AllFreeNovel
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“Life is complicated, but the way I feel about you is not. I’m in a position to make you and your career a priority. If you allow me that privilege, I’ll be a happy man. I can be Mr. Armstrong.”
“How can I be sure you’ll do what you say you will?”
“You can’t. Love is a leap of faith. A gamble.”
“That you won’t leave,” she whispered.
I dropped to my knees in front of her, placing my hands on her thighs. “I’m not the leaving kind.”
I flashed back on a moment with Pop all those years before. It had been the Christmas season then too. He’d taken me outside to talk to me about marrying Mama. I’d asked him the same thing. Would he leave, or could we trust him to stay with us forever?
“I know what it is to be afraid of losing love,” I said. “Seeing someone you love walk away or tear down a dirt road in the early-morning light changes you forever. No one on this earth understands more about your fears than I do. There will never be a time when I don’t. You can come to me and ask me to prove my loyalty, and I’ll answer the same way. I am here. I’ll always be here. Can you honestly say you don’t believe me?”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and when she did it was barely above a whisper. “Maybe it’s not about what I think you’ll do but something fundamentally true about me. What if I’m the reason everyone leaves? What if I drive everyone away?”
“Your father didn’t leave.”
She seemed taken aback for a moment. “True. He didn’t. He never has. I thought about that earlier. It must have been so hard for him in those first days after she died. Leaving the life he thought would last forever to take me to my grandparents'. Everything was for me. Every decision.”
“That’s right.” I hesitated, trying to think of the best way to explain the talk I’d had with Pop before he married Mama.
“Pop took me aside the night he proposed to Mama. I asked him point-blank if he would ever leave us. He said he wasn’t the leaving kind.” My voice cracked, remembering the way he’d looked in the light cast from our kitchen window that night. He’d become my hero that year he courted Mama, and I was desperate to hear his assurances. “I needed to know if I would eventually see his taillights as he tore down the driveway, hell-bent on getting away from us. I needed to hear it from him that he wouldn’t. The world was a mountain on my shoulders, blinding me to the man he so clearly was. At the time, I thoughtif I let him in and he hurt Mama and my brothers, I might die. We couldn’t be left again. We needed his strength and steady hand.”
“How did you know he was telling the truth?”
“Faith. I looked in his eyes and made a conscious decision to believe in him. That’s all it was—I chose to be convinced Pop was the man he said he was. The man I already loved. And he’s never let me down.”
I tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned closer to kiss her gently. “Baby, please, let me love you. I promise I won't not disappoint you. I’m a man of my word. I always do what I say I’m going to.”
“Which is why you can’t take the job? You promised your family you were home for good.”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “There’s more to life than always striving for more and more and never being satisfied. When does it ever stop? We have to decide what our priorities are. What kind of legacy we want to leave behind after we’re gone.”
“Do you know what yours is?”
“It’s not how much money I have, I can tell you that. Or a job that feeds my ego. Let them have their yachts and penthouses and all that power. I’ll take you and Scout and this place where my family’s lived for four generations. If I could choose a legacy, it would be simple. Family. Pop taught me everything I needed to know about what it really means to show up for those in your life, even when it’s hard. Pop loved us when he didn’t have to. Not because of blood or tradition but because he fell in love with our mom. He’s let love be his guide. That’s what I want too.”
“And my job? All the craziness? Life in the public eye isn’t easy. You’ve seen that the last few weeks.”
“It’s a small sacrifice to be with you.”
“Atticus. Really?” Her gaze searched my face.
I looked straight in her eyes and spoke with as much love asI could. “You’re all that truly means anything. Stay here with me and let’s make that fifth generation.”
“Why are you so much braver than me?” Tears sparkled in her lashes.
“Maybe I love you more than you love me?” I smiled to let her know I was only teasing, but her expression didn’t change. She continued to look at me with those big eyes as if I were a frightening animal about to either bite her or run away.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Annie said. “The love I have for you is so overpowering I’m afraid I’ll burst into flames.”
“You love me?”
She smiled, tracing my mouth with her thumb. “I’ve loved a lot of things in this world, a lot of people, but none as much as I love you.”
I kissed her, holding her close as our chests pressed together, and I could feel her heartbeat in my own body.
“Don’t leave me again,” I said. “Please.”
