Second Chance Sneak Peek #2!

Remember last week, when I said I’d share another excerpt from Second Chance? And this time it would be Ian? And this time there would be spoilers? But you won’t be spoiled for long, because it’s out next Tuesday!

Disclaimer: this is the text as-is before copy-edit changes have been finalized. The final copy may contain superficial differences from the published version.

“We should get married.”

It took me a moment to realize that I’d just said those words. But I didn’t regret them one iota.

Penny’s eyes grew wide, and she blinked slowly. “Um…maybe now isn’t the best time to talk about something like that.”

“It’s a great time,” I insisted, because I was clearly out of my mind. What the fuck was I doing? I hadn’t read any guidebooks on the subject, but I assumed a freshly divorced person shouldn’t run out and immediately remarry months later, to a woman he’d known for less than six months.

The fact that I wasn’t frightened at all was cause for serious worry, as well. But nothing could deter me. Proposing might be foolish, but it was right; I knew that beneath all the conventional wisdom. “We want to start our lives together, yeah?”

“Well, yeah, of course. But I don’t–”

“Then let’s go,” I urged. If she had the good sense to turn me down, I would either be happy, or devastated, I couldn’t tell. “On Monday, let’s go to city hall and get married.”

“I…I can’t. I have to work,” she said, but a smile slowly bent her lips. “With all of this, Sophie is going to need me to handle a lot of stuff for her.”

I took Penny’s hands in mine. “We’ll go on our lunch hour.”

Her face broke into a full grin. Despite her smudged makeup and the crease lines from her pillowcase, my ribs ached at her utter perfection.

“This is really stupid,” she warned me. “And it’s not the way I ever expected this to go.”

Of course. How had I been so thick? Penny had never been married before. She’d never gotten the chance to have the wedding every woman dreams of, or at least what popular culture insisted they should. Penny had been a twenty-two year old virgin when we’d met, so to say there was a touch of the traditional about her would be a fairly large understatement.

“You want the dress and the flowers and the cake.” I dropped my head in shame. “I’m sorry. This was selfish of me.”

“I didn’t say no.”

I looked up. The single, bashful dimple in her cheek deepened as her gaze met mine. “I just meant that you haven’t really proposed to me properly. ‘Let’s get married,’ is nice and all, but if we’re not going to do the dress and the flowers and the cake, I at least need you to take a knee.”

That would be the one tradition she would adhere to, I moaned in my head as I pushed back the blankets. Kneeling on her arctic floor would be unpleasant enough, but I also had to suffer the embarrassment of trying to stand up again. This is for true love, you bastard. It’s not too much to ask. Get on down there and make her want to be your wife.

I didn’t even have a ring.

The floor was a slap of ice when it met my bare knee. Proposing in boxer shorts hardly seemed like the most romantic thing I would ever do for Penny, but her eyes glittered in the light as though Mr. Darcy himself knelt before her.

I wished I hadn’t thought of that prick. He’d set the bar too high for all of us.

I reached for Penny’s hand, and she slipped it into mine gladly. I exhaled sharply, paused to psych myself up, and said, “Penelope Parker. Will you…” What, spend the rest of her life with me? I hoped it wasn’t the rest of her life, or it would be tragically short. We were thirty years apart, for Christ’s sake. “Will you be mine for the rest of my life?”

She squeezed my hand and nodded. “Yes, Ian Pratchett, I will be yours for the rest of both of our lives.”