Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
“This is ours,” I tell her.
Her voice squeals with excitement. “Jacob! How?”
I step from the car, walk to the passenger side, and open the door, pulling her into my arms. She springs up as I sweep her into my embrace, holding her tightly, knowing I’ll never have to let her go.
“How do you think I could start my own company?” I ask. “In the military, I spent nothing and invested every penny. This is our money to build our life. I never had a reason to spend it, but now I do—on us and our future.”
She blinks, her eyes glistening when my voice gets husky. I step back, feeling Rusty watching us, knowing he has a big old grin on his face. When I take a knee, she brings her hands to her face as if to catch her tears.
“I love you, Emma Wilson,” I say, taking the ring box from my pocket and opening it to show her the glistening diamond. “I love you more than anything. I need you. I can’t imagine life without you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she yells, letting out a trembling sob. “Oh my God, yes.”
I take the ring from the box. It’s a large cushion-cut rock set within an elegant platinum band. When I bought it, I was thinking curvy, like my woman.
“I love you,” she whispers as I slide the ring onto her finger. “So much.”
Standing, I pull her into a fierce hug. She clutches onto my sides.
“Would this be a good time to tell you I’m pregnant?” she whispers.
I didn’t think my heart could get brighter than this. I take her by the shoulders and lean back, looking down at her. She smiles up at me, nodding. “I did a test earlier. It was positive. We’re going to have a baby.”
She looks uncertain for a moment, but surely she knew I wanted this. All those times, I took her perfect body with nothing separating us.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever been,” I tell her, pulling her close again. “Outside my home. With my fiancé. With our future growing inside you. I love you, Emma.”
EPILOGUE
EMMA
Four Years Later
“Ipaint Tylie,” my little Marissa says, looking up at me with paint on her hand, dabbing it against the paper. I laugh in delight. Tylie is what she calls Tyler, who’s sort of my brother and hers simultaneously. Tyler is Dad and Angelica’s son, so Tyler is my half-brother and her cousin.
Tyler laughs, sitting up as if posing for Marissa. I rest my hand on my belly, feeling a new life growing, more love swelling within. We sit in the large function room with the most light, letting it spill in as the kids play and paint. Angelica sits across from me, watching Tyler with devotion, painting every one of her features.
Behind her, Dad and Jacob laugh as they play table tennis. When Jacob wins, they wander over, Jacob sitting next to Dad and me next to Angelica. My man is wearing a casual T-shirt that clings to his muscular body. It has his company’s logo, a reminder that, while he doesn’t go into the field anymore, he still makes a difference. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.
He wraps his arm around me, the feeling so natural now. It’s wild we ever questioned it.
“Your brother’s a poser,” Dad says, grinning.
I smile down at Tyler. He looks so similar to Dad. Then I look up and see my man smiling down, too. That warm shape to his lips would’ve seemed unthinkable once. When I was immersed in the crush, obsessing about the future, wondering if he could ever want me, I couldn’t have imagined that smile. It’s so content. So pure.
“When I’m with you, with Marissa, I can forget about the other side of my life,” he said last night, holding me so close to him that it was like he was taking me back to the blizzard, our private world. “I love you so much.”
He catches me looking and tilts his head as if to say, What?
“Just you,” I say, kissing my husband on the cheek.
EPILOGUE
JACOB
Eight Years Later
“Do you think I’ll be able to be a caterpillar, Daddy?” Marissa says as I drive her to school. Her little brother, Ethan, sits in the toddler seat beside her, consumed with his coloring book. He’s not even coloring in it. He makes me laugh so much. He’s in a staring-at-his-coloring-book stage at the moment.
“Why a caterpillar?” I ask.
“Buh-because I’d be a good caterpillar. I wouldn’t be a good butterfly, though. Could I stay a caterpillar?”
“You can stay something for a long time,” I tell her, stopping at the red light and looking in the rearview. I can see hints of her mother in her eyes and hair, but people say she has my smile. “But you might want to change one day. I was a caterpillar for a long time.”