Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
She nods, grinning.
“I used to look at this and see only a painful container of memories,” I admit. “But now, for some reason, I understand that isn’t the case.”
She takes my hand. “You’re allowed to grieve however you please, and I know you’ve struggled with that.” She smirks. “But time was up, and you needed to get on with it so I could have great-grandbabies.”
“Lolly!” I say, giggling.
“What did you want me to do? Just sit here and watch you and Hartley pass each other like ships in the night?” She makes a face. “I’m a doer, Mira. And now he’s doing you, and we’re all happy.”
My cheeks flush as she stands proudly.
“Now go home,” she says, tapping me on the butt. “I think you probably have some things to talk to your husband about.”
How does she know? She always knows.
I head for the door. “Oh! I didn’t find your photographs. I’ll come back tomorrow and look again.”
Her smile stops me with my hand on the door. “I think you found just what you needed to find.” She winks. “Good night, sweetheart.”
“Night, Lolly.”
I push open the door and jog to my car. The night air is warm with frogs croaking everywhere. It reminds me of being a kid, running these hills with Hartley, Brooks, and Gray.
Maybe soon our children will be doing the same.
“If you want to love someone the way they deserve, you have to hand them every part of you.”
I back down the driveway, but stop just before I get to the road. Sitting in my car, I stare back at the house, allowing emotions I usually block to touch me.
I miss you so much.
I hate that I lost you when I was so little.
The intensity of losing my parents is crushing, like my body is too small to hold all the pain. But something is freeing about it, too—a lightness in my heart, a feeling of gratitude that I had them in the first place. That I had two parents who loved me endlessly. I had two grandparents who selflessly gave us a safe place to land and live.
And now a husband who does the same. Loves me endlessly, selflessly, always giving me a safe place to land and live.
It’s time to tell him just how much he means to me, too.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Mira
I pull into our driveway and park next to Hartley’s truck just as the sun starts to set. The sky is beautiful, showing off in purples and pinks. It reminds me of my wedding flowers.
The porch light glows warmly against the darkening sky as I take the steps to the house.
I don’t rush inside like I want to. I’m dying to tell Hartley how I feel, but it’s important, too, to sit with my feelings a little bit. If I’d have learned that lesson sooner, Hart and I could’ve been together much sooner and much longer.
Hartley turns as I walk in, pulling a pizza from the oven. “Hey, darlin’.”
Of course he doesn’t have a shirt on.
Stay focused, Mira.
“Hope you don’t mind a heat-up Piper’s Pizza,” he says, taking off the oven mitts. “I was rummaging around in the freezer for an ice pack and found the pizza hidden in the back.”
“An ice pack? Why? Did you get hurt?”
“No,” he says, coming around the island. “Bobby busted his hand.” He rolls his eyes. “It was Brooks’s fault. Need I say more?”
I laugh, wrapping my arms around his waist and breathing in his body oils and soap. “Nope. No, you don’t.”
He kisses me. “How was Lolly’s? Did you find the pictures?”
I pull him to the couch and have him sit, then I crawl into his lap. He wastes no time wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest.
“There were no pictures,” I say, pressing my finger against his tattoo.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there were no pictures. It was a ruse. A Lolly adventure that was part manipulation.” I kiss his sternum. “But in typical Lolly fashion, I won in the end.”
He hums. “Sounds like it turned out well.”
I settle against him, listening to his steady heartbeat beneath my cheek.
Once upon a time, I was afraid to love this man. Even more painfully, I was afraid to accept his love. I convinced myself that we were better off without each other because I was afraid of losing him. By doing that, I never had him.
Now, though, I do. And I’m never letting him go.
I sit up and straddle him. His eyes grow dark, and he grips my hips, assuming I want fucked. And I do. But not yet. Because he deserves to know how I feel about him once and for all.
“Before we get to that,” I say, pressing myself against his already-hardening cock, “I want to talk.”
His brows lift. “Okay. Let’s talk.” He kisses my forehead. “What do you want to talk about?”