Chapter 15

Taylor stared down at her ring. She was still in shock that not only had Joe proposed, he had kept the ring he had bought her back in 1994. She loved it. He knew her so well. He knew she didn't care for just a plain solitaire because everyone had plain solitaire diamonds. She wanted something different and unique. What graced her hand was a brilliant cut center diamond with three smaller diamonds on each side. She was sure it had cost him a fortune back then. Back when she had been accepted at Loyola and he was waiting for Chicago PD or CFD to call and offer him a position. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"You don't like it?" Joe asked worriedly. He had thought long and hard about whether he should buy her a new ring or give her the one he had bought. Part of him still felt guilty for not buying her a bigger and fancier ring now that he could afford it.

"I love it, Joe. It's just hard to believe that you kept it all of these years.

"I never stopped hoping," he admitted.

What he had no intention of telling her was he had stashed it in his safe deposit box at the bank so he didn't have to look at it and be reminded. The morning they had made up from their Halloween fight, he had made a trip to the bank to retrieve it. He had decided to propose at Thanksgiving because he had hoped to have a Christmas wedding. It didn't have to be anything fancy—just the guys from 51 and the priest. That, however, was Taylor's decision. Whatever she wanted, he would go along with.

"I never did either. I tried to tell myself I was returning to Chicago because it was home, but the truth is I was hoping I would run into you somewhere. Too bad it only took 15 years."

"You could have called, you know."

"I thought you would be married with a bunch of little Cruzes running around. And if that were the case, I knew I couldn't handle it."

"And I figured you were married to some Navy guy. What changed your mind and made you go into nursing?"

"I started as a Corpsman. I did a year, and they picked me to go to nursing school. Then I had to give them back 4 years because they paid for school. As soon as my hitch was up, I came back to Chicago. It wasn't because I didn't like the military. I did. But I couldn't handle all of the sailors that were younger than me dying before I had a chance to help them."

"But you do UCAN," he pointed out.

"Different," she explained. "While I have them in the helo, I can give them a fighting chance. By the time I got them at the field hospital, most of the time, too much time elapsed and they couldn't be saved."

"I don't know how you do it, Taylor."

She looked up at him. "I don't understand how you run into burning buildings either, but you do."

"I do. It's my job."

"There you go. It's my job."

They drove through the city to Taylor's apartment. "The Bears and Lions game* will be on soon. Do you want to watch it?" he asked.

"Of course."

"Awesome," he said as he pulled into a convenience store. When she gave him a weird look, he explained, "We need beer and munchies."

*Author's Note: The Bears and Lions will play the Thanksgiving game in 2014. I am borrowing it for the story only because Joe is a big Bears fan.