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He didn’t say a thing. He couldn’t. He just stared into her beautiful brown eyes, and knew deep in his heart. He knew to the bottom of his soul, that Amy had been born to be his. He tugged her close, and she rested her head on his chest.

“I can hear your heart beating,” she whispered.

“It beats for you.” It did. It really did.

He felt her shudder.

They stayed like that for long minutes as the sky went from indigo to orange.

“I would live my early years a thousand more times if it meant I ended up here with you.”

Ryker tangled his fingers in her hair and inhaled the scent of peaches as his gut clenched. “And here I was wishing with everything I own that you wouldn’t have had to go through your childhood. But however it worked out, somehow the fates put us in one another’s path. I thank God for it.”

Her arms squeezed him so tight he had trouble breathing.

“I adore this very moment with you, and I can’t wait to see how our future will unfold,” she whispered against his chest. Then she pulled back so she could look up at him. Ryker could swear she actually shimmered.

“Ryker, my love, my heart, you’re every dream I was too scared to believe in. Thank you—my God, thank you so much, for never giving up on me.”

Ryker brushed a tear off her cheek.

“I’ll never give up on you, Amy. I would rip apart the world if I needed to, just to hold you in my arms. You’re my everything.”

She sighed with a smile, and kissed his chest.

“Then that’s perfect, because you’re mine, too.”