“Absolutely!”

“Then shrimp and grits you shall have!”

Janine stumbled, hanging onto William’s arm for dear life. “At what point are you going to explain to me why I’m blindfolded?”

“We’re almost there,” he said, guiding her. She could tell that they were on the beach, although she wasn’t sure which one. The sand beneath her feet was thick, and she could feel her calves starting to burn.

When William had showed up at the yoga studio and asked her to go to lunch with him, this wasn’t at all what she was expecting. He’d ushered her to his truck, put a blindfold on her and started driving. Wasn’t this how a lot of scary movies started?

“How much further?”

He stopped. “We’re here.” He reached up and removed her blindfold, revealing a beautiful picnic lunch right by the water. They were at a little cove just down from Janine’s cottage. She loved this area because it was quiet, although with the new lighthouse tours, there would probably be more people on that stretch of the beach very soon.

“You did this for me?”

“I just thought maybe you could use a little lunch away from all the craziness in the square right now.” She had to admit, it was nice to get away from everything. With the Spring Festival starting tomorrow, there was a lot of activity going on around her studio.

“Thank you, William. This is a beautiful gesture.”

He pointed to the red and white checkered blanket on the ground. She sat down cross legged, as any good Yogi would do.

“I picked up some of your favorites from the café. Chicken salad, potato soup, peach cobbler…”

Janine laughed. “Are you trying to make me fat?”

He smiled. “I’m just trying to make you happy, whatever that takes.”

She reached over and held his hand. “I’m happy because I’m with you. I mean, I won’t say no to the peach cobbler…”

“Janine, I’m really sorry for how things went the other night at the restaurant. I just had some things on my mind, and I pretty much ruined our romantic evening.”

“Let’s just forget about it and enjoy this amazing lunch, okay?”

“Yeah, and we better hurry up because I know you have a class in an hour or so.”

“Yes, and I also have something else important I need to do after class this evening, so I might be a little late coming over to your house.”

“I hope nothing too upsetting or dramatic?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. I can’t talk about it right now, but hopefully I can tell you when I see you tonight.”

She didn’t want to tell him about the situation with Emma without her permission first. She understood how important it was for a person who had suffered trauma to be able to control who knew about it.

“So, I wanted to talk to you about something…”

Her heart started to flutter. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the moment that he was going to propose. Of course, she didn’t know if that had been the plan at the restaurant, but maybe it was the plan now.