"What did you say?"

"I'm going to ask Brody to marry me. I've got it all worked out."

"Katie."

"I love him. I love Jack. Dad, I don't have time to explain it all, but I've thought it through. Trust me."

"Just catch your breath and let me…" But he looked at her face, into her eyes. Stars, he thought. His little girl had stars in her eyes. "He hasn't got a prayer."

"Thanks." She threw her arms around her father's neck. "Wish me luck anyway."

"Good luck." He let her go, then watched her run. "Bye, baby," he murmured. Brody made a stop for milk, bread and eggs. Jack had developed an obsession with French Toast. As he turned into his lane, he checked his watch. A good ten minutes before the bus, he noted. He'd mistimed it a bit.

Resigned to the wait, he climbed out, let Mike race up the hill and back. Spring was coming on fine, he thought. Greening the leaves, teasing the early flowers into tight buds. It brought something into the air, he mused.

Maybe it was hope.

The house, the ramble of it, was looking like a home. Soon he'd stick a hammock in the yard, maybe a rocker on the porch. Maybe a porch swing. He'd get Jack a little splash pool. Jack and Mike could play in the yard, roll around on the grass on those long, hot summer evenings. He'd sit on the porch swing and watch. Sit on the swing with Kate.

Funny, he couldn't put a real picture into his head anymore, unless Kate was in it. And didn't want to.

He'd have to take his time, Brody mused. Get a sense of where Jack stood in all of it. After that, it would be a matter of seeing if Kate was willing to take everything to the next level. Maybe it was time to give her a little nudge in that direction. Nothing was ever perfect, was it?

Everything in life was a work in progress.

It was like building a house. He figured they had a good, solid foundation. He had the design in his head—him, Kate, Jack and the kids who came along after. A house needed kids. So it was time to start putting up the frame, making it solid.

Maybe she wouldn't be ready for marriage yet—with her school just getting off the ground. She might need some time to adjust to the idea of being a mother to a six-year-old. He could give her some time. He stood, looking over his land, studying the house on the hill that just seemed to be waiting. Not a lot of time, he decided. Once he started building, he liked to keep right on building. And he wanted Kate working on this, the most important project of his life, with him.

The first thing to do, he decided as he walked to the mailbox, was to talk to Jack about it. His son had to feel secure, comfortable and happy. Jack was crazy about Kate. Maybe Jack would be a little worried about the changes marrying her would bring, but Brody could reassure his son. They'd talk about it tonight, he decided, after dinner.

He just couldn't wait any longer than that to start things moving.

When he and Jack were square, he'd figure out what to say to Kate, what to do, to move everybody along to the next stage of the floor plan.

He got the mail out of the box, and was sifting through it on the way back to the truck when Kate pulled in beside him.

"Hey." Surprised, he tossed the mail into the cab of his truck. "Didn't expect to see you out this way today."

After she got out of the car, she picked up the mangled hunk of rope Mike spit at her feet, engaged him in a brief bout of tug-of-war, then threw it—she had a damn good arm—far enough to keep him busy awhile.

Watching her playing with the dog, all Brody could think about was that he couldn't wait very long.

"I just missed you at the school," she told him.

"Problem there?"

"No, not at all. No problem anywhere." She walked to him and slid her hands up his chest, a habit that never failed to pump up his heart rate. "You didn't kiss me goodbye."

"Your office door was closed. I figured you were busy."

"Kiss me goodbye now." She brushed her lips over his, arched a brow when he kept it light and started to ease back. "Do better."

"Kate, the bus is going to come along in a couple minutes."

"Do better," she murmured, and melting against him shifted the mood. He fisted a hand in the back of her shirt, another in her hair. And indulged both of them.

"Mmmm. That's more like it. It's spring," she added, tipping back so that she could see his face. "Do you know what a young man's fancy turns to in spring? Besides baseball." He grinned at her. "Plowing?"

She laughed, linking her fingers behind his neck. Yeah, the frogs were still jumping. But she liked it. "All right, do you know what a young woman's fancy turns to? What this young woman's fancy turns to?"

"Is that what you came out here to tell me?"

"Yes. More or less. Brody…" She nibbled her bottom lip, then just blurted it out, "I want you to marry me."

He jerked, froze. There was a buzzing in his ears—a hive of wild bees. He had to be hearing things, he decided. Had to. She couldn't have just asked him to marry her when he'd spent the last five minutes trying to figure out how and when to ask her.

To get his bearings, he retreated a step.

"It's not very flattering for you to gape at me as though I'd just hit you over the head with a two-by-four."

"Where did this come from?" Maybe he was just dreaming. But she looked real. She'd tasted real. And the thundering of his own heart wasn't the least bit dreamlike. Besides, in his dreams, he asked her. Damn it. "A woman doesn't just walk up to a man in the middle of the day and ask him to marry her."

"Why not?"

"Because…" How was he supposed to think of reasons with all those bees in his head? "Because she doesn't."

"Well, I just did." She felt her temper sizzle into her throat and managed to swallow it. Her fingers shook slightly as she lifted them to begin ticking off points. "We've been seeing each other exclusively for months. We're not children. We enjoy each other, we respect each other. It's a natural and perfectly logical progression to consider marriage."

He needed to take control back, he realized. Right here, right now. "You didn't say let's consider marriage, did you? You didn't say let's discuss it." Which had been his plan if she'd given him the chance.