Public Secrets

late to start being traditional now.”
“Are you going to give it to me?”
With a nod, he held it out.
“I’d like to say something before I open it.” Carefully, she studied his face, every inch, every angle. “If this had happened five or six years ago, I wouldn’t have appreciated it, or you, the way I can tonight.”
Her hands weren’t steady. She let out a frustrated breath as she fumbled with the lid. “Oh, Michael, it’s lovely.” She looked up from the ring. “Absolutely lovely.”
“Be damn sure,” he told her. “You take it, and that’s it.”
She strangled on a laugh. “That’s the most romantic proposal a woman could possibly dream of.”

“I’ve already asked you too many times.” He cupped the back of her head in his hand. “How’s this?” The kiss was soft, gentle, and promising. “No one’s ever going to love you more than I do. I only want a lifetime to prove it.”
“That’s good.” She blinked back a film of tears. “That’s very good.” Taking the ring from the box, she studied it. “Why three circles?” she asked, running a fingertip around the trio of linked diamond spheres.
“One’s your life, one’s mine.” He took it from her and slipped it onto her finger. “And one’s the life we’ll make together. We’ve been connected for a long time.”
She nodded, then looking up, reached out to him. “I want to start on that third circle, Michael. Right away.”

About the Author

    N ORA R OBERTS is the author of more than 130 novels, including several #1 New York Times bestsellers, with more than 125 million copies of her books in print. She lives in Maryland.

Look for another Nora Roberts favorite,
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BRAZEN VIRTUE
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Brazen Virtue

G RACE HEARD THE low, droning buzz and blamed it on the wine. She didn’t groan or grumble about the hangover. She’d been taught that every sin, venial or mortal, required penance. It was one of the few aspects of her early Catholic training she carried with her into adulthood.
The sun was up and strong enough to filter through the gauzy curtains at the windows. In defense, she buried her face in the pillow. She managed to block out the light, but not the buzzing. She was awake, and hating it.
Thinking of aspirin and coffee, she pushed herself up in bed. It was then she realized the buzzing wasn’t inside her head, but outside the house. She rummaged through one of her bags and came up with a ratty terry-cloth robe. In her closet at home was a silk one, a gift from a former lover. Grace had fond memories of the lover, but preferred the terry-cloth robe. Still groggy, she stumbled to the window and pushed the curtain aside.

It was a beautiful day, cool and smelling just faintly of spring and turned earth. There was a sagging chain-link fence separating her sister’s yard from the yard next door. Tangled and pitiful against it was a forsythia bush. It was struggling to bloom, and Grace thought its tiny yellow flowers looked brave and daring. It hadn’t occurred to her until then how tired she was of hothouse flowers and perfect petals. On a huge yawn, she looked beyond it.
She saw him then, in the backyard of the house next door. Long narrow boards were braced on sawhorses. With the kind of easy competence she admired, he measured and marked and cut through. Intrigued, Grace shoved the window up to get a better look. The morning air was chill, but she leaned into it, pleased that it cleared her head. Like the forsythia, he was something to see.
Paul Bunyan, she thought, and grinned. The man had to be six-four if he was an inch and built along the lines of a fullback. Even with the distance she could see the power of his muscles moving under his jacket. He had a mane of red hair and a full beard—not a trimmed little affectation, but the real thing. She could just see his mouth move in its cushion in time to the country music that jingled out of a portable radio.
When the buzzing stopped, she was smiling down at him, her elbows resting on the sill. “Hi,” she called. Her smile widened as he turned and looked up. She’d noticed that his body had braced as he’d turned, not so much in surprise, she thought, but in readiness. “I like your house.”
Ed relaxed as he saw the woman in the window. He’d put in over sixty hours that week, and had killed a man. The sight of a pretty woman smiling at him from a second-story window did a lot to soothe