Her eyes are glassy as the song ends and just looking at her is like seeing my future. When we met she’d been through hell and back, hurt so many times, by so many men. Her exes, her bosses, her professors. It’s like everywhere Honey went, she was told she was something, not someone.
And that well of pain caused her to hurt herself in ways that changed her. Changed the way she saw herself, changed the story she told herself each day.
But Honey is different now. I can see it when I look in her eyes. She knows what she wants, who she is, in a way she didn’t a year ago.
When I asked her to marry me she was so scared of being hurt that she couldn’t accept the love I had to offer.
But now it’s different.
She came back.
And yes, she’s back for Laura’s wedding, but that’s not all. She wrapped her arms around my neck and told me she wouldn’t leave again.
Never.
The DJ calls me up for the speech and I look at Honey one last time.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asks softly.
My eyebrows crease. “Believe? Oh, Honeysuckle, I always believed in us.”
Then I walk away before she can answer and I take the stage, wishing I’d had longer than a few hours to prepare this speech. Speaking into the microphone, I wish the couple a lifetime of happiness, try to make a few jokes that guests laugh at in a good natured way, and then I pass the microphone to Honey, who is waiting to give her maid of honor speech.
She takes a deep breath; her long hair is swept over her shoulder, her eyes looking over the room, her smile as sweet as her name. She always thought she was too much of a mess for me, that just because I have a stable family, a steady job as a park ranger, a retirement plan-- that meant I wasn’t the kind of man for her.
What does that mean anyway? That if someone has been through hell and back they deserve to always feel pain, to be covered in ash after the fire? No. I told Honey to dip her head under the river water and let the past wash away, to come to the surface as a woman who has walked through fire; been refined by it--not broken.
But when she looked in the mirror, she never saw what I saw. A woman so raw and real my heart ached for her. I didn’t want to fix her; I wanted to cradle her in my arms while she healed.
She clears her throat, her eyes on Mark and Laura.
“Laura, as your best friend, I’ve held your hand through thick and thin. Through breakups and breakdowns--though the breakdowns were mostly mine.” She laughs, a sad smile playing on her lips. “You’ve always been there for me, never once wavering in our friendship, no matter how messy. That is how I know you and Mark will make a beautiful life together. You don’t quit when it’s hard. You’re faithful. And that’s why Mark is the luckiest man to have you.”
She raises a glass, toasting the happy couple, and the tears in her eyes tell me that Honey is stronger than she thinks she is.
She may think Laura and Mark are perfect, with their white picket fence life, but I don’t need that. I’ve got a hammer and nails, and I can build something from nothing.
But Honey and me? We’re not nothing.
We can mend this broken fence.
She steps off the stage and I take her hand.
I don’t wait to cut the cake, to catch the garter belt.
This may be Mark and Laura’s wedding day, but this is the first day of the rest of my life.
And I’m sharing it with the woman I love.
The woman I’ve always loved.
I pull her outside, where the sunny day has turned to gray skies, heavy clouds overhead.
“Honey,” I say, pulling her to me. “You’re wrong. Mark isn’t the luckiest.”
Her eyes widen, hope written in her eyes. “No?”
I shake my head as the rain starts to pour, our fancy clothes soaked, the day though--it’s still damn near perfect.
“No,” I tell her. “Because I’m the luckiest.”
And then I kiss her, letting the rain wash away the pain from our past.
5
Honey
The rain comes down in buckets and as Hawthorne kisses me it’s like the skies knew what we needed. And if people think sunshine is pure happiness, they’ve never kissed in the rain.
Because Hawthorne’s lips against mine are blue skies and my body against his is a garden of dreams just waiting to grow. And as the rain covers us, his mouth covers mine.
Our lips part, our tongues entwine and I wonder how I ever left him, this man who holds me in his arms, whose broad shoulders would protect me from any storm. But he is also a man who knows I can handle the thunder and lightning on my own. Who taught me that I’m strong enough to stand in the wind and not be blown over.
I met him when I saw myself as a fragile flower, but he taught me that my petals couldn’t fall away so easily. He loved me as I grew into something braver than I ever imagined myself to me.
And he laid it all out there for me. His heart.
After all that ... I still left.
“Don’t you hate me?” I ask between kisses, my tears streaking my face as the rain still falls. My dress clings to me and I cling to him. He doesn’t answer. “You should hate me, Hawthorne.”
He cups my cheek with his hand, his touch sending shivers of desire over my body, waking me up from a year-long sleep, and he shakes his head. “Never.”
I close my eyes, the tears seeping through, and he brushes them away with his thumb. “You needed to go, to figure out what you wanted.”
I nod, my heart on fire, my soul his for the taking.
He knows. He laces his fingers with mine, and we run from the rain, into the hotel, knowing what comes next. Us.
In the elevator, our hands run up and down our drenched bodies, clawing at one another in a way that means only one thing. Yes. Yes. Please.
He slides a key card into his hotel room door and he pulls me in the room, and he holds my face with both his hands. “Honey, it’s been so long.”
My eyebrows lift, I lick my lips, wanting and needing him. Him. Him. Now.
“You’ve waited for me?”
“Always.”
He pulls down the zipper of my dress, and I push back his suit coat, loosen his tie. We kick off shoes and we tear off everything else.
Nothing is left but his body and my body and the passion that was always there; the passion I knew would consume me in a way that would leave nothing on the table. If I gave him my heart in its entirety it would never be the same. I would never be the same.
I held back and he leaned in, and now…
Now I’m back and he never left. Pain pierces me in a way that floods me with regret.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the sliver of space between us.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“You proposed and I just left you.” I gasp at the memory, covering my mouth with my hands, shame coursing through me. I’m naked, I’m bare. I can’t hide.
With Hawthorne, though, I never could.
“In the middle of the night,” I say. “I packed my bags and I left. You deserved an explanation.”
Hawthorne takes my hand, draws me close. “I didn’t need a story, I knew.”
“How? How have you always known?”
“I had faith in us, Honey. Since the beginning.”
I shake my head, my hands running over his bare chest, the muscles lean and fierce, there is no excess with Hawthorne. He has no excuses, no hidden truth.
He’s what you see and that’s what scared me the most.
With Hawthorne, I can’t pretend. With him, I am myself in the truest, realest form.
Flaws and failures and fears––he saw all of it.
“Honey, I may not have the past you have, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right for you. I may never have been beat down the way you were, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you stand.”
“Don’t you want someone stronger?” I ask.
He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear;
he’s wearing the softest smile I’ve ever seen. “You don’t think you’re strong?”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the heavy tears fall.
“Honey, you were strong enough to leave when you needed to. And you were strong enough to come back when you were ready.” He wraps his arms around me. I feel every inch of him, my body sinking into the man I know and love with all that I am, all that I may be. “That is courage, Honey, and that is beauty. So no, I don’t want someone stronger. I just want you.”
6
Hawthorne
I carry her to bed, laying her down, looking at this woman before me who has scars on her arms, who has a different sort of scar on her heart. And I kiss her wrists and I kiss her breastbone and I kiss her everything.
She is beauty personified and yet she is more than meets the eye. This woman knows nothing about shallow waters, she has swum to the depths and walked to the shore, salty hair and sandy feet and eyes as blue as the sea. Her love is deep and my heart is wide and somehow we fit perfectly.
I lean over her, her hands running over my skin, and she looks at me with a longing I understand so well.
“Are you scared?” I ask. “Is that why you’re crying?” My hands move over her skin, cupping her breasts, and pulling her tight nipples to my mouth.
“No,” she whispers. “I never thought I would have this again.”
“Have what?” I ask, pressing my palm to her pussy, her warmth spreading to my fingertips as I dip inside her.
“You.”
“Honeysuckle,” I moan as she takes my length in her hand, touching me in the way I’ve missed for so damn long. “You always had me.”
She smiles then, through the tears. The kind of smile that was written in the stars. A smile that is bigger than love, than life. Big enough to swallow a man up whole. A smile that says she believes me.
Really, really believes me.
Believes that when I say I’m hers, I mean it. Believes that I’m not like other men -- that I’m her man. Believes that even if the world tries to knock us down, together we can rise--hands held, hearts clasped.
I move against her, my cock hard and her sweet pussy wanting. Her legs wrap around me as I move inside her, she’s tight and I know it’s been a long time since we both felt the tender embrace of another.
“Oh, Honey,” I moan, filling her up, our bodies connecting in a way we never have before. I run my hands over her ass, our bodies grinding together in a desperate way.
We need this.
“Hawthorne,” she whimpers, her body slick with desire as I move against her. Our fingers thread together and I pin our hands over her head, moving against her, each thrust taking us closer to the edge. To the place we need to go.
Home.
“I love you, Hawthorne,” she tells me as I roll her over, as she straddles me, my hands on her hips as she rocks against me, her breasts bouncing as we take hold of our future.
“I love you, too, Honey,” I growl in her ear, pulling her to my chest, needing my sweet flower closer as we inch nearer to the edge.
“I’m yours,” she cries, her body so open, her thighs slick as she begins to come against me, she leans up, her hands pressed firm against my chest.
“Forever.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement. The fucking truth.
We come hard, with a crash. A force to be reckoned with. My cock a throbbing length of love that releases deep inside her perfect pussy. The only one I want, the only one I need. I fucking love this girl, always have, always will. She lights a fire inside me, makes me want to be a better man -- her man.
She moans, the orgasm filling her up, never letting her down. Just like our love.
I pull her to me, kissing her lips, loving the way she feels in my arms. She belongs here. Our eyes meet, and she runs her hand over my face, running her fingers through my beard.
Then as if I saw too much, she lowers her chin, her eyes hidden. I hook my thumb under her chin, and lift it so I can see her. All of her.
“Marry me,” she says in a whisper that is so damn clear I’ll never forget the sound. “Marry me, Hawthorne. Make me your wife.”
I take her in my arms, pulling up to sit on the bed, drawing her body in my lap, cradling her like we used to do in our blanket forts. The long nights when we traced through our histories, learning every detail about our lives. Memorizing one another’s stories as if they were our own.
“Of course I’ll marry you, Honeysuckle.”
She is my wildflower. And when looks at me, my heart blooms.
Epilogue
Honey
* * *
One Year Later...
* * *
I stand, the bucket filled to the brim with freshly picked flowers, and take a deep breath. It’s early morning, but the sun already fills the sky, in turn filling my lungs with hope.
Walking through the field, I cross over the small bridge at the river. As I near our cabin, I run my fingertips over the lowest branches on the mighty cedar tree, breathing in the fragrant earth and the promise of the day.
Inside, Hawthorne is at the kitchen sink, filling the coffee carafe with water. He’s in low-slung sweats, no shirt, and I lick my lips as I take him in-- every exquisite muscle mine. He turns when he hears me come in. A smile breaks out over my mountain man’s face as I near him, leaning in for a kiss.
“You’re up early,” he says, kissing me again--making coffee can wait when kisses are involved. We are every bit the hopeless newlyweds who can’t keep their hands off one another.
We were married two months ago, in a small ceremony on Mainau Island, in Germany. There are over one hundred acres of flowerbeds. While we were there, we climbed a staircase that showcased a waterfall brimming with tulips. We spent our honeymoon in a seventh-century castle in nearby Meersburg. My research was taking me there anyway, as I continue to document rare wildflowers while I work on completing my book.
Hawthorne thought it was wildly romantic, and I thought it was a dream come true.
But now, we have more dreams to make a reality.
“I have a lot on my mind,” I tell him, setting the bucket of flowers on the counter.
“Oh yeah?” He frowns. “What’s up, Honey?”
“Don’t worry, it’s all good things.”
“You finish another chapter of the book?” he asks.
I smile at his thoughtfulness, but shake my head. “No, it’s much better than that.”
“What?” His face wrinkles as he tries to figure it out.
“Well, there is a lot in bloom,” I say, trying to hint.
He looks at the flowers I gathered. “Yeah, it’s June. Everything is growing.”
I nod, twisting my lips. Then I run my finger over the tattoo on his bicep. It’s a honeysuckle entwined with the lyrics from our song. I wanna come near and give ya every part of me.
“You might need to add some more flowers to this,” I say.
“Why?” He looks down where my fingers are.
“Maybe add the flower for December. I think it’s holly.”
“You want me to add a branch of holly to this?” he laughs, confused. “I don’t get it.”
“You’re right. Maybe holly would look weird next to honeysuckle.” Then I take Hawthorne’s hand and press it to my belly. “But you’ll need some sort of artwork to commemorate this.” I grin, not pulling any punches. “It will blossom around December 20th.”
He lifts his eyebrows, seeming to understand. “We’re pregnant?”
I nod and he grins, joy written across his face.
“Oh, Honey,” he says, wrapping me in his arms, spinning me around as laughter fills our cabin.
He sets me down, cupping my face with his hand. “Life is a flower for which love is the honey.”
I melt against him, his every word a balm to my broken heart; the sweetness I’d been missing before he came into my life.
I may be his wildflower, but he’s the reason I have grown so strong.
The Entire Frankie Love Collection:
The Mountain Man’s Babies:
TIMBER
BUCKED
WILDER
HONORED
CHERISHED
BUILT
CHISELED
* * *
MOUNTAIN MEN OF LINESWORTH:
MOUNTAIN MAN CANDY
MOUNTAIN MAN CAKE
MOUNTAIN MAN BUN
Stand-Alone Romance:
Filthy-Sweet
DIRTY-CUTE
HIS OLD FASHIONED
B.I.L.F.
BEAUTY AND THE MOUNTAIN MAN
HIS Everything
HIS BILLION DOLLAR SECRET BABY
UNTAMED
RUGGED
HIS MAKE BELIEVE BRIDE
HIS KINKY VIRGIN
WILD AND TRUE
BIG BAD WOLF
MISTLETOE MOUNTAIN: A MOUNTAIN MAN’S CHRISTMAS
Our Virgin:
Protecting Our Virgin
Craving Our Virgin
Forever Our Virgin
F*ck Club:
A-List F*ck Club
Small Town F*ck Club
The Modern-Mail Order Brides:
CLAIMED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
ORDERED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
WIFED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
EXPLORED BY THE MOUNTAIN MAN
Crown Me:
Courted By The Mountain Prince
CHARMED BY THE MOUNTAIN PRINCE
CROWNED BY THE MOUNTAIN PRINCE
CROWN ME, PRINCE: The Complete Collection
Las Vegas Bad Boys:
Going to the Chapel Page 7