He didn’t take a seat again as he set the box down right beside what was left of the cake we were sharing.
I smiled up at him as I undid the ribbon and tore open the wrapping paper as quietly as possible. It wasn’t a shoebox but just a regular gift box with a lid on top. “I’m going to be pretty excited if you got me a new respirator,” I told him as I lifted it and set it aside.
If I thought it was weird that he didn’t chuckle, I didn’t think much of it, because the pictures in the box stole every thought out of my head.
I knew I was lucky. I knew that life had worked out in a way that I never would have even dared imagining. I knew that I had so much love in me, I would fight to the death for it.
I was fully aware that I wouldn’t change a single thing that had ever happened in my life because it had all gotten me here. With this man. With this life. With these people that I loved and loved me back.
But as I looked down at the stack of pictures in that box, I wasn’t sure whether to be excited or just a little devastated.
Because I had never seen the face looking back up at me. Not once.
But I knew whom it belonged to. Somehow. Some way. I knew.
The woman couldn’t have been any older than eighteen. She was sitting in a pose with a purple gown and cap on, holding a fake diploma in one hand, her expression tight but smiling. Light olive-skinned. Medium-haired. She didn’t have the Miller green eyes, but why would she?
“Know who it is?” Rip asked quietly, setting his hand back on my spine.
I gulped and barely managed to get out, “My mom, right?”
That big hand went up and down before he confirmed, “Yeah, baby. It’s your mom.”
I pulled the top picture off and stared down at the next one. It was another graduation picture with a different background, with her sitting in a different position, still smiling tightly at the camera like she would rather be anywhere else.
It was my mom. My mom.
“Took me three years to find this. She was on the drill team for a year. Supposedly she was really good at art, but she didn’t like school much,” he spoke quietly. “You two look a lot alike, I think.”
I flipped to another picture to find the same woman sitting in a drill team uniform, that same expression on her face.
It was my mom.
“She left home right after graduation and no one knew where she went,” Rip kept talking. “No one knew she passed away. They didn’t know about you or your brother. I thought for sure they were making it up, but they weren’t, Luna, baby. I could tell they weren’t. They had no idea about you…”
I had to swallow. Press my lips together. Blink because my eyes started burning all of a sudden, and I didn’t know what to do. Flicking my gaze up, my hand went to his—to that hand I held every chance I had—, and I asked him before I could think twice about it. “Who is they?”
Lucas Ripley leaned down and brushed his mouth over mine, then pulled back, his free hand going to my cheek. “Your mom’s family, baby. If you want to meet them, you’ve got a grandma and an aunt staying at a hotel, right now, a couple miles away that would really love to see you tomorrow.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” His thumb brushed my cheek again. “You all right with that?” he asked softly, with tenderness in that rough voice. “You okay with making the family just a little bigger by meeting them?”
You’d have figured he would have gotten used to my hugs over the years, but he hadn’t. He still sighed into my neck like it was something new, and wrapped his arms around me as tight as ever when I threw my arms around him suddenly. Squeezing him tightly. Squeezing him like he meant the world to me and had made my life ten times better by just existing. By just being the person that he was.
I was seriously the luckiest person in the world.
Acknowledgments
A book is never written without a lot of love and patience from a whole lot of people.
First and foremost, to the greatest readers in the entire universe—I can’t thank you enough for your love and support. Every email, message, post and review means the world to me. You guys never cease to amaze me. Seriously. You really are the best readers ever.
To the best reading group, my Slow Burners, thank you for your patience and love. To my pre-readers/friends for putting up with me and the wrecks I call drafts that I send you. Ryn, my friend, I can’t thank you enough for not just being an amazing person, but for also helping me out so much with this blurb. (Forgive me for being a stubborn-ass with it.)
An enormous thank you to Letitia Hasser at RBA Designs for designing the best covers ever and for putting up with me changing my mind all the time. Jeff at Indie Formatting Services, thank you for your excellent formatting and always being so nice. To Virginia and Kim at Hot Tree Editing, thank you for helping me so much with Luna and Rip’s story. To Ellie at My Brother’s Editor. Kemi Faderin, Lauren Abramo, and Jane Dystel at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret for their support and helping me reach audiences I had no idea were a possibility.
To Eva-4-Evah. This book wouldn’t have been the same without you. I’m so grateful to have you in my life. I’m going to summarize how much you helped me with Luna by using two words: banana hammock.
A great big thank you to the greatest family I could ever ask for: Mom, Dad, Ale, Raul, Eddie, Isaac, Kaitlyn, Nana, my Letchford family, and the rest of my Zapata/Navarro family.
Last but never least, Chris, Prince Dorian, and my little prince, Kaiser. Every book is for you three.
About the Author
Mariana Zapata lives in a small town in Colorado with her husband and two oversized children—her beloved Great Danes, Dorian and Kaiser. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, spending time outside, forcing kisses on her boys, harassing her family, or pretending to write.
www.marianazapata.com
Mailing List (New Release Information Only)
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marianazapatawrites
Instagram: www.instagram.com/marianazapata
Twitter: www.twitter.com/marianazapata_
Also by Mariana Zapata
Lingus
Under Locke
Kulti
Rhythm, Chord & Malykhin
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me
Wait for It
Dear Aaron
From Lukov with Love
Luna and the Lie Page 53