With a huff of breath, he pulled her hand from his chest and held it before him, turning her ring and frowning at it. “I know this is a lot to spring on you all at once. I made a promise to you. I promised if I survived, we’d get a divorce. And now I want to break that promise.”

“Clay, I—” Her words clumped together and plugged her throat.

He squeezed her hand. “However, on the day I gave you this ring, I made a higher promise. I promised before God to have and to hold you for the rest of my days.”

Leah’s free hand floated up from the chair into the space between them, a space she wanted to close.

“I’m asking you a favor.” He spoke to her hand. “I love you and want to stay married to you, but that isn’t what you agreed to. Could you do me the favor of holding off that divorce for a while? Maybe till I’ve finished my three months of training? If by then you know for sure you don’t want me for your husband, then I’ll go through with it. No fussing. But first, please let me try to win your heart.”

The chair that had been her dearest help was now her most exasperating hindrance. She shoved it aside.

Clay raised those warm, dark eyes, his brows high.

Just when she needed words most, she had none. She stepped into the space between his knees, gripped his lapels, and pressed her face to his shoulder.

“Hey, now.” He set his hands on her waist. “What’s all this about?”

“You already have it,” she mumbled into the soft wool of his jacket. “My heart. You can’t win what already belongs to you.”

His chest lifted a bit. “You don’t mean . . . ?”

“Oh, a fine poetess I am.” She worked one arm over his shoulder, and she clutched the back of his warm neck. “The most beautiful moment of my life. I should be breaking forth in a sonnet to tell you how much I love you, how very long I’ve loved you, and how very happy I am, and how I love being your wife. And that long life of yours—I want to be with you for all of it, every single day.”

He was still, so very still. Then his arms circled her waist, and he drew her closer. “Well, darlin’. It might not rhyme, but you got your point across.”

She had? She stood up straight, and the nearness of him stole her breath. Nearer than she’d ever seen him, except that fleeting moment at their wedding when he’d . . . Her gaze dropped to his lips—sure and smiling and so very fine.

Those lips moved. “Reckon I should ask you out on our first date.”