"I love you, Barbara. Will you be my wife?"
She almost cried with joy at how he phrased his proposal. "Will you be my wife?" was even better than him asking, "Will you marry me?"
It spoke volumes to her, answering any lingering doubt she had that she would now be his, and his alone.
Stephen held out the engagement ring to Barbara and she hastily wiped egg off her lips with a paper napkin.
"Yes, yes, my dearest Stephen. A thousand times, yes!"
"Thank God!" he said with a sign of relief, slipping the ring on her third finger, left hand.
She did, too, silently. Then she thanked Paul, for advising her to "put love, and you will find it." He just hadn't prepared her for how long and what a circuitous route that might take.
And she had no doubt that marrying Stephen would fulfill her pledge to Gail about Tim. Stephen loved him and Tim felt the same. Stephen would make a wonderful father for him.
Barbara finally felt she was Stephen's, totally, and with no ghosts to come between them; not his wife's nor Paul's.
I have been living with the memory of Paul, she thought.
I should not have been jealous of Stephen living with the memory of his wife. But now they both had to do something that would not be easy for them. They both had to put the past to rest.
Barbara knew she could never forget Paul, nor should Stephen forget his wife. Now they just had to go on from their first loves.
And a second love, she was now certain, can be as great, or even greater than the first. "Want jam on your toast?" Stephen asked with a broad smile while he wolfed down his own. "I'm starved!"
Barbara's head fell back and she laughed out loud. She felt hungry, too, and knew why.
"We'd better stoke our furnaces," he said, "for that rescue mission we're going on. We won't be going to any restaurants, and even if we find a cow on a Czech farm, how would we cook it?"
She thought he might be just a little bit unromantic after his proposal, talking about food, but the "We're" surprised and sounded wonderful to her. "You mean we're both going?"
"Of course! You didn't think I'd let you go alone, do you? Besides, whose idea do you think it was, anyway?"
Barbara was already so happy she didn't think she could be happier. Realizing that Stephen was going with her to Czechoslovakia to rescue the Lipizzaner foal was almost too much. So Stephen was the one who was going to brief her on how to rescue the filly, and moreover, he was going with her to do it.