From Nowhere (Wildfire, #2)

by Jewel E. Ann

“You’re a beautiful mess.” What. The. Hell? Why did I say that? It just came out of nowhere.

“He looked at me like someone who can’t turn away from a fire, watching the flames. I’m hot.”

“And I picked six for you because six is the smallest perfect number. The next perfect number is twenty-eight, but I stuck to a more manageable number and ethical harvesting.”

“If I weren’t riding off into the proverbial sunset on a bicycle, I’d kiss you. But my life is complicated, so I have to take it slow.”

I’m a goner. Single dads who say all the right things, pick the perfect number of wildflowers, and have the perfect hand brush before riding off into the sunset on a bicycle are officially my new favorite drug.

“Sometimes you just have to say fuck it and kiss the girl. We’ll figure the rest out later,”

Brynn used to say that people will exceed your expectations if you let them know what you expect. If you set failure as an expectation, they can fail miserably, or they can be smashing successes if you set the bar high.

people feel at ease when the obvious is out in the open.

“You’re fueling my fire,” she whispers. “Every text. Every word. Every glance. Every touch.” “Should I do something to extinguish you?” I smirk. Again, she watches for Lola. “You should burn with me.”

“I’m the best you’ve never had,” she says with a sexy confidence.

Don’t settle for anything less than being with someone who makes you feel special and needed.

Anger and regret are a waste of time.

Joy is timeless. It doesn’t matter if someone is five or fifty. It sounds the same, and it’s unavoidably contagious.

Home is not a where; it’s a who.

You get to this point where you know you can no longer swim, so you have two choices: drown or yell for help. I’m learning to yell for help because I don’t want to drown.

“I needed you so fucking long before I ever met you,” he whispers. “You showed up out of nowhere, the way I bet your plane cuts through the smoke to deliver relief. I have felt so much relief since I met you.”

Please don’t judge. These aren’t yard weeds. Dandelions are edible and nutritious and a sign of healthy soil. They symbolize happiness, joy, resilience, and perseverance—and a bunch of other wonderful things. Hope you love them!

That’s what people do; they beg for something and then backtrack when it’s offered to them. Mind games are the demise of many relationships.

nothing about my life has been fair.

Love doesn’t need anything more than a chance.

“It feels like bad timing, but how many things in life happen at the perfect time, or what we perceive to be the perfect time?

Tragedies change people.

People need silver linings.

There’s a reason people say true love is blind. It’s because the people who really love you see your beauty in all its glorious forms.

they are reminders of your strength. When people look at you, they see everything they hope to be themselves. Strong. Brave. And beautiful.”

life is beautiful.”

“Maren,” he whispers, trailing light kisses from my lips to my ear, “there’s nothing more epic than falling in love with someone who loved my daughter first.”

“When you press your lips to my forehead, it’s very intimate. In fact, I don’t think a guy kisses a girl on the forehead until he loves her. It’s like a parent kissing a child on the forehead to see if they have a fever. It’s a loving gesture.”

Life is unforgiving.

The world is big, but my world fits perfectly in my arms. She always will.

“Humans are assholes.”

My experience with love has been extreme. The bigger the love, the greater the pain. And I don’t know if it’s worth it, because it fucking hurts to love someone this much.

Something terrible happened, and you were just trying to survive. And that’s all I was trying to do. It doesn’t have to be pretty.

“I’ll be here ready to listen. And I don’t care if your emotions make sense. I don’t think a lot of things in life make sense. Maybe our love doesn’t make sense, but I love you nonetheless.”

And I’m going to do it so Lola can see that not all tragedy ends in death. This accident wasn’t an epiphany. It was a risk I take with my job.”

love you, even if it scares me to death. The only thing that scares me more is trying not to love you. But I have to come to terms with the fear that kept me from being there for you. I feel ashamed, guilty, and embarrassed.”

“Because people with risky jobs know that their job doesn’t end just because something goes wrong.”

The whole reason you’re in therapy is because fearing something to the point that it disrupts your life is no way to live.

“When I’m a grown-up, I won’t be as scared.” I kiss her head and stand. “You will be; you’ll just learn to let love burn through those thick clouds of fear.” She grins. “And every day will be sunny.”

“I prepared myself to lose you,” I say. “To grieve you. To help Lola deal with another awful blow.”

“But you didn’t die. And those feelings didn’t vanish when you came out of your coma. Even if your death wasn’t real, my feelings over losing you were. So I’ve needed to mourn your near death for my heart to reconcile all of those emotions and recalibrate to the reality that you’re still alive and hopefully not dying anytime soon. I’ve had to find a way to navigate my feelings about love and loss while somehow leading Lola through another tragedy, even if the outcome has been different. Everything about Brynn’s death came rushing back when I heard your plane went down. So my feelings have been . . .”

“Messy,” she whispers. “Yeah.” I lift onto my elbow and kiss the corner of her mouth. “And now, the only messy feeling I have is regret about my messy feelings because tonight, I had a long talk with Lola about grown-up love. And in the middle of my speech, I knew it wasn’t for her. It was for me. And for the past two weeks, I’ve let fear dictate how I love you. And I don’t ever want to do that again.”

Looking in the mirror, you see a different version of yourself without that person. And it can take a long time to feel like life has given you enough joy to fill that void.

“Loving your daughter has been effortless. Frighteningly so.”

I say with pride because I no longer want to live in fear of the “what if” moments. That’s not living at all.

“I hope you never lose a child. It changes you. Losing a child crushes your heart beyond repair. When the life you brought into this world leaves before you, happiness dies, and the emptiness in your chest fills with anger as you try to make sense of the incomprehensible.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I can take it from you. I can’t bring her back, but I can carry the burden.”

“Unexpected.” “All the best things in life are.”

I’m in awe of this woman—her talent, love, patience, and perseverance. I will never stop thinking of myself as a fortunate man despite life’s tragedies. It’s never the things I see coming that take my breath away. It’s the moments that come from nowhere.