“It’s beautiful, Ford. It’s absolutely beautiful. And the thought behind it makes it more so. I’m such a bad bet.” She reached over, took his hands. “Even the idea of marriage freezes me up. I don’t have the foundation for it. Look at what we were just talking about. You have two parents, with one marriage between them. You believe. I have two parents, with seven. Seven marriages between them. How can I believe?”

Strange, he thought, that her nerves, her fears and doubts dissolved the thing in his chest. “That’s bogus, Cilla. That’s not you and me. Do you love me?”

“Ford-”

“It’s not that hard a question. It’s pretty much yes or no.”

“It’s simple for you. You can say yes, and it’s simple. I can say yes. Yes, I love you, and it’s incredibly scary. People love, and it falls apart.”

“Yeah. And people love and it stays whole. It’s just another step, Cilla. The next step.”

“And this is meandering? Isn’t that what you called it?”

“I picked up the pace. That doesn’t mean I can’t wait.” Ford closed the box, nudged it toward her. “Take it. Keep it. Think about it.”

She stared at the box. “You think I won’t be able to resist opening it, looking at it. That I’ll fall under its spell.”

He smiled. No wonder he loved her. “Dare you.”

She closed her hands over the box and, breathing slowly, pushed it into her pocket. “I’m a has-been actress with a history of alcohol, drug abuse and suicide in my family. I don’t know why in hell you’d want me.”

“I must be crazy.” He lifted her hand, kissed it. In the spirit of the moment, Spock kissed her ankle. “Every few days, I’m going to just say, ‘Well?’ When I do, you can give me your current position on my proposal.”

“The key word is ‘well’?”

“That’s right. Otherwise, I won’t bring it up. You just carry the ring around, and you think about it. Deal?”

“All right,” she said after a moment. “All right.”

He picked up his glass, tapped it to hers. “Why don’t we call out for Chinese?”

At their feet Spock did a happy dance.

SHE DIDN’T KNOW how he did it, she honestly didn’t know. The man had proposed to her. He’d presented her with a ring so utterly perfect for her, so completely right, because he’d thought of her. Of who and what she was when he’d chosen it. Her reaction, her reluctance- be honest, Cilla, she added, while screwing the copper knobs on her cabinets-her stuttering horror at his proposal had to have hurt him.

And yet, after he’d said his piece, after he’d made his deal, he’d ordered butterfly shrimp and kung pao chicken. He’d eaten as if his stomach hadn’t been in knots-as hers had been-then had suggested unwinding with the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (short season, summer replacement).

And sometime during episode three, just as she’d begun to relax enough to think about something other than the ring in her pocket, he’d taken her under with slow, shimmering kisses, with lazy, lingering caresses. By the time she’d come out of the sexual haze, the ring was all she could think about.

Nearly twelve hours later, and she still couldn’t get the damn thing off her mind.

She didn’t believe in marriage. Simple as that. Even living together was fraught with pitfalls. For God’s sake, she’d barely gotten used to him telling her he loved her, to believing it. She hadn’t finished her house, or opened her business. She’d gotten as far as she had while being harassed for months.

Didn’t she have enough on her mind? Didn’t she have enough to do without having an engagement ring weighing down her pocket, and the worry of not knowing when Ford might say, “Well?” preying on her mind?

“Hello?”

“Cilla?”

At the voices, Cilla simply banged her head repeatedly on the cabinet door. Perfect, she thought, just perfect. Patty and Ford’s mother. Icing on her crumbling cake.

“Here you are,” Patty said. “Hard at work.”

Cilla watched as two pairs of eyes zoomed straight in on the third finger of her left hand. And watched two pairs of eyes cloud with disappointment. Great, now she was responsible for bringing sorrow into the lives of two middle-aged women.

“We were hoping you’d have a few minutes to talk about the menu for the party,” Patty began. “We thought we could do at least some of the shopping for you, store the supplies since you don’t have a place for them yet.”

You were hoping for more than that, Cilla thought. “Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, he asked me. Yes, the ring is absolutely beautiful. No, I’m not wearing it. I can’t.”

“It doesn’t fit?” Penny asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t think about it. I can’t not think about it. It was damn sneaky of him,” she added with some heat. “I appreciate- No, I don’t just appreciate the two of you coming here like this, but I’m trying to understand why you would. I’ve got enough on my mind already, enough on my head, and he adds this. I don’t even know if he listened to what I said, if he’s getting the reasons why…” She trailed off.

He doesn’t listen, Angie had said of their father, not when he’s decided to do something. He pretends to listen, then does what he was going to do anyway.

“Oh, God. God, isn’t that perfect? He’s Dad. He’s Dad with a layer of nerd. Solid, steady, chipping away so patiently, you don’t even know you’ve had your shields hacked down until you’re defenseless. It’s the type.”

“You’re not in love with a type, you’re in love with a man,” Penny corrected. “Or you’re not.”

Ford’s mother, Cilla reminded herself. Be careful there. “I love him enough to give him time to consider all the reasons this won’t work. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Of course you’ll hurt him. He’ll hurt you. It’s all part of being connected to someone. I wouldn’t want a man I couldn’t hurt. I sure as hell wouldn’t marry one who couldn’t hurt me.”

Baffled, Cilla stared at Penny. “That makes absolutely no sense to me.” “If and when it does, I think you’ll be ready to see if the ring fits. I think your cabinets are beautiful, and they’re giving me cabinet lust. Why don’t we find somewhere to sit down, go over this menu for a few minutes. Then we’ll get out of your way.”

Cilla sighed. “Maybe he’s not so much my father’s type. Maybe he’s you.”

“No, indeed. I’ve always been so much meaner than Ford. Let’s sit out there.” Penny pointed out the window. “Under that blue umbrella.”

When Penny sailed out, Patty stepped closer to slip an arm around Cilla’s waist. “She loves her boy. She wants him happy.”

“I know. So do I.”

MAYBE SHE SHOULD make a list, Cilla considered. Reasons for and reasons against taking the ring out of the box. She depended on lists, diagrams, drawings in every other area of her life. Surely it made sense to utilize one before making such a huge decision.

The against list would be the easy part, she thought as she scooped up some post-workout, pre-workday Special K. She could probably fill pages with those items. She could, in fact, write a freaking book, as many others had, on the Hardy women.

To be fair, there were a number for the pro side. But weren’t they primarily, even exclusively, emotion-driven? And weren’t her emotions twisted up with nerves because she was waiting-as he damn well knew- for him to stroll up to her at any point in any day and say, "Well?”

Which he hadn’t, not once, in days.

So she jumped, nearly bobbled her bowl of cereal, when he strolled in. “Too much coffee?” he suggested, and poured himself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Spock dashed straight in to attack his dog feeder. “How do you eat that stuff? It looks like little twigs.”

“As opposed to your choice, the vehicle for sugar?”

“Exactly.”

Not only up at six in the morning, she thought, but cheerful and bright-eyed. And she knew he’d worked late. But he was up, dressed and eating Frosted Flakes because he insisted on walking her across the road, hanging out until some of the crew arrived.