by J. L. White
I stop, overcome with the memory of that moment. That day was such a gift to me. “It… made it all okay. It was this…” I smile, looking for the right words. “…amazing, powerful thing. And I felt more at peace with everything after that. Like I could just be happy with those nice, life moments I never thought I’d get anyway, you know?”
He presses his lips together, the corners of his mouth turned down, and I ache at the pain I see on his face.
“So, I’ve been just kind of biding my time. Do you understand?”
He nods, almost imperceptibly.
“I really didn’t think I’d live long enough to get my degree, and the thought of dying in the middle just sucked so hard, you know? Like leaving something that big undone would just be one more tragedy for people to talk about when I was gone.”
His eyes flick to my bag.
“I didn’t want to risk that happening again, so I just wasn’t going to do it. And let me tell you what, if I die before I finish that degree, God and I are going to have some fucking words.”
He lets out a short laugh, and it emboldens me. I scoot closer, taking his hand in mine. He sobers immediately, looking at our joined hands.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Mason. I tried to tell myself I wasn’t being selfish by having those moments with you. I had no idea when we started how far things were going to go. Even after I fell in love with you—” his face softens, and I squeeze his hand tighter “—I didn’t want to believe that you were in love with me, too. You never said it, so I thought you were safe. I really didn’t mean to let anyone get so close to me, because if I get sick again, it’s going to be really fucking hard on the people who are close to me.”
He squeezes my hand back and the tears well up in my eyes.
“I didn’t want that for you. I just wanted moments. And they were the best fucking moments, Mason. God, every minute with you has been so much more than I ever knew life could be. But for two-and-a-half years I’ve been waiting for the bomb to drop, and maybe that was stupid but that’s what I was doing. I didn’t think you were temporary. I thought I was.”
“God, Corrine.” He briefly touches his hand on my cheek, as if he couldn’t help it, and my eyes flutter shut for a moment as the relief of his touch flows through me.
His hand drops on top of mine and I scoot closer still. I make myself go on, because I’m not done yet and there’s more he needs to know. “Look, I want you back. You know I do. And I know I can’t be afraid to plan my future anymore, so I’m not going to. I’m going to start school again and teach this little dog how to sit and heel and I’m going to just hope for the best like everyone else.”
He smiles softly.
“But I’m not at the five-year mark yet, and we’ve never talked about what that would mean for you. I’m not sure if you realize what it would really be like if the cancer comes back. I don’t want to sugarcoat it for you. It devastates the hell out of everyone it touches.”
He starts to shake his head. “Corrine—”
“I just need you to know that. I don’t want to wonder if I didn’t warn you well enough because it’s bad enough for the people who actually want to be there for you through that. It’s utter hell for people who feel trapped into being there.”
He blinks and straightens.
“If you still want to walk away now, I promise I won’t blame you. But please don’t walk away only because I’ve made you think you’re not important to me. I’m so sorry I made you feel that way. I’m sorry I was too screwed up to know how to fix it. I love you, Mason. I’ve loved you so long I don’t even remember when it started. And I’m crazy sorry you fell in love with a girl who’s such a hot mess, but if you’re willing to try things with me, I promise to be better. I just… I’m really hoping I won’t have to imagine my future without you in it.”
The moment hangs there, and I don’t think I’m breathing. My heart’s barely beating. The soft lull of the ocean competes with the sound of the silence between us.
Then he releases my hands, cups his warm hands around my face, and kisses me firmly, holding me against him. I kiss him back, a little gasp of relief escaping me as everything I’ve been hanging onto so tightly lets go. The tears start to flow. He kisses me again and again, then pulls back, still holding my face.
“Now, it’s your turn to listen,” he says. “I made a mistake doubting you. I won’t make that mistake again. But you don’t ever have to doubt me. I’m here.” He sweeps his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away the tears. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. And if the worst happens I will be by your side. Not because I feel trapped, but because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. It’s been fucking torture without you, Corrine.”
This only makes me cry harder. If he thought a few weeks without me was torture. “But if I die—”
“Then you will be leaving behind a man who is so grateful for every moment he’s had with you. Even the hard ones.”
He kisses my lips so tenderly. Again and again. Until I soften in his grasp, believing him.
Epilogue
Corrine
To celebrate my tenth clean MRI since that last treatment, and five years cancer free, we take a motorcycle trip up to Vancouver and back. Last summer we only got as far as Seattle, and said next time we’d make sure we got all the way into Canada.
We stop at a little taco stand next to a park for lunch, then Mason stretches out on the grass and rests while I pull out my little leather journal and take some notes. I’m jotting things down for the articles I’ll write when we get home. One will be a basic top ten list that the travel magazines like, and I think this stop just made my list of the best roadside stands. The other is a feature article on Highway 1 that the editor of a top photo journal already contracted me to write.
When I’m done, I quietly wander over to Mason and watch him for a second to see if he’s asleep.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask.
“Mmmm,” he answers, which means, I’m way too relaxed to move.
I smile and lie down next to him, looking up at the clear blue sky.
I don’t have a bucket list anymore. I figure I knocked enough things off that list to count for five lifetimes. I have a future list. As in, all the things I want to do in the future. I’ve already crossed something kind of big off that list.
I got my degree in communications last spring.
Mason takes a deep, contented breath, and I curl on my side closer to him. He wraps his arm around me, and I close my eyes, smiling. I love it when he tucks me in my safe place.
I would be lying if I said I learned my lesson and never got afraid. I don’t think fear is something you learn away. I think it’s something that lurks after you all your life, like a little shadow.
And I think for some people, that shadow is bigger than it is for others.
For many years now, there’s been this little dark place, deep inside me, where my deepest fears live in a cave full of shadows. I don’t know if I will ever be able to fully let go of it, but that cave has gotten a lot smaller the last couple of years.
I’ve come to learn there is something beautiful about the dark that lives inside of me, though. It taught me to live in the now, something not everyone gets to learn how to do. And it taught me the irreplaceable value of the sort of love so strong, that the thought of losing it causes the deepest pain we know.
Maybe that makes the dark worth it.
Either way, whether I see the good in it or not, that dark is part of who I am. The One Big Thing. And while I can’t say with any honesty that I’m grateful for the experiences that created that dark place inside me, I can say I’m grateful for the beautiful things that darkness brought to life.
The End
J.L. White’s Cozy Corner
First, as a thank you to my readers who pick up this book when it first comes out, check out this SECRET Giveaway, just for you. The giveaway is open internationally and closes April 4, 2017.
Now, let’s chat. There’s a lot I could say about writing this book, but I think the thing I want to address most is Corrine’s battle with cancer. When Beautiful Dark came back from the beta readers, I was surprised that every, single person had a personal experience with cancer. Many were survivors, and one person is, like Corrine, waiting for that magical five-year mark. I’ll bet there are many of you who could relate to Corrine’s story, too. Unfortunately, cancer is all too common. My own mother is a two-time survivor. One of my dear friends is marching toward her five-year mark.
It’s for all of these survivors, and the people who love them, that I wrote the Epilogue that I did. I knew Corrine was going to be okay, but I felt you, the reader, deserved to know that, too. Because even though cancer is not always so merciful, one of the beautiful things about the romance genre, is its basis in hope. That’s what the HEA is all about. No matter what life throws at us, we all deserve and need a certain measure of hope.
The epilogue is personal in other ways, too. I think we all have some sort of something in our past that leaves a dark scar, somewhere inside us. Sometimes, the things we experience are so big and life changing, that we can heal, but never forget. Go on, but never be the same. You don’t have to be a cancer survivor to understand that. Corrine’s reflections on that darkness come from my heart, and I hope touches yours as well.
On a lighter note, there are other things from my real life that snuck into this book. As so often happens. The lazy river was inspired by our favorite place to go swimming in Arizona when we’re there visiting family. Hubby and I have had many a memorable conversation there, in spite of the inevitable rowdy teens. Speaking of Hubby, he torments me with multiple renditions of “Walking ‘Round in Women’s Underwear” every Christmas. I love him anyway.
Mason mentions a “hoity toity” college in Galesburg, Illinois. He’s referring to Knox College, which is my alma matter and the inspiration for Hartman College, which we see both in this book, and in the Firework Girls series. The Gizmo is Knox’s real on-campus snack bar, of which I have fond memories. Hartman is a fictional place, as is Swan Pointe and the Rivers Paradise Resort, so it doesn’t align with Knox perfectly. I take plenty of literary license there. But Knox does have a beautiful stone library, and there was a bakery not far from campus that sold the most amazing stuffed spinach bread and cheese sticks. When I moved back to Arizona after college, I ordered a loaf of spinach bread, which they sent to me frozen. But alas, it was not the same.
Speaking of food, cauliflower crack is a real thing. And it’s fucking amazing.
There are several other things in this story that came from input from my Facebook fan group. I won’t go into them all, but I will tell you that Montana is a real dog is and probably on the verge of creating his own fan group any day now.
While I do pull elements of my life into my books sometimes, my main characters are never based on real people (so far, anyway). They only live inside my head, where they hang out and talk to me for a while. (Sometimes they don’t stop talking to me. Sam and Jack still pester me on a regular basis. I somehow think I’m not done with those two yet.) If you read Nuclear Heat and the author’s note at the end of that book, you may be wondering about Sam’s dad. I did draw on a lot of various experiences with different people I’ve known to pull that scene together, including my experiences with my own alcoholic father. But he is not at all the scary, violent asshole Sam’s dad is. Thank God for that.
However, Beautiful Dark makes two books in a row now with difficult mothers, and I’m starting to worry I’ll give my own mother a complex. So, for the record, she’s a wonderful, supportive person, and would never give me the kind of grief Marcia Carmichael and Nancy Reeves gave their kids. I mean, I could write about supportive moms, I guess, but where’s the drama in that?
To answer your unasked question, yes, my mother reads my books. Yes, I was mortified at first. And no, it doesn’t bother me anymore. She’s actually a big fan, which I kind of like. Though, after reading Corrine and Mason’s book, she remarked that the car scene brought back memories. I stopped that train of thought immediately and I told her I didn’t need to hear any more about that. Because a girl has to have her limits.
So now, I’m on to Rayce’s story. Boy oh boy, am I giving him a ride. After that… well, you’ll just have to stick around to see what other books I have in store for you this year!
Thank you for reading and don’t forget to enter the SECRET Giveaway.
Love,
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THE BEAUTIFUL RIVERS SERIES
CONNOR AND WHITNEY
Beautiful Mine (Beautiful Rivers #1)
LIZZY AND BRETT
Beautiful Fall (Beautiful Rivers #2)
CORRINE AND MASON
Beautiful Dark (Beautiful Rivers #3)
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ALSO BY J.L. WHITE
THE FIREWORK GIRLS SERIES
“Like an addictive TV show where you feel like you’re friends with the characters and are glued to every development.” - SPR
Have you discovered the Firework Girls? If not, see why readers have fallen in love with this amazing group of friends. Each book in the series is a standalone.
FORBIDDEN HEAT
Isabella and Shane (Firework Girls #1)
MIDNIGHT HEAT
Chloe and Grayson (Firework Girls #2)
ETERNAL HEAT
Ashley and Erik (Firework Girls #3)
NUCLEAR HEAT
Sam and Jack (Firework Girls #4)
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