AllFreeNovel
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Talk? Of course, talk. What is it about Marco Gonzalez that makes me forget the proper order of things? My identity? Despite my grave mistake with Kyle, I’ve never before or since been the girl who kisses around. Until and except Marco. I don’t know if that makes him special or just plain bad for me.
I am so confused.
Even that falls away when he takes my hand and begins an easy stroll down the beach. “How have you been, Allie?”
I force myself to breathe in hopes I can make sense of my thoughts. “Okay.” Some days more than others. I won’t lie and saygood.I have not been good. I’ve been resting, searching, and learning. I’ve also been grieving, praying, and doubting. I’ve been my own cheerleader on the days I wasn’t hearing God—my fault, I know—but needed not to tumble back into the abyss of regret and condemnation. Of missing Marco and aching at all the loss.
“Aw, Allie.” Suddenly, I’m in his arms. He holds me, still and quiet. He’s solid and safe. I melt into a puddle of peace. “I wish I could have been here. Please know I would have if I could have, but I had…things…”
I press my finger to his lips. “I know, Marco.I know.” In those moments that I saw past myself, I understood that he had his own woes. His career, his family, and I think, based on the crumbs Tripp has shared, an uncertain, searching faith.
“I left because I wasn’t the man you needed.”
I nod against his chest, comforted by the rough sincerity in his voice. “And I wasn’t the woman you needed.”
He cups my face. “You’re exactly what I need, Allie Girl.”
“I am?” My eyes search him. I want to believe…
“I want to tell you everything, Annalise. I’m not the man I was that night at Jake’s. Promise.”
“And I’m not that woman.” It’s my deepest hope and prayer.
A grin skitters around the corners of his mouth. He puts me at arm’s length and moves my elbow aside, peering along my rib cage, at the bodice of my modest halter dress. “Nope, you are not. Just checking.”
Wha—“Hey!” When I catch the oblique reference, I slug his arm with my still-flowered hand. Petals flutter to the sand. “Knock it off!”
How I love his laugh!
“I’ll have you know Avery picked this dress out!”
“I guess that explains the absence of side boob.” He shakes his head. “Rat bait, I tell you.”
“You’re still a chauvinist, you know that?”
He tugs me snug into him. “And you’re still beautiful, you know that?”
Be still my heart. For all our flirting around, he’s never told me I’m beautiful before. Sure, I knew he liked what he saw, obviously, but that’s not the same as hearing it from the lips of the man you—I confess it—love. Yes,loveis the right word.
He takes my hands and settles the knotted clasp between us. The breeze reminds me I’m wearing a sleeveless dress in December. “Annalise, I know we got off to a bad start.”
“A weird start.”
“Yeah, that too. I meant what I said, that I’m changed, and I want you to know all about it. About me. I was thinking…hoping…that we could see each other. Date. Like, normal stuff, you know? I want to get to know the woman you are.”
I cast my eyes to the waves. He already knows too much about the real me.
His fingers lift my chin. “I see what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. None of that defines you, remember?”
His words to me in the hospital. And he’s right. I still forget sometimes.
“If there’s no hope for you to leave it all behind, I’m in a real fix.”
I thread my fingers into the hair at his neck, wait until I have his undivided attention. “There’s hope, Marco. For both of us. I think we both know it, too. Doesn’t mean we don’t have our moments of doubt. If you’re like me, though, they’re starting to come less frequently.”
“Exactly.”
Oh, his grin. I could eat him alive.
