'So much for the outside world calling me,' Carolyn silently came to her decision as she watched the Captain standing there, looking quietly at her, waiting for her to respond to Mark's offer. 'I've never been loved, never been needed so much by anyone,' she mused, 'certainly not by anyone living. It seems real isn't a matter of living or not, it's the love, the need that matters most, that makes things real'.
"I've decided to work at home," she told Mark firmly, but the whole time she watched the beaming Captain. Grinning at his reaction, anticipating his sunny response to her wanting first and foremost to be there with him at Gull College, she assured Mark, "Oh and don't worry about the weather."
As the erstwhile publisher drove away, she turned, "And now, you said you haven't depended upon any woman at any time . . . but I think you were about to say, 'Until now', weren't you?" She watched, eyes twinkling, as he began to continue his blustering, but looking down ceased suddenly. "Until now . . . M'dear, it would be useless to pretend otherwise, don't you think?" he said, waiting expectantly, breathlessly, if such a thing were possible in his current state.
Holding out the football to him, she tilted her head and with a serious expression, totally at odds with the merry expression in her eyes, she finally smiled. "So if we are to be a family, to admit we need one another, won't be truly happy without one another, perhaps you won't mind helping me pick up after our children?"
His stunned look, followed by a breathtaking smile told her that he entirely understood her unvoiced admission of love. Clearing his throat, he tucked the ball under one arm, "Of course, and I believe our small ones left quite a few things around the corner there, behind the Monkey Puzzle tree."
"Are you luring me into a private, personal moment Daniel Gregg?" "Only if you're fortunate Carolyn Muir." And with a hopeful smile, she followed him into the dark shadows behind their tree.