“I’ve done a shitty job at telling you how I feel,” he said. “I’ve only recently realized it myself.”
“And what did you realize?” I asked, looking up at him through wet lashes.
“How deep this goes. You’re in my bones, my soul. I couldn’t get you out even when I tried. It’s more intense than anything I’ve ever felt. You make me want to write poetry and shout it from rooftops. You make me want to do the impossible and when you stare at me like that, I feel without a doubt capable of it. You make me feel like I’m dreaming while I’m awake. It was hard for me to admit. For a while, it scared the hell out of me.”
I nodded. I knew what it felt like to fear the falling. “What were you so afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Everything. The future, I guess. Committing to it. Where this will go, how long it will last.” His eyes held mine, silently pleading for understanding. For reassurance. I swallowed hard.
“I thought I could push you aside,” he went on, “but I was wrong. Just the idea of trying makes my chest hurt. Thought I was having a heart attack. The idea of being without you, of removing you from my life, is a heart attack.
“Yes, it scares me to think of the future, to make a plan and to build expectations. I didn’t think I wanted that. But then, I hadn’t met you. I’m sorry I’ve been back and forth. I’m sorry I made you sad.”
I blinked back tears, scared and uncertain and overjoyed all at once. “Ford …”
“Please, Summer. If it takes forever, I’d like a chance to make it up you. Actually, I’d like it to take forever. That is, if you’ll have me.” He reached up and gently cupped my cheeks with calloused hands, lifting my face to his. “I love you, Summer Stafford.”
I love you too. The words were swallowed up by the lump in my throat. It took me a moment to find my voice. When I did, what came out instead were his own words from months ago. “I thought you said love is a risk,” I whispered, another tear escaping the edge of my eye.
Ford caught it with his fingers and wiped it away before pressing a lingering kiss against the corner of my mouth. “It’s a risk worth taking.”
Epilogue
Ford
“When the thought of achieving your dream makes you want to throw up, that’s how you know it’s big enough.” -Unknown
Naked branches bent and swayed in the breeze as I led Summer up what had become a well-worn path. Good thing I’d had her wear a jacket. The calendar might say spring, but the bite in the afternoon air said otherwise.
“Are we almost there?” she called from behind me.
I looked back and grinned. “Almost. And no peeking,” I added when her free hand came up to adjust the blindfold I’d tied on before we left. Using our interlocked hands, I guided her around a stump before continuing on.
A few minutes later we emerged from the wooded path into the open air of the hillside. Our hillside. Without the trees to block it, the wind intensified. It cut across my cheeks and along my neck, raising goose bumps. Or maybe those were a result of the anticipation.
I’d spent months planning this moment. I didn’t want to screw it up. Or give it away too quickly. Not when I’d gone to such great lengths to surprise her. Even her family was in on it, a fact that I hoped wouldn’t piss her off. I knew Summer hated being the last to know something, but in this case, I hoped her excitement would trump everything else. I hoped her feelings for me would trump it all.
I’d spent the last five months making up for the first five. Or at least that’s what I told Summer. Anytime I said that, she’d just laugh and say, “There is no making up left to do. Those first five were magical. So is every day since.”
I had to agree, but I still wanted to prove to her that I would never change my mind about her. Leaving wasn’t even something that crossed my mind. Unless it meant we’d do it together. I’d mentioned flying out to see my parents after this year’s harvest season ended. Summer seemed to like that idea. My parents were chomping at the bit to meet the girl who’d made me stay. I couldn’t wait to show her off. And to tell my dad in person that he’d been right all along.
It’d been a hard thing to admit, but it was true. Dreams changed. You had to change with them or risk losing it all. It was essentially what Casey had been telling me before I left. Even Dean had been able to see it. I’d just been too stubborn to listen at the time. Thankfully, I’d come around.
And now I was standing in the best spot I’d found across thirteen states, in Grayson County with the girl of my dreams—with a question on my tongue that made my knees rattle.
“Now?” she asked as we came to a standstill.
With a hand on each of her shoulders, I made sure she faced the angle with the best view.
“Okay, now,” I said.
I watched as she reached up and slid the blindfold down her face, letting it rest around her throat like a scarf. She blinked against the sunlight and looked around, first in wonder and then in confusion. “Ford,” she said, her brows wrinkling as she took in the familiar skyline with even more familiar landmarks dotting the distance. “Sorry to be such a downer, but this isn’t much of a surprise. We’ve been here a million times.”
“True,” I said, finding it harder and harder to bite back the grin that threatened to give away my secret. “But you’re seeing it from a new angle today.”
She turned in a circle, inspecting all directions. “Which angle is that?”
“The angle of our future bedroom window.”
“Our future …? What are you talking about?”
I opened my mouth, ready to give her the speech I’d rehearsed in my mind, but at the sight of her standing there my mind went suddenly blank. What the hell would I do if she said no? I couldn’t walk away from her again. Nothing in the past few months had given me reason to doubt her feelings, but suddenly, I was scared out of my head. Did proposals normally do that? I supposed when you loved someone this much…
“Um.”
“Yes?” she prompted.
Nerves hit me like a freight train, and I swallowed back a bout of nausea. How did men, century after century, get through something like this? I toed the dirt as I finally answered, “I checked it out a while back. This hill we’re standing on is city owned, you know.”
“I think you told me that once. What does that have to do with a window?”
I would’ve swallowed but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. I forced myself to meet her gaze. Something in the way she looked at me—with the tiniest of smiles—gave me the courage to forge on. I slipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the velvet box I’d hidden there. “I made some calls. It’s not officially listed for sale but everything is available for the right price.” I paused and then gave her the punch line. “I bought the hill.”
She stared at me, mouth ajar, clearly dumbstruck. “You bought the hill?” she repeated.
“Your mom helped.”
“My mom … You’re serious.”
“Yeah. We close in sixty days.”
“You … You’re going to build a house?” Clearly, she’d not been expecting this. That made me grin. I’d made a plan—a ginormous monster of a plan—and I’d taken her off-guard. Seeing her speechless made all the preparations and nerves worth it.
“No. We’re going to build a house,” I corrected.
“What—?”
“Summer, shut up for a second,” I said, stepping close to her with a grin wide enough to chase away all the panic I’d felt a moment ago. This was Summer. This was my girl. No question. No doubts.
She closed her mouth and gave me a wry look, one brow raised. I loved that sarcastic expression of hers. Something deep inside my chest did a flip. I pressed on, talking faster. “These last months with you have been amazing. You’re amazing. Every single day I’m blown away by you—your beauty and passion and the way you see the world. You make me happy. And I want to spend the rest of my life right here making you happy too.”
“The rest of you
r life is a long time,” she said.
“Not if he pisses you off enough.”
At the sound of Casey’s voice, Summer whirled. One by one, Casey, Dean, Cathy, and Mazie appeared from the trailhead. Summer turned back to me slowly, eyes wide. “Ford … what exactly are you saying?”
I pulled the velvet box from my pocket and began to lower myself to one knee in the dirt in front of her. “I’m asking you to marry—”
“Yes!”
I was halfway between standing and kneeling when she threw her arms around me. Her momentum knocked me backwards, and I barely managed to hang on to her as I tumbled to my back with her above me.
Summer laughed and looked down at me, her eyes shining with joy so bright my breath caught.
“You didn’t even let me finish asking the question,” I said.
“You’ve been asking the question since the day we met,” she said. “My answer’s always been the same.”
Our lips locked to the sound of her family hooting and cheering behind us. In that moment, risk didn’t exist. Doubt and fear and uncertainty were no longer part of my vocabulary. I had found my new dream. And I was living it.
About the Author
Heather Hildenbrand was born and raised in a small town in northern Virginia where she was homeschooled through high school. She now lives in coastal VA, a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with her two adorable children. She works from home, part time, as a property manager and when she's not furiously pounding at the keyboard, or staring off into space whilst plotting a new story, she's lying on the beach, soaking in those delicious, pre-cancerous rays.
Heather loves Mexican food and motorcycles, hates socks with sandals, and if her house was on fire, the one thing she'd grab is her DVR player.
You can find out more about her and her books at www.heatherhildenbrand.blogspot.com
Other titles by Heather Hildenbrand:
Dirty Blood (book 1, the Dirty Blood series)
Cold Blood (book 2, Dirty Blood series)
Blood Bond (book 3, Dirty Blood series)
Blood Rule, (book 4, Dirty Blood series)
Whisper
Across the Galaxy
Imitation (book 1, Clone Chronicles)
DreamKiller: The Complete Saga (a novella)
Or stalk her here:
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And now a sneak peek at For Real (Rules of Love, Book One) coming November 14 from New York Times Bestselling author, Chelsea M. Cameron!
Two people. One fake relationship. What could go wrong?
When virgin Shannon Travers gets fed up with her friends demanding that she find a boyfriend, she enlists the help of tattooed, mohawk-rocking graphic design student Jett. He’s more than happy to play along with their Fake Relationship, including the Ten Rules of Fake Dating that control-freak Shannon comes up with. Even if he likes to violate them. Repeatedly.
But what happens when Fake Dating starts to feel… not fake anymore? Will Shannon be willing to let go and embrace the first thing in her life that’s ever felt REAL?
One
“I’m sorry to bother you, but can you watch my computer?”
“What?” I pulled my earbuds out and looked up to meet a pair of astonishingly golden-brown eyes set in a chiseled face under a head of black hair that was shaved short on the sides and left long on top and gelled to one side like a wave. From the top of his shirt peeked several tattoos and his arms were covered, but I didn’t have a chance to see what they were, as my eyes were draw back to his eyes and I was left momentarily without words.
I fished for some in my brain and came up with two.
“Yeah, sure.”
He flashed me a quick smile and got out his cell phone and dashed out of the cafe. I’d been so immersed in working on my paper that I hadn’t even seen him come in, but a quick scan around showed me that he was sitting at a table right behind me.
A quick glance toward the front door showed me that he was strolling up and down the sidewalk in front of the cafe, still talking on his phone. I turned in my chair and glanced at his laptop, which was open to Facebook. I was too far away to see anything, but I knew the page layout well enough. He also had a stack of books and a notebook open with some scribbles in it. A cup of what looked like black coffee steamed next to the computer. I turned back around quickly so he wouldn’t catch me being a total creeper. Plus, I needed to get back to work. I couldn’t get distracted now.
I was just starting the second semester of my junior year, and I could almost taste my degree. It tasted like victory and thick paper. In less than two years I would have a bachelor’s of science degree in business and be well on my way to an MBA. It made me shiver inside just thinking about having my own office at the top of a glassy skyscraper, sitting at my mahogany desk and crossing my nylon-clad legs as I signed a corporate merger with a pen that probably cost more than the car I currently drove.
Shut it down, Shannon. Shut it down and focus. I breathed three times, in and out, closing my eyes and emptying my mind. Everything drained out and I locked my eyes back on the document. My paper wasn’t due until next week, but I had never waited until the last minute to do a paper like everyone else. You never got anywhere by procrastinating, as had been proven by both my parents and my older brother, Cole by the dizzying array of semi-failed jobs and careers they’d had. Sometimes I was convinced I was adopted because even though I looked like the rest of my family, with brown hair and blue eyes, I didn’t act like a single one of them. I’d heard my parents wonder more than once if I was possessed. They were joking, of course, but it still stung when they pointed out what I was already painfully aware of. That I didn’t fit in.
“Thanks.” The laptop guy was back. He put his hands on my table and leaned down so his face was close to mine. Dude, invade my personal bubble much? “I don’t normally trust strangers with my stuff, but you look…” his eyes skimmed their way up and down my body, and I shifted under his scrutiny. “Trustworthy,” he finally said.
Well, I probably did. I had to go to work in the operations department of a local bank later, so I had a black pencil skirt with a white blouse tucked into it and my cute-but-comfortable tan pumps on. In contrast, his shirt had some sort of video game robot or something splashed across the front and his jeans were skinny, but not to the point of being way too tight. It would be clear to anyone looking at us side-by-side that we had next to nothing in common.
“I think that’s a compliment,” I said as he stood up and started moving back toward his table.
“That’s up to you,” he said, walking backwards and finally sitting back down. I turned back around, shaking my head. Whatever.
I started putting my earbuds in, but stopped when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“For your trouble,” he said, as I slowly turned around to see him standing right behind my chair, holding a plate out to me with a scone on it. “Raspberry scone?”
“Uh, no. Thank you. I’m good.” I’d just polished off a blueberry muffin and was on my second cup of black tea.
“You sure? This is a really good scone. You could do what my mom does and wrap it up and take it home with you. I swear, she put a steak in her bag once.” He waved the plate in front of me, as if that was supposed to entice me.
“No, thanks.” I turned around again and hoped he would go away.
“Fine, then I guess I’ll just owe you one.”
I turned my music back on and ignored him. Saint-Sens filled my ears and drowned out the rest of the noise in the cafe as I pulled my focus back to my paper.
An hour later, I typed the finishing touches on my paper and started packing my things up. The guy was gone, but I’d been too absorbed to notice when he’d left. My chances of seeing him ever again were slim, since Central Maine University had nearly ten thousand students, and most of them were commuters.
I said
a quick prayer before I turned the key on my Crown Victoria, hoping it would start. Thankfully, the engine engaged with a minimum of sputtering and I drove from downtown Hartford to the next town over, Deermont, where my job was. I parked near the back of the building and swiped my card in the door. I had just enough time to get to my desk, turn my computer on and clock in. Barring a death or dismemberment, I had never been late.
My cubicle was near the back of the building, in the “farm” as everyone called it. I said hello to a few of my coworkers, most of whom were fellow students. My favorite coworker, Amelia, wasn’t working today, which was a bummer. Nearly everyone else’s cubicles just had a few papers or photographs, but hers was covered in her drawings and positive notes and pictures of butterflies. Amelia was literally the sunniest person I’d ever met. Sometimes she was too much, but during those dark times when you got down, she always was a breath of fresh air and things never seemed too bad when she was around.
I had a stack of loan files that needed to be scanned, so I started with removing the staples from all the pages. Yes, it was as boring as it sounded, but at least I could listen to my music. I put my earbuds back in and got to work. This was what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be. Everyone had to start somewhere. I had to pay my dues, even if that meant removing staples from a two hundred page appraisal.
***
Three hours later I was ready to go back to my apartment and get back to work on my homework. I was fishing in my purse for my keys when my hand closed on something. It was a paper crane folded out of notebook paper. What the heck? I didn’t know where it had come from, but the only explanation I could think of was that the laptop guy had dropped it in there, either by accident or on purpose. It was a weird thing to do, so I hoped it was by accident. He was Asian, so maybe it was just a thing that he did to celebrate his culture. God, was that racist?
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