IGNITE

by Paradis, Lily

  “Yeah,” he said, scratching his head. “But I’ll see you soon. Jed says there’s a bank account I need to activate? Do you know what that’s all about?”

  Dean squeezed my hand.

  “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

  He grinned. “I like the sound of that. Bye L, love you.”

  “Love you too, T.”

  He hugged me once more and then shook Dean’s hand.

  “Thank you,” Dean said.

  “No, thank you,” Tucker said. “I’m glad you’re a good guy so I don’t have to threaten to beat you up.” I breathed a sigh of relief, but he wasn’t done yet. “But really, break my sister’s heart and I’ll kill you.”

  “Tucker!” I chastised him at the same time Dean muttered that he would keep that in mind.

  With one more dazzling smile, Tucker was gone. He and Dean actually had a lot in common with the good looks and womanizing. Except that last part was now past tense, at least for one of them.

  I sighed and Dean pulled me along as he walked down toward the lake. I followed him up the steps of a blissfully unoccupied gazebo.

  “We need to talk,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t even know where to start, but luckily he did.

  He took both of my hands gently in his, his eyes pleading with me.

  “Please forgive me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your Dad and Emma.”

  “It’s okay,” I breathed. “I understand why you didn’t.”

  “Do you though?”

  I nodded.

  “I was seventeen,” he said after a moment. “Josiah found me cracked out of my mind in some halfway house. I didn’t know where Jenny was at that point, and I knew I was going to die if I kept going the way I was. He got me out of there, and helped me get clean. He let me come to the mine every once and a while once he thought it was okay. They liked me there and let me stay because I had a good sense of when things were going to happen, and that’s why I have that nickname. Josiah would always talk about his daughter, Annabelle. I think he only said your first name once or twice, and I hardly remembered it. I just knew that whenever he talked about his little girl, it was like she was this legendary creature. It sounded like everything you touched turned to gold, and I started to hate you for that, because I was the opposite. He loved you so much, and I hated you because you had him. You had this life that I would never have. Once Josiah told me that I had an old soul, just like Annabelle, and that we would be friends if we ever met.”

  He paused waiting for me to take it all in.

  “Then he started talking about how much he loved the name Emmeline, and how excited he was to meet her. After a while, I started to want that. I wanted to love someone as much as Josiah loved these two girls. I knew they were the most important thing in the world to him. One day he asked me a favor. He said that someday, you might meet me and need my help. He asked me to make sure you were safe. After that, I felt like I had a purpose. Even though I had resented you before, I swore I would protect you and Emma no matter what.”

  “You hated me on principle,” I said after he paused. “And you protected me out of obligation? Is that why you’re here?”

  “No, Lauren, no,” he pleaded. “That’s not why. I don’t want you to think it’s like that. At first, I thought that Josiah was wrong. The years went by after we lost him and I never met you. Then, that one day in the DMV, you sat next to me. I don’t know how to explain it, but I knew it was you. I just knew. Then I had to find a way to know for sure. I met you once, at the funeral, but I never thought you’d stay in town. I thought that was it, that maybe Josiah was playing a divine trick on me and just needed me to help you pick up your stuff after it fell on the floor at the DMV.”

  I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous that would be, but at the time I never would have predicted any of this either.

  “So it wasn’t obligation, then?” I said softly.

  “No,” he said, “Not at all. I was intrigued. Then I fell in love with you.”

  My breath caught.

  “But you’re Dean Powell. You hate relationships. You hate being trapped.”

  “I do hate being trapped,” he said, pulling me closer. “But you’re the only way I’ve ever felt free in my entire life. You saved me, can’t you see that? Josiah started it, but you’re the one who truly saved me. Before you got here, I was headed back down the path I was on because I thought I didn’t have any hope left.

  I love you, Lauren Annabelle Lindsay. I’ve loved you since before I met you. I never dreamed that I would actually meet you, and that you’d be as wonderful as Josiah said you would be.”

  I leaned up and kissed him before he could say anything else. This was far better than any dream I had ever had, and I felt like I was finally awake. When our lips touched, I realized what the big deal was about kissing someone you were in love with.

  Someone who cared about you, and wasn’t going to leave you for your best friend the next day.

  Someone who was going to love you for the rest of your life.

  The person whose body and soul were meant for yours.

  Because when Dean Powell’s lips touched mine, they set fire to my entire being, and I knew I didn’t want to kiss anyone else for the rest of my life. Nothing else would ever come close to the way this felt.

  When I pulled away, we were both breathless.

  “Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.

  “Always,” he said, resting his forehead on mine.

  “I do have one question, though,” I said, opening my clutch. “Do you have your letter with you?”

  His brow furrowed.

  “You know about my letter too?” He reached into the pocket of his dress pants and pulled it out.

  I nodded and held mine up. As I unfolded it, he looked curious. He unfolded his own, and kept mine partly concealed until I saw what I was looking for.

  His had a torn edge too, and I ran my finger across it.

  “Is there something written on the edge here, something that doesn’t make sense?”

  He nodded but kept it away from me. The contents of each of our letters were private, but I wanted to see if it matched up.

  “I’ve always wondered why,” he said. “Is yours torn too?”

  I nodded.

  “Is this like the Parent Trap where they put the wedding picture together and find out they’re twins?”

  “You already have a twin,” he countered. “And we kiss, so I don’t really want to be related to you.”

  “Yeah,” I said sarcastically, as if that would ever happen. “Me neither.”

  I held up my letter and he held up his. The seam fit together perfectly, as if both had been written on the same piece of paper at the same time. Along the edge the full message read:

  My heart couldn’t take it. Dean’s eyes got glassy and I felt as though my legs were going to collapse beneath me.

  We crashed into one another, both overflowing with emotion.

  “Oh my god,” I breathed. “How?”

  I felt him shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know.”

  WE SAT THERE under the lights, holding one another in disbelief for what felt like forever. When we finally pulled back, Dean wiped my eyes with his thumbs, and I knew I must have looked a mess.

  “Can we go?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Where’s your hotel?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, still reeling with emotion. “Not too far from here. What about you?”

  “I don’t have a hotel,” he said. “I was hoping you would forgive me and we could live happily ever after.”

  “You didn’t have a backup plan?”

  He shook his head.

  “I just had to get to you. I hoped we would figure it out from there.”

  “Good,” I said, leaning up to press my lips to his. “I’ll always forgive you, no matter what.”

  I felt him smile against my lips and pulled him closer.
I was so incredibly glad that he made us wait, because I realized that it wouldn’t have meant as much as it did not had we not gone through everything first.

  “Let’s go home,” he whispered.

  Somehow, Dean got us seats on a flight back to Denver in an hour. Both of us were completely exhausted and slept through the entire plane ride.

  When we landed, we got into the Range Rover and he drove us back to the Springs.

  He held my good hand the entire time and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have him. If I had lost him in the mine, life would be unbearable.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said, breaking the silence.

  “Anything.”

  “What were you doing in the mine?”

  He sighed.

  “Now would probably be a good time to tell you I heard everything you said when you were in my room last night.”

  “How? You were asleep.”

  “I was,” he said. “But the whole time, I heard everything going on around me. I didn’t focus on too much of it because it was difficult, but when you were there, I did.”

  “So you knew I was there with you and that I stayed the night?”

  He nodded.

  “I am so glad you did.” He kissed my hand, which made me shiver. “Anyway, to make a long story short, I went up there to the lake to think. Then I started wandering to the mine. I knew you had your letter, and you were close to finding everything out, so I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want you to hate me for not telling you.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t tell me,” I said. “Everything came out the way it was supposed to.”

  “Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’m glad you think that.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain why you were inside the mine,” I said.

  “Well, I dropped something by accident.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not important. Anyway, remember that one night when you said you thought you saw your dad?”

  It had to be pretty important if he risked his life for it. I knew he would eventually tell him so I just nodded as he spoke.

  “I was down there looking for what I dropped. I didn’t know had been a gas leak. I got disoriented even though I know my way around down there. I thought I saw Josiah, and then everything caved in. I didn’t know how long I was trapped until I heard your voice.”

  “You heard me down there too?” I was shocked.

  He nodded.

  “I heard you.”

  “We were really lucky,” I said finally.

  “Or something,” he agreed.

  “You know what?” Suddenly, I had a realization. “I used to think everything was about firsts. I was upset that things didn’t work out with Daniel because he was my first love. But none of that matters.”

  “Why?” Dean asked, taking his eyes off the road to look at me.

  “Because,” I beamed with happiness, “it’s not about firsts. It’s about lasts.”

  “Whoever that last man is, he better know how lucky he is,” Dean said, grinning.

  “Oh trust me,” I said, squeezing his hand. “He does. He won the girl, after all.”

  “I don’t think it’s about winning. It’s not as if we jousted for your anything.” He winked at me and I knew he was referring to the book I’d had during the trip to California.

  I rolled my eyes and couldn’t help but picture Dean on a horse with a lance.

  When we got closer to home, Dean pulled off the main road.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “This isn’t the way home.”

  “Actually,” he said, “it is. To your home.”

  I was entirely confused until he pulled up to the house at Palmer Lake. He pressed a button on the roof of the car and the massive wooden garage door opened for us so he could put the car inside.

  He put the car in park and looked over at me.

  “Lauren, this is your dad’s house. You didn’t live here and you weren’t twenty-one, so Jed gave it to me for safekeeping until it was time for you to have it. Actually,” he said, patting the dashboard, “This is your car.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nodded.

  “No,” I said. “It’s ours.”

  He leaned over the console and kissed me.

  “Can we sleep here tonight?” I asked. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Of course,” he said softly as he unlocked the car. “It might be a little dusty, but Jed’s been coming up here every couple of months to make sure everything still works.”

  We both got out, not bothering to bring our bags. I wanted to admire how beautiful the house was, but I followed Dean straight upstairs to what I assumed was the master bedroom. I climbed in bed and he followed suit, pulling me close as he wrapped himself around me.

  “I love you, Dean Powell,” I whispered as I fell asleep, warm in his arms.

  “I love you, Lauren Lindsay,” he answered and kissed my lips, then my forehead. “I love you.”

  When we finally awoke, the sun was shining through the giant panes of glass across the room. The entire house was breathtaking, and I loved every detail of it, as if I had custom designed it myself.

  Dean’s eyes blinked open and he shut them again, almost like he couldn’t believe this was real.

  I leaned down and kissed him. All of my hair engulfed his face, but if he cared, he didn’t show it.

  “I’m so happy,” I whispered, meaning it.

  He pulled me closer and took a deep breath.

  “I’ve never been so happy in my life.”

  “Are we really doing this?” I asked.

  He opened his eyes.

  “I don’t really have a choice to make, because I’m long gone.”

  I smiled.

  “Me too.”

  He kissed me on the nose.

  “Let’s go home,” he said softly.

  I loved this house already, but I knew he meant home was where Jenny, Callie, Chase, and Emma were.

  We both jumped out of bed and he handed me the keys.

  “It’s yours,” he said.

  “No,” I said, starting the car. “It’s ours, remember?”

  “It’s ours,” he said, and it sounded like he’d waited an eternity to say that.

  I pulled up in the driveway just as the front door opened. Callie, Jenny, and Chase stood there waving with Jed and Mary behind them as Emma ran out to meet us. I scooped her up in my arms and swung her around as she laughed gleefully. She reached out to Dean and tapped him on the nose.

  The look on Dean’s face as the three of us hugged was something I’ll never forget as long as I lived.

  Happiness.

  Love.

  Freedom.

  I felt all of the things I had been longing for, for as long as I could remember, and now I had them all.

  I stood on my toes and kissed Dean while we squished Emma between us.

  “I love you so much,” I whispered as I looked up at him.

  “Welcome home,” he said softly, glancing at Emma.

  Nothing had ever felt this perfect and my heart felt like it was going to burst with happiness. Nothing had ever been as beautiful as this moment.

  He was right. I was home.

  Feel like you’re missing some of the details in IGNITE?

  That’s because you are.

  To get them, You’ll have to read Dean’s side of the story in

  ARCLIGHT.

  See www.lilyparadis.com for release date and more information.

  You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach that stays with you, then tears you apart slowly at first, and all at once shreds your soul? It’s because you’re contradicting the universe. Everything lines up so perfectly that you couldn’t have imagined it to work out better, but then you have to go and do everything humanly possible to ruin it because you can’t stand to have it go right?

  That’s what I did.

  I did it because there’s a darkness that surrounds me, a
nd I think I want it there.

  My name is Tate McKenna, and my soul is blacker than my heart.

  Excerpt from VOLITION by Lily Paradis

  For more information, visit Goodreads

  TO MY FAMILY, for always supporting me no matter what. I still remember when you went to the bookstore with me when I was in first grade because they didn’t provide me with a book that had enough space to write what I wanted. Funny enough, I wrote about my first trip to Disneyland. The blank books they gave us didn’t have enough pages for my story, and it looks like things haven’t changed much. None of this would be possible without your eternal love and support.

  Maddie Stankiewicz, thank you for being my literary soul mate. If I could, I would put the sunglasses emoji right here in this book, because only you know what that means. Without you, this book wouldn’t exist. Lauren and Dean’s story would never have been told, and I would be a crazy person. Well, I’m still a crazy person, but now I’m a crazy person writing this acknowledgement. Thank you for all of the times that you talked me through this for hours on end even though I told you it would take two seconds. You’re the reason that Lauren, Dean, Tate, Hayden, Jesse, Aric, Alie, and so many other characters in my head come out the way they do. Nothing I can say will be enough to express how grateful I am to have you in my life, and I can’t wait for all of the great things ahead of us. You’ll always be the person who gets to read everything seconds after it’s written, because that’s just what we do.

  Hannah Stanley, for being the best roommate on the planet. You dealt with me being nocturnal for two years while I was writing, and that’s not an easy task. Thank you for always giving me honest feedback and being there for me when I start to freak out.

  Chyti Kompala, for listening to me rant endlessly wherever we are, even if that means people in HAPA are listening to our every word. Your support throughout the years has been overwhelming, and this wouldn’t be a reality without you.

  Amanda Arner, Erin Bove, Chyti Kompala, Hannah Stanley, Linden Northern, and Kat Shanahan, thank you for being my first readers. Your feedback helped shape IGNITE into what it is today, and I couldn’t have done it without you even if it meant biting all of my nails off after I sent it to you.

  Courtney Lindau, thank you for our unending phone calls and text messages and everything in between when I just need to rant. I am lucky to call you my Little, but even more blessed to have you as my friend for life.