"Are you hungry?" Matt asked Taylor.
"I'd love to have some cold chicken and a bottle of wine." She said it as though speaking to a headwaiter.
He laughed. "I think the chicken could probably be arranged, but I don't know about the wine. This is a U.S. Navy ship, you know."
"I was just wondering," she said. "Do you think the captain would let us stand a night watch on the hill? We could take the food with us. We'll make our own wine." The coy smile on her face made butterflies in his stomach.
"I'll ask him."
“Don’t worry about it you two,” Durant said, patting Taylor on the shoulder. “Whether you know it or not, today you saved the lives of everyone in this fleet and a lot of others to boot. If you had not found Edward and the stellarite he was carrying we’d all be trapped here forever. I doubt there's anything you could ask for that you couldn’t get. I'll go make the arrangements with Captain Lloyd myself. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds a bottle somewhere. You just go get what you need from your quarters. That sailor over there has been assigned to show you the way.” He pointed to the seaman who had escorted them to the conference room. “Meet me on the helicopter deck when you’re ready.”
They watched him walk away and disappear through a hatch.
Matt turned to Taylor and gazed into her eyes. "I love you, Taylor, without reservation. Now and forever." The words he thought he would never say again came easily to him.
Her smile returned the words he had spoken, open and true. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him softly. "And I love you, too, Matt Leahy. I’ve waited a long time for you to come into my life. I think I knew you were the one from the moment I first saw you.”
Together they watched the sun begin to sink into the western ocean, casting a magnificent amber glow in the sky. It gave them both a secure feeling to know that within a few hours that same sun would be rising on home, on America.
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James L. Ferrell, Close Up the Sky
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