“Oi!”

Tom finally broke into laughter. “Where do you want the roses?”

“One on either side, please.” She pointed toward the willow in the corner. “Beats you regularly… I should beat you, ornery monster.”

Josie didn’t even hear him coming when he tackled her to the grass. She rolled across the lawn, laughing in his arms as Tom growled in her ear.

“I’ll show you a monster.” He nipped her ear and slowly scraped his fangs over her throat. “This monster has a taste for fair maiden. And look! Here’s one sitting in my garden.”

They wrestled in the grass until Josie was breathless from laughter. She threw her arms out and inhaled the fragrant night air, eyes closed and a satisfied smile on her face.

Tom reached out and traced her profile from her forehead, over her nose and down to her chin.

“Did you just smear dirt all over my face?”

“Yes. I’ve decided you’re not a fair maiden. You’re a warrior goddess, and this is your war paint.”

“I like it. I could definitely write a story about a warrior goddess.”

“Josie…” He leaned over her, taking her lips in an achingly sweet kiss.

She smiled. “What?”

“Nothing,” he murmured. “I just like saying your name is all.”

“One of these days, Tom Dargin, I’m going to tell the world how sweet you are.”

“No one’d believe you. Everyone knows writers are compulsive liars.”

She burst into laughter again, and something about his expression, about the curve of his mouth just then, reminded her of the first time she’d seen him.

Solemn and serious, standing proud in her father’s old house on Merrion Square. Telling her to stand up straight and never apologize for who she was, even if that was a rail-thin spinster with an overactive imagination and a withering cough.

And so it still was.

She adored him so much he could make her his slave. But then he wouldn’t be the Tom who’d seen the quiet girl in the corner and asked her to stand tall, and Josie would be the caterpillar who never turned into a butterfly.

“I love you, Tom.”

“Love you too, sweet girl.”

“What a pair of monsters we are.”

THE END