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Brand pulls away, gently running his fingertips around my face. “I love you too,” he says. “I've been wanting to say it but wasn't sure how.” His eyes sparkle like stars in a country night sky.
“Me too.” My voice is soft, but my heart is loud. I can hear it beating in my ears. I can feel it slamming against my ribs.
He places his hand on the center of my chest, pressing his palm down against my skin. “I know, I can feel it.” Brand smiles, kissing me tenderly. “I hope you feel this way forever. I hope your heart never stops beating for me.”
“It won't ever stop. I love you so much I never want to imagine my life without you.”
“Good, because you're stuck with me,” he says with a light chuckle. “You're mine. I knew it the second I saw you that morning, with the sun on your skin, and the wind in your hair. I knew you were meant for me.”
I grab his face and kiss him. I kiss him with everything I feel inside. With all the love I have for him now, and forever. I kiss him with every ounce of my being. I kiss him because his lips were made for me.
This moment, this right here, this is heaven. And as we make love, as he slips inside me with passionate slowness, I've never felt more complete. My heart is full. My body is warm. My life is finally my own.
I've found my happily ever after right here with this man.
Epilogue
Brand
One Year Later
The air is filled with the scent of burning rubber and exhaust fumes. There's a thin cloud of white hovering over the track from racers burning their slicks to make them sticky.
I grab Kelsie's helmet and pass it to her. “You ready?” I ask.
“Hell yeah, I'm ready. This is what we've been training all year for, right?”
I nod in agreement. “You're going to do great,” I say as I lean over and double check the spark plugs and battery terminals. “Everything looks great, too. I think we're good.”
She gives me a kiss, and then slips in through the window between the roll-cage bars. It took us all year to get to this point. We found an old nineteen sixty-seven Mustang GT rusting away in some old guy's lot.
After some haggling, and once the guy knew it was going to be restored, and the engine was going to get a complete overhaul, he felt comfortable letting it go. I spent months working on the engine and the body. I have the scars on my knuckles to prove it.
But she's beautiful. . . Sorry, he's beautiful.
Kelsie insisted that since it's her car, she's naming it, and she calls him Brutus. It's her car, so hers to name. Who am I to judge?
“Who am I going against?”
“Walker Thompson.”
She grunts and rolls her eyes. “The guy who won last year? He's my first race?”
“Yeah, but don't worry, you got this. This baby is going to take you to the finish line in twelve seconds flat.”
She pulls her helmet on and buckles her seat belt. “Let's do this.”
The announcer calls her to the line. Kelsie starts the car and the engine rumbles to life. The front end rocks and bounces from the power under the hood. She revs the engine with a few pumps of the gas pedal.
I slap the hood, and she drives up to heat her slicks. The back end of the car shakes as the tires spin, and thick white smoke pours out from underneath. I wave it away, and walk around to the front of the bay so I can see her race.
I'm so damn nervous. I've never been this nervous before in my life. I want her to win, I want her to come off the strip with a smile on her face.
She gets to the line, and revs her engine again. She's taunting Walker. I smirk at her challenging gesture. This woman is incredible. I love her spunk. I love her fearlessness. And I love how she's not afraid to get dirty.
“Hey,” Millie says, coming up beside me as I rest against the chain link fence.
Hardin leans beside her, and nods his head. “Hey, man,” he says.
“You guys made it. Kelsie's going to be excited to see you.”
“Yeah, we convinced my mother to watch Fiona. She's walking now, so I'm sure she'll have fun chasing her around.”
“Wow, walking already? I don't think I walked till I was a year and a half.”
“I know, she started at nine months, and now she's unstoppable.”
“Well, hopefully Auntie Kelsie is unstoppable too.”
“Is she nervous?” Millie asks.
“A little, but she's got this. Once she's behind the wheel any nerves she feels will go away. She was born for this.”
“Well, this and growing squash. That girl can grow one hell of a squash.” Millie giggles, laying her arms over the top of the fence.
