The Proposal Box Set 1 / Volumes 1-10

by Lisa Shea

  He stepped into the first car.

  She dove through the crowds, desperate, and made her way to the nearest car of that train, six cars back, before the doors sealed them in like sardines in a can. The train gave a jerk and then headed into the shadows of the tunnel.

  She glanced up at the walls of the cabin, peppered with posters, maps, and safety notices. They were on the Boston College line, the longest of the four. The most chances of losing him. The next stop up was Boylston. She had to move forward. To get to him in that first car before he was lost in the depths of Boston.

  She wriggled hard through the dense crowd. People glanced down at her as if she were insane, which perhaps she was, trying to move toward the head of the car. But they found a way to compact and compress to let her through. Her eyes were on the connecting door ahead -

  The car stuttered to a stop as it came into the Boylston station.

  She leapt out the side door onto the concrete, pushing forward and craning. Far more people were getting on than off here, and she had the panicked thought that she might not fit back in. Those doors could slide shut and she’d be stuck on the station while Gideon’s train sailed off into the distance. Gone. Never to be seen again.

  The doors began closing and she dove into the next car forward, wriggling her way into place.

  Push forward. Arlington. Another dive into the sea of humanity on the station, another desperate struggle to move one car ahead. Another exercise in Tetris-like fitting as she squeezed her way in.

  Copley. Hynes convention center. She knew these stops by heart, knew the exact distance between them as a circadian rhythm, and it served her well as she wriggled and moved, craned and searched. The subway car came up out of the dark depths and into the light as it transitioned to its street-level route.

  Her heart began pounding harder against her ribs. Had she missed him? Had she managed to somehow not see him exiting his car? Was she driving forward, forward, while he was strolling around back at Boylston, maybe meeting his lovely wife for a romantic dinner? He’d take her by the hand, and look into her eyes -

  Blandford Street.

  There.

  She could see his dark hair emerge from the forward car and turn left. Her heart nearly burst in a frenzy of relief. There wasn’t even a Blandford Street any more. BU had taken it over to make it into a pedestrian mall. The station name was a ghost of the past. Just like the man before her, moving in the thick crowds, crossing, turning -

  A long city bus went by, rumbling loudly, and she lost sight of him.

  The bus jerked into motion again.

  He was gone.

  Sarah blinked in horror, pressing hard forward. He couldn’t be gone. Not when she was so close. Not when she could almost smell that pine aftershave he loved. Feel the strength in those hands as they held her. See the gold flecks in his dark eyes as he told her he loved her.

  She charged ahead, her head swiveling like an owl’s. He had to be here somewhere. Traffic streamed heavily in both directions along Commonwealth Avenue and the sunset painted the sky orange and crimson over the rows of brick buildings which were Boston University. She usually loved this part of her day. The large trees along the side of the road, the brick sidewalk, it all felt cozy as she took those final steps toward home. But today it was a nightmare come to life. It was a maze of chaos and humanity. And she had no idea which way Gideon had gone.

  She dove toward Silber.

  The sky eased into velvets and indigos. The traffic eased as commuters reached their destinations. And still she searched, street after street, sure that just one more turn would have her find him. Just one more area she hadn’t been to yet. Her feet ached, her throat was parched, and she was losing the battle with the tears in her eyes. The minutes ticked by inexorably. She couldn’t give up on him. She couldn’t ...

  A shop ahead of her flipped its sign from open to closed.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  She turned toward home.

  She could barely see the few pedestrians who shared her path as she stumbled along the sidewalk. He had been so close. She had been sure it was him. Was he visiting in Boston for a day? Was this her one and only chance to see him before he jet-set back to Israel, or on to France, or who knew where else? Was this fate’s way of driving a stake through her heart, to prove to her that life was wholly without meaning?

  She reached the stone steps of her apartment building and her control dissolved away. Thick tears streamed down her face and she blindly reached for the stone railing.

  A hoarse voice came from above her. “Sarah?”

  She looked up.

  It couldn’t be him. But there he stood, blurred by the waterfall of tears, and it was Gideon, her Gideon. A jagged scar traced down his cheek, and his rippled muscles were more evident now that he was close, but it was her Gideon -

  His brow creased in concern. “My God, Sarah, what’s wrong?”

  Then she was running to him, he was drawing her in, and her emotions tumbled and soared like a spring river on high flood. She was furious. She was overjoyed. She was desperate to know what had happened. She didn’t care at all, just that he was here, here, here in her arms. Smelling of pine, holding her close, so close.

  At last he pulled back from her, his eyes shining beneath the side-door light. “I thought I had the wrong address, and that you’d never come home!”

  “I saw you at the common,” she blurted out. “I’ve been trying to get to you, but you were never within reach. You were always too far away, and I tried, I tried - why? Why did you go?”

  His breath left him, and he gently traced a hand along her cheek. “My grandparents didn’t have phone service,” he stated, and she realized he was answering the deeper question, the one gnawing at her soul. “It was bad, the fighting during those first few months. And then when it began to ease my father convinced me that you had moved on. That to reopen the connection would only hurt you. He talked me into joining the army, to help protect our neighborhood from further attack. I served with them for seven years.”

  She put a hand tenuously to his cheek. “You were hurt?”

  He gave a wry smile. “It happens so often that it’s almost a sign of newness if a soldier doesn’t have at least one scar to show off. This was a roadside bomb. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt that time.”

  Her heart wrenched. “Oh, Gideon, that you endured all of that.”

  His gaze grew serious. “I endured because I thought of you. Because that I thought, maybe someday, I could come back and make sure you were all right. That whoever you had chosen after me -”

  His eyes went down to her hand and widened. He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was tight. “You ... you have not married?”

  She shook her head, her heart soaring with joy that Tony was gone. he was gone, gone, gone and she was wholly free. She put breath behind the word she could barely say. “You?”

  His eyes shone. “I have been waiting, and I swore to myself, I swore -”

  He took her hands in his and lowered himself onto one knee.

  Sarah felt faint. This could not be happening. Not after so many years of hoping, of dreaming, of praying -

  He took a small box from his pocket and lifted the lid. Within it was a beautiful ring of blue gemstone and silver.

  “It’s my grandmother’s,” he explained. “When she heard I was coming back to the states she made me take it. Said if any girl was special enough to hold my heart for all these years, and if that girl had waited for me all this time, that that girl deserved the very best. My father told me it was a fool’s errand, but my grandmother, she understood.”

  He drew in a breath. “My beloved, sweetest Sarah, I’ve loved you since I was eight. I told you time and time again that I would marry you. And I swore to myself that the moment I found you again, I would make this pledge. We can court for as long as you wish. Six months, six years, I don’t care. We can remain engaged until you are sure the me I have grown into is perfec
t for the you that you are. But know that I adore you. I love you. I have thought of nobody else. If it takes us five years to rebuild our relationship, I will invest that time. I will do whatever it takes to make this work. Because I know we were meant to be together. Say you’ll have me, dearest Sarah. Say that we can start anew.”

  Her eyes were running with tears again, but now they were tears of pure, unadulterated joy, and the answer sung in her heart.

  “Yes, Gideon. Yes, yes, yes.”

  He slipped the ring on her finger, he drew her up in his arms, and the world fell away in a mist of evening breezes and pine.

  It was eons later when footsteps came up the stairs and paused. A woman’s voice said, amused, “Sarah?”

  She broke apart from Gideon, wiping at her eyes and turning to her best friend. “Oh, Molly, hi!”

  Molly looked between them with a grin, her short, black hair shining in the light. “Someone new I should know about?”

  Sarah’s smile grew wide, and she shook her head. “No, Molly. Someone old. Quite old. And fate has brought him home to me.”

  The image of the Native American wedding totem in her pocket flared to life, and for a moment the world seemed crystal clear. She sent showers of blessings to her sister for gifting her with the small bundle. And, looking at the dawning awareness in Molly’s eyes, mixed with a tinge of soft envy, she knew where the bundle should go next.

  She put out an arm to her best friend. “Come on, Molly. Let’s all go inside. I have a feeling we’ll be up all night.”

  Gideon pressed a warm kiss to Sarah’s forehead. “Lead the way, beloved.”

  She unlocked the main door and then her own. She pushed it open.

  He stepped in, his eyes taking in the forest-green futon, the cascade of plants in the windows, the mantle -

  His eyes held, transfixed. At last he said, “You kept it.”

  She nodded, twining her hand into his. He had painted that for her, senior year, only a few weeks before he’d left. It showed Fox Point Park in Providence, where they would get away every chance they got. The small hill, the stretch of water, everything was just as she remembered it.

  He turned to her, his eyes shining.

  She looked up into those deep, deep eyes, eyes she could lose herself in forever.

  “Welcome home.”

  Book 4 – Hampton Beach

  Molly ran a hand through her short, black hair as she strolled along the noisy boardwalk of Hampton Beach in the late summer sunshine. The beachfront New Hampshire town was winding down after a long, busy summer. Just a few weeks ago these streets would have been jam-packed full of visitors enjoying the tattoo parlors, spray-paint T-shirt shops, and fried dough emporiums. But now that school was back in session, and autumn was just around the corner, the crowds had eased and a peaceful quiet rested over the seaside town.

  She smiled as she looked in an arcade full of video games and grab-the-stuffed-animal machines. It was a far cry from her own haunts back in Boston. She bartended on Lansdowne Street, beneath the shadow of the Green Monster, and nights there were anything but kid-friendly. The throbbing music and kaleidoscope of tattoos were a world away from plastic gem rings and stuffed soccer balls.

  She smiled as she passed a henna tattoo parlor. Her own ink was of the more permanent variety.

  Her eyes lit up when she approached the seafood café with its plastic white fence and blue umbrellas. “Martin!”

  He was sitting at his usual table at the cafe’s patio, of course, in the quiet back corner where he was less likely to be jostled. He had an actual, physical book open before him and was reading it with earnest attention. Sandy brown hair in waves, kind, pale-blue eyes, and a lean, tanned complexion from his days out on Plum Island watching over the nature preserve. But it was his smile which always caught at her. It was gentle, warm, and full of understanding for everyone he met.

  She gave him a kiss as she sat down next to him. “Where’s your sister?”

  He shrugged, looking around. “She hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe there was traffic down from Bar Harbor.”

  “Didn’t she text?”

  His brow creased.

  She reached into his pocket and drew out his flip-phone. She popped it open and navigated the archaically simple menu items to get to the texts. Sure enough, there was one from Emily saying the light was just right and that she was staying to finish up her oil painting. She wouldn’t be down for another few hours, at least.

  Molly turned the phone so that it pointed to Martin. “See?”

  Martin laced his fingers into hers. “Perfect. It gives us time to take a drive out to the island. Check on the semipalmated plovers.”

  She chuckled. Of course that’s what he’d want to do - and that was fine by her. She waved over the waitress, the bill was paid, and in short order they were in his official ranger’s jeep and heading toward the dunes.

  She could almost see his shoulders relax as they drove. He really was meant for the quiet isolation of Plum Island. For her Hampton Beach was a retreat of sandcastles and rolling waves - but to him it was a hubbub of humanity. It was where their worlds intersected. She nudged him in the side as they drove. “Do you remember when we first met? You and your sister were having dinner at those multi-colored tables by the bright yellow seafood joint. Sarah had dragged me up and we were bar-hopping; I managed to trip and spill a drink all down you. Somehow you two were kind enough to invite us to join you for dinner, and -” She shrugged, her eyes sparkling. “I guess we stuck!”

  He patted her hand. “We fit perfectly. The way a hummingbird fits so neatly into its tiny nest. That delicate bundle of twigs is just what it needs. You are just what I need.”

  She warmed. Nobody talked to her the way that Martin did. The guys at the bar, when the night rolled on into bass-pounding early morning, made lewd comments about her slim, athletic form or how they’d like to search her for hidden tattoos. When she was nineteen she’d found those kinds of come-ons exciting. Now that she was twenty-seven, they seemed stale and tasteless.

  She looked up as the car slowed. Jan was manning the entry kiosk, her heavy bulk perfectly at ease within the sturdy wooden structure. Jan waved them through with a smile. “Hey there, Molly!” she called as they moved past. “The rose-breasted grosbeaks are migrating!”

  Molly laughed. “Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  That was life along the coast of New Hampshire and this jigsaw-puzzle piece where it intersected with Massachusetts. It was about rhythms and cycles. The hummingbirds arrived. The whales migrated. Each creature had its norths and souths, its time for nests and its time for soaring. It was a gentle ease compared with the now-now-now mentality that throbbed in the streets of Boston.

  Martin pulled into the small parking lot fronting the marshland. The sound was low here and in the distance she could see the mainland. In between a kayaker was sliding through the late afternoon, his paddle moving in easy oscillation.

  A flock of oystercatchers was feeding along the shore in the moist mud, their slender bright-orange beaks poking in after tiny bugs. They seemed immensely serene and content as they wandered along on slim legs. High above a laughing gull soared, its eyes sharp for a meal. The sky was easing from pale peach into deepest lavender with long, stretched out wisps of clouds.

  Martin took Molly’s hand. “Come on. It’s over this way.”

  She glanced at him. “So, what’d’ya get your sister for her birthday?”

  He chuckled. “I got her what I always get her. A fresh set of paints. It’s the only thing she wants.”

  “I suppose it’s all she needs,” agreed Molly. “She takes those blobs of color and turns them into amazing landscapes. She’s got quite the talent.”

  “She’s been doing it since long before I was born,” he agreed. “What, forty years now? She got her first set when she was ten, from our grandparents. She tells that story all the time.”

  Molly grinned. “Well, you guys were celebrating her forty-s
eventh birthday that day we first met, and that was three years ago, so that seems about right.” She shook her head. “Emily’s more like an aunt to you than a sister, isn’t she? Nearly twenty years older than you. And her eldest daughter was born just a few months after you were.”

  He nodded. “We have an interesting family.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t want anything special for her fiftieth birthday party?”

  He looked up in surprise. “Why, should she?”

  Molly shook her head. His family was definitely different than hers. Her family would have been throwing wild parties with every second-cousin in the region descending on them for beer and whiskey. They’d be singing Irish songs into the wee hours of the morning. But Martin and Emily had a far quieter way of approaching life. To them a simple dinner in a quiet sand-dusted corner of a seaside town was just right.

  She glanced over at Martin. She wondered if he even realized the birthday meant that this was their third anniversary together. Other men might have celebrated with flowers, jewelry, and then drunken debauchery. But Martin was different - and that was what she loved about him. Simply being with him for the three days would be enough.

  Then it was back down to Boston, the ear-pounding music, and the neon lights.

  Martin pointed. “Ah, over here. This is what I wanted to show you.”

  She could see it now - the nest nestled into the reeds. She smiled. During her time with him she had seen countless wonders. Baby tern chicks barely out of their shells. An injured fox that he’d tenderly nursed back to health.

  He put a finger to his lips -

  The blare of country music shattered the peace as a large Chevy Silverado dually truck pulled into the parking lot. The music blasted to a crescendo of wailing guitars before the engine clicked off. A burly man in handlebar moustache and red-plaid shirt climbed out; his hunter’s hat had Ryan embroidered across its front. He strolled to the far end of the open marsh, singing the last few lyrics of the song over again, and put his back to them. There was a zipping noise and then the heavy stream of liquid hitting water.