Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Margie giggled and screamed happily throughout the entire service.
The Windsor family was silent.
My heart was still broken.
But I knew it would heal.
With Boone at my side, anything was possible.
And as a pair of white doves landed on the headstone of Sol Windsor, I knew that they were once again together.
A sign that she was finally where she was always meant to be.
Epilogue
Life would be a lot more fun if everyone’s middle name was motherfuckin’.
—Nettie to Boone
Nettie
I was nervous as hell.
This project was two years in the making.
Court had helped me every step of the way with this project, and now that the day was finally here, I was terrified that he wouldn’t like it.
It wasn’t the same truck, of course.
There was no way that it could be with the frame bent and twisted—at least that was what Court promised me.
So we’d started from scratch, and every available part that could be moved over to the new truck had been.
Now, I was staring at the restored 1987 Ford F250 with awe.
Even the paint was the correct color.
Court had done a great job.
“Come on,” I said to my girl.
She opened her sleepy eyes and blinked at me.
It was no wonder.
The low rumbling growl of the diesel engine had always put me to sleep, too.
There’d never been a time that I got in that truck and hadn’t been tempted to sleep.
She leaned into me as I pulled her from her car seat and laid her head on my shoulder.
When I stepped out of the truck, I pocketed the keys and walked inside.
I laid her in her crib and covered her with the blanket her daddy had bought her the day she’d gotten out of the hospital.
It was pink with white bears on it, and it was her absolute favorite. The worst was when I had to wash it, and she didn’t want me to. To make it all right, she had to lie in her daddy’s arms and he’d comfort her through the traumatic experience.
I was just closing the door to her room when I heard the rumble of Boone’s motorcycle.
Excitement filtered through me as I all but ran across the house toward the front door.
When I got there, he was off his bike and staring at his truck with his hands on his hips.
The leather vest on his back gleamed in the sun, and when he turned, I knew what I would see.
Awe.
Sadness.
Excitement.
And lots and lots of questions.
I slowly went down the front porch steps toward him.
When I was about six feet behind him, he slowly turned and gave me all those emotions I knew I’d see.
“What the hell, Net?”
I started to wring my hands. “When we came home after I lost my memory,” I explained. “You told me how much this truck meant to you. And I knew that I couldn’t let it get thrown into a junk pile.” I walked toward the truck and ran my hand over the shiny red paint. “Court and I worked tirelessly to make this what it once was. Well, Court did. I came and inspected it all to make sure it was perfect. Plus, I added a few touches to it.”
I opened the door, and he walked to stand just behind me so he could peer in over my shoulder.
“What…” His breath caught. “Is that what I think it is?”
“That’s the blanket that was wrapped around Margie when she was handed to me,” I said. “And that’s the cap that was on her head.”
It was sewn into the fabric of his visor.
So, hopefully, he wouldn’t get it too dirty when he touched it.
He pushed me slightly to the side so that he could sit in the seat.
“How?” he asked as he ran his fingers over the photos.
All of the ones that used to be there, plus one.
The photo of Margie in the hospital, her face all squished up, as she screamed her head off.
I wasn’t sure why it was Boone’s favorite, but it was his phone background for the last two years. And although we’d taken numerous other photos that were way cuter, he stuck with this one.
So, I added it to the photos that he kept pinned to the roof of his truck.
I’d also had the ones that’d once been in his truck restored.
They’d been Polaroids, and sadly, pretty dang hard to reproduce. But with the help of a photographer friend who’d taken our media photos for the Cowgirls team this season, we’d made it happen.
“Why do you love that one so much?” I asked quietly, leaning into him.
He wound his arm around my hip and squeezed my side. “That’s when I knew that she was alive.”
I frowned. “What?”
“That cry, right there. I knew that we’d made it,” he rasped. “I knew that she was alive, healthy, and we’d get to keep her for the rest of our lives.”