"Ty-you're a big softie at heart, aren't you?"

He smiled. "What have I been saying?" He set the puppy back on the floor, and she charged around the small house. "I told Eric I was getting a puppy. He says we should name her Strider."

"Strider's a male character-"

"It's got a nice ring to it, though, doesn't it? Here, let me see if it works." He whistled again, snapping his fingers and calling "Strider!"

She came running, ears back, tongue wagging.

"You could have called her anything like that and it'd work," Carine said.

He ignored her. "Hey, Strider, good girl."

The puppy licked his hand and charged off into Carine's studio.

Ty surveyed her stack of camping food on the counter. "Well, we could scramble up something here and sit by the fire and pet our puppy, or we could have freeze-dried stroganoff on the ridge, after we've set up our tent in below-zero temperatures and hurricane-forcewinds-"

"Not hurricane-force winds. The wind's relatively calm today."

"I like how you say 'relatively.'"

Carine hesitated, hearing the fire crackle in her woodstove, remembering how quiet it had been in her cabin just a few minutes ago. "I have tickets to Florida for when I get back from camping."

"Thought you'd sneak onto base, did you? I wondered how long you'd last without seeing me."

"I can do my job from anywhere. You can't. I mean, there are no air force bases in Cold Ridge." She breathed out. "Not that I'm getting ahead of myself. But I have options. I'm not sure I saw that a year ago."

"We both have options. The military's been my life since I was eighteen, but I'm not going to be doing this job forever. I can become a weekend warrior and go into the reserves, keep my hand in that way and figure out something to do around here. I still have to make a living. The trust fund's helped me hang on to the house, but it's not like I'm a Rockefeller or something. I want to train our puppy. Raise our kids. The rest we can figure out together. Carine-" His eyes were serious now. "I was wrong in February. Scared, stupid. Crazy.

"I knew you had a tough year ahead of you. You didn't want to put yourself through worrying about me-put me through worrying about you.

"I'm used to doing things on my own. But I love you, Carine. I always have."

She could barely speak. "I know."

He brushed a hand over her hair and touched a finger to the side of her mouth. "Let me try again." His voice was low, sincere. "Let me get it right. I want to marry you more than anything else in the world."

"I said yes once."

"I understand. You trusted me with your heart once-"

"No, no!" She shook her head, smiling. "You don't understand. What I'm saying is that my yes is still good. I just-wait a minute, okay?"

She ran into the great room and pulled out the ash bucket she kept beside the woodstove, digging down with her hands until she found her ring. She held it up, blowing off the soot and ashes. "I let Stump tear up my wedding dress and bury it in the backyard, but the ring-I guess I couldn't get rid of it."

"No, but you could bury it in the ashes. What if you'd accidentally used those ashes for compost?"

"Accidentally? That was the plan, but I didn't get to do a garden this summer. Look. It'll clean up nicely." She got to her feet and handed him the sooty ring. "Do you want to put it on my finger?"

"You've got soot all over you. There's a black spot on the end of your nose."

She knew he didn't give a damn about the soot. "I love you," she said. "I've always loved you."

He smiled. "I knew that's what you meant when you'd say you hated me."

"It wasn't, but that's another story."

He slipped the ring on her finger, and kissed her softly, soot and all, their puppy pulling at his boot laces. "It's good to be home."

About Carla Neggers

Carla Neggers lives in rural Vermont with her husband and their two children. Since completing her first novel at the age of twenty-four, she has written over forty books and has appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.