She quieted him with a finger to his lips. “You do realize what’s ahead of me, right? Like, eons of school, graduate school, specialty training, residencies, and rotations. I don’t want to be a country vet, Declan.”
“I know. You want to be a veterinary neurologist, a surgeon, a top-notch specialist, because you have the blood of Thaddeus Bushrod in your veins, and you don’t do anything halfway.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Not this time. I totally respect what you want to do with all those brains God gave you and those talented hands.” He inched back. “And whoa, they are—”
“Declan, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he shot back. “But does all that talent and ambition leave no room for a future for us?”
“It’s daunting for me to think about the future,” she whispered. “I want…all that, but I can’t really think about our relationship.”
“You’ve never had to think about our relationship,” he countered. “It’s like…breathing.”
“After last night?” she challenged.
“Heavy breathing,” he joked. But for once, she didn’t laugh, her eyes downcast, her pretty mouth nowhere near forming the smile he expected.
“Hey.” He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “We don’t have to…do that again.” Which would be a damn shame. “Our friendship isn’t contingent on sex or anything else, to be honest. We’ll be friends for the rest of our lives. I will always be there for you, in whatever capacity you want. You believe that, right?”
“I believe it, but you have a lot to do, too. Make captain by the time you’re thirty, then chief when your dad retires. We have plans, Dec.”
He took her hand and rubbed her knuckles. “I know this is who you are, Evie Hewitt. You aren’t happy if you don’t have a schedule and a long-term plan and short-term strategy and lists of pros and cons.”
“True, but that long-term plan is long. Would you really wait all those years?”
“For you? Of course.”
She gave a dry, disbelieving laugh. “You’re going to wait, like, a decade? Declan Mahoney, one of the best catches in Bitter Bark?”
“You say that like I’m a fish and girls are casting their hooks at me.”
“Well?”
“I won’t bite.” He inched closer and took her chin between his fingers, holding her pretty face steady. “Unless you want me to.”
“Declan.”
“Listen, I’d wait until I’m ninety, and then I’d come right back up here on this mountain and play the Birthday Game in a sleeping bag with you.” He closed the space and put his lips against hers. “Maybe by then I’ll get that whole pun thing right.”
He felt her sigh against his lips before returning the kiss. But when they parted, he could still see doubt darkening her blue eyes.
“Hey, I have an idea,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Do you have any paper?”
“I have index cards in my backpack left over from school.”
“Get me one with no organic-chem notes on it.”
“No promises.” She pushed up and grabbed her bag, fishing out a rubber-band-wrapped pack of index cards, taking one out. “A pen, too?”
“Yes, please.”
She came back with both, folding down next to him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m putting my money where my mouth is, as my Irish granny likes to say. I’m writing a, I don’t know, a pact? A guarantee. An index-card contract. Something you can hold on to and believe in when I’m not around.”
At the top, he wrote DECLAN’S PROMISE in all caps, staring at it for a minute. Taking a deep breath, he started filling in the narrow blue lines with tiny printed words. “I, Declan Joseph Mahoney…” He hesitated, then looked at her. “Not sure what to say.”
“How about ‘being of sound mind and body’?” She leaned forward and ran her finger down his bare chest. “I mean, it was pretty sound last night.”
He smiled. “Don’t distract me, woman.” He kept writing, saying the words out loud to be sure he got them right. “Do hereby swear that I will wait for Evangeline May Hewitt…”
“Don’t say forever,” she whispered. “There’s nothing worse than a broken promise.”
He gave her a look. “Fine. For…twenty years,” he added as he wrote.
“That feels like forever.”
“And anytime in between,” he added, “I promise to be whatever she needs me to be.”
“Nice and vague,” she teased.
“You want specifics?” he asked. “Okay.” He continued to write. “I will be her friend, lover, husband…” He looked up to see her reaction, which was wide-eyed.
“Husband?”
“I said anything you need. Confidant, partner, provider…” He scribbled the words. “What else?”
This time when he looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “No.” He stroked her long hair and pushed it back. “You shouldn’t be crying.”
“You already are everything, Dec.”
He leaned closer to kiss her for that. “What else, then?” he whispered. “Chauffeur?”
“But not in reverse, because that’s the way the Mercedes bends.”
“And she’s back, ladies and gentlemen.” He chuckled, tapping her nose with the pen. “Okay, how about chef, traveling partner, fellow camper, and…handyman?” He leaned closer. “’Cause I nailed you last night.”
She snorted. “There’s hope for you yet, Mahoney.”
Laughing, he kept writing. “And father to our…”
She put her hand over his, making the pen pause and giving him a serious expression. “I get the idea.”
So he just signed his name and gave her the card. “Keep that. We can revisit it on every birthday for the next twenty years and see what I’ve missed.”
She reread it, smiling, then handed it back to him. “You keep it safe for us. You can wave it under my nose whenever I have doubts or have to run off to school or an animal hospital.”
“Fine.” He took it, giving her a look he hoped she understood while he folded it in half. “Now, will you get in this bag so we can seal this deal?”
“Oh yeah. Wait! What time is it? We have a twelve-year-old mastiff with bladder stones coming in for a procedure at nine. A sick mastiff, Declan.” She bit her lower lip and made what he thought
