“Elaina Morrison, this is our second season.  Will you be my Autumn Cherry and bloom for me a second time, marry me, and be my wife?  With you, make it possible for me to be able to live a happy life, to achieve the reason for which I was born.”

I stared at what was nestled in the silver heart-shaped box.  I looked at him, into the dark eyes I’d always loved—the colour of which matched the dress I was wearing—and answered the question he’d asked me.

“Yes, Neil McManus, I will marry you.”  I reached a shaking hand out to touch his cheek, his jaw, his lips, and closed my eyes for just a moment to ground myself.  “I want to tell you something, too.”  I opened my eyes and traced over every part of his features, as beautiful now as he’d always been when he was just a boy of seventeen and winked at me over the dinner table.  “On the night Ian brought you to us, I fell in love with you and knew I’d just met the boy I would marry someday.  For me, it has only ever been…you.”

He smiled at me and took the ring out of the silver heart-shaped box.  “May I?”

“Yes, you may.”

He slipped the aquamarine-blue diamond and platinum ring onto my finger, and then kissed me thoroughly, while still kneeling on the floor.  I buried my hands into his hair and held onto my man.

My beautiful, brave, loving, caring man.

I pulled him up to his feet amid loud cheering and congratulatory catcalls, which were coming from well-wishers, who’d apparently been paying attention to what we were doing by the window.  Didn’t care.  Didn’t really notice much beyond my beautiful man and the shiny diamond in glittering blue on my finger.

Neil scooped me up and carried me out of that party in his arms.

Then, he took me home and made love to me in our bed.

“So…now that I’ve got your agreement to have me, when will you let me make this merger official?”

She snuggled up against the side of me, the whole warm, naked length of her connecting skin-to-skin with my body, like silver spoons in a drawer.  “We just had a merger,” she teased.

“That sassy mouth of yours is something I hope never changes, beautiful girl.”

“I am making a note of that, Captain, just in case my sassy mouth gets me into deep water someday.”

I kissed her shoulder right over her tattoo.  “You still haven’t answered my question, Cherry.  When do I get to make you Mrs. McManus?”

She turned her body to face me and held my face as she liked to do.  “How long was your final tour in the army?” she asked softly.

“It was ten months.”

“I will marry you in ten months then.”  She kissed me.  “I want to marry you when the autumn cherry trees are having their second bloom in Scotland.”

I nodded at her logic, understanding why she’d chosen that time.  And also, because I’m not sure I could have spoken any audible words in that moment, my heart very full and finally at peace.

Then she spoke some more words that I wasn’t expecting to hear.  Words that just reaffirmed how much love we had for each other and how fate, once again, demanded its due, and this time, worked masterfully in all its wisdom.

“I’m going to give to you…those ten months back.  The ones that I took from us six years ago.  Ten months of being here with you every night.  Ten months of our life together, of doing all the beautiful things, and the mundane ones, too.  So you will know that whether it’s ten months from now, or ten years, or any amount of years, nothing will change for me, Neil…I will forever be your Cherry Girl.”