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I stared up at Weston, my soon-to-be husband, our friends and family all around us. Our miracles. Our second chance.
Weston couldn’t help himself and leaned over, stealing a quick kiss before the ceremony officially started, and whispered into my ear, “Hey, Slugger.”
I grinned like the lovesick fool I was.
Just a mere twenty minutes later I said, “I do.”
And my wild heart? It whispered, “Forever.”
Want more of Weston, Emily and the gang? Click here for an extended epilogue.
Preview of
Imade lists. Not your simple run-of-the-mill grocery lists. I’m not even talking about lists of errands or appointments. Those are for novice list makers. I meanreallists. The kind of lists that would go on and on and I could add to even two years after I’d started them. Lists that talked about food I loved. Food I hated. Where I wanted to visit. A list of names of people who were kind to me. A list of people who weren’t. A list of quotes from my favorite authors. Infinite lists. Those lists kept me sane and stable when I sometimes felt the world was too chaotic. I kept them everywhere. My notorious lists were strewn about my editing desk on tiny Post-it notes, my handwriting rushed and hardly legible. From gorgeous journals and spiral-bound notebooks to my bathroom mirror written in Ruby Red Mac Lipstick, my lists were all over my home.
I was only eleven when I’d made my very first list. My mom had come home from work after a twelve-hour shift in one of the very worst moods ever. I tried to stay out of her way those days. Well, most days really. She was an overworked, underpaid, single mother and made sure I knew that every chance she got. She wasn’t physically abusive, but some days I’d felt like maybe that would have been better than the insults she hurled my way. But that day, it’d been particularly bad. She’d lost her job and come in the house enraged, spoiling for a fight, and unfortunately, I’d been the only one there. She’d nitpicked every chore in the house that I should have done. She’d called me lazy, fat, and stupid. I’d run to my room and locked the door, my small legs shaking in fear. I’d lain in my bed in a tiny ball of terror under the covers until I saw the lights turn out in the living room from under my bedroom door. I’d crawled out of bed and across the floor to my rickety hand-me-down wooden desk in the corner and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I’d sat at that desk, staring at the blank paper in front of me. Wishing my mom wasn’t so darn mean. Praying that tomorrow she would be in a better mood. Hoping someone would come and save me from that place. Anyone.
And then I’d thought of who would come. Who would be my savior. And I knew exactly what he’d be like. After all, I’d read about him a million times. He lived in the piles and piles of romance novels my mom kept hidden under her bed. What? A girl had to keep entertained while her mom worked all hours of the day and night. And as soon as my pen hit the paper, peace and calm coursed through my body. I wrote the title My One. I started with his hair and eyes. He’d be dark-haired with even darker eyes. They’d be haunted because all good book boyfriends’ eyes were. He’d be tall and strong because I’d need protecting. And of course, he’d be over-the-top good-looking. He’d be secure and sure of himself, but never cocky or vain. He’d hold doors open for me. He’d call me all the time. He’d cuddle with me whenever I wanted. He’d take me fishing and dancing. He’d think I was adorable even when everyone else thought I was crazy. He’d only make peanut butter sandwiches with honey, and never jelly, because that was just gross. He’d lock down the house at night right after sending me to bed. He’d have a sweet nickname for me that onlyhecalled me. Sweetheart was a good one. I really liked that one. He’d love me fiercely. And I’d know it because he’d tell me every single day. The list went on and on. It still did.
I never expected that eleven years later my one would finally come for me. It wasn’t on my list that he’d come charging into my life, practically railroading me with his presence. Simultaneously, he’d obliterated my list and smashed it to smithereens, while snatching my heart right out of my chest and stealing it for his own, all the while keeping his hidden behind the steel fortress he’d built around it. It wasn’t on my list that he’d crush me. That he’d change my life so irrevocably. It wasn’t on my list that I’d love him so fiercely, he’d break me.
To Do
Finish Edits
Stalk The Hot Neighbor
Shower
“What are you doing today?” my friend Ainsley asked through the cell phone that was pressed to my ear with my shoulder. My hands were busy holding open a piece of the blinds so I could look out the front window.
I gave her a distracted answer. “You know, the usual. Edits and whatnot.” I tilted my head to the side to get a better view out the window and almost dropped the phone.Holy hotness.
“Why do you sound like that?”
“Like what?”
“Distracted.” Ainsley sucked in a breath. “Oh my God. It’s nine a.m. Are you neighbor stalking again?”
I snapped the blinds closed and backed away from the window. “No. Of course not. Why would I do that?”
“You told me you weren’t going to do that anymore.”
I thought we’d already established I was a liar.
I stepped back toward the window because I couldn’t help myself, obviously a glutton for freaking punishment. But this was the only time of day I saw him besides when he left in his big, black truck at three in the afternoon on the dot, and I didn’t want to miss a thing. I cradled the phone with my shoulder again, pushed the blinds apart with my hands, and pressed my face to the windowpane like the creepy stalker I was. And there he was. Every gorgeous inch of him.
He walked toward my building from across the busy downtown street like a tall glass of water on a hot day. All swagger and supreme male beauty. The kind of beauty that made a girl’s breath catch and heart pitter-patter. He pushed his dark hair off his tan forehead and the big muscles in his arms bunched.
Goose bumps broke out on my skin and I may have whispered, “Christ on a cracker.” I didn’t know his name, but I knew his schedule like the back of my hand. That wasn’t weird at all.
“You’re a terrible liar.” She giggled. “What’s he wearing today?”
I barely heard Ainsley. Every morning when I watched this man walk down the street and toward our building, it was like just he and I existed. Slow motion. Our own sexy theme music. Nameless, ridiculously hot man and Miranda. He didn’t know it, but there was a world of our own and it was the absolute best part of my day.
“Sunglasses. White, tight, sleeveless T-shirt. Black running pants with three white stripes down the sides. Black tennis shoes,” I said breathlessly into the phone. I left out all the good bits. Like the scowl he was wearing. It was perpetual. I’d never seen the man smile in the month he’d been living next door to me and for some reason that made me all the hotter for him. He owned that scowl. He freaking rocked it. His jaw was square and clean-shaven. His mouth flat. He was a giant of a man. Well over six feet. His chest was wide, his arms thick and imposing. Dog tags jangled from a silver necklace around his neck, letting me know he was military of some sort. I’d never seen his eyes, but I knew they were going to be stunning. Everything about him was. Not even the slight limp in his gait as he made his way across the street took away from his godlike beauty. I could’ve eaten him with a spoon.
“I know. You’re obsessed,” Ainsley responded.
