by M. Leighton
I glance back at Eden. Her eyes are shining. Obviously she shared my pocketful of sand with Emmy. I don’t mind. It’s nothing I’m ashamed of or try to hide.
I slip the chain over my head as Emmy pulls hers on, too. It’s shorter and thinner, as is Eden’s, who comes to get hers next. Emmy picks up her hourglass, kisses it and then trots off to the living room to watch her cartoons.
I turn toward Eden when she speaks. I’m still marveling at the sand, something that’s so special to me, trapped safely within the little vial. “The night after I brought her home, she told me that she’d gone to your house for help, but that you weren’t home so she decided to hide in the shadows along the surf until it was safe. I guess the water was colder than she thought and she…” Eden’s voice trails off on a choking sound and I pull her into my arms. I know it will take time for the shock, for that kind of fear to leave her unshaken. When she collects herself, she leans back and looks up into my eyes. “She wanted to go back to the beach yesterday. She said she wasn’t afraid of the sand, that it was where we met you and your little girl. Sh-she didn’t want you to forget either of them, so she wanted to make these for us.”
Tears well in her eyes again and I kiss her forehead. “I could never forget either of them. Charity was a part of me. She always will be, but Emmy has wormed her way into my heart, too. I want her in my life. Her and you,” I tell her carefully.
I glance behind me at Emmy then I swing my gaze back to Eden. “Can I stay for a while tonight? So we can talk? After Emmy goes to bed?”
Eden’s smile is small, but happy. “Of course.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. In my mind, I make a list of all the things I want to tell her, all the things I want to say. Like that I told Brooke that it was over. Like that I want to start over with her and Emmy. Like that I just ask for one day at a time, so we can learn and grow and do this the right way. So that I don’t screw it up. I feel like I’ve got a second chance at life and I want to make this work. For Emmy. For Eden. For me. For my daughter. She’d want me to be a better person for Emmy. She was amazingly generous like that. Nothing will ever make me stop loving her. Or missing her. Or wishing that things could’ve been different. But she will always be alive in my heart. In my soul. I’ll never let her go or replace her. I can only prove to her, every single day, that she made me a better man. That knowing her and loving her made me the kind of man who could deserve her. If I had her back again.
And all that starts tonight.
Eden starts to go around me to check the bread. I stop her with fingers lightly gripping her upper arm. “Eden?”
She looks up at me, those big hazel-gray eyes melting me all the way through. This is right. She is right. For me. For my life. She’s beauty for my ashes. And I’m hope for her heartache. We fit. Like we were made for each other.
“I’m going to make you fall more and more in love with me. Every single day. I promise.”
She grins at me, a different kind of grin, and I know I’ll remember it for the rest of my days. “I don’t doubt that one bit.”
EPILOGUE
Eden
Five months later
AS LONG AS I live, I don’t think the beach will ever look the same. Especially this one. I look down the long expanse that stretches out to the left, the way we walk to go to our little cottage, and I remember the first time Emmy and I stepped onto that sand. It was the day we moved here. The third time we’d moved hoping to find “home.” It was the day we met someone who would change our lives forever.
At the time, I had no idea that I’d meet someone so broken. Or that he’d be the man who could heal us. Or that this sand could threaten life as well as sustain it. I still feel a thin thread of fear when Emmy gets near the surf. She’s declared to me on more than one occasion that she’s now seven years old. She knows how to be safe. I never take my eyes off her, though. It’ll probably be years before I feel safe doing that. If ever. But there’s someone else watching over her now, too.
I glance back to where Cole is talking to Cody and Jordan as Emmy and her two little friends get buckets of water to fill up the mote she and Cole dug. He watches her closely even as he chats with our friends. I feel perfectly safe in his care, and I feel like Emmy is perfectly safe, too.
His eyes follow the girls as they run to the surf and carefully collect sea water. Cole and Emmy made an enormous, very elaborate sandcastle for today’s festivities–a beach barbecue out in front of Cole’s cabin. I know that if I were to go and pat the pocket of Cole’s swimming trunks, I’d feel a lump of sand. He still does that. Still brings daisies for his daughter. But he’s now included Emmy. They do it together, the three of them, I suppose.
We invited Cody and Jordan, who are now a very happy couple, as well as Cody’s two little girls who have become good friends to Emmy over the winter. Ryan is in prison for child molestation, rape, sexual assault and battery. Lucy is free, but she’s paying in her own way, not only with the money she gave me, but in the public eye. I feel like that part of my life, of my past, truly can’t hurt me or Emmy anymore.
Brooke signed Cole’s divorce papers a few days after Emmy came home from the hospital. It’ll be final next month. All in all, it seems that life is pretty close to perfect. Finally. It’s like we had to pay our dues up front, a down payment on happiness. As hard as it was, I can say now that it was worth it. The only thing I would change is the scares with Emmy–both with Ryan and the beach. She’ll always carry those emotional scars with her, but she’s healing more and more every day. I’m just going to do everything within my power to make sure that her life is as smooth as I can make it from here on out.
Emmy and her friends come back to pour their water into the nearly-full mote and I hear Cole tell her to stay put for a few minutes. When he stands and tells Jordan to watch them, I know he’s coming to me. We are never far from each other. It seems the longer we are together, the closer we need to be. To touch, to reaffirm. He spends every night at my house and “comes back” right after Emmy gets up. Time apart feels almost unbearable, but we make up for it when we are together. Doubly so after Emmy has gone to bed, when we can touch and taste and memorize every tiny detail of each other. I’ve never met a more perfect man.
I scan his long, lean body as he jogs down the beach toward me. I can see him in pads and a jersey, chasing a football down the field. Wide, wide shoulders, trim, trim waist, long, powerful legs and arms. That ripped stomach that disappears into his shorts and the magic that hides just inside them.
My stomach flutters thinking about that.
His smile is crooked and cocky when he stops in front of me. “I would ask what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to get myself into trouble.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I deny as he wraps his arms around me, presses his chest to mine and lifts me off my feet. I’d like nothing more than to wind my legs around him, but I know that’d be asking for an embarrassing situation to arise.
“Yes, you do, you vicious tease,” he says, nipping the skin on my throat with his teeth. “What I wouldn’t give for twenty minutes alone with you right now.”
His hot breath brings chills to my arms and I can feel my nipples tighten accordingly. “How did you not get enough last night?”
He leans back to look at me. “I could never, ever get enough. I thought you’d figured that out by now. But I’ll be happy to prove it to you. Over. And over. And over.”
His voice has dropped low, into that sensual sandpaper of his. But it’s his eyes…God! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them. They’re so deep and intense and…sexy. He can make me feel a million things without ever opening his mouth.
“I love the sound of that,” I admit breathlessly.
“And I love you.”
My heart swells. I can’t hide the smile that spreads across my face. “I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that.”
“Well, it just so happens that I love telling you, so we’re a good fi
t.”
“I never thought I could love someone this way,” I tell him, dragging my finger along his full bottom lip.
“I’m glad you picked me,” he says gruffly, kissing my fingertip.
“I don’t think I had much choice.”
“No, but I’m glad you didn’t put up too much of a fight.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ve got a question for you,” he says, setting me on my feet and taking my hand. We start to walk, but he doesn’t say anything else.
“What’s your question?” I finally ask.
He acts as though he doesn’t even hear me. We keep walking and he keeps holding my hand. About three minutes later, he steps in front of me and takes me by the shoulders.
“Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I do as he asks and he starts to walk again, slowly this time, with his hands still on my shoulders, him going backward I assume. When we stop again, he turns me slightly and then releases my shoulders.
“You can open them.”
I open my eyes to find Cole kneeling in front of me. Behind him, etched in the packed sand, are the words MARRY ME. My heart stutters and stumbles and I gasp. I had begun to wonder if Cole would ever marry again. He’s always talked about us being together forever, but he’s never once mentioned marriage.
He takes a black, velvet box from his pocket, brushing the sand off it. He kept it in the same pocket as the sand for his daughter, almost as though we really are all together in his heart now.
“Will you, Eden? Will you give me all of your tomorrows? Mine are already yours. Everything I am, everything I have, everything I’ll ever be is yours. Whether you say yes or not, I’m all yours. All the broken pieces. Please say yes. Please make my life mean something again.”
When I fall down onto my knees in front of him, he takes the ring from the box and holds it out to me. There is a big solitaire in the center and, on either side, four smaller diamonds that trail along the band. The platinum wraps around them in such a way that it looks like two hourglasses on their side, framing the center stone.
“I said yes before you even asked. I’ve been saying yes every day since I met you. I knew then…somehow, I knew that you’d be the one to fix me.”
“And you fixed me.”
“Together, we aren’t broken at all.”
“Our pieces fit. Perfectly. As perfectly as you fit in my soul. I love you, baby. So, so much,” he says sincerely.
As I watch, heart in my throat, Cole takes my hand in his and slips the ring on. It feels warm and a little heavy and so, so right. I lift my finger to study it more closely.
“Where did you get this? Not at Bailey’s, I’m sure.” The one thing you can’t get at Bailey’s is a diamond ring.
He grins. “No, not at Bailey’s. I drew it up and called a jeweler up in Portland. Said he could do it. Even drove it down here himself when he was finished.”
“That was nice of him.”
“I think he was curious after I asked him for the second one.”
“The second one?”
Cole pulls up the velvet cushion from the bottom of the box and removes a tiny ring that looks like a pink version of mine. Perfect for a little girl.
“Let’s go get Emmy,” he says.
I’m smiling so brightly, I think the sun might seem dimmer by comparison. I feel it shining from my face like a million-watt bulb.
Cole stands and sweeps me up into his arms to carry me back. As he walks, he seals our deal with a kiss. A kiss that melds together all of our different pieces into the most beautiful whole this world has ever seen.
The End
Dear wonderful reader,
I would LOVE and APPRECIATE if you would leave a review, but please omit any spoilers about what each ending holds so that every reader can enjoy the choice and the surprise for themselves. And if you loved it, please tell your friends. Your words, your recommendations are more powerful than you knowJ Thank you so very much in advance!
Want to discuss the book with others who have read it? Feel free to join my group on Facebook. We’d love to have you!
READ ON
For an extended excerpt from Strong Enough
book one in the Tall, Dark and Dangerous trilogy
coming August 4, 2015 from Berkley
A FINAL WORD
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review and recommending it to a friend. You are more powerful than you know. YOU–the words from your mouth, the thoughts from your heart, shared with others, can move mountains. You make a huge difference in the life of an author. You have in mine. You do every day, which brings me to my gratitude, my overwhelming, heartfelt gratitude.
A few times in life, I’ve found myself in a position of such love and appreciation that saying THANK YOU seems trite, like it’s just not enough. That is the position that I find myself in now when it comes to you, my readers. You are the sole reason that my dream of being a writer has come true and your encouragement keeps me going. It brings me unimaginable pleasure to hear that you love my work, that it has touched you in some way, that it has made life seem a little bit better for having read it. So it is from the depths of my soul, from the very bottom of my heart that I say I simply cannot THANK YOU enough, which I say a lot of in this post.
COME CONNECT WITH ME
Sign up for my newsletter! Get new release notices, updates, exclusive teasers and giveaway opportunities. Also, come visit my website, too! Look around, see what you find.
If you like to chat, you can connect with me in Laid-back with Leighton, my private Facebook group.
You can also connect with me on some pretty cool sites like these:
Facebook * Blog * Twitter * Goodreads * Instagram * Tsu
Or you can always email me. However you like it best is great with me. I love hearing from you!
Also, if you like music, you might like to know that I do, too, and that it plays a big role in my inspiration. For that reason, I create a playlist for each book I write, adding the songs that inspire me as I go. You can find all my playlists here on Spotify.
Other books by M. Leighton on Amazon
All the Pretty Lies ** All the Pretty Poses
All Things Pretty ** All Things Pretty (part two)
Down to You ** Up to Me
Everything for Us
Pocketful of Sand
Strong Enough ** Tough Enough
Brave Enough
The Wild Ones ** Wild Child
Some Like It Wild ** There’s Wild, Then There’s You
YA and PARANORMAL
Fragile
Madly ** Madly & Wolfhardt
Madly & the Jackal ** Madly Boxed Set
Blood Like Poison: For the Love of a Vampire
Blood Like Poison: Destined for a Vampire
Blood Like Poison: To Kill an Angel
Blood Like Poison Boxed Set
The Reaping ** The Reckoning
Gravity
Caterpillar
Wiccan
Beginnings: An M. Leighton Anthology
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author, M. Leighton, is a native of Ohio. She relocated to the warmer climates of the South, where she can be near the water all summer and miss the snow all winter. Possessed of an overactive imagination from early in her childhood, Michelle finally found an acceptable outlet for her fantastical visions: literary fiction. Having written over a dozen novels, these days Michelle enjoys letting her mind wander to more romantic settings with sexy Southern guys, much like the one she married and the ones you'll find in her latest books. When her thoughts aren't roaming in that direction, she'll be riding wild horses, skiing the slopes of Aspen or scuba diving with a hot rock star, all without leaving the cozy comfort of her office.
About Michelle: I love coffee and chocolate, even more so when they are combined. I'm convinced that one day they could be the basis for world peace. I also love the colo
r red and am seriously considering dying my hair.
DOOR NUMBER TWO
THIRTY
Cole
I WAKE WITH a start. My heart is pounding and my head hurts so badly my vision is blurry for a few seconds. I close my eyes and cradle the throbbing left side of my skull until the worst of it passes.
I recall the dream, so perfectly clear. So perfectly real.
Only it’s not. It’s only a dream. A sweet dream and a horrific nightmare. I’ve had it dozens, no hundreds of times before. Maybe more. It always leaves me feeling wrecked. Panicked. Lost. But even so, I never want to wake from it.
Yet I always do.
It takes me a minute to realize who I am. I’m Cole. The guy in the dream. I look like him–somewhat–and I sound like him. I feel like him. Only I’m not sure I’m him. I don’t know what my name is.
In the dream, I see and hear and think and feel like Eden, as though I know her every thought and emotion. But I’m still Cole. It’s like I’m in the director’s chair, directing an intricate drama, enacted only on the stage of my mind. I know all, see all, feel all. Only it’s not real. None of it.
Minutes pass. Maybe more. Maybe an hour. I don’t know. Time means different things these days. But some time later, I crack one lid. When knives don’t pierce my brain, I lift the other and glance around. I’m on my back, staring at the sky. I recognize the trees above me. It’s a familiar canopy, especially one tree in particular with its gnarled branches that look like an enormous hand reaching for me. I’ve always found comfort in it, as though something might be coming to save me, to drag me out of the blank hell that I find myself in.