“No, it’s not okay. I should have been man enough to admit this to you over a year ago but I was too proud and too stupid really. I kept trying to convince myself that you were just like all the others.” He laughed at that thought. “But you aren’t. I love you, Posh, and I’ve never stopped.” He looked at me and took my face between his hands. “I’m only going to ask you this once and if you don’t feel the same way for me, I promise I won’t ever bother you with it again. I’ll let you walk out of here and go back to your life in California and I’ll do my best to move on without you.” He inhaled deeply, his eyes burning into mine. “Do you love me, Summer?”
I gazed into those blue eyes of his and felt my heart soaring. “Yes.” And I meant it with every vibrating fiber in my body. I hadn’t admitted it when I’d left and I’d done my best to forget about him but it had been useless. I hadn’t forgotten him. If anything, I’d commemorated him in my head, continuing to revisit the memories we’d made constantly. “I’ve always loved you too.”
His grin was radiant and tears began to bleed freely from my eyes as I smiled up at him, both of us laughing.
“I know you have a whole other life in California,” he started in that sexy, deep voice of his. “But if you are amenable to it, I want you to come back here, come back home. We could build a life together, a good life. You know I would support you in all of your dreams and now I’ll be able to financially make them happen too.” He paused as he watched me. “Please tell me you’ll consider it?”
“I already have,” I answered as more tears plummeted from my eyes. “And I knew that once I came back here, there was no way I could leave again.”
For the first time in a long time, I was sure of a decision I was making. Yes, my life in California was great and yes, my career had really taken off. But I wasn’t happy. How could I have been when every day and night my heart was pining for this man? I’d thought that chasing my dream was everything but what I’d failed to realize was that my dream was sitting right in front of me.
“I love you, Jake,” I whispered as he gathered me in his arms and held me tightly.
“Welcome home, my love. Welcome home.”
The End
Thank you for reading Bronco and I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, don’t forget to join my mailing list at https://www.hpmallory.com/mailing-list to be the first to know whenever I release a new book!
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About the Author:
H.P. Mallory is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author who started as a self-published author.
She lives in Southern California with her son and her enormous dog, where she is at work on her next book.
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