told him she loved him, but there wasn’t room on his face for anything but pure joy.
“There’s nothing I want more than to marry you and be Mason’s dad.” He drew her against him, and his mouth was nearly on hers when he amended that to, “Actually, there is one more thing I want.”
But she already knew what it was, could read his mind now that the storm had passed just as well as she’d been able to read it when the waves had been crashing over them. “Let’s start today, Dylan. Let’s grow our family right here. Let’s give Mason a brother or sister right now.”
As quickly as they could, they steered the boat into the lee of an island, tossed the anchor, then stripped each other’s wet clothes off. Gently, he laid her down on the wooden decking, warm and drying now from the sunshine that had emerged as soon as the storm had blown away.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said as he stared down at her. “I’ve fantasized about making love with you on my boat a million times.”
The air was cool, but Dylan’s warm hands and lips against her skin heated her up all over. “Even making love with you a million times,” she whispered against his lips as he came into her and she wrapped herself all around him, “wouldn’t be enough for me.”
“I’ll never get enough of loving you, Grace.”
And…oh my…did she ever love how he loved her.
* * *
The next afternoon, Grace was so immersed in her writing that she didn’t realize Dylan had walked into her living room carrying Mason until they were right beside her.
“Hi!” She lifted her lips to Mason’s for a smooch and was very pleased to end up with one from Dylan, too. “How was the park?”
“We had an awesome time.” Dylan looked down at Mason. “Didn’t we?”
Mason answered in the affirmative with a cute little high five, then squirmed to get down to play with his toy cars.
“Looks like you’re on a roll with your writing.” He moved behind her to massage her shoulders, and it felt amazing.
“I am,” she confirmed. “Finally.”
“Do you need me to take Mason back out so that you can have more quiet?”
“No.” It was the last thing she wanted. “I want you to stay.”
They smiled at each other, both of them knowing just how much the word stay really meant. His request for her to stay for Mia and Ford’s wedding at his parents’ house and then her request for him to stay that night with her for the first time a week later had been their first important steps toward forever.
All along, as she’d worked on this cover story, she’d thought she needed to hide her feelings for Dylan. She hadn’t been ready for anyone to see how much she loved him, because she hadn’t been ready to admit it to herself yet, either.
But the truth was that everything she knew about the heart of a sailor had come from being loved by—and loving—him. So this cover story wasn’t only about Dylan. It was about her, too.
Which meant that to create the most honest, most powerful piece of writing possible, she had to strip away all of the layers and lay her own heart bare.