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When Johnny had hinted at a marriage proposal, Gaby had been surprised, and a little embarrassed. Of course, she'd known that Johnny liked her, that perhaps he even loved her, and that they made each other happy, but marriage was... another thing. It hadn't been that she'd been opposed to the idea, not at all, she'd just been thinking, Well, what if... And then she'd dismissed that idea. Who could know what the future held, really? She loved Johnny, and he loved her - it should have been enough... it was enough.
But then, that argument at work. She'd gotten so upset when Johnny had seemingly taken the father, Hallard's, side. Then, she hadn't given him a chance... He didn't work in the police, he'd only been going on what he'd heard, on hearsay... and she'd known something that he hadn't which had critically informed her view and had been acting as though he should know it, too, when he'd had no way of knowing it. She'd been too tough on him.
She knew he'd thought about what she'd said, and she hoped he knew that she'd thought about what he'd said, too - if it had been the mother who'd taken the child, if it had been Lene who'd taken Casper instead of Philip, then would she have gotten so upset... She'd just kept thinking, But it wasn't - it wasn't Lene! And the reason Lene had left Philip in the first place was because she'd been in fear for her safety and the safety of her child after Philip had beat her.
Lene might have been telling tall tales, but somehow, Gaby hadn't thought so. In any other case, things might have been different. But that had really been the part that had sold it for her. If Philip had wanted Lene and Casper to stay, then he ought to have thought better of hitting his wife around. If he'd wanted his family kept together, he'd had thought again - and he most certainly wouldn't have resorted to kidnapping a child (his son) whom he hadn't had contact with for years, of having his son drugged, and flown overseas to a foreign country to be with a man who he didn't even know, though he was his father. If he'd been any sort of a father (who'd cared), he'd have rung Lene and tried to work something out, not to mention, he'd have kept in contact.
When she'd heard that Casper was coming home, Gaby had felt an overwhelming swell of happiness, and, underneath that, she'd felt a little twinge of upset at herself for having been so hard on Johnny. If anything had happened to him, she'd never have been able to make up for it - if he'd been taken from her, she'd have had no way of telling him how angry she'd been in that moment, but just for that moment, and how much she'd still cared for him inside.
She'd been so glad when he emerged from that plane, okay, and with Casper. It hadn't exactly been legal, but then, in her opinion, it had been the right thing to do. And she'd been proud.
Well, if Johnny did ask her to marry him, she thought, she wouldn't say No.