From the Embers
Page 25
“I know,” she whispered, shooting me a smile that looked so much like his that it caused a sharp pain in my chest. “It’s almost over.”
It wasn’t though. He was being released three years and some change early and would have to spend the next thirty-six months strictly adhering to the conditions of his parole.
But he’d be free.
And he could come home.
And he could be mine again. Twelve years, eight months, three weeks, four days, twelve hours, and forty-three minutes, and he could finally be mine again.
“What time is it?” I asked Nora, physically unable to drag my eyes off the chain link gates.
“Twelve thirty.”
God, how was I ever going to get through another thirty minutes of torture? I was exhausted and my entire body ached, but I was so damn close to pressing play on my life again. After pulling the visor down, I busied my trembling hands by smoothing my long, brown hair. I’d done the best I could with concealer to hide the bags under my pale-green eyes. It was a lost cause. Sleep had been a fruitless effort in the weeks since I’d found out he was coming home.
Nora let out a sigh. “Listen. I want you to be prepared for—”
“Don’t say it,” I clipped, closing the visor.
Her brown eyes sparkled in the midday sun. “You don’t understand. He’s changed. A lot.”
“We all have.” I was far from the sixteen-year-old tomboy he’d once dated.
Hell, he was probably going to have a heart attack when he saw me in the navy-blue maxi dress I’d chosen simply because it hugged all the right curves. Though, curves or not, the way I looked had never mattered to Ramsey before, and I didn’t suspect now would be any different.
“You need to be realistic here,” Nora warned.
I turned in my seat to give her my full attention. “I am being realistic.”
“Thea—”
“Don’t. Not today. I don’t need a lecture right now about how we’re not teenagers anymore. I get it, okay? Things have changed.” I tapped my finger over my heart. “But not in here. In here, nothing will ever change. So please. Give it a rest and let me have today.”
Her face got soft. “I just want you to be happy.”
I smiled and, for the first time in as long as I could remember, it breached the numbness and warmed my skin. “I know, and this is easily the best day of my entire life. We can be nervous. We can be excited. But no more worrying. I’m going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine from here on out.”
She smiled, entirely unconvinced, but she loved me enough not to argue.
This wasn’t the end of a fantasy where we lived happily ever after. It was going to be a hard transition for all of us. When Ramsey had been locked up, Nora had been fourteen, I’d been sixteen, and he’d been seventeen. Back then, we’d been invincible for no other reason than we’d had each other. But for the last decade, we’d been forging our own paths. Ones I was desperate to finally merge back together.
With Ramsey back, time could finally start again. No more countdowns. No more hollow seconds passing without him. No more hiding under our tree, crying and pleading for the boy who had stolen my heart to suddenly appear.
No. Those days were gone.
In mere minutes, a man I no longer knew—but had never stopped loving—was going to emerge from between the chain link gates. I’d never been more ready for anything in my entire life.
I stared down at my watch, the minutes passing with the agonizing speed of millenniums. while Nora fidgeted beside me. We didn’t talk. There were no words left to say.
Sometime between thirty minutes and five hundred years later, movement caught our attention.
And then time officially stopped.
I could live forever and I’d never forget the moment when those gates opened, revealing the most gorgeous man I would ever see. That had more to do with the fact that it was Ramsey than the way he actually looked.
He was taller than I remembered. Clean shaven, and his hair was short. With a garbage bag thrown over his shoulder, lean muscles showed beneath his plain white tee. The lanky legs that had once carried me on his back anywhere I wanted to go were stretching the thighs of the jeans I’d helped Nora shop for a week earlier. But none of that, not one damn part of that, was why my lungs seized and my throat closed.
He was smiling—a pure and genuine Ramsey Stewart special edition I had missed every single day for over twelve years. A sob tore from my chest as I slapped a hand over my mouth and stared at him.
Not in cuffs.
Not in a prison jumpsuit.
Not locked behind bars.
My Ramsey was finally free.
Nora climbed out of the car first, tears already falling from her eyes. And at the sight, her brother’s smile grew tenfold.
His full lips moved in the pattern of, Hey you as she jogged toward him. The second he got close enough, she jumped into his arms. He laughed, holding her to his chest, her feet dangling off the ground. It was hard not to be jealous.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I collected myself and gave them a moment for their private reunion. Seeing him with her, grinning with so much pride and adoration—it made my nerves momentarily calm. The longing only grew. When I couldn’t force myself to wait any longer, I threw my door open and climbed out.
It took him several beats to notice me, but like I’d been hooked up to a set of jumper cables, I felt the shock down to the core of my soul when his dark gaze landed on mine. His back shot straight and surprise robbed me of his smile. His jaw got hard, and a mixture of agony, shock, and fury mingled in his handsome features. This was more than likely what he had dubbed the Thea Hull trifecta.
“What the hell,” he rumbled in a raspy voice I would have recognized anywhere.
That fool. It was as if he’d really thought I wasn’t going to show up on the day he was finally released.
Nothing could have kept me away.
Not his first and only letter from prison lying to me that he didn’t love me anymore and urging me to move on.
Not twelve freaking years of him ignoring all of my correspondence and blocking me from visiting.
Not the overwhelming hatred I felt for him because he’d ruined us in ways he’d sworn he never would.
Not even because he’d turned his back on me when I’d needed him the most.
Yet there I was twelve years, eight months, three weeks, four days, thirteen hours, and thirteen minutes later, waiting for him just like I’d promised.
Because unlike him, I knew how to keep my word.
So yeah. I was pissed off at Ramsey Stewart with the fiery passion of a woman who had spent over a decade trapped in hell. But as he dropped his bag, turned on a toe, and tried to get back inside the gates, I finally got to say the words that had been devouring me from the inside out for the better part of my life.
“I fucking love you too, asshole!”
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Originally from Savannah, Georgia, USA Today bestselling author Aly Martinez now lives in South Carolina with her husband and four young children.
Never one to take herself too seriously, she enjoys cheap wine, mystery leggings, and baked feta. It should be known, however, that she hates pizza and ice cream, almost as much as writing her bio in the third person.
She passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a super-sized tumbler of wine by her side.
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