by Leddy Harper
I took his offered hand and walked next to him, hoping I could pull some sort of strength from his touch. I needed to just relax and listen to him, but it was so hard with all the unknowns that surrounded us. I squeezed his hand and rested my head against his bicep as we walked to his truck.
Once we made it back to his house, he helped me put my duffel bag in my car and then buckled me into the driver’s seat. He leaned through the open car window and gave me a kiss. The smile on his face was comforting, but it did little to help ease my worried thoughts. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I had to. I had a life back home that I needed to get back to. I needed my dad, and I’m sure he needed me, too. Plus, I had my job to return to.
“I can’t say it, Bentley,” I whispered with tears in my eyes.
“Then don’t. Just tell me you love me. That’s all I need to hear.”
“I love you.”
He smiled and kissed me once more. “I love you, too.” He pulled his face away and stood up straight next to my idling car. With a tap on the roof, he said, “Call me when you get home. I don’t care how late it is. I’ll have my cordless phone next to my bed. And hey, I’ll see you later.”
I liked that…I’ll see you later. It didn’t feel so gloomy or permanent.
It wasn’t goodbye.
But it sure as hell felt like one.
Bentley
I closed the front door behind me like I’d done so many times before, but this time seemed different. The house felt so empty, so cold. I’d never experienced this solitude in my own home before, but after a week with Sarah there, I was sure it’d never be the same again. I’d never be the same again.
I tried to push down the loneliness and ignore the memories of her that surrounded me. She was everywhere. My house seemed so vacant without her in it, but I couldn’t ask her to leave her entire family behind for me after she just got them back. It was what I’d wanted of her when we first met. I wanted her to have people in her life, be with her loved ones, and now that she was, it would be selfish of me to demand she come here.
I knew I’d told her that we’d figure it out and to be patient, but I had a hard time listening to my own advice. My mom would be devastated if I left, and my dad still called on me from time to time for my advice about horses. Dalton was all I knew, and I had my whole life here. Well, everything except Sarah.
The longer the evening drew on, the more I ached for her. I made dinner, but even that felt different. The silence around me became suffocating, a heavy reminder of what was missing. I replayed the conversations we’d had over the last week, thinking about her lack of desire to get married. I’d conceded to her point of view, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have hope that she’d change her mind. I pondered what kind of life we would have if I moved there, giving everything up for her, only for her to never become my wife. It was a stupid thought, one that even annoyed me—there was no point in making a decision now based on a complete hypothetical—but the nagging questions wouldn’t go away.
In order to fill the silence, I sat on the couch and tried to watch TV, but I couldn’t focus on anything, switching the channels without paying any attention to what was on the screen. I’d zoned out and let my mind drift through every possible scenario I could come up with as to how we could work it out without either of us losing out on anything important. But I came up empty-handed. Nothing made sense, and I had to remind myself once again that it would take patience and time.
But time wasn’t a guarantee. It was a restriction, a deadline with an expiration date. Death teaches us so many things. But the most important lesson was to not wait until tomorrow to do something you can do today. Because you never know what will happen after you close your eyes for the night.
The night before I was rushed to the hospital after collapsing in the training arena, my brother had invited me over for dinner with his family. I’d declined because I was tired and only wanted to veg out on the couch with a movie and a beer. I had no real reason for staying home other than I knew I’d see him the following weekend at my parents’ house, so I didn’t feel the need to get dressed and go over there. Waking up in the hospital the next day opened my eyes, and it made me see things in a different light. It made me take a step back and stop taking tomorrow for granted.
But it was difficult to jump in my truck and chase Sarah down when that would mean leaving my own life behind. And I couldn’t ask her to do the same, knowing just how much she’d be walking away from. I had no other choice but to wait to see what tomorrow held.
Sarah called me just before midnight to let me know she’d made it home safely. We didn’t talk long considering how tired she was, and her call had woken me up. But no matter how hard I tried to go back to sleep after hanging up, I couldn’t. My thoughts wouldn’t slow down and my mind wouldn’t rest. I tossed and turned until the sun peeked through the trees.
And with the sun came answers.
I picked up the phone and dialed as fast as I could. “Hey, Mom…I have something I want to run past you.”
Sarah
The cold can of Coke froze my hand as I held it to pop the tab, needing my first dose of caffeine to get me through the rest of the day. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before after my long and lonely drive home. After I hung up the phone with Bentley, I just lay there and stared at the ceiling, wondering how we’d ever make it work with so much distance between us. The only comforting words I had to go by were the ones he’d given to me the night we met. Take your time. We didn’t need to figure it out right then and there.
I’d finally fallen asleep sometime after three, and didn’t wake up until noon. Half the day was over, but I didn’t care. Without Bentley, I had no reason to start my last day of vacation early.
The first sip of the frigid soda burned my throat, and then the slamming of a car door outside the house caused me to choke on it. I set the can down, went to the front window, and peeked through the curtains to see who was there. I hadn’t changed my clothes and still had on Bentley’s T-shirt and boxers that I’d slept in. But once I saw his truck parked on the road in front of my house, I no longer cared about what I had on—I could’ve been naked and it wouldn’t have stopped me from going to him.
I rushed around the couch to the front door, but once I had it open and had taken a few steps onto the porch, my feet grounded to a complete halt. I wanted to run to him, let him wrap me up in his arms, but then reality set in. Bentley had come to my house, not even a day after I’d left his. It was either a really good thing, or a really bad thing. My heart refused to become hopeful until I heard it from him.
“What are you doing here?”
He stood next to his truck, staring me down while keeping his emotion off his unreadable face. “You forgot a few things back at the house so I wanted to bring them back to you.”
“You drove six hours to bring me things I left behind?”
He shrugged, as if a six-hour drive was no big deal. “I thought you might need them.” He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out my old phone—the one I’d left behind at Luke’s house after running away from him. “It seems like a rather nice phone, and I figured you’d want it back.”
“There’s no way you drove here just to give me back a phone.”
“You’re right. You left a few other things behind, too.” He turned and opened the door to the back of his truck. He pulled out a large suitcase and a bag, and then locked his gaze on mine.
I shook my head carefully, desperately hoping I hadn’t mistaken his intention. “You’ve got a lot of stuff there. How long are you planning to stay for?”
He remained silent as he made his way to where I stood on my porch, bringing his bags with him and setting them down as soon as he came to stand a few feet in front of me. “Forever.”
“Wh–what about your house? Your family?”
“The house is still there, and it always will be. But I can’t take the chance of no
t having you. Plus, we’ll need a place to stay when we visit my family back in Dalton. It’ll be our vacation home.”
“But your family…”
“I talked to them this morning, and I have their full support. They only want me to be happy, and being with you makes me happy. They only asked that we visit them at least twice a year, and let them stay with us whenever they come down.”
I craned my neck around and observed the front of my house for a moment before giving him my attention again. “But I’m only renting. It doesn’t make sense to live in a rental when you own your own house.”
He took another step and shrugged. “I go where you go. If we rent, if we buy, if we build…I don’t care. The only thing I care about is being with you. I’d happily live in a cardboard box if that’s where you were.”
“You’re really here for good?” I asked, needing ultimate clarity.
He nodded, and that’s when I finally allowed myself to give in. I closed in the space between us and jumped into his arms, holding him as close as I could. It felt like a dream, but the way his arms held me up convinced me that it wasn’t. Nothing felt as good as being in his arms with his lips on mine.
A hungry growl rumbled in his chest, and it broke through the haze in my head. I realized we were standing in my front yard, in the middle of the day, and I barely had any clothes on. I pulled away from his hold and picked up the smaller bag, leading him inside.
He set the suitcase down in the living room and then sat on the couch. I stood back a few steps and observed him there, in my house. It’d been so long since he’d been there, and it almost didn’t seem real, so I cautiously moved to the coffee table and sat on the edge, facing him.
“Have you fully thought about what this means? Because I won’t lie, Bentley, if you wake up a week from now, a month from now, and realize your move was irrational and you leave me, I won’t survive that.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
I needed to be certain, ask every question that came to me to make sure he wouldn’t change his mind down the road. “What about a job? What do you plan to do? And how are we going to work this living arrangement? You stay with me in my house and keep yours available for if things don’t work out?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed dramatically around his harsh swallow. “I would like to have a house with you. I don’t want the division of mine and yours. I want ours. But I also don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to support you. I’ve actually thought about this a lot on my way here, and this is what I’ve come up with. You can have total control over where we live. If you want to stay in this house, or even find another rental, I’m okay with it, just as long as I’m on the lease, too. I want to know that you’re committed. If you want to buy or even build a house, I want my name on the papers, as well. I’ll let you pick the place and price. If fifty-fifty is what you want, then I’ll pay half the payments. If you want something bigger, something a little more out of your price range, I’ll cover the difference as long as you’re comfortable with it. Hell, I’d pay for the whole damn thing if you’d let me. But I’m willing to give you the control.”
“What about a job? What do you plan to do for a living?”
“I made a few calls this morning, and I’ve already got the ball rolling on a project. I’m investing in a new start-up business. It’ll be more of a partnership, but it’s here, local, so I will be able to be a part of it from the ground up.”
My eyes grew wide, pride filling my chest at his determination. He’d spent so long not knowing what he wanted to do with his life after walking away from what he loved, so to hear him talk about starting up something new, it sent my heart soaring. “What is it? Tell me about it.”
With a large, genuine smile on his face that lit his eyes, he said, “It’s furniture. But I know it’ll do well because it’s not just any furniture you can find in every store. It’s handmade and painted, one-of-a-kind furniture.”
My skin pricked and my fingertips became cold as realization hit me. “What business is this, Bentley?”
“I called Bree this morning and woke her up. She didn’t seem too happy about it, but once I explained my proposition, she got over it. I will take care of the start-up costs and get her a place to make her furniture. I’ll cover the costs of materials, and then once we have enough to start with, we’ll find a storefront for her to sell her pieces. She no longer has to haul her stuff back and forth to the flea market, and she can stop wasting time fixing old, broken things. She can start from scratch and make anything she wants.”
“So you’ve already worked this all out with her? But why?”
“Luke has a few things of hers at his place—one was that corner piece in the room I stayed in—and I’ve always really liked them. Her talent impresses me. I know we could be successful, and I know she deserves the chance to do this. I have the money, and she has the talent. It’s win-win as far as I’m concerned. Not to mention, it allows me to be here with you.”
“You really want to be with me that much, you’d make such drastic changes literally overnight?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and said, “Living without you is like living without the sun. Without the moon. You’re the light in my days, the calm in my nights…you’re the stars in my sky, Sarah. I can’t live without you.”
I practically leaped off the coffee table and climbed into his lap, straddling his hips and wrapping my arms around his neck. My lips met his, and then the heat of his tongue filled my mouth. But before things grew too heavy and desperate, I pulled away enough to press my forehead against his.
“Marry me,” I whispered.
His fingers flexed around my hips, uncertainty filling his ragged breaths. His hesitation worried me, but then he said, “What?” And it forced me to stay strong.
“Marry me.”
He moved his hands to my face and pushed me away just enough to look me in my eyes. “I thought you didn’t want to get married? What changed your mind?” The apprehension in his voice was clear, but I understood it. Just like I had worried about his move being impulsive, I knew he had the same concerns over my request.
I settled into his lap, pressing my palms against his chest, and took a deep breath. “At Clarissa’s wedding, my mom had a tad bit too much champagne, and we ended up having a heart to heart. She told me that she couldn’t wait for my wedding day, and how much she looked forward to seeing me walk down the aisle. At first, I was a little confused, because I wasn’t even dating anyone. But she explained that between Clari and me, she knew the man I chose to marry would be the perfect person. Not that she didn’t think Joel was right for my sister, but because my sister was so eager to get married, she probably would’ve said yes to anyone who had asked her. And she knew I wasn’t like that. She said she knew that when I finally found someone to share my life with, he would be my sun, my moon, and my stars, the same way my real dad was for her.”
I started to get choked up at the memory of her words—the same words Bentley had just said to me. But I pushed the emotion down enough to finish what I had to say.
“She had saved her wedding dress for me to wear when I finally decided to get married. Except, she’d never see it on me. When Bree was picking out her dress, she had asked my dad if she could wear my mom’s, because she wanted to have a piece of her there. My dad had asked me, and by that point in time, I didn’t care because I had already decided against love. But she wasn’t able to wear it. When they pulled it from storage, the dress had been ruined. I guess it hadn’t been stored properly. The lace was falling apart, the material had yellowed, and it had tiny holes throughout the entire dress like a moth had gotten to it. It reaffirmed to me that I’d never get married.
“But you made me remember something just now. You made me remember my mom’s slurred words from my sister’s wedding. She knew me better than anyone, and she had complete faith in me that the man I’d choose to marry would be my sun, my moon, and my stars. I already know you�
�re my fate. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you, creating a lifetime of ours. I want to be Mrs. Bentley Cole. So…marry me.”
He leaned forward and pulled my face to his at the same time, joining our lips in a rushed, heated kiss. I felt him stirring beneath me, and it caused my pulse to drop and fall between my legs, burning and throbbing with need.
“Is that a yes?” I asked, feeling breathless and frantic, full of hope.
“I don’t recall you asking me a question. So I have nothing to answer. And if you think I’m going to give you one, you have another thing coming. I will be the one to ask you. And then you will be the one to answer.”
“Oh, yeah? And when will that be.”
“You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
His lips connected to mine once more as he pushed himself off the couch and carried me with him to my bedroom where he fell onto the mattress, trapping me beneath his body.
Bentley had been right from the very beginning.
He’d told me to take my time, let go, and fall.
And I did.
I flew with the wings of a robin.
Bentley
“Are you sure this is what you want? It’s not too late. We can turn around and do this the right way.” We sat in my truck in the parking lot of an attorney’s office in town.
Her deep-brown eyes lit up as they found mine, and her smile grew wider on her pink lips. “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life. My sisters will be there, my dad will be there, and I’ll have my mom with me. I’m good.” She tugged on the blue sweater that she wore wrapped around her, despite the heat outside. It had been her mom’s, so I didn’t question it. She needed a piece of her mother with her, and I understood that. But she had no idea about the ring that sat in my pocket, waiting for her finger. Wayne had given it to me, and promised to keep it a secret.