And All the Stars (39 page)

Authors: Andrea K Höst

BOOK: And All the Stars

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His smile became sardonic. "By that point I'd noticed you draw a great many people, but only
seem to urgently want to paint those who matter to you."

She'd not thought of it that way, but it was true enough,
making another similarity between them, since he spared time from his studies
only for people he considered important. There had been times, even after Tokyo, when she'd struggled not to give
in to divided feelings, but she'd never regretted choosing to go to
Melbourne. And had been rewarded by a
slow return of the total confidence she'd felt when she first held her hand out
to a boy more complicated than anyone guessed.

"I wonder if Noi and Lee would be interested in a double
wedding?" she asked, standing beneath mist and rainbows.

Fisher's hand tightened on hers. "Are you proposing to me?"

"I think I must be." The dust-catcher was a mercy, her face surely
crimson. "I can't imagine ever not
wanting to paint you."

Fisher gave her his response silently and completely, turning
to take her free hand, every line of him shouting joy as the mist-fine fall
drifted around him. She was glad this
had happened here, the place where it had begun and ended, and wasn't even
annoyed by the faint awareness of camera shutters whirring. The Musketeers had helped her along by
maintaining to a very interested world that "Fisher and
Maddie
got together in Tokyo", but she wasn't ashamed of
what she'd felt for Théoden. He had
given her many gifts, and it felt right to share this with him.

Keeping a firm clasp of Fisher's hands, she looked up at
rainbows, then down at the stone plaque they stood before.

"Théoden," it read.

Beneath the name, three words:

ONE FOR ALL

ooOoo

Thank you for reading

And All the Stars

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