by Marie Force
Leaving me reeling, Garrett walks away, hands in his pockets and head down on the way to his truck. I want to run after him, to tell him he’s got it all wrong, that he doesn’t really understand, but I remain rooted to the spot where he found me, next to my dead girlfriend’s grave while the fiancée I plan to break up with waits for me at home.
When did my life get so fucked up?
At the end of my first week back to work, Lauren brings dinner over, and we eat it on the sofa while watching Steel Magnolias on TV. We lose our shit during the scene where Sally Field’s character freaks out at the cemetery after burying her daughter. We sob our heads off like a couple of fools. But then I’m not crying because Sally’s daughter died. I’m crying because at some point in the last couple of weeks, I lost Blake, and I have no idea how I’m going to survive without him.
My heart is broken into a million pieces, and he’s the only one who can put me back together. But he doesn’t want me anymore. He’s even stopped bothering to slip into bed with me at night. I haven’t seen him in three days.
Lauren realizes this meltdown has nothing to do with the movie and wraps her arms around me, holding me while I cry it out.
“I don’t understand what happened,” I say between sobs. The ring that still sits on my finger is a painful reminder of the best days of my life. “We were so happy when we left South Padre. It was perfect, until the accident happened and ruined everything.”
“I’m so sorry, Honey. I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better.”
“I can’t believe it’s over. I keep hoping he’s going to show up and miraculously be the man he was the last couple of months, but that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“I wish I knew. Garrett talked to him, and he thinks the accident triggered memories, and Blake is doing what he did before to survive by retreating into his work to avoid having to deal with the pain of nearly losing you.”
“He didn’t lose me! I’m right here, wishing he were here with me. No offense to you, of course.”
“None taken,” she says with a kind smile as she brushes the hair back from my face. “I have an idea. I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do, but it worked once before, so who’s to say it won’t work again?”
Desperate to hear any ideas she might have, I wipe away my tears and take a big drink from my wineglass.
“What if you were to go find him and use the line that started this whole thing one more time?”
I shake my head. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me. What makes you think he’ll want to do that?”
“He wants everything with you, Honey. He just can’t give himself permission to take what he wants because he feels responsible for you getting hurt, for Jordan being killed. You have to overpower him with reminders of what he’d be giving up if he lets you go.” She takes my hand and looks directly into my eyes. “You need to be strong enough for both of you.”
“I don’t know if I am, though. I don’t feel strong at all.”
“You, Honey Carmichael, are the strongest person I’ve ever met. Look at the things you’ve already overcome in your life, things that would’ve broken a lesser person. If you want this man as much as I think you do, then you have to fight for him by reminding him of what’s at stake.”
Lauren’s faith in me brings new tears to my eyes. “What if he turns me down?”
“Then you’ll have the answer you need and can move forward knowing you did everything you could. Think about it.”
I wonder how I’ll think about anything else.
Two days later, I’ve run out of excuses for why I can’t do what Lauren suggested. I miss Blake so much that I’m willing to potentially humiliate myself if it means I get to see that handsome face and those amazing blue eyes one more time.
After work, I remove the walking boot I’m supposed to wear at least twelve hours a day for the next month, take a shower and spend extra time on my hair and makeup. I stand in front of my closet for easily half an hour before I choose a white minidress that’s quite possibly the sexiest thing I own because it leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination—not that Blake has to imagine me naked. He’s seen the real thing often enough.
I top off the outfit with my favorite red cowboy boots and quickly decide my healing ankle isn’t ready for boots. I replace them with low-heeled sandals nowhere near as fun as the boots, but at least they don’t hurt to wear. Finally, I spray perfume in all the most important places.
Then I kill a couple of hours by watching mindless TV until I’m sure it’s late enough that he’ll be home.
The drive to his house feels endless even if it takes only fifteen minutes. As I pull into his driveway, I’m flooded with memories of the night I followed him home and everything that came after. I want him back, and I’m determined to do everything I can to convince him that we can make this work if only he’d give us a fighting chance.
His house is dark, and since he parks in the garage, I have no way to know for sure if he’s actually home, but I’ve come too far to turn back now.
My palms are sweaty as I walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell, listening to it chime throughout the house. I wait for what feels like an eternity before I ring the bell again, waiting and listening for footsteps that don’t come.
Either he’s not home or he’s not answering the door. I choose the former and decide I’m not going so far as to use the code he gave me the night I brought him home drunk. Where else would he be at this hour? I have to think about that for only a second before I know exactly where I’ll find him.
Mindful of my fragile ankle, I walk slowly back to the car when I’d much rather run. I drive carefully, adhere to the speed limit and keep my eyes and attention on the road, as another accident is the very last thing I need right now. I take the last turn before the farm, and in the distance, I see the lights burning on the first floor.
My heart gives a happy leap. I’m going to see him in a few minutes, and I can’t wait. I give myself a little pep talk on the way down the driveway to the house. “No matter what happens, you’ll be fine. With him or without him, you’ll be okay.” But oh, I so hope I’ll be with him.
I pull up next to his truck, turn off the car and extinguish the headlights. No doubt he saw me coming, so there’s no point in dragging this out. Gathering all the courage I possess, I run my fingers through my hair, apply a fresh coat of lipstick and head for the front porch.
He meets me at the door, his eyes widening at the sight of me. “Honey. What’re you doing here?”
“Looking for you. May I come in?” Gran would be proud. She scrubbed the far more common “can I” from my vocabulary when I was a little girl.
“Um, yeah, sure. I guess.”
I pretend not to notice his decided lack of enthusiasm as I brush past him into the house, which is much further along than it had been the last time I was here. The kitchen cabinets are in, gorgeous copper countertops have been laid, and there’s even a sofa in the living room. I wonder if he’s been sleeping here rather than with me.
“It looks fantastic, Blake. I love the countertops.”
“Do you? I wasn’t sure about them, but the lady at the showroom talked me into them.”
“They’re perfect. And the backsplash is so cool. Did you have to place every one of those little tiles by hand?”
“They come on twelve-by-twelve sheets.”
“Oh, that’s good. You’d be cross-eyed if you tried to do them one at a time. Show me what else you’ve done.”
He reluctantly, or so it seems to me, leads me upstairs to the master suite, where the walls have been sheet-rocked and the original wood floors restored to gleaming glory. “This door is from the original barn,” he says as he slides it to the left to reveal the master bathroom.
“Oh my God, look at that tub! It’s amazing.”
“I know how much you love your tub, so I got the biggest one they had. I figured whoever lives here would appreciate it.”
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Whoever lives here… I try not to let that statement derail my determination.
I run a hand over the white marble countertop on the double vanity. And then I turn to him, forcing him to meet my gaze. He looks so exhausted that I want to wrap my arms around him and offer him a place to rest, but I’m not sure I still have the right to do that. “I thought we were going to live here. Wasn’t that the plan?”
He looks down at the floor, the agony in his expression shredding what’s left of my heart. “Honey…”
“I want you to fuck me.”
His head whips up, his eyes go wide, and his beautiful lips part in stunned amazement.
It takes everything I have, every ounce of faith in the love I feel for this man and the love I know he still feels for me, to close the distance between us, to place my hands on his chest and to look up at him looking down at me with blatant desire.
“I need you, Blake. I miss you so much, I ache from missing you. I miss your hands on me, your lips on me, your cock, your gorgeous abs, the way you look at me when you make love to me. I miss everything about us.”
I had more to say, but it’s hard to talk with someone else’s tongue in your mouth. Yep, you heard me right, he’s kissing my face off. He’s completely unhinged, as if someone threw gas on a fire, and it feels like coming home. I wrap my arms around his neck and lose myself to the thrill of being back in his arms.
“Honey, wait, we should talk…”
“No, we shouldn’t.” I free the button to his jeans and unzip him quickly, before he can tell me all the reasons why this is a bad idea. To me, it feels like the best idea I’ve ever had, right up there with the first time we did this. I tuck my hand into his jeans and wrap it around his hard cock.
He hisses, and his head falls back. “Honey…”
“Make love to me, Blake. Please. I need you so bad.”
“Your head… You’re injured.”
“I’m totally fine. I’m right here in your arms, and I want you.” I keep a tight grip on him as I stroke him.
I hear his resistance crumble when all the air seems to leave his body in one long whoosh. And then he’s lifting me and leaning me against the wall. I have no choice but to let go of his cock, which is now pressing against the place where I want him most.
“You forgot to wear panties under this handkerchief you’ve got on,” he says on a low growl.
“Did I?” I give him a coy smile as I grasp a handful of his hair and give it a tug. “Don’t go easy on me.”
He slams home, and I scream from the pleasure, the pain, the burn and the absolute rightness of having him back where he belongs. I hope he knows I’ll never let him go again.
“Honey… God, Honey.”
The words, whispered roughly against my ear, travel through me like an electrical current. “I love you so much, Blake, and I always will. There’s nothing that could make me stop loving you.”
After that, there are no more words as we move together in perfect harmony. He reaches down to where we’re joined and strokes me to an explosive finish. He’s right there with me, surging into me over and over again until he sags against me, breathing hard as he holds me tight against him.
I take his face in my hands and kiss him everywhere I can reach, hoping I’m loving him enough for both of us. I’m afraid of what’ll happen next, so I tighten my legs around his waist, keeping him anchored to me so he can’t get away. My ankle throbs in protest of the position, but I ignore it.
Speaking softly, I open my heart to him. “I want to live here with you. I want to help you bring this place back to life. I want to bring you back to life. I want this ring you put on my finger and the life you asked me to share with you. I want to live that life fearlessly, not stuck in a past we cannot change, no matter how much we might wish we could. I want blond-haired babies with you, chickens in the yard and horses in the barn. I want a garden where we grow strawberries and green beans and cucumbers and tomatoes. I want summer days at the swimming hole and winter nights in our bed in this room that we’ll make our own. I want holidays and birthdays. I want cookouts and family dinners. I want good times, bad times, joy and sorrow and every single thing with you. Only you.”
He’s quiet for such a long time that I begin to fear I haven’t done enough to convince him.
Then he raises his head off my shoulder and looks into my eyes. “I’m powerless to resist you, Honeybee. God knows I tried.”
“Stop trying.” Keeping my hands on his face, I look into his eyes. “I’m sorry if the accident reminded you too much of things you’d rather forget. But it wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. Tell me you know that.”
“I’m not quite there yet.”
“Luckily, we have the rest of our lives to get you there.”
“I have this dark place inside me, Honey. I can’t always predict when it’ll drag me down.”
“You don’t have to predict it. I’ll be here to raise you up when the darkness tries to take you down.”
He strokes my cheek with his finger. “I’m sorry I walked away from us.”
“You didn’t go far.”
“Will you always come after me if I forget to come home?”
“Count on it.”
He nuzzles my neck. “And when we fight, will you ask me to fuck you so we can get things back on track?”
“Of course I will. It works every time.”
His laughter is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, and then he tops that with his words. “I love you, Honeydew melon. And I always will.”
Epilogue
One year later…
I’m using one of my new backdrops for this very special shoot. It’s a photo I took one night when Blake and I drove out to Mitchell Flat to view the Marfa Magical Lights, or the ghost lights. People call them different things, but they’re always magical to me. The image is blown up to cover most of one wall in the studio.
Over the years, I’ve taken hundreds, perhaps a thousand, photos of the lights, but on that particular night, I got the best shots ever. They form the backdrop for my first shoot with Matt and Julie’s baby girl, Grace, who’s now three months old and dressed in a cactus costume I made just for her, so her photos will be one of a kind, like her.
Julie beams with happiness as she helps Scarlett and me settle the baby against the props that will artfully hold her in place for the pictures. By the time we’re finished here, Grace will seem to be one with the lights and the desert that surrounds our West Texas town.
Grace is in a great mood, smiling for the camera like she was born to model. “She’s a natural,” I tell her mom.
“I bet you say that about all of them,” Julie says.
I adjust one of the lights to my liking. “Trust me, I don’t.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t,” Blake says when he joins us, slipping an arm around me from behind as he kisses my cheek. “I worried that we’d never have one of our own because she works with so many cranky babies.” He flattens his hand possessively over my basketball-size baby bump, sending a thrill coursing through me. His possessiveness is still an instant turn-on.
“Hi there,” I say to my smiling, handsome husband, who now comes to me every night after work rather than the bar he used to frequent. We’ve been married ten months and living in our dream house at the farm for six of those months. Because I couldn’t bear to part with it, we rent out Gran’s house to tourists who come to town for the various festivals and art shows. I never imagined this kind of happiness existed, and I certainly didn’t expect to ever find it for myself. Propositioning him was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life—both times.
“You’re not spending too much time on your feet, are you?”
“Nope. Grace is making it easy on me.”
Lauren comes bursting through the front door as Garrett comes in the back. We still aren’t sure if they’re together or not, but they often seem to be in the same place at the same time, even if they don’t use the same door.
“Did we miss it?” Lauren asks, brightening when she sees Grace in her cactus costume. “Oh my God! She’s the cutest baby ever.”
We all think so, probably because she’s the first baby born to our group of friends, and we’re smitten. I can’t wait to add to the family when ours arrives in another week or two.
“Look at that smile,” Garrett says, dazzled by the little girl. To Matt, he says, “I hope you’ve got a stick to keep the boys away.”
Matt scowls. “She’s not allowed to date until she’s forty.”
The rest of us snort with laughter. Our laughter delights Grace, and I capture every gummy grin on film. If only every shoot could go as smoothly as this one has. “I think we’re done.”
“That fast?” Julie asks.
“Yep. Your daughter is a star, and we nailed it.”
Julie goes to collect the baby while the rest of us gather around the oversized monitor on my desk to look at the pictures.
Her parents are blown away. “I don’t know how you do it, Honey,” Julie says, sounding teary, “but she actually looks as if she’s sitting in the desert with the lights behind her.”
“That’s the idea.”
“It’s amazing,” Matt says.
“I’m so glad you’re happy.”
Julie hugs me. “I can’t thank you enough for these priceless memories. We’ll treasure the pictures always.”
“Aww, stop. You’re going to make me cry.”
“Doesn’t take much,” Blake mutters, making the others laugh.
I smile at him, and the fierce love I see in his eyes takes my breath away. Fighting for him was the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve been reaping the benefits every day since.
“I’m buying dinner for everyone,” Matt announces.
After some debate, it’s decided we’re going to Planet Marfa.