"Of course. He's going to want to play with it, you know. It's a very cool plane." Jack swirled it through the air. "It's like the one I got to fly on, all the way to New York and back again. It was fun. I told everybody thanks in the cards I sent. Did you like your card? I did it almost all by myself."

"I loved my card." Kate patted her pocket where the thank-you note, painstakingly printed, resided. "It was very polite and gentlemanly of you to write one to me, and to Freddie and Nick and to my grandparents."

"They said I could come back. Papa Yuri said I could sometime spend the night at his house."

"You'd like that?"

"Yeah. He can wiggle his ears."

"I know."

"Kate?"

"Hmm." She bent to untangle Mike from his leash, then glanced up to see Jack studying her. So serious, she thought, so intent. Just like his father. "What is it, Handsome Jack?"

"Can we… can we sit on the wall so we can talk about stuff?"

"Sure." Very serious, Kate realized as she boosted him up on the wall in front of the college. She passed Mike up to him, then hopped up beside them. "What kind of stuff?"

"I was wondering…" He trailed off again while Mike scrambled off to sniff at the grass behind them. He'd talked it all over with his best friends. Max in New York, and then Rod at school. It was a secret. They'd spit on their palms to seal it. "You like my dad, don't you?"

"Of course I do. I like him very much."

"And you like kids. Like me?"

"I like kids. I especially like you." She draped an arm around him, rubbed his shoulder. "We're friends."

"Dad and I like you, too. A whole lot. So I was wondering…" He looked up at her, his eyes so young, so earnest. "Will you marry us?"

"Oh." Her heart stumbled, then fell with a splat. "Oh, Jack."

"If you did, you could come live in our house. Dad's fixing it up good. And we have a yard and everything, and we're going to plant a garden soon. In the mornings you could have breakfast with us, then drive to your school and teach people how to dance. Then you could drive home. It's not real far." Staggered, she laid her cheek on the top of his head. "Oh, boy."

"Dad's really nice," Jack rushed on. "He hardly ever yells. He doesn't have a wife anymore, because she had to go to heaven. I wish she didn't, but she did."

"I know. Oh, baby."

"Maybe Dad's afraid to ask you in case you go to heaven, too. That's what Rod thinks. Maybe. But you won't, will you?"

"Jack." She fought back tears and cupped his face. "I plan to stay here for a very long time. Have you talked to your father about this?"

"Nuh-uh, 'cause you're supposed to ask the girl. That's what Max said. The boy has to ask the girl. Me and Dad'll buy you a ring, 'cause girls need to have one. I won't mind if you kiss me, and I'll be really good. You and Dad can make babies like people do when they get married. I'd rather have a brother, but if it's a sister, that's okay. We'll love each other and everything. So will you please marry us?" In all her dreams and fantasies, she'd never imagined being proposed to by a six-year-old boy, while sitting on a wall on an afternoon in early spring. Nothing could have been more touching, she thought. More lovely.

"Jack, I'm going to tell you a secret. I already love you."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. I already love your dad, too. I'm going to think really hard about everything you said. Really hard. That way, if I say yes, you're going to know, absolutely, that it's what I want more than anything else in the whole world. If I say yes you wouldn't just be your dad's little boy anymore. You'd be mine, too. Do you understand that?"

He nodded, all eyes. "You'd be my mom, right?"

"Yes, I'd be your mom."

"Okay. Would you?"

"I'm going to think about it." She pressed her lips to his forehead, then hopped down.

"Will it take a long time to think?"

She reached up for him. "Not this time." She held him close before she set him on his feet. "But let's keep this a secret, a little while longer, while I do."

She gave it almost twenty-four hours. After all she was a woman who knew her own mind. Maybe the timing wasn't quite perfect, but it couldn't be helped.

Certainly the way things were tumbling weren't in the nice, neat logical row she'd have preferred. But she could be flexible. When she wanted something badly enough, she could be very flexible. She considered asking Brody out for a romantic dinner for two. Rejected it. A proposal in a public restaurant would make it too difficult to pin him down, should it become necessary. She toyed with the idea of waiting for the weekend, planning that romantic dinner for two at Brody's house. Candlelight, wine, seductive music.

That was her next rejection. If Jack hadn't spilled the beans by then, she very likely would herself. It wouldn't be exactly the way she'd pictured it. There wouldn't be moonlight and music, with Brody looking deep into her eyes as he told her he loved her, asked her to spend her life loving him. Maybe it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be right. Atmosphere didn't matter at this point, she told herself. Results did. So why wait?

She started upstairs. It was good timing after all, she realized. He was just finishing the job that had brought them together. Why not propose marriage in the space they had, in a very real way, made together? It was perfect.

Convinced of it, Kate was very displeased to find the rooms over the school empty.

"Well, where the hell did you go?" She fisted her hands on her hips and paced. School bus, she remembered, spinning for the door. It was one of his days to pick up Jack. She glanced at her watch as she sprinted down the stairs. He couldn't have been gone more than a few minutes.

"Hey! Where's the fire." Spence caught her as she leaped down the last steps.

"Dad. Sorry. Gotta run. I need to catch Brody."

"Something wrong?"

"No, No." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and wiggled free. "I need to ask him to marry me."

"Oh, well… whoa." She was younger, faster, but parental shock shot him to the door in time to snag her.