Read Online Last Chance Proposal by Barbara Deleo - Free Book Online

them before and I want to show him. Please!”
    Fleur stood and lifted a jacket from the back of a chair. “If we’re going, it needs to be soon. I don’t want you too tired for Christmas prep tomorrow, Louis.” Cy stayed seated at the table and Ellie could see how torn he was. It must be tough to balance trying to protect his son with the fact Jonty seemed so keen to go. Perhaps if Cy could relax a little then Jonty would relax too.
    …
    Cy felt the weight of their stares and sighed. “All right, but you’ll need to hold my hand all the way, bud.” He stood and put Jonty’s jacket on while Louis whooped around looking for torches.
    While he bundled his boy up, Cy wondered what had made him agree to take Jonty to the glowworms. It could’ve been the desperation in Louis’s voice, might also have been the brightness in Jonty’s eyes, but if he were honest with himself, the real reason was that he didn’t want this day with Ellie to end.
    So much of the afternoon at the party had been about pretending and playacting, but when the visitors had gone and they could get back to being themselves, everything felt so different. They’d laughed together again and talked about the things Ellie would find different in the States. When they’d sat down to dinner together under the lights in the old rata tree, Cy had realized that he hadn’t felt this connected to anyone in years, and he didn’t want it to stop.
    A short while later they were walking through the bush, the scent of overripe summer flowers surrounding them. Cy held Jonty’s hand beside Ellie, with Fleur and Louis taking the lead. Fleur was telling them all an old Maori legend about the fairy people who’d visit the river as glowworms, Louis embellishing it with hoots and whoops.
    Cy shared a flashlight with Ellie and stayed close to her in the darkness. His heavy footfalls on dried ferns beat time. “Remember when my old friend Jake and I followed a bunch of you girls down here one night and pretended to be ghosts?” He looked down to check for roots in their way and saw Ellie smile in the glow of the flashlight.
    She laughed. “We screamed so much, all the dads came running and two of them ended up in the river.”
    He chuckled. “We got in big trouble.”
    “And your punishment was to help clean out the septic tanks.”
    Cy let the memory of those simple times wash through him. So much had happened since.
    “Hey, J,” Louis called. “There’s a possum in the tree up here, come take a look.”
    Jonty started to pull away but Cy still held his hand. “Will you be okay, bud?”
    Jonty turned to look at Ellie.
    “I’m sure he’ll be fine, won’t you, Jonty,” she said quietly.
    Jonty nodded and slipped from Cy’s hold. Ellie stopped and hugged herself at his side.
    “You’re cold,” he said and stopped walking.
    She pulled her cardigan tighter. “I’m okay.”
    He ignored her protest and shrugged out of his jacket, the light from the flashlight casting soft shadows across her face. Ahead, Jonty moved his flashlight this way and that as they looked for the possum.
    Cy held the jacket behind her and Ellie put her arms through the holes till her fingers were swamped. When he’d adjusted it, he held his hands on her shoulders for a moment and his stomach looped. He turned her around, and she rolled one of the sleeves so she could hold the torch better.
    “This zipper’s a bit funny, I’ll do it up for you,” he said. He drew the bottom edges of the jacket together as she watched.
    When he reached her chest his mind flashed to that day on the yacht years ago, how her body responded to him. The memory caused his chest to tighten. His responses had been naive then, rapid and reflex. The way his body awakened now was from knowledge of the way he wanted to make her feel.
    He held his breath as he reached her heart. For a second he fumbled, but still Ellie didn’t look up, and he was afraid that the spell he was under would be broken. Not