He nodded slowly. But his thoughts were spinning and there was the flashing of a warning light. He didn’t know what it meant. He told himself he didn’t want to know.
“It’s gotta be for keeps,” he said. “It can’t be any other way.” And then blindly, in a frenzy of wanting her, needing her, he reached out and took hold of her wrists. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “We won’t quit. We’ll do it tonight.”
“Tonight?”
His eyes were feverish. “I know where we can get a license.”
“But—”
“Just say yes. Say it.”
She went on staring at him. Then very slowly she turned her head and gazed out past the shoreline, looking at the moonlight on the river. For a long moment the only sound was the lapping of the water along the bank.
And then there was the sound of her voice saying, “Yes.”
12
He didn’t move. It was a kind of paralysis, as though he’d been hit on the skull with a sledge hammer, just hard enough to put him in a daze. The air became a tunnel of mist.