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My husband’s booming laugh echoes through the car, and I smile as my heart swells at his easy exuberance.
“We’re not too far away now.” He removes his hand from my stomach to flip the indicator before turning left. “Put your head back, and try to relax.”
I expel a breath, butterflies dancing in my abdomen in anticipation of my surprise, and as I relax back into the plush passenger seat of our newly purchased BMW 7-series, Cade’s husky voice fills my ears.
Before he’s even made it to the first chorus of “You Are My Sunshine,” I’m out like a light.
I don’t even realise I’ve fallen asleep until the passenger door opens, jarring me to alertness.
“We’re here, Bambi.”
Caden’s hand finds mine, and he helps to ease me out of the car; no easy feat with my bump in tow. My feet touch the ground, and he gently spins me about so that his chest is pressed to my back.
I hear a car door slam, the sound of the ignition followed by the crunch of tyres on gravel.
“Did someone just take our car?”
There’s unmistakable devilment in Caden’s light-hearted chuckle. “Sure sounds like it. Hmm, Bam?”
“I would have thought you were done with surprises, Caden North!”
He edges us forward, careful to keep my movements slow and measured until he finds the perfect spot. “This isn’t a surprise, Bambi. This is the universe in action.”
I furrow my brow but hold my tongue as Cade takes a deep breath and places his mouth by my ear.
“I want to come home to you for the rest of my days, Summer St James. I want that life—the one we dreamed about as kids who knew next to nothing about anything, but believed the love we shared was the real deal.”
His voice drops to a whisper. “Because itwas. It stillis. And it always will be, in this lifetime and all the lifetimes to come.”
He presses a kiss to the sensitive skin below my ear before gently tugging the makeshift blindfold from my eyes.
The light of the late autumn afternoon blinds me momentarily, and I blink several times until the world around me finally swims into focus.
We’re standing on a gravelled driveway, outside of a red brick two-storey house. There are tall white pillars on either side of the front door, with matching white trim around each of the windows.
“The attic is a two-bedroom conversion, bringing the total room count up to seven decently sized bedrooms.”
I squint my eyes, confusion taking centre stage. “What…whatisthis?”
I glance back at Cade, taking in his puffed-out chest and proud-as-punch grin. “It’s where we’ll raise our kids, Bam. It’s where we’ll grow old together.”
My inhale catches on a sob when I realise where we are.
“This is it, right? This is the life we dreamed.”
Tears prick my eyes as emotion rolls through me. Cade steps closer, palming my cheeks as his beautiful blue eyes hold me a willing prisoner in their depths.
“In all those years apart, I carried hope. Hope that one day I wouldn’t feel so lost. And that hope became a reality when you found your way back to me. Because that day, I knew I was never really lost at all.”
He drops his forehead to mine as tears crest my bottom lashes, spilling freely down my rosy cheeks. When he speaks again, his breath whispers across my lips.
“That day I remembered that I had found myselfin you. Back when I gave you my heart at eight years of age. My heart has loved you and my soul has felt you, even when my eyes couldn’t see you. You never left me.Not ever.”
When he presses his mouth to mine, I grab his wrists, holding him in place to kiss him with everything I have inside of me.
He breaks the kiss when he steps back and grasps my hand, tugging gently until my hesitant feet move to follow.
A smile plays across his features, that devilment from before rearing its head again. “I have something for you.”
