Amy shivered with the truth. “Yes.” Only “yes” resided within her. It was all up to him now—to end the waiting that was twenty-five years long, yet felt now like only a minute.

“I have something for you.” He reached into his backpack, pulled out a silver box, plain, no wrapping, with the words SYLVIA’S ANTIQUE PARLOR stamped in bold black letters on the top.

Warmth overcame her now—a comfort of certainty and the rightness of unalterable destiny. She lifted the top of the box and fumbled with the tissue.

“I looked everywhere I could think of, every jewelry store, every antique shop. This was the closest I could find,” he said.

She lifted a necklace off the cotton square on the bottom of the box and held up a small diamond cross pendant dangling off a silver chain. He held the flashlight up to the necklace; the diamonds glinted amid the sparkling, twirling dust. She dropped the necklace to the ground.

“Nick . . .” She fumbled, reached her hands out to the dirt-coated floor to pick it up.

He lifted up the necklace, then pulled her close.

“Please let me put it on,” he said.

“I bought the last one for myself—no one gave it to me.”

“Well, now I am giving this one to you.”

She faced him now, her legs askew, not knowing where to rest her hands. Her right one covered her neck. “Oh . . .” She began to cry. Now he would replace the lost necklace, the missing pieces of her heart, the desperate, unfinished longing for him she’d thought long buried.

Nick brought the necklace around her throat, then hooked it. His fingers traced across her skin and she remembered all of it now—where he would touch, where she would. Of course she would—there was no other way.

“It’s perfect. It falls exactly right. . . . It fits.” His words ran under her skin—a warm river carrying her.

Of course it does. Of course you do. “My old one was just silver . . . no diamonds.” Her body leaned forward.

“Well, now you have diamonds and platinum.”

He reached to touch the cross; his fingers grazed her neck, ran over her collarbone to unzip the front of her coat. Her legs knew where to go and they wrapped around Nick’s as he drew her closer. Her arms fell free when he pushed off the coat, which landed in another dance of dust. She didn’t look away from his eyes; they were on fire with the sun, the copper indistinguishable from the light flashing off the underside of the magnolia leaves outside. Murmured light allowed the suspension of time, and she was twenty-one years old again, promises and vows intact.

She found the feel of his skin, the understanding of his touch. He knew her, what she wanted, who she was and what she loved. He knew all of her and still wanted her.