Make Me Yours (Bellamy Creek, #2)

by Melanie Harlow

“The truth is, Mom, that’s never going to happen.” “How can you be so sure?” “Because lightning never strikes the same place twice.”

Yep, completely understand this reaction lol

“Your body is fucking perfect, Cheyenne.” I swear to God, those words came out of his mouth.

My jaw fell open. His face went red. “Fuck. Sorry.” “For what? It was a compliment.” “Men shouldn’t comment on women’s bodies.”

lol it’s hard to teach young girls. Ugh.

“I love my dad the most out of anybody.” Girl, same, I wanted to say. Instead I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I know.”

But when you have something precious in your hands, you need to hold on tight.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, but our relationship had been a bit strained after losing Trisha. I’d never understood how a God who was supposed to be good and just had allowed something like that to happen. It was an unsettling feeling, to have your faith stolen. To wake up one morning believing in something, and by nightfall, discover that belief has been destroyed. It made it hard to trust your instincts. Hard to plan for the future. Hard to believe that you can protect those you love—or protect yourself. Nothing was promised. Nothing was certain. And prayers went unanswered all the time. But tonight, I found myself willing to try again.

I took one look at Cheyenne in that giant sweater with the floppy arms, and the fuzzy socks and the hat hair and the mascara that had run earlier because she’d laughed so hard she’d cried and was now smudged beneath her eyes—and I knew I loved her so much I never wanted to be without her. This was it for me. She was the one.

Of course, later I learned that nothing you did could prevent bad things from happening. You could never be one hundred percent safe.

It was the perfect example of why you couldn’t trust the universe or God or anyone else to protect you. You were on your own. Anything and anyone could be taken from you inside a minute.

An accident. A mistake. A lightning strike. An error in judgment. A split second. A wrong choice. There were so many ways fate could turn on you, no matter how smart or careful or good you tried to be.

“We’re not saying bad things don’t happen to good people, because they do—we know it. But you can’t live in fear of them. And you don’t have to go looking for them.”

“This is about you saying you’re fine and you’re not. This is about you looking for reasons to keep yourself from being happy, so that it can’t be stolen from you. This is about you wanting to cause the bad thing, so that the bad thing can’t take you by surprise.”

But the scars are still there, and you have to look at them now if you want to move on and be happy. You have to talk about them. Share them with me.”

“You’re wrong, Cole. It’s going to break my heart to walk out of here tonight, but if you won’t let me love you, scars and all, that’s what I have to do.” With tears streaming down my face, I turned to leave.

You never know what good things can happen, Cole. But you have to believe they can.”