In the Land of Milk and Honey

by Nell E S Douglas

  “Where did you find a box made of coconut wood?” I asked, angling it.

  “This is what Christmas is like with Tristan, isn’t it?” he commented, humored.

  I laughed and refocused on the pearl. “It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen one this size in my whole life.”

  “That is from Hunter. It’s his contrition. He doesn’t take being wrong very well, you can see.”

  “He must have been very skeptical of me at the start,” I said, rolling the pearl in daylight. “You could really be brothers.”

  “He found it in the Indian Ocean where he’s been drilling. A diver found several so big no one had ever seen the like. Now one is yours.”

  I closed the box and watched myself set it down on the blanket. “What is he drilling for? Oil? Didn’t they establish there was no oil there?” I said and caught Daniel peering at me amused and surprised.

  “He is in on his mission, the same one he’s been on since we met. Hunter has dedicated years of his life drilling a money pit. He’s attempted different locations but has narrowed his best chance to one. One team of scientists and one crew. He is drilling into the center of the Earth. He is obsessed with it, just as his father was, against advice. He’s very close.”

  “Astonishing.”

  “We’ve been equally eccentric and accepting of those things over the years. But until he gets results he can monetize, I have a responsibility to roast him fully. Second gift, Ms. Valentine.”

  I shook the box this time. It was very light. The lid suctioned off the air-tight white box with a small pop. Buried inside tissue was a key.

  “That key opens this house. Our home,” he explained slowly. “I came back here once, after I made my deal. To the city. I looked and I left. From London, as I said, I used savings I’d hidden away at the time and had Ahmed buy this house in his name. I couldn’t draw notice to my intentions. I couldn’t fully let go of my hope. I wanted you to know that. Hawk suspected nothing when I moved the company. Until he found out about you here that night. And about Tristan.”

  “For all their efforts, here we are,” I said, and he reached over and stroked my leg. “I still can’t believe you bought it and fixed it. Thank you for the key,” I said, clutching it to my chest.

  “You haven’t expressed your thoughts on the renovations,” he began interestedly. “I am curious. Since you were so opinionated on architecture, and I made due without a woman’s touch.”

  “I should have told you sooner. It looks better than I could have imagined. You did great,” I grinned. His expression didn’t alter, but his eyes were happy.

  “Third box,” he nodded his chin. In third box was a gorgeous bracelet set with sapphires. The fourth held keys to a car, a truck rather, identical to his but a different color. I grew flustered at each. I was opening the fifth box and asked, “Why six?”

  “For our anniversary’s,” he said, simply, avoiding my eyes. “Don’t stall.”

  I pulled open the lid to the square box. It was a beautiful slender platinum-toned vintage ring. A pattern almost like lace ran all the way around it with a sprinkle of tiny diamonds.

  “This is gorgeous,” I said raising it from the box. He reached out for my hand and drew me closer. He took the ring and slid it on my finger. I smiled.

  “I have waited a long time to do that,” he said, his finger still lingering on mine. I could see every day of wait etched indelibly in his expression. I closed my hand over his fingers and moved onto him, him rolling back. We kissed for a while. I laid my head on his shoulder.

  Our blanket presently covered wide rips in the tar strips. Those strips had concealed the spray painted words ‘Our Name Is Baird’. We sat on those words now. Tristan and I came straight home, here, after I was released from the hospital. I awoke in the middle of the night and came up to the roof. Tristan slept soundly while Daniel found me up here in only a sheet, shaking. I screamed, at him, for a long time. For a long time. He fell to the ground and began to rip and rip. He tore up black sheets of tar, until he was done and his hands were raw. He sat back on his heels and looked up at me in the moonlight, as raw and ripped as the tar, at the altar of the message he’d left for me years ago. Our name was Baird. He’d written it after he was able to buy the house, in case I returned looking for him. But I hadn’t made it back to this place. We could only find it together.

  He didn’t say a word, but I stopped screaming. I knew then Daniel was Paolo McCartney. The real one, not the false image Hawk had doctored in the files. And the woman he’d been ‘unfaithful’ with had been the female doctor disciplined for patient abuse Jill had read about in that file. The one that gave her nightmares. Daniel did what he had to do to survive but never broke his vow. He suffered unspeakable torture and the hands of Hawk to make his way back to us. I got on my knees, running my hands through the hair I’d touched dozens of times, the hair that hid his patient number. I threw my arms around Daniel’s neck, wrapping us both in my sheet. We sat side by side, him silent, which somehow made me hurt for him more than if he’d shed tears, and me crying, openly, until sunrise. Afterwards, we went back downstairs and woke our sleeping child for breakfast as a family. I got it all out that night. We’d both waited as long as we could. I sighed on his shoulder now and kissed his neck.

  “One more,” he said, stirring, bringing the last box to us. I propped myself up on his chest, and fumbled to balance myself and open the lid. Inside a velvet bed was a large round diamond, sparkling like mad in the daylight. Like opening a light show. I looked up.

  “Will you marry me, Gabrielle Valentine?” he asked.

  “I will.”

  ~o~

  “You look like a picture.” Hunt was looking at me strangely.

  “Thanks. I feel like one.” I grinned, opting for sincerity.

  His brows knit together. “I’ve got a riddle for you.”

  “Now?” I questioned, looking over to him. Violet was waiting inside for us with Tristan. So were August and Solomon.

  “Three men go out fishin’. One young, one old, and one elder,” Hunt began. “All three men end up out the boat in a deadly condition. The elder man is a chief who rules a great village. The old man is a captain with a wife and children. The young man is nothing. Really, a boy. Who gets spared? Just one.”

  “Let me think about it. The captain goes down with the ship, right? So not him.” I contemplated, stalling. “What was the order they went in?”

  “Don’t overthink it. Gut answer.”

  I tapped my chin and dropped my hand. “The chief.”

  “Mm.”

  “But if a chief is out fishing with two younger men, skipping chief business, that means he maybe meant for them to be chief,” I added thoughtfully. “So whoever survives, really, that’s the chief.”

  Hunt looked at me, curiously. “Are you looking for a loophole?”

  “Maybe,” I shrugged. “Seriously, Hunt. Why do you ask me this stuff?”

  “Told ya already. You’re the only one that’s proven me wrong.” It was then I recognized a young man, tawny-haired with a bronze tan, hard alert eyes immune to everything. He’d changed since, too. That’s what he’d been wrong about. My lips parted and closed.

  “Mm,” he said and looked up the stairs, raising his brows in the center. “You get the pearl? I got one for my momma. And my sisters. I got one for Violet, too. It’s bigger don’t be jealous.”

  “Was the pearl set in a ring, by chance?” I said, grinning.

  He grinned back. “She ain’t waitin’ for a ring. And I ain’t the type to be givin’ one.” He glanced up.

  “Well…” I trailed off, before I protested too much on Violet’s behalf.

  “Mm,” he began but seemed at an atypical loss for words as well. “You ready?”

  “Yes.” I linked arms with his and he walked me up the steps of the courthouse.

  When we got to the top of the stairs, Daniel was waiting for me. He looked beautiful. He had on a fresh white V-neck over jea
ns. I wore his white dress shirt with rolled sleeves over my jean cut-offs. Daniel contacted a judge friend for a Judicial Waiver so we could marry right then, and he called Hunt and August on the way here from the roof. He linked my arm in his, and together we walked into the building, down the hall to the desk of licenses side by side. It wasn’t a stretch. I didn’t once struggle to widen my gait to match his. I didn’t think about it. We were walking together in the same time. I was keeping up.

  At the desk, Daniel turned to me, handing me the pen. I was grinning, beaming even. The good-natured clerk had been conversing with us over the red tape. Tristan twisted in my hand beside me, spinning. But Daniel turned to me and my breath ceased.

  His eyes weren’t glistening nor were his lips wet. He looked of stone.

  “My life comes down to you,” he said.

  It startled the clerk. And August and Solomon. And Violet. Tristan hugged my waist. I put my hands to Daniel’s face and pulled him down for a kiss. When I signed, I smiled again. I dotted the pen to the form and dropped it, looking back up.

  As much as the first, no such thing as more.

  “I do.”

  The End.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my life partner, my husband, for being my land, sea, and air. To my children, who are intelligent and beautiful and take my breath away. Thanks to my family for standing at my side and encouraging me to shine. To my sisters, who are always are there to laugh and listen, and whom I will always be there for in the indescribable way sisters are. To everyone who read any of these pages and told me to keep going. It didn’t cost anything to say but the words became the constant priceless echo that pushed me to the finish line. My thanks to team ninja power for your love of books, culture, and humor. Special thanks to Sarah, Sue, and Dawn, who provided exceptional feedback towards this project. Friendships like yours make the world seem small and at hand, with anything possible! Thanks to my copy editor, Rosemi Mederos, who cleared up snags brilliantly and would be dangerous in any category of Jeopardy! Thanks to Editor Stacie McGlaughlin for providing invaluable edits and advice. And thanks to author Nina Bocci for extending the ladder to a fellow woman author. To friends who shared with me a thought of encouragement. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to type return words of gratitude to you and make our circles complete.

  Most of all, I’d like to thank my mother. You wrote for us poetry, sang us old songs, drew pictures, and instilled in us Faith. You pointed at the sky to your girls, and said simply, “It’s yours. Now, go.” We never adopted heroes growing up. That was because you were too great to top. We love you.