“I feel like this is a dream,” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re telling me everything I have always wanted to hear.”
He smiled. “We can have everything we’ve always wanted together now.”
I began to tremble.
“We’re really doing this?” I asked as pure joy filled me. “We’re really going to be together?”
“Until my dying breath,” Kale vowed.
My heart didn’t know what to do; it was feeling something other than heartbreak for once and was close to shutting down. I pressed my forehead against his.
“The day you left, it took me all of two seconds to realise I’d die for you,” he murmured.
Oh.
With a shaky breath I said, “I’ve been dying slowly, waiting for you, and I mean this quite literally – I can’t live without you.”
“You won’t,” Kale swore, pressing his forehead against mine. “I’ll be with you until the day my heart thumps its last beat. You’re everything to me. Do you understand that? Every. Fucking. Thing.”
Tears seeped from my eyes and splashed onto my cheeks.
“I love you so much.”
Kale smiled wide. “I love you too, Laney Baby, and to think we have your uncle to thank for bringing us back together,” he said as he nuzzled his nose to mine.
I smiled warmly. “I miss him dearly.”
“I know you do, sweetheart, but we’ll see him again. We’ll see your Aunt Teresa, Lavender and Kaden too.” He nudged his nose into my neck. “We have a lot to look forward to as we grow old, darling.”
I was going to grow old with Kale.
My Kale.
I joyfully smiled. “We do.”
“Things would have been so different if you’d never come home,” he murmured, his arm tightening around me.
“I know,” I said, nodding against him. “Things would have never changed.”
“Until Harry?” Kale questioned, kissing my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I smiled warmly, closing my eyes as I bathed in the love my future husband freely gave to me. “Until Harry.”
We were silent as we basked in the touch of one another.
“You’re my soon-to-be Mrs Kale Hunt,” Kale murmured.
I didn’t know why, but I burst into laughter as I thought back to the times I’d scribbled those exact words all over my school journals and notebooks, wishing that one day those words would come true. Little did I know that day would come. Getting to it wouldn’t be easy, but it would come, and I would be happy. Nothing else, just really bloody happy.
And you know something? My Uncle Harry was right. I deserved it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Day one of forever
Nanny?” I said when I walked up the pathway of York Cemetery later that blissful and life-changing day and found my grandmother standing in front of my aunt and uncle’s grave.
She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Hello, me darlin’.”
I put my arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze before standing by her side. “Are you okay?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I’m okay as I can be.”
I leaned in and kissed her temple before resting my head against hers. We stayed that way for a few minutes until my nanny spoke. “Lane,” she began. “I miss me son,” she said sorrowfully, “and I am sad that he is gone, but I’m also very happy that ye have come home ta us. I know Harry would have been over the moon with your decision, sweetheart.”
I gave her another squeeze. “I’m just so sorry that it took me so long. I don’t have everything figured out yet, but I’m getting there. I wish things didn’t take so long to come to pass, though. I’ll forever be regretful for that.”
My nanny turned me to face her. “Listen ta me, Lane Edwards: ye did what you needed ta do at the time for you. Ye aren’t a machine – you’re a human, and you’re no better at figurin’ life out than the rest of us are.” She reached for my hands and rubbed her thumbs over my knuckles, instantly relaxing me.
“I am so sorry for how we all reacted when ye broke your news about leavin’, and I wish we could take it back, but ye were meant ta leave, and we were meant ta fight ye over it. Everythin’ that has happened, the good, the bad, and the downright horrible, has led ta this moment. It was meant ta be, darlin’. Fate is a funny thing, and ye have no control over it. Ye can’t even explain it.”
“You just ride the journey that is life out and see where it takes you?” I asked, quoting her.
A beautiful smile overtook her face. “Exactly, and the sooner we all get that, the sooner petty things take a back seat to what really matters. Family. Friends. The things nobody should live without. You don’t know what life has in store for you, sweetheart. Harry is a prime example that you have to live in the now, and stop dwellin’ in the past. People create their happiness, but they also create their destruction. Live the life you want.”
“You think people have that much control over their lives?” I quizzed.
My nanny lightly shook her head. “No, no one has control over their life span – that’s out of our hands. But we can get a rein on how we feel while we ride this journey out. You just have to want it enough, or else happiness will pass you by, your life right along with it.
“You have your family right behind you, willin’ to help you every step of the way. You don’t have to run anymore. You can stand still and face everythin’ head on, with us right along with you.”
You don’t have to run anymore. I repeated that particular sentence over and over in my mind.
I always knew that when I moved away, I was really running away, but I wasn’t strong enough to do anything else at the time. Staying wasn’t an option for me after life went to hell with Kale, and to hell in general. My heart ached every time I saw him, and I figured if he was out of sight, he would be out of mind.
Man, I silently sighed, how wrong I was.
Out of everything that was sour in my life, I hated my uncle being dead the most, but I couldn’t travel any further along the path of despair that I’d paved for myself. If I wanted to feel something other than numbness, and sometimes sadness, I had to take my nanny’s earlier advice and create my own happiness. I had to be there for myself. I had to take care of myself. I had to be my own rock, my own drive.
Being with Kale and having everything I’d always wanted gave me purpose, but I refused to allow him, or our new relationship, to be my only drive in life. I couldn’t become so dependent on other people; in the past it broke me when they went away.
I blinked and tore myself from my thoughts, and I found my nanny staring at me.
“You look like you’ve decided somethin’,” she mused.
I swallowed. “I did. I decided to create my own happiness.”
My nanny smiled brightly at me. “I knew you would.”
I released a shaky breath. “A few minutes in your presence, Yoda, and you have already turned my life around.”
“Turned your life around, you did,” she said, doing her best Yoda impression, making my lips curl upward. “I just gave you the little kick up the arse that you needed.”
I smiled. “I’ve always thought I wasn’t strong, but I’m beginning to see what Uncle Harry and you all see in me. In my own way, I’m a fighter.”
“Your uncle shared a lot about you with me. He told me about your therapist spell and other things you got up to in the city, and let me tell you, you are strong. You decided to take action when you had those thoughts. You got help. You decided to stop your partyin’ ways after you were attacked. You made a decision to help you cope with losin’ Lavender and Kale. And now you have made a decision to come home and face everythin’ head on. You’re the strongest person I have ever known, sweetheart.”
I let my nanny’s words sink in, and smiled when I understood she was echoing what Kale had said to me earlier. They were right. I was strong.
I. Was. Strong.
Without speaking, I looked to my aunt and uncle’s grave but looked back to my nanny when she touched my arm and said, “Your father is coming to pick me up. We’ll wait out in the car park for you. You take as much time as you need with your uncle. I imagine you have a few things to say to the sneaky fecker.”
I chuckled as I watched my nanny walk away, before I returned my attention to the earth before me. “You knew this would pan out the way it did, didn’t you, Uncle Harry?” I saw my uncle’s smiling face in my mind, and it caused me to chuckle. “I owe everything to you,” I said with a firm nod. “You changed my entire life, and I will forever be grateful to you.”
My lower lip trembled then. “I won’t lie; I’m hurt and angry with you for not telling me about your heart condition.” I swiped away a stray tear as it fell from my eye. “I would have come home sooner. I would have helped you. I would have been here for you.”
I sniffled. “I know that you had your reasons, and while I may not know them all or even understand them, I’m confident you felt it wasn’t the time for me to come back here yet. You were always the wise one in the family, and with you gone we’re all bound to make some pretty risky decisions, but I hope you’ll stay with us and help guide us in the right direction whenever we need a little nudge.”
I felt a cool breeze wrap around me, and it almost took my breath away.
“You’re definitely one of the loves of my life, and I’ll forever miss you.” I smiled, saddened. “Wait for me up there, okay? Your face is the first I want to see when it’s my time.”
I felt at peace with my uncle at that moment, and it was one of the best feelings I had ever experienced. When I turned and walked away from my uncle’s grave, I had a smile on my face. I loved and missed him more than I could handle, and while I would forever wish to hold him just one more time, I knew that I’d get the chance to do it again one day.