Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ellie
When I was nine years old, my daddy told me you’ll only find one true love in this life. It’s the rarest but truest love there is, Little Miss. You find it and you never let it go. I tightened my wavy ponytail and then helped him get up off the floor. With whiskey on his breath and loose change falling out of his pocket, he pushed himself up and put his big arm around my neck. I never wanted to find that kind of love, and I swore every time I helped the man with a broken heart off the old hardwood, I’d never look.
That’s until a dark-haired, brown-eyed boy from the south side of Chicago walked into my life. Tommy Kingsley is more than my best friend. He’s my life. He’s the man of my dreams, and now he’s my husband.
I’m the wild girl whose mom decided she didn’t want to live anymore. I grew up with a daddy who only had half a heart in a town where everyone knows everyone. I’ve feared love nearly my entire life because I’ve seen firsthand what losing it looks like. It’s ugly and scary. It’s dark and its pain is almost unbearable. But the rush, the butterflies, the smile you can’t contain from its first kiss, the feel of it running over your skin and sinking into your pores and tangling with your heart until it settles deep, deep into your soul—that makes it all worth it. Those feelings shine light on the dark, and I never understood that until now.
My husband kisses me and gives me a smile that always, always makes me lose my breath. I take his hand when he holds it out, and together we walk past our family and friends. Daddy gives me a wink, and I laugh. He’ll always be my favorite––the retired chief of Green Ridge. He moved back after he came home for Christmas, deciding he had traveled enough for now, but I think he’s secretly waiting on grandbabies. I look toward the old farmhouse and smile. It will always be my home, and Tommy will forever hold my hand and my heart.
“I always knew you loved me,” Tommy whispers into my ear as we walk onto the porch steps.
“Oh yeah, Tommy Kingsley?” I grin before he lifts me up into his arms and everyone cheers.
“Oh yeah, Ellie Kingsley.”
The End
About The Author
Paige P. Horne lives in a small town in middle Georgia with her husband and two dogs. She’s always been a lover of words and imagination. When she isn’t waiting tables at her part-time job, she can usually be found typing away on her laptop, coming up with stories that’ll more than likely give you all the feels. Paige is known for writing truth within fiction. She writes from the deepest part of her soul. It’s her passion, and now that she’s started, she’ll never stop. For more info on Paige, follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
@authorpaigehorne
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“Books pull us away from reality, away from all the mess and chaos. If only for a little while we get to glance into a different world. We get to fall in love, read what it feels like to fly, cry for the pain an author describes, laugh out loud and smile when something great happens. Books are love. Words are life.”
Paige P. Horne
Chasing Ellie: A Chasing Fireflies Spin Off Page 27