'F' is for ... Fundamentals on the Fourth
Part 4
“Marry me.”
Mac’s heart skipped a beat only to return to its duty, pounding with a vengeance.
“What?”
“Marry me.”
Her stomach dropped. It wasn’t that she was against the idea, but … surely, he wasn’t serious. And he should not joke about such things. “That’s not ... funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
She wasn’t sure she believed that, and she quickly pointed out, “Well, … marriage is an awfully extreme …” she floundered for a word, “… factor to use in what’s just an attempt at winning some … fluke of a challenge!”
“Forget the challenge,” he insisted.
She ignored his last comment. It was better that she not let him yank her around like this. She dismissively admonished him, “You know, … a facile statement like that doesn’t count anyway.”
“… I meant it.” He was surprised at himself. This certainly wasn’t planned, … but he did mean it. “… That wasn’t a super-ficial proposal, Mac. … Marry me.”
Mac searched his eyes and came to the conclusion that he really wasn’t kidding around with her.
Her response was to reach over and place the inside of her wrist on the brow of his head.
“What are you doing?” he asked, backing his head away.
“Checking your forehead for a fever,” she honestly replied, returning her wrist to his head. “I think you spent too much time in the sun today, because it sounds like you’ve lost your faculties.”
“I’m not feverish.” He removed her wrist from him, but held onto her hand. “And you don’t need to call the funny farm. I know this is … fast … in a way.”
“Fast? It’s zero to … mach five in fewer than four seconds!”
“You’re floored,” he observed, ever the master of the understatement.
“I’m … flustered.” Despite what he meant to her, Mac had to be reasonable. “… Harm, there’s no foundation for a marriage between us. … At least, not right now.”
That she loved him was besides the fact; this was coming from nowhere. “I can hardly fathom how the idea popped into that fruity brain of yours, considering that we’ve never been more than just friends.”
“We’ve always been more than just friends, Mac. You’ve said so yourself. You as much as admitted that you’d considered the possibility that …” Harm didn’t quite know how to phrase the rest.
Mac picked up the opening. “… The possibility of a … fledgling romance that might have formed into something more, yes. In case you forgot,” she jabbed her pointer finger into his chest, “ … you weren’t interested.”
“I was always interested,” he countered. “I was just … frightened.”
She studied his face, trying to read him. He seemed like such a vulnerable little boy at the moment. She had so many questions, but she settled for gently asking, “So, what’s changed?”
Harm shrugged timidly. “The timing, I guess.”
“Timing?” she repeated.
With a sudden spark of rationale which gave him more confidence, Harm built up his case, punctuating each word with ‘f’ to make him feel like he was gaining the upper hand again.
“Well, we do have our five-year-plan to consider. Our deal to go halves on a baby comes to fruition in less than a year now. … I think … we ought to start getting … familiar with each other … soon.” He hoped Mac understood the euphemism.
His nerves were getting the better of him again, but Harm tried to use a persuasive smile, as he added, “… And it would make sense to be married before we, … you know, … fervently start … trying to conceive.”
And suddenly, Mac felt offended.
“That's what this is about? Fertility? … This is all just your plan to avoid having a child by fornication? … How romantic!”
“You want romance?” At the sound of his own surprised voice, reacting to her unmasked expression of sarcasm and hurt, Harm mentally kicked himself.
Mac looked at him squarely, and there was no mistake that she was miffed.
“Harm, I may be one of ‘the Few, the Proud,’ … but I’m also a female, so yes, … in my fantasies of being proposed to, it’s more than a flippant remark based on the fact that we had an agreement over four years ago that needs to be formally addressed to flesh out the fuzzy details …”
“This is more than that,” Harm insisted. “I didn’t say what I did frivolously. This isn’t just about the deal or you making me a father. … Although, I do want that.”
“Then what else is this about?”
If Harm had been looking into her eyes at that moment, he would have seen the hope alight there again. … But he wasn’t.
Staring at a spot on the blanket, he tried to gather his courage to fully lay his heart out before her. “… I have … feelings for you,” he admitted.
“Feelings?” she echoed. How vague could he be?
She waited to hear if he was going to expound. When he simply nodded his head, Mac took a fortifying breath and tried to gain control of her frustration. She needed a calm, level head.
Rationally, she suggested, “… Don’t you think we ought to ferret out what those feelings are, before we jump into anything? … Maybe it’s just feeling that you’re ready for fatherhood. And because of our deal you’re … I don’t know …”
“I think I am ready for fatherhood,” Harm conceded. “But …”
“But forcing a marriage based on having a child isn’t fair … to anyone in the family,” Mac commandeered his sentence. There was no malice in her tone; it was simply a sad observation.
“You don’t want to be married?” Harm asked with astonishment.
“Of course I want to be married. But, what happens when you meet some floozy …”
The term stunned him. “Floozy?”
She modified her response. “… Some flamboyant female that you find attractive. One who is fascinated by you and starts fawning all over …”
“I would be faithful to you,” he insisted, offended that she could think otherwise of him.
That wasn’t her intent, and she quickly assured him, “I’m not questioning your fidelity or your honor, Harm. You’re a good man.” After a pause, she forced herself to ask, “But are you sure you want to completely forego … other women?”
His heart sank, and he stated what he thought was obvious. “I’m finished playing the field, Mac.” She clearly didn’t understand … or didn’t want to, and that pained him. Maybe she was just looking for excuses to push him away, ... because she didn't really want to be with him.
His eyes tore away from her, and his tone became bitter and sad. “… But, obviously, I was a fool to think you wanted … to move forward with me. I guess I mistook our friendship, … the flirting, … the five-year-deal … for something more than it is. I’m sorry; I … thought you were interested.”
“Can we just slow down here?” She didn’t want him running away from her, physically or emotionally. “I am interested in you, Harm. I always have been.”
He risked a glance back at her and found that she was speaking forthrightly.
When she felt confident that he wasn’t shutting her out, she continued, “But as long as we’re on words beginning with the letter, ‘F’ … Does ‘fraternization’ mean anything to you? If we get married, one of us has to transfer out.”
“You were willing to risk that once.”
He was met briefly with a confused expression which morphed into disbelief.
“If you’re referring to once upon a time, on a ferry, then, … yeah, I was willing to see what there could be between us, to see if marriage would eventually follow. … And you weren’t.”
“Well, I am now. But I guess your willingness then was just a fleeting flight of fancy.”
“No,” Mac protested. “… I’m just saying that there are things that need to happen first. Some transition between friend and fiancé.”
Harm had to admit that … when she put it that way, … her reaction sounded more promising than he had initially thought. Maybe this wasn’t a complete lost cause, after all. He raised an eyebrow and prompted, “For instance?”
Her look indicated how incredulous she was that he had to ask, and her tone matched. “… Dating? … Falling in love?”
Part 5
Harm appeared upset at what Mac considered to be obvious suggestions, and she didn’t understand his reaction.
When he didn’t speak, Mac verbally nudged him. “Harm? Say something.”
After another moment of thought, he quietly began, “… As to the former, … I know we haven’t dated … formally. … But it’s not like we don’t know each other …”
With a trace of a grin, she conceded, “… I suppose we could fast-forward through the typical ‘getting to know each other’ stage of a new relationship.”
But her smile faded as she seriously pointed out, “… But we still need to find out … how we would function together as a couple … We need to see if we …” She searched for the right words.
“… Fall in love?” Harm supplied her words from before.
That wasn’t really the phrase she was looking for. She knew she loved him, but she wasn’t sure how he really felt about her. And she knew that changing the nature of their relationship would take a lot of adjustments and compromises; she needed to be sure they could handle all of that.
But Harm’s summary that the issue was whether or not they would ‘fall in love,’ more or less, got the point across. If they loved each other enough, they would be able to handle anything.
“… Yeah,” she reluctantly admitted.
Harm shook his head with disappointment. “If we haven’t by now, after all these years, … we can’t force it to happen.”
“What are you saying?” she asked with worry in her voice.
“I’m saying … that we’ve been together through … fires and floods, … under felony charges and as fugitives, … through feuds and firefights, … through finding the truth about … or facing … our respective fathers …”
Getting more dramatic as his frustration grew, he continued, “… We’ve been there for each other through nothing short of Faustian struggles. We’ve helped each other become a little more free from our personal demons by learning to embrace forgiveness instead of letting things fester and feed our own self-destructive impulses.”
With intensity, he stated to her, “… You know more facets of my life and my character than any other person on the face of the earth, Mac.”
And then he got to the heart of the matter. “… Dating … won’t create, … won’t form a love that doesn’t exist in the first place. … We would have found those feelings out by now.”
“… I don’t understand.” She was truly baffled. One minute, he’s proposing that they wed and the next, he’s saying that since they haven’t fallen in love by now, after all they’ve been through together, they never will?
“You’re suggesting we get married without being in love?” Her tone suggested the absurdity of the notion and the despair of hearing how hopeless he thought falling in love with her would be.
She’d be damned if she would let him marry her as some kind of … business arrangement, … even with the potential for certain fringe benefits … like a chance at more kisses similar to the one they had just shared.
It was Harm’s turn to be shocked at the very concept, but before he could come up with a response, Mac shook her head and launched into her own fiery speech.
“… You know, I’ve faced marriage … twice now. Once I went through with it, and once I didn’t, but both were full-fledged failures. … And if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a marriage needs both parties to be fully in love with each other for the fusion of their lives to work. … Or else the marriage just won’t fly.”
She resolutely concluded, “… So, if that’s the case, … that you’re convinced that our love won’t grow, … then marrying you is out of the question.”
She pinned him with a look of conviction as she explained, “… I happen to view falling in love, … the forever kind of love, … to be of foremost importance when two people exchange vows and put wedding rings on each other’s fingers.”
“… So do I.” The utterance was one of the most forlorn expressions that ever came from Harm.
He was met with a countenance of confusion from Mac, but his eyes wandered away from her face when, in barely more than a whisper, he added, “ … I just … figured we … might have already fallen.”
Even with Harm’s … qualifying words, Mac was taken aback. Could it be that they actually were on the same page? That he might actually be in love with her too?
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TBC ...