More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I hadn’t needed a grave to give me closure. I’d needed this. Life.
“I’m ready to go home.” “To see your mom?” I shook my head. “No. I’ll call later and make our excuses. We’ll come back to see her another day. Right now, I just want to go home. With you.”
If my heart left her breathless, then hers gave me a reason to breathe.
“I don’t want to be fake married anymore.” She flinched. “Oh.” “How about you wear that ring for real?”
“So you’ll stay my wife?” She sniffled, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. Then she leaned over, stretching to brush a kiss to my lips. “Yes.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” He looked up at me, his gaze softening. “Where you go, I go.”
“You okay?” he asked, pulling me into his arms. “No, but I will be.” I sniffled the threat of more tears away and held him tighter. “Will you hold me for a minute?” “No need to ask.” I closed my eyes, relaxing into his embrace. Isaiah was more than I could have hoped for. My heart. My savior.
he took my face in his hands and kissed me, slow and soft. “I love you.” And there it was. The moment I’d most needed to hear those words and he’d delivered. “I love you too.” He dropped his forehead to mine.
Her endless faith astounded me.
She closed her eyes, dropping her forehead to my chest. “I love you.” I wrapped my arms around her. “I love you too.”
My wife. She’d found me. She’d broken through. She loved me.
“How do you feel about Canada? We might have to make a run for it tonight.” He grinned. “If that’s what it’ll take for us to have a life together, I’m good with Canada.” “We could change our names and live way up north. We’d be like pioneers, living off the grid.” His thumb stroked my cheek. “As long as your last name matches mine, I’m good with that too.”
“Ready?” Dash asked. No. I nodded anyway. Then I turned to Isaiah, drinking in his handsome face. I didn’t want to do this. I wasn’t strong enough. But for him, I’d find the courage. I’d do this for the promise of the life we’d have if we truly set ourselves free.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you too.”
“We did it.” “No, you did it.” He smiled. I lost sight of it as he crushed me in his arms. His chest began to shake and a moment later, I realized he was laughing. Isaiah was laughing. It was deep and raspy. Sexy and real. Something I wanted to hear every day for the rest of my life.
“I should let you go”—he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear—“but I’m not going to.” “It wouldn’t work anyway. Where you go, I go, remember?”
He dropped a kiss to my lips. It was no more than a brush, but it held so much love and promise. Isaiah and his simple gestures. He took the quiet moments, the ones most overlooked, and made the most of them. “I do.” I smiled against his lips. “I do too.”
Every month that passed, Isaiah was getting more and more comfortable driving me around. It was always easier on his bike. Still, for the most part, we drove separately, or I drove him. There was no rush. There was no reason he had to drive. He’d proved over and over that he’d be there in an emergency.
“I was looking forward to dancing with you tonight.” He lifted my hand, holding tight to the small of my back, then spun us in a circle. I smiled as he slowed and swayed us back and forth, the only music our beating hearts. It was home. Here in this apartment, in his arms, was home.
Isaiah and I had talked about having kids. We were both nervous about becoming parents, Isaiah more so than me. He had this lingering doubt that he didn’t deserve the love of a child. But he knew I wanted to be a mother. Deep down, he wanted to be a father.
He took my face in his hands. And smiled. “I love you, doll.” Isaiah’s eyes had been so haunted once. So dark and lifeless. Tonight, they were as bright as stars. My husband. My life. “I love you too.”
