“This is Orchid Island, remember?”
“How could I forget… I’ve come to a decision,” he said, fighting to remain calm while his stomach went on a roller coaster ride.
His lips, as they lingered at her throat, were more intoxicating than champagne. Her blood hummed under their touch.
“A decision?” Lani asked.
He reached out and turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with light.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, staring at him as a glimmer of hope made her dizzy.
“What?” Donovan demanded, feeling unreasonably nervous. He followed her gaze to his vivid aloha shirt. “Oh, this. I bought it at the airport when I got in.”
His casual white cotton slacks that Lani had talked him into buying for the luau were rumpled from all those hours on the plane, his eyes were bleary and red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and he needed a shave. Lani thought he looked wonderful.
“It looks very good on you,” she said.
“Think so?” Donovan had felt a little foolish buying the red-and-orange flowered shirt, but the saleswoman had assured him he looked just like a true kamaaina . “I have to admit it’s comfortable.”
“You look very sexy,” Lani assured him. “Even better than Tom Selleck. Why, you’ll have to fight the women off with a stick.”
“I don’t want any other women. I only want you, Lani.” His expression suddenly became sober as he handed her a small box tied with gold cord. “I brought you a present.”
“I absolutely adore presents,” she said with a warm smile that reminded Donovan of a tropical sunrise.
“It isn’t emeralds,” he apologized uneasily. “Or diamonds or any of the expensive things you deserve.”
“Donovan—”
“But,” he said gruffly, “it reminded me of you.”
His rough, serious tone almost proved her undoing. With fingers that trembled slightly, Lani slipped the gilt cord from the white box. She lifted the lid, giving a small sigh of pleasure at the piece of stained glass that nestled on a bed of white tissue paper.
“It’s lovely. Thank you.” She lifted the rainbow suncatcher up to the light. Her walls, her ceiling, the floor were all suddenly covered with rainbows.
“There’s a card.”
So there was. Lani was nervous as she plucked the small card from the tissue. There’s a lifetime of rainbows out there , Donovan had written in his bold, precise hand. Let’s wish on them all together .
“Oh, Donovan.”
His stomach was twisted into knots as he took both her hands in his. “I know we had an agreement,” he began seriously.
“That doesn’t—”
He immediately cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. “An agreement that made a great deal of sense at the time. You were happy here living on the island; you had your family, your work, your snorkeling. Horatio. Moby Dick.
“I was fighting off a case of professional burnout and planning on getting on an even faster track than the one that had killed my partner. Neither of us had the time or the inclination to get involved. It would have been highly impractical.”
“Highly,” Lani agreed quietly.
“Well, I don’t care about practicalities any longer. I don’t give a damn about what’s sensible and what isn’t, what’s prudent or not. I know I swore I wasn’t looking for a wife, but that was before I met you. Before I knew how good things could be between us. So I’m revoking that agreement here and now.”
Frustrated by the clumsy way he was handling this, Donovan had to stop. Nervously, he jammed his hands into his pockets and began pacing the bedroom.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re right, I wasn’t very happy anymore as a detective and I would have been miserable as chief. I became a cop to help people, to try to make a difference. Not to spend all my time playing political football.”
“When did you come to that conclusion?” she asked.
He lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. “I don’t know exactly. I suppose tracking down Britton had something to do with it. I’d been in a supervisory position for so long that I’d forgotten how much I liked to get out on the streets.”
His expression was grim, unyielding. “I’ve resigned, Lani. And I’ve come back to Orchid Island because I need you.”
Lani examined her nails. “Are you by any chance asking me to marry you, Donovan?”
“Of course I am.”
“Oh.”
This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. Donovan wondered if Nate could write a how-to-deal-with-women manual between novels. He’d be the first customer. “Damn.”
“Now that’s romantic.”
“I forgot the most important part.”
Seeing the distress on Donovan’s face, Lani took pity on him. Rising from the bed, she kissed him with all the fervor of a woman in love. When she finally tilted her head back, her eyes were sparkling.
“I’m listening.”