Chapter 9

"Because I'm old and bald and you are young and beautiful," he sighed. "Are you sure you're not just being kind to me, Krystal?"

Leaning down she kissed him as passionately as she knew how. Then pulling back, she smiled and asked, "Did that feel like I was just being kind, Tom Boone?"

"How can you love me? How can all my dreams be coming true at once?" he was dazed.

"You didn't listen to me, when I said I'd loved you since the first moment I'd laid eyes on you. You never seemed to notice. I wanted so badly to tell you," she said. "Why didn't you say something to let me know, Tom? Just some gesture!"

"Every time I looked at you my heart was in my eyes, how could you not see that? The day I pinned your wings on you I thought you saw it, I had to look away because you were under my command and I couldn't jeopardize your career."

"How was I to know?" she whispered sadly.

"You couldn't see the look in my eyes?" he reached into his back pocket and handed her his wallet, "Look behind the drivers license, Krystal."

When she did she pulled out a dog-eared picture of Admiral Tom Boone pinning golden wings onto the chest of Krystal Kennex. "I have a large one on my bedsi...at home, does that surprise you?"

"Yes, it does. You never gave me any clue as to how you felt. Oh, Tom, if only you had. I would have not spent all these years alone," she cried reaching for his hand. "Why, Tom, why didn't you let me know how you felt?"

"You were under my command, Krystal, I couldn't, and then there is the fact of our age difference. Even though you don't want me to call myself old, I am much older than you are, and I couldn't see any chance that you could care for me."

"What about when I wasn't under your chain of command any longer? What was the reason then, or did you have one?" she asked with tears in her eyes. "I'm not hungry anymore, so maybe you'd better just take me home. I wanted a relationship with you, and damn it, no you're not too old!"

"Krystal! There's nothing more that I could want than to have a relationship with you! I've wanted that for so very long, but I didn't think I had a hope that you could love me like I love you!"

"You love me, you really love me?" she asked. "I've been so lonely. I only have a sister and she ran away right after high school. Loving you has been an ache that drove me one minute and the next made me wish I had the strength to end it all," she confessed. "But you gave me too much guts, too much determination for that, so I lived in misery all this time."

"No, Krystal, you were a strong and determined woman when I met you. That was some of the first things I noticed about you, well other than your amazing beauty that is," his fingers intertwined with hers as his heart took wings. "My life has been lonely as well, you know I was married before? Since Maggie's death I've loved only one other and that's you, my dear."

Not even realizing he was still on one knee in a public restaurant, he did what everyone there thought he was doing anyway..."Krystal if that is true and you really do love me..." he gulped, "Will you do me the extreme honor of becoming my wife?"

"Tom, my love, nothing in this world would make me happier. But are you sure? I'm not like your first wife. I'm pretty inept at anything regarding the house," she whispered caressing his lips and running a finger over his mustache. Something she had longed to do for such a very long time. "I'm so far from perfect like she was."

"No one is perfect, darling, Maggie wasn't either. All I ask is that you love me and I'll be the happiest man in the world." Just then the waiter arrived with their food.

To be continued…