The branches whipped and the trees howled.
My hands found her precious face. I tilted her face up to me. “Do I love you?”
I blinked, savoring every curve and line of her face. “You are the one who taught me what that really means. You are the one who showed me what it was to believe in it.”
I squeezed her cheeks in emphasis. “You are love, Faith. You are my heart. You are my beauty. My world doesn’t know how to exist without you.”
Tears streaked down her face. “Then let me be yours. Forever. Don’t leave me, because I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life. Tell me you’ll stay . . . because I don’t wanna go on dreamin’ without you.”
I glanced down at Bailey, who was completely wrapped around Faith’s leg as she grinned up at me. “Will you stay, Jacie?”
I stood there, wondering if this was real. If this was possible. If I could ever be good enough.
Her words from so long ago filtered through my mind.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Jace. It’s what you believe. What you see in yourself. If you want it badly enough, you can have it.”
“I believe in us.” It came out without question. Without hesitation.
A tremble of a smile moved across her lips. “You became my dream. Tell me you’ll live it with me. Let’s dream again.”
“Always. I’ll fight for you. Love you. And I promise that I won’t ever walk away.”
Faith choked out soggy laughter. “Good. Then I’m goin’ to need help painting that sign.”
I shifted that way, squinting as I peered at the outline.
Broadshire Blooms Bed & Breakfast
She inched up and whispered in my ear. “Come stay at the BBB. Well . . . almost.”
I laughed.
Laughed, and then I was rushing to hug her tight, hope billowing over.
Spilling out on the land.
Dream after dream after dream.
A family.
I wanted it, and I’d never stop fighting for it. I drove my fingers in all that lush, long hair, and I kissed her like she was my last breath.
That was exactly what she was.
My last breath.
Every breath until the very end.
Bailey tugged at my pant leg, and I ripped myself away, my heart pressing so damned full.
She was lifting a full gallon of paint, her little arms straining as she curved all the way back so she could show me what she had.
“You got to paint my room aww pink and tuck me in every night and sway the bad dragons. But not Mack. Mack is a good dragon.”
Her eyes shone with this pleading kind of awe.
Magic.
I dropped to my knees in front of her, and I looked up at her mother, who was gazing down at us, her fingers running through my hair, before I turned my attention back to Bailey.
The little girl I would forever love as my own. Never think of her as anything else.
When I opened my mouth, I made a promise I would keep for both of them.
“I’ll slay all your dragons, and I promise, I will never leave.”
I sat on the edge of Faith’s bed, the sound of her moving around in the bathroom after taking a shower soothing me while I held the letter she’d given me to read.
Torn.
Torn between hatred and devotion.
Swallowing down the years of resentment and anger, I turned the letter over and over in my hands, not sure if I wanted to listen to a thing he might want to say.
Finally, I forced myself just to read it.
Jace,
If you have this letter, it means I got what was coming to me. You taught me about karma at a young age. I should have believed its truth. I didn’t. But that didn’t mean I didn’t respect you.
Well, respect and envy are a very fine line, aren’t they? I wanted to be you, and I hated you for it because I could never be that good. My heart never beat the same way as yours. Your soul ached to do good, and mine sought wickedness and greed.
Steven wanted me to prove my loyalty to him, and in turn, I broke the greatest trust I should have shared with someone. I put those drugs in your backpack and made the anonymous call that I’d seen someone breaking into the plantation.
I stole from you, but I’m the one who lost.
I lost everything. But it was always yours, anyway.
Take them. Love them. Don’t ever regret finally turning me away. It was what I needed. What they needed. It was time.
I know you’ll show Bailey what a real man is like. You’ll teach her devotion and loyalty. You’ll fill her with strength. Most of all, you’ll fill that house with love. After all, it was always your ghost that lived there.
Goodbye, my brother. That was what you were. If I could change one thing, I would have been a better one.
Joseph
Grief nearly cut me in two, and I squeezed my eyes closed after I’d read his final words. Part of me wanted to hate him. But hating him would solve nothing. It would never change the path we’d been set on.
The loss.
The lessons.
The love.
Love.
It creaked open the bathroom door, standing in the frame, her gorgeous face filling my eyes. I blinked at her, my throat growing thick, that feeling rising high.
So high.
I wanted to ride on it forever.
Faith slowly walked out, her hips a slow sway, the girl so sexy and she never knew it.
I knew she’d given me time. Privacy to read through the letter that had been left for me.
She came to a stop right in front of me, and I widened my knees, dragging her closer to me.
She set her hand on my face, her thumb running along the hollow beneath my eye.
“Are you okay?” she whispered her concern.
I let the letter flutter to the floor.
As wilted as one of the rose petals that fell.
Making space for something new to bloom.
I set both my hands on the outsides of her thighs, staring up at those chocolate eyes.
Emotion flooded fast.
A furious beat through my veins.
“Are you standing in front of me?” I let a grin quirk up at the corner of my mouth.
Faith smiled.
Smiled and that feeling swept me away, and I gripped her around the waist, spinning her around until she was pinned to the bed.
I gazed down at her.
At my love.
My life.
My hope.
My beauty.
She ran those fingers through my hair. “I guess that’s my answer then.”
I tugged at the towel she had wrapped around her body, revealing every soft, luscious curve. “You’re my answer.”
Her fingertips fluttered, hovering over the wound healing high on my chest near my shoulder before her hand traveled to my heart, her palm pressing flat against the beat.
I spread my hand over hers. “Beauty.”
Faith didn’t look away from my eyes as she pushed down my pajama bottoms, neither of us breaking our stare as I twisted the rest of the way out of them, as I crawled between her thighs.
“Beast,” she whispered.
I pressed into the sweet warmth of her body. I loved her and cherished her, every shift of my hips as I rocked into her filled with devotion.
With loyalty.
I’d known the second I met her this girl was more.
Forever more, she’d be my everything.
Epilogue
Spring cast its warmth across the blue, blue sky, the trees green and lush where they stretched across the narrow lane.
A shadowy hedge of protection that lifted up to shield the rambling plantation that rose behind me.
Now, it was completely restored.
Magnificent in its beauty.
But there was nothing quite as beautiful as the sight laid out in front of me.
The lawn shimmered with dew and the rose gardens were in a full, fragrant bloom.
Splashes of pink and purple colored the entire side of the yard, and rows of white chairs were setup in neat lines.
In them, sat our family and our friends.
Bailey was running down the aisle ahead of me, tossin’ those petals in the air as if they might float all the way to the heavens that stretched overhead.
Heads turned as I slowly walked down the steps from the side porch on my father’s arm.
But it was the man at the end of it all that stole my breath.
A shiver raced my spine, and that energy flashed through the air.
A thunderbolt.