But I only laughed at her. “I asked you, silly. But I’ll take that as a yes?”

She laughed and pressed her forehead to mine. “Yes. That’s a big, big yes.”

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, holding her tight against me. Her heart thrummed against my chest and her arms locked around my neck. A surge of love washed over me and though she had instigated this, I was completely certain that she was my future. I wanted this amazing, strong, beautiful woman beside me for the rest of my life.

When our lips parted, I took her left hand in mine again, turning it over I looked at the ring. “I thought you said you sold it off to pay for your medical bills.”

She nodded. “I pawned it. Fortunately it was still at the shop last week when I bought it back.”

I raised my brows and looked at her. “This is probably an indelicate question but—”

She straightened. “I sold the blog, Adam. That’s how I got the money.”

I frowned, unable to find the words. I was more irked about her selling the blog than about her having sold the ring in the first place.

She saw. She laid a hand on my cheek. “Please don’t be mad. It’s something I had to do. I put a lot of myself in that blog and Girl Geek will always be a part of me…but there was a point where I wouldn’t have been able to continue a lot of the features. You and I being together meant that there would have been a lot of conflict of interest on what I wrote about. I would have had to change the angle of what I was doing anyway, so…I saw selling the blog as a way of making that final, ultimate commitment to growing up and leaving my old life behind.”

“I would never have asked for you to do that.”

She nodded. “I know. I asked it of myself. It’s something I needed to do. Plus, with medical school, I wasn’t going to have the time I used to before.”

That was the other big question hanging between us, so I was glad she brought it up. “So you’ve come to a decision about medical school?” Relief washed over me. “I’m so glad you are going to go. My realtor found some wonderful properties in Maryland—”

I cut myself off at her shaking head. “I sent Hopkins my polite rejection.”

I pulled away from her and sat back on my legs. “What?”

“I’m not going to Maryland.”

“But—”

“I’m staying here. I’m going to go to UC Irvine.”

My mouth hung open. She gave me a look of concern.

“Adam, are you okay? I’m kind of worried.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. UCI wasn’t even on your top five list.”

She sat down in the sand next to me. “You’re right. It wasn’t. Until I started going there every week for my chemo. Until I met the staff and some of the teaching doctors and was so impressed by how they interacted with their patients. How they concentrated on our comfort, our emotional health and on putting us at ease. To be honest, I’m not even sure about specializing in oncology anymore. I don’t know if I still have the guts for it. But if I do, I want to be taught by those doctors.”

I looked at her, still not quite able to wrap my mind around it. “Are you sure?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I had a lot of time up there in the desert to think.”

I shook my head. “You are absolutely sure? Because I don’t want you to regret it.”

She looked up into the sky, fingering the compass around her neck. “So here’s the deal…This last year has been, um, challenging and I tried to do a stupid thing and power through it by myself because that’s what I’d always done my entire life. For me, it was easier to do that than to get my heart broken by relying on other people who wouldn’t come through. It was an idiotic way of thinking. You and I had started something special but I was very much still in that old mindset.”

She looked down from the sky and found my gaze. I leaned back on my arms, watching her. “So I’ve learned that very hard lesson. At any moment, your life can change for the worse or for the better. And when that happens, you need your allies. My people are here. Mom, my friends…and you. Even if I moved there with you, I wouldn’t have everyone else. And I need everyone.” She leaned forward and laid her cold hand on my cheek. “Some more than others, of course. But I need Alex and Jenna and Kat and William and Britt. Mom and Peter and Connor. And of course Heath.”

“Hmmm.” I shook my head. “I was afraid you were going to mention the big ugly guy.”