The breeze carried a slight chill as it rustled the leaves above. The dirt path through the forest had led the couple to a secluded bridge where a kiss nearly a year ago had sealed their love. They stopped halfway across the bridge and looked skyward. Besides the cooler temperature, the tint of red or gold on otherwise green reminded them that autumn was verging closer.
Lucas rested his hand on Elizabeth's on the railing. His thumb rubbed soft, small circles on her knuckles, but he didn't speak.
Elizabeth looked up at him from under long lashes and smiled. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking how happy I am, how happy this whole year has been."
She turned her hand upward and curled her fingers into his. "Lucas, I mean it when I say I never imagined being in love again. And here we are, back on our bridge."
Lucas kissed her hand. "It does feel like our bridge, doesn't it?" Before she could reply, he continued, "Which is why I thought we should come here today…for a little quiet time."
Their companionable silence flowed around them like the stream beneath, a steady, calming presence. Lucas thought of all the memories, the little moments made into big moments, they'd created the past year. His relationship with Jack had also grown. Lucas had lost count of the number of times he had watched the little boy as if he were his own while Elizabeth worked, or he'd simply offered to take Jack for a ride in his car or play catch…just because.
As Lucas gazed at Elizabeth while she watched a leaf twirl to the earth in a lazy ballet, he also recalled how she no longer held back when they were together. She hugged, kissed, and held his hand as readily as he did with her. They fit like a pair of well-worn shoes that someone had walked a thousand miles in. Lucas knew he was as much a part of her life as she was in his. He'd stepped back from the oil business, keeping on only as a silent partner, thus giving him the much needed time to spend with the two most important people in his life. He'd entered her home, her classroom, and her heart…and she certainly had entered his heart.
Lucas pondered all this and more as his free hand searched in his pocket. It grasped the small box he'd picked up at the jeweler's while on a day trip to Union City last week. The gentleman he was, he'd called William Thatcher and had gotten his blessing. Lucas recalled the formidable older man's approving gaze when he'd travelled with Elizabeth to Hamilton for Christmas.
Now, Lucas hovered on the moment of asking what should be a simple question, but first, he had to tell her. She deserved to know the whole truth about him-his secret sorrow he'd buried so deep years ago because to unearth it was like digging up a dagger that would inflict pain again and again until someone, somehow, stopped it.
"Elizabeth, I love you with everything I am, but there's something I need to tell you."