She glanced at Carol, who nodded and waved her off. “Okay. Let me get my coat.”
A few minutes later, they were outside, breathing in the crisp fall night air. The scent of a wood-burning stove filled the air, mixing in the fragrance of cedar and oak. “It’s a beautiful night,” Cole said. “Look at the lake. It’s as smooth as glass.”
“It’s gorgeous. Like a postcard.” Her breath frosted in the air, surrounding her face with a soft cloud.
He thought of what she had said before, about how he should learn to make a mess more often, to be less uptight and rigid and planned. Spontaneity had never been Cole’s strong suit, yet the happiest times he could remember were when he went off schedule. Maybe that was the key to finding his way back to where they used to be—throwing out the plan and just...
Being.
A rowboat lay on the beach, flanked by a pair of oars. The moon glinted off the wooden boat’s hull, making it look like a giant smile in the dark. “Hey, let’s take the boat out,” he said.
“At night? In the middle of November?”
He leaned in close, catching the sweet scent of her floral perfume, a fragrance he knew as well as he knew his own name. Her hair drifted across his lips. “Live on the edge, Emily,” he whispered. “With me.”
She turned to him, her lips an inch away from his. Her eyes widened, she inhaled, and Cole wanted her more in that moment than he could remember. “On the edge? But it’s dangerous. It’s nighttime, the water is cold and...well, things could go wrong. Remember the story Carol told?”
He brushed the hair off her forehead and let his touch linger there a moment. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there to catch you.” His hand drifted down, along her jaw. “I always will be.”
She shook her head, and tears glimmered in her eyes. “Cole—”
“Trust me, Em. Just tonight.”
She bit her lip and watched him for a moment, wary, hesitant.
“It’ll be fun. Unscripted, spontaneous, fun. I promise.”
Then the hesitation disappeared and she smiled. “Okay. As long as you don’t rock the boat.”
He took her hand and led her down the hill. Her hand felt good in his, right. Long ago, they had stopped holding hands. Why, he couldn’t remember. If they ever got back together, he vowed that if Emily was nearby, he would always hold her hand. “Of course. Not rocking the boat is my specialty.”
“You’re wrong about that, Cole. I’m the one who never likes to rock the boat,” she said, bending to help him right the boat and slide it into the water. “You’re the one who takes chances.”
“In business, yes. In my personal life—” he took an oar, then waited while she climbed into the rowboat before handing her the second oar “—not so much.”
Cole gave the boat a push, and it slid into the water with a gentle ripple. He took both of the oars, positioned himself on the bench, then began rowing away from the shore. The oars made a satisfying whoosh sound with each stroke, while his back and shoulder muscles jerked to attention. A fish jumped out of the water behind them, then flopped back in, spattering them. Emily watched him row, a smile playing on her lips. “What?” he asked.
“You look...well, you look sexy and strong doing that.”
“Then maybe I should do this more often.”
She didn’t respond to that, just smiled again and leaned back on the bench. “All the times I’ve been to the Gingerbread Inn, I’ve never been out on the lake after dark. It’s so peaceful out here.”
A perfect setting for a man to propose, Cole thought. When he’d proposed to Emily all those years ago, he’d done what he always did—he’d created a plan for the evening and stuck to his timetable, almost to the minute. Dinner in the city, followed by the ubiquitous and clichéd carriage ride along New York’s streets, then pausing by Central Park to slip onto the carriage’s carpeted floor and pop the question. He’d known Em was going to say yes before he even asked, because they’d talked about getting married a half dozen times before.
Out here, alone in the dark while fish bobbed in the water around them and geese swam silently along the banks, he had the perfect setting for something unexpected. Something that would show Emily he wasn’t here to fix the porch or chop firewood. He was here for them. For a second chance. He gave the oars a final tug, then set them across the center of the boat. Then he leaned forward, dropping to one knee, and reached for his wife’s hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Living on the edge,” he said. “Emily, I don’t want a divorce. I don’t want us to live apart anymore. I want to try again, to give our marriage the chance it needs. Will you try again?”
Her eyes widened, and she backed up a bit. Damn. This was why he planned these things out. So he could have time to write a good proposal, to plan out what he was going to say. That had to rank up there with the top ten least romantic proposals in the history of time. “Cole, there’s a lot we need to discuss. Things we haven’t settled yet.”
“What’s to settle? I love you.” He held her hands, but noticed she didn’t hold his back. Nor did she tell him she loved him. Had her feelings for him changed? Was he reading her all wrong?
“It’s about more than love, Cole. It always was. We’re...not on the same path anymore.”
He grinned. Okay, so she hadn’t said she didn’t love him, either. He’d take that as a good sign. “We are now. A path that’s kind of going in circles in the middle of the lake.”
She pulled her hands back and tucked them inside her coat. The air between them dropped a few degrees, and the grin faded from Cole’s face.
“I want a family, Cole. I always have. We’ve put it off forever, and honestly, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t understand why. You’ve achieved what you want with the company, I’m writing my book...what more is there to do or get before we have kids?”
Just the word kids made him freeze. When he’d first married Em, he’d told her he wanted children, and maybe for a time, he had. But as the years had worn on and he watched his friends have kids and have trouble and turmoil in their families, trouble and turmoil that affected the kids and ruined their childhoods, the more Cole didn’t want to change the status quo. But he knew that telling Em would drive her away for good. She had always been set on having children, the one risk Cole didn’t want to take. “We always wanted to travel, Em. Have fun, live our lives, before we added kids into the mix.”
She let out a gust. “Let’s go back to shore. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Let me ask you this.” He leaned toward her, causing the boat to make a gentle rocking motion. “Why do you think having kids will improve our lives?”
“How can you say they won’t?” She shook her head. “I don’t get you, Cole, I really don’t.”
“I’m just trying to make sure we have everything in order first.” He didn’t want to tell her that the thought of being a father was the only thing that truly scared Cole. He knew what he was good at and what he wasn’t—and parenting didn’t make the list of talents.
“You and your lists and timetables.” She let out a gust. “For once, I wish you would just let all that go.”
He was losing her. He could hear it in her voice, see it in her face. They had reached a moment of no return, a time when he had to act, instead of just talk. Their relationship stood on a fault line, and only a dramatic shift would keep it from falling apart.
“I can, if you