Jill Sorenson - Set The Dark On Fire

In her, and Tenaja Falls, he’d found home.

“I love you,” he said, more sure of that than he’d ever been of anything.

“You-you what?”

“I love you,” he repeated, and nodded to himself. It felt good to be right.

“You can’t love me. We’ve only known each other four days.”

“It seems like forever.”

“You’re overexcited,” she insisted. “Under too much stress. It will pass.”

“I hope not.”

“You want to stay crazy?”

“Why not? Everyone else around here is.”

“In a few weeks, you’ll be bored.”

“Bored,” he repeated with relish. “I can’t wait.”

She smiled at him. Her teeth, and the whites of her eyes, were very bright against her blood-streaked face. “I’ve been feeling a little stressed-out myself.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. Moistening it with water from a fountain behind her, he began to clean the grime off her face.

“I might even be suffering from overexcitement.”

He stilled. “Really?”

“Yes,” she whispered, covering his hand with hers. “But as long as we’re both crazy, I guess I… I love you, too.”

Luke was glad he’d cleared most of the blood from her face. Because, overexcited as he was, he couldn’t help but kiss her. She kissed him back with matching enthusiasm, twining her arms around his neck and threading her fingers through his hair.

He laughed against her mouth, holding her close and savoring her abandon, deliriously happy, crazy in love.

After the uproar settled down, and life in Tenaja Falls went back to normal, Luke took her to his father’s neighborhood on the Pala reservation. He paused in front of a small, one-story house with whitewashed adobe walls and a red tile roof. Instead of stopping, he drove on, parking in the shade of an oak tree at the end of the cul-de-sac.

He didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t guess what he was thinking, but the day was hot and Shay wanted to feel the wind on her face. Sighing with contentment, she got out of the truck and stood at the edge of the scenic overlook, watching the sunny yellow grass on the hillside below sway in the breeze.

He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. A warm shiver traveled down her spine as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck and smoothed his hands over her lower abdomen.

At first, she thought he was merely resting his hands in a convenient place. It took her a moment to realize the significance of the position. She turned her head to look at him, reading the question in his eyes.

“Oh,” she said, not sure why she was blushing. “I’m not.”

It had been about three weeks since the night Luke shot Betty’s lion. Betty was still in critical condition, not expected to live much longer. Garrett Snell was in jail awaiting trial, and Lori had filed for divorce.

Angel had also left town. She was staying with her aunt in LA, working at a local coffeehouse and singing there on open mike night. Dylan had been moping since she’d gone, listening to dreary music and finding very little joy in life. Basketball season was over and he already had a new job working for Bull’s replacement on the construction site.

Shay didn’t know if he enjoyed the work, but he always came home exhausted and went straight to bed. He slept so deeply she felt compelled to check on him. He never woke up when she placed her palm over his forehead, making sure he wasn’t feverish, like she’d done so many times when he was a baby.

Speaking of babies, she and Luke hadn’t made one that night in the fertility cave. He’d been coming over every morning as soon as Dylan left for school, and some evenings, too. She wouldn’t let him spend the night, so they made the most of their stolen moments together.

Today was Saturday, and although Dylan wasn’t home, she’d been coy with Luke this morning, shying away from his touch instead of tearing his clothes off.

And now he knew why.

To her amazement, he seemed disappointed. “I dreamed that you had a round belly,” he said, smiling against her neck.

She relaxed a little, laughing. “I do have a round belly.”

“No you don’t,” he insisted, flattening his palm over her. “This is barely a curve. And it’s very sexy.”

“You think my armpits are sexy,” she said in a husky voice. “You’re obviously deranged.”

Chuckling, he buried his face in her hair. “Mmm. It’s not my fault you smell so good.”

One of their more leisurely mornings together, he’d worshipped every inch of her body with his mouth, nuzzling the sensitive skin under her arms and finding the ticklish place behind her knees, kissing the tattoo on the nape of her neck and placing his open mouth over the one at her lower back.

He must have been thinking about that, too, because he swelled against her. “I guess it’s better this way,” he said, his breath hot on her ear. “When I ask you to marry me, I don’t want you to feel as though you have to say yes.”

She let out a yelp of surprise and turned around to face him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

Perhaps astonishment was the reaction he’d been hoping for, because he smiled in satisfaction. And maybe there was something more in her expression, a hint that she wasn’t averse to the idea, because she saw a flicker of intent in his eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” she gasped, casting a nervous glance around them. If Luke Meza got down on one knee right here by the side of the road, she would have a heart attack.

“Okay,” he agreed, laughing out loud. “I’ll buy you a ring first.”

She gaped at him incredulously. Then, realizing she was acting as though she couldn’t believe anyone would want to marry her, she snapped her mouth shut.

“You’d have said yes.” He seemed almost as shocked as she was.

“Dream on,” she retorted.

He kissed her then, quieting her sassy mouth, and she knew there was no escaping this. She would say yes. Always and forever.

“I love you,” he said, holding her close.

He must have spoken those words a hundred times now, and they never failed to make her heart skip a beat. “I love you, too,” she murmured, returning the favor.

Still smiling, he took her by the hand, dropping a kiss on her bare knuckles before he led her into the neighborhood where he grew up.

It was Luke’s father they were visiting, not her own, but she was struck by a pang of nervousness all the same. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“Then we’ll leave,” he said, as simple as that.

She smiled back at him, and they walked together, hand in hand, toward the past and into the future, moving forward, moving on.

Jill Sorenson’s family moved from a small town in Kansas to a suburb of San Diego when she was twelve. In the past twenty years, she hasn’t lost her appreciation for sunny weather, her fascination with the Pacific Ocean, or her love for Southern California culture. She still lives in San Diego with her husband, Chris, and their two children. Jill is happily working on her next novel.