“Will do,” Bree promised.
Despite the sense of urgency she was feeling, Liz dragged her feet as she climbed the stairs to Aidan’s apartment. Just in case they’d been wrong about Aidan being home, she tapped on the door, then knocked harder. Archie’s barking grew even louder.
Using her key, she opened the door carefully. Archie barreled right into her, clearly ecstatic about her arrival. Since he didn’t immediately dart down the steps, but instead ran back inside, she followed him over the threshold, then stopped in amazement.
The apartment was filled with flowers. Vases of a dozen different varieties and colors—large, small and everything in between—scented the small room with their sweet fragrance. The centerpiece of it all was a dramatic arrangement of out-of-season pink and white dogwood branches in full bloom. Aidan stood next to that display, his expression hesitant.
“Too much?” he asked.
Liz smiled. “That depends on what you were going for.”
“I was hoping to dazzle you, maybe impress you with a gesture that would tell you just how sorry I am for causing you even a moment of pain.”
Liz’s eyes filled with tears. “I detect Bree’s hand in this.”
“It was 100 percent my idea,” he swore. “But she does have a flower shop and excellent skill in arranging flowers.”
“Where on earth did she find dogwood at this time of year?”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her. I imagine Jake’s nursery has all sorts of resources for finding flowers out of season. She tried to talk me out of them, but I said they were too significant. We met when Dogwood Hill was in full bloom.”
Liz smiled. “I remember. I’m sure it was easy enough to get Bree to conspire with you. She is, after all, a huge romantic, but what about Archie? How’d you manage to get him to cooperate?”
“I told him our future depended on it,” Aidan said. “And I kept mentioning your name. It’s like some sort of trigger for him. I say your name, he goes into a happy frenzy.”
Even now, in fact, the dog was dancing back and forth between them. Liz could almost swear she saw hope in his eyes.
“Am I forgiven?” Aidan asked. “I wanted so badly to tell you everything sooner. I’m sorry that I couldn’t.”
Liz drew in a deep breath. “And I should have understood that. By the next morning, I’d already realized how wrong I was to expect you to handle any of it differently. Of course you had to respect Thomas’s wishes.” She gave him a rueful look. “And it’s not as if I’ve been forthcoming about my past with most people in town, not the whole story, anyway.”
“But you were with me.”
“I did it on my timetable, though. I should have shown you the same courtesy and realized you told me as soon as it felt right. I have a feeling I’ll be wrestling with trust issues for a very long time. I’m not happy about that, and I will work on it. I’m not going to let what happened with Josh shape the rest of my life.”
Aidan stepped closer. “I hope you know by now that you can trust me, Liz.”
“I’m starting to accept that,” she said, knowing it was true.
“Can we work on that together from here on out?” he asked.
“Meaning?”
“I want to move forward together. I want a future with you in it. I want marriage and a home here in Chesapeake Shores and a family.” He held her gaze. “I think I fell in love with you the very first time I saw you chasing after Archie on Dogwood Hill. You were so incredibly beautiful in the sunlight.”
“You just became part of a rather large family,” she reminded him with a smile. “Isn’t that enough for you?”
“I want my own,” he insisted. “I know it’s probably too soon, but you need to know where I’m coming from, where I’m heading. You can set the pace to determine how quickly we’ll get there.”
The last bit of ice lingering around Liz’s heart melted at the sincerity behind his words. “I want that, too. I love you, Aidan,” she said, squeezing the words bravely past the giant lump in her throat. “I’m scared to death of that feeling, but I can’t deny it. I’ve known for some time that you’re a man worth loving. I was just too frightened of repeating past mistakes.”
“I’m pretty terrified, too, if you want to know the truth, but this is right. I feel it in my gut. I think I have from the moment I set eyes on you. Keep in mind I didn’t have two parents with a perfect marriage to set an example for me. I’m following my heart here, and I can honestly say I don’t have a single doubt about us.”
She met his gaze. “I have enough doubts for both of us,” she told him candidly. “Not about us so much as about the whole forever thing, if that makes any sense.”
“But we’re agreed?” he pressed, clearly determined not to leave her an opening she could claim later. “We’ll take it one day at a time until it feels 100 percent right to both of us, and then we’ll get married and start that family?”
Liz swallowed hard, fighting panic, but then she looked into Aidan’s eyes and felt Archie’s encouraging nudge. “I think that sounds like an amazing plan.”
When Aidan reached for her, she moved into his arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. He rubbed them away with the pad of his thumb.
“If you’re so happy, why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because that’s what I do when I’m deliriously happy,” she said. “I also do it when I’m scared or sad. Sometimes I’m just a blubbering mess for no good reason.”
He grinned. “Then I guess I’d better get used to it, because I plan to keep you very, very happy.”
* * *
Given Bree’s involvement in Aidan’s plan to seduce Liz and convince her to marry him, Aidan was stunned that for once the news hadn’t leaked and circulated
