Chaotic comfort.
My fingers were frantic as I entered the next row of coordinates listed at the bottom of the second letter. I threw my car in gear and let the generic voice wind me back through town and to the old part of the city.
That eagerness I’d been feeling shifted and amplified.
It took a sharp turn into sorrow.
By the time I put my car in park, I was sobbing.
I didn’t know if I could do this.
It hurt too much. But there I was, fumbling out the door and stumbling up the grassy hill. Ancient trees stretched their arms across the grounds. As if they were offering their comfort when this place wept with sorrow.
Wind gusted and leaves tumbled.
I dropped to my knees between the two headstones that rested side by side.
Gingerly, I brushed my fingers across my mama’s marker that had just been set. Too new. Too brutal. A fresh bouquet of flowers had been set next to the words that branded her days. Her life. Her legacy.
“I love you, Mama. I love you so much. I wish you were here…because I don’t know what to do.”
The wind howled back, and I gathered my strength, turned my attention to my sister’s stone. A stone that had been written far too soon. It also graced a fresh spray of flowers, love and regret left like an omen. Beside it was another box. On the lid, carved in the same crude fashion, was the word Please.
This man was breaking me. I wiped my nose with the sleeve of my shoulder, for the first time reluctant to open the box. Petrified of what might be inside. Knowing I needed to see it all the same.
Inside was another folded note. Beneath it was a handful of barren dandelion stems. Like the one marked on his side where his demons rested.
Sadness spun, and I lurched forward, quiet cries tumbling from my mouth as I unfolded the small note I worried might sever the few remaining strands I had holding together my heart.
Willow,
Asking you to come here is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Part of it felt cruel. Unnecessary. While the other part felt that bringing you here might be the most important moment in our time.
You told me you couldn’t live in your sister’s shadow.
I will never downplay what I felt for her. I loved her. I did. But I think your sister and I? We got caught up in each other. Both of us searching for something when neither of us knew what we were searching for. For a moment in time, we found that in each other. Flames destined to burn out.
What happened with your sister was a tragedy, Willow. A horrible waste of a beautiful spirit. I’d do anything to go back and change things. Do things differently. I’m willing to bet if your sister had the chance, she would, too.
She loved life in the only way she could. I think she loved me the same way. It was frantic and fleeting and could never be sustained. But the love she had for you and your mom? It was the truest kind. The kind that scared her the most because it was the only thing that was real to her.
If you know one thing…know that. Your light…your love…your peace. That was her constant.
I think maybe…maybe your sister and I were chasing our dreams, and during that search, we collided in the middle. It still kills me that her chase was cut short far too soon when she had so far to go.
But I’m certain now colliding with her somehow sent me chasing after you.
Sobs ripped from my soul. I’d never felt so torn in two. Broken right down the middle. The devotion to my sister and my love for this man.
Barely able to see, I surged back to my feet and ran for my car. I was plugging in the next numbers written on the bottom as I went. I clenched the steering wheel like it might ground me as I followed the directions back out of town.
The road passed through the city before it grew rural, the trees growing tall and proud. A familiarity tugged at my senses, pulled at my heart.
Do you remember, Mama, do you remember?
I pulled off at the small dirt patch at the road’s end—an end that led to the place from the story I’d told my mama on the day Ash had gone with me to visit her. When he’d sung her his song. When he’d come to me later and taken me.
The day my heart was no longer mine.
I fumbled up the narrow trail until it broke open to the meadow.
A meadow where my sister and I had once played. Where my mama would sit with us and we’d cast our dreams into the air.
Dandelions covered every inch of the ground. In the late summer, they’d gone to seed. A breeze blew through. They scattered, lifted and spiraled in the air like tiny white fairies flying off to deliver their dreams.
In awe, I lifted my arms up and spun a circle as all those dreams danced around me.
I pressed my hands to my broken heart. My broken heart that throbbed and moaned. My heart this larger-than-life, arrogant, chaotic man wanted to mend.
It was easy to find, the mismatched collector’s box he’d left right in the center. I dropped to my knees and pulled it onto my lap.
I was shaking.
Shaking and shaking as I tenderly brushed my fingertips over the word carved in that same crude sketching on the top.
Stay.
I breathed in as the meaning came together. The message he’d sent.
Will you please stay.
My spirit thrashed and begged. Slowly, I tipped open the lid.
All the air heaved from my lungs. My hand shot to my mouth. Inside was another tiny box. This one wrapped in black velvet. Even then, without touching or opening it, I could tell it was antique, too. I almost couldn’t get my hands to cooperate when I reached for the letter waiting inside. Carefully I opened it, my heart at the mercy of his hand.
Peaches,
Peaches.
My palm went to my chest, trying to hold all the emotion in that was desperate to pour out.
You were right. I was a coward the day I left the hospital. I chose the easy route. I got on that road and swore to myself I’d never look back.
Then I collided with you. It wasn’t until then that I knew what I’d been missing. That I wanted something more. That I wanted my days to count and every single one of them to belong to you.
You are my peace. My light. My definition of love. Yes, it’s frantic and chaotic and wild. But it’s also soft and quiet and subdued. It’s sparks and flickers and a constant flame.
I want to spend all time with you. Eternity. My forever.
Am I scared? Yeah.
But I’m done being a coward. Not when it comes to you. I told you all along that guy was out there waiting on you to find him. I made you promise me you wouldn’t settle for anything less than the man who would give you all the things you deserve.
And you?
You deserve everything.
If you’ll let me, I want to give you my world. Because you, Willow, you took over time and became mine.
You…you could never be second place or be hidden in the shadows. You burn too bright. Your faith is too brilliant and your love is too vivid.
You are my sun.
All your dreams…they’re spinning around you, just waiting for you to catch up to them.
I’m waiting for you.
My heart beat out ahead of me, urging me home. I didn’t even know how I got the little box open, but I did, and my heart that kept screaming at me wanted to burst.
The ring was ornate. Platinum and encrusted with diamonds. Delicate.
So old.
So perfect.
So me.
There was one more word at the bottom of his letter, right beneath the next coordinates.
Stay.
I didn’t even need to plug them in. I already knew where they would lead. Still, when I climbed into my small SUV, I had an entirely different destination in mind. I raced back into town and parked in front of the gorgeous house I’d only visited once before.
I rushed up the front porch and pounded on the door.
Three seconds later, a worried Tamar opened it, t
rying to balance her wiggling little girl on her hip while she focused on me. “Willow…are you okay?”
“I need your help.”
Blue eyes flashed. “Of course. Anything.”
“We’re going to need your camera.”
A wicked grin stretched across her face. “I like the way you think.”
thirty-nine
Ash
I stepped into the vacancy of my huge ass house that echoed back a quiet, hollow void. Funny, how I’d been after the extravagant things. Filling up my life with things that really meant nothing.
Possessions.
Women.
A kind of life that passed at the speed of light.
Now, the only thing I wanted was to fill this place with her light. With her laughter and her hope and sweet, sweet soul.
Twilight pressed in on the windows that looked out over the porch, casting the main floor in shadows and doubt. The entire day had passed and all that hope I’d been feeling had been obliterated.
All day, I’d been on edge, waiting for her to come.
For her to choose me.
I’d sat here for close to six hours after that package had been delivered. Pacing. Wanting to claw my hair out with each second that passed.
Then of course because the universe hated me, Lyrik and Austin had gone and called an emergency meeting two hours ago, spouting some bullshit that was going down in LA. They said I had to be there, which was stupid considering I couldn’t process anything they said. I was there, but not present. Antsy and uneasy. Checking my phone a million damned times to see if she’d texted or called.
Nothing.
It fucking slayed me.
But like I’d told her, I was done being a coward. I’d laid myself on the line. Offered her my life if she was just willing to reach out and take it.
Pushing out a breath, I headed for the stairs. My hand glided up the railing as I trudged my way toward that room that taunted me with the remnants of her presence. It was only worse tonight. Knowing I’d done all I could and it hadn’t been enough.
I edged down the hall and pushed open one side of the double doors. The last of the day spilled inside, giving the room that sang with Willow’s spirit a soft, pink hue.
I breathed it in. The lingering scent of peaches filled my senses. Tightened my chest. I blinked, wondering if I just might be losing my mind because it was more intense than it had ever been. That crazy energy that shimmered and played.
I felt myself turning, shifting to look at the barren wall. That vacant place Willow had left like a mark against my name.
Only it was no longer bare.
A row of eight pictures adorned the space. All of them done in black and white and framed in old, vintage wood.
Each huge and utterly profound.
There was just a hint of my girl in each one. A whisper of her shoulder. A profile of her strong face captured like a secret. A tease of black lace.
A shudder ripped down my spine, and the hairs at the nape of my neck lifted in awareness.
Not the dreadful kind.
No. This was the kind that slowed time because you knew you were going to want to remember that moment forever.
Hope fisted in my chest.
Slowly, I turned, drawn.
Heart in my throat.
She stood in the doorway to the bathroom.
She was wearing nothing but black lace and one of my white button-ups she’d stolen from my drawer. Undone. All that creamy, soft skin was on display, mounds of mahogany piled on her head, tendrils dripping down to frame that sweet, sweet face.
I swore the room spun.
I could barely speak, my throat too swollen and thick. I managed the only thing that mattered. “Willow.”
She edged out into the glimmers of the waning day. Could feel the shyness that wove its way through her body, the redness that flushed her cheeks when she gestured to the pictures on the wall behind me. But her voice was brimming with hope. “You said you wanted to wake to me every day.”
Devotion whipped through me, this insane love I had for this precious girl.
I moved toward her, my heart going haywire when I began to breathe her breaths. I reached out and cupped her jaw, her pulse racing beneath my touch. “I do, Willow. I promise…I do. What I told you in those letters…it’s all the truth I have to give. You are my sun. My life.”
Chocolate eyes glistened, everything I was feeling reflected back. “I thought…I thought maybe by loving you, I was dishonoring my sister. Her memory. Her dreams. But she made me promise…the day before she left…that if I found love, the real kind, that I wouldn’t ever let it go.”
A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “I think…I think she’d want us to be happy. I think maybe she was leading us here, all along. Because I found it in you.”
I held her face in my hands. “Peaches.”
“Tell me it’s real,” she whispered.
My nose brushed hers. “It’s real. There’s no faking this—the love I have for you.”
A watery smile moved across her mouth, and she clutched her bottom lip between her teeth, hand shaking like an earthquake when she held out the velvet box. “What you said in the last letter…that you want all of it…all of it with me. I need to know that you truly do.”
“I want everything. Everything you’ve got to give, Willow. All of it.”
No lie.
Zero reservations.
Her gaze traveled to the far wall. To the spot I’d missed when I’d first come in.
I swore the world shook.
Sitting beneath the window was a wooden bassinet. The old kind built on rockers with carved, ornate slats, Willow’s signature style written all over the reclamation.
Shocked, I turned back to look at her, the girl staring up at me.
Hope. Love. Belief.
“Why do I get the feeling this is a sooner rather than later kind of question, darlin’?” My words were clogged with emotion, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a grin fighting for claim on my mouth.
“Because I caught a dream. And maybe it looks different than the way I’d always imagined. Different than I expected. But it’s real and the only thing I want is to share it with you.”
I sank to the floor in front of her, my hands cinched down on her hips, my nose buried in the sweet flesh of her belly. “I want it, Willow. I want it all. I just never knew I did until I met you.”
She touched my face, so soft as she ran her gentle fingers through my hair.
Love laying siege, I pressed a kiss there, before I gathered myself and sent my girl a smirk. “Now, where’s that box?”
She choked out teary laughter and handed it to me. I pulled out the ring I knew would be perfect for her.
An heirloom.
A treasure.
Priceless.
“Willow Langston, put me out of my misery and tell me you’ll marry me.”
Tears streaked down her face. Chocolate eyes so wide. Love so clear. “Yes,” she whispered.
I slid that ring onto its rightful place, looking between her finger and her face, wondering how I had the right to get something so good, making a silent promise to always cherish it, before I stood up and lifted my girl in my arms. I twirled her round and round.
She threw her head back and laughed. Laughed that perfect, poetic sound that passed through me like a caress. I spun her faster. “Oh my God, Ash, put me down, you’re going to drop me.”
She squealed when I did just that, right into the middle of our bed. I grinned down at her as I peeled off my shirt. “What, you think I can’t handle you?” I flexed my arms. “Look how strong I am.”
“Oh, it looks like my cocky, arrogant boy has come out to play.”
“Your cocky boy always wants to play, darlin’. How’s that sound, soon to be Mrs. Willow Evans?”
She giggled as I climbed over her. “That sounds like the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Does this mean I get to get
in this sweet body now? Been dying, baby. Did you know how bad I needed you? How much I was missing you?”
She touched my face.
Sex and comfort.
It tremored around the room.
Staring down at her, I brushed a lock of hair from her precious face. “I love you. More than you could know.”
Her expression softened with all that tenderness only she could give. “I know, Ash. I know. And I promise I’ll love you the same…until the end of time.”
epilogue
Willow
Above, blue skies stretched on forever. Tufts of pure, white clouds floated on the endless breeze. Birds flittered and chirped, passed from tree to tree.
Laughter lifted to the heavens as they ran through the field of dandelions.
Love, love, love. It bounded all around them.
Ash set a hand on her cheek. “My wife. My sun.”
She squeezed his hand closer. “My everything.”
Her life. Her joy. Her gift.
That joy spun around her as Willow held a dandelion out toward their son who kicked and giggled in the crook of his daddy’s arm.
Willow’s heart brimmed with all that love she had to give, her words a rasp as she whispered to their child, “What do you wish, sweet one? Your dreams, they’re out there, waiting all around you. You just have to catch them.”
Chasing dreams always came with a risk.
Dreams that scattered and blew and so often seemed out of reach.
But eventually, those dreams?
They settled and took root.
They found the one place they were meant to Stay.
The End
Thank you for reading stay! Did you love getting to know Ash and Willow? Please consider leaving a review! If you’d like to discuss stay or any of my stories with other readers, join us in the A.L. Jackson Reader Hangout on Facebook.
COMING SOON – stand, A Bleeding Stars Stand-Alone Novel
Zee Kennedy was always in the background. Now it’s his time to Stand.
stand, a second-chance romance and the final novel in the bestselling BLEEDING STARS series, coming to you Spring, 2017
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