It was easy to find my strength in his bravery.
“I’m not sure there could have been anything to prepare me for learning that he had a severe heart defect. Nothing that could have been said to prepare me for the moment I was told my tiny newborn would need to be flown to another state to undergo emergency surgery to save his life. And there was absolutely nothing that could have equipped me for the devastating news just months later that if he were to live, he would need a heart transplant.”
Evan shifted at my side, and I glanced down at him to find him smiling this smile that was so full of love that it nearly bowled me over.
He’s the reason I dream.
I looked back to the crowd. “My son might have been born with a heart defect, but it most definitely didn’t change the size of it. He’s the most genuine, caring little boy I have ever known, and for all the years I can remember since he learned to sign, he’s said prayers at night, hoping that no more babies would be born with bad hearts.”
I cleared the lump from my throat, so in awe of my child.
For what he’d gone through.
For what he’d accomplished.
For the incredible person he’d become.
“From those prayers, A Lick of Hope was created. And we share that hope with every lollipop we make.”
A wobbly, grateful smile pulled to my mouth. “That hope is spread with every lollipop that is purchased and every donation that comes in. Because we will never give up hope that one day, no child will have to go through the pain and struggles my son has gone through. That no parent will ever have to hear the words that their child may not make it through the night. That, through research, congenital defects will be easily repaired, and maybe someday . . . someday . . .”
Someday.
The words stumbled on my tongue and my gaze fumbled to Kale at the very back.
The man just a silhouette.
The most profound thing I’d ever seen.
I finally managed to find my words again. “That maybe someday they won’t exist at all. We couldn’t do it without every five-dollar lollipop we sell or the amazing donations and contributions that come in every day. So, thank you . . . thank you for your support. And if you’re so inclined, we have some of those handmade lollipops available in the auction tonight. Each one is made with love and our gratitude to you.”
I stepped back, and applause broke through the room. But my sight was sealed on the man. On his slow, sad smile. The pride behind it.
Then he turned and disappeared out the door.
And I wanted to hate him and hold him. Scream and drop to my knees.
Instead, I fumbled back to my table.
Evan climbed onto his seat and turned to me, confusion and anger and hope billowing across his precious face. HE CAME BACK.
My mouth trembled because I had no idea what that meant. Why he’d done what he did.
But hope, it blistered and radiated and beat.
So intense, I kept shifting on my seat, struggling not to come out of my skin as I listened as the next charity head was introduced then the next and the next until finally the auction was opened. The guests filtered out into the next room to bid on vacations and diamonds and a donated car.
And our small offering.
A thousand lollipops.
As everyone filtered out, I looked to my son, who was clearly growing sleepy. I ran my fingers through his hair before I signed, ARE YOU READY TO GO HOME, SWEET BOY?
Yes, he mouthed before giving me a tired grin, and the smile I returned was adoring. Because I was so proud and happy, even though there was a huge part of me that was feeling brittle.
Those broken pieces moaning at the sight of Kale.
The man who’d changed everything.
Who gave me the greatest gift and then stole what could have been.
“Let’s go,” I said, offering my hand, Jenna at my side. We said our goodbyes to Dr. Krane and his wife before we headed up the aisle.
Jenna sidled up to me. “Oh, Harley Hope, you are in so much trouble, my friend.”
Trouble.
I’d always known he’d be.
“That man does know how to make an entrance, doesn’t he, standing up there looking that way. Mmm . . . all that deliciousness. Think that man sent every woman here into a swoon.”
She fanned herself. “He does not fight fair. One look, and he knew you’d be nothin’ but putty in those big ol’ hands.”
“Stop it,” I scolded her under my breath, stepping out into the courtyard that fronted the conference building. “He just wanted to be here to support A Lick of Hope. That’s all. He left me, Jenna. He left us. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”
“How about we don’t?”
That deep, powerful voice hit me from the side.
My fragile heart pulsed.
Kale stepped out from the shadows, his hands still stuffed in his pockets.
Moonlight poured in from above, striking against all the curved, defined angles of his beautiful face.
Evan squeezed my hand almost frantically when he realized Kale was standing right there, two feet away from us.
“What are you doing here?” The words were a frenzied whisper.
“Stalking you, clearly.” He fought for the joke, but that mouth only managed to minimally tweak up at the side. Too heavy with the sadness that rimmed his lips.
I could feel my son’s own turmoil. The questions coming off him as the man who’d rescued us then abandoned us took another step in our direction.
The air grew thick.
Dense and full.
My pulse thrummed.
Erratic.
My breaths turning choppy.
“I’m just gonna . . . go check out the auction items.” Jenna’s tone was cautious, her eyes searching when she looked at me to find out if that was what I wanted.
If I wanted to be alone with him or if I wanted for her to step in and intervene.
Problem was that I wasn’t so sure I knew the answer to that myself.
Finally, I gave her a tight nod while still staring at Kale because I couldn’t seem to tear my attention from his face.
When she disappeared back inside, I finally spoke. “What are you really doing here? Why would you stand up there and say all those things?”
It was a plea. A warning. I didn’t know.
I didn’t know if I should tell him to stop, not to come a step closer, or throw my arms around his neck and beg him to never leave me the way I was aching to do.
He blanched, and all those defined, distinct curves of his face went rigid in stark vulnerability. “I don’t have anywhere else to go . . . not when wherever you are is the only place I want to be. Because I meant every single thing I said when I stood up there. You two taught me what it really means to hope.”
“You don’t get to do this, Kale Bryant. I told you that day in my kitchen, you don’t get to come in and make promises and then just walk away. And you sure as hell don’t get to walk right back in whenever you feel like it.”
And I knew he had his demons. I respected that. But if he wanted a place in our lives, he had to be certain he was all in. That he could handle my son’s disability. His old fear.
He roughed one of those big hands through his hair and looked off into the distance as if he were trying to gather himself.
Evan climbed down onto his hands and knees beside me, his notepad on the ground as he began to furiously write across a clean page.
My son nearly broke me when he turned it toward Kale.
You promised you cared about us. That you wouldn’t hurt my mom. That she was the prettiest mom in the world. You said you were her boyfriend and I was your favorite. Remember?
And I knew that it broke Kale in some way, too. Because the towering man dropped to his knees in front of my child.
His hands were shaking when he took the pad and wrote out his response.
I did. I was a coward, and I left you. And I know I don’t
deserve the chance, yours or your mom’s forgiveness. But if you can both forgive me, I promise that I will never leave you again. Not as long as I’m living.
Oh God.
My spirit licked and danced and my body swayed.
Lightheaded.
Evan sat back on his heels, his hands flying in front of him.
YOU PROMISED I WAS YOUR FAVORITE. I THOUGHT I WAS YOUR FAVORITE.
Desperation wove into Evan’s movements, and his entire face pinched in grief, the remnants of the rejection Kale had inflicted. He lifted his thick glasses, swiping the tears that streaked down his face with the sleeve of his jacket.
Kale gasped over a sob.
Physical, wrenching pain.
He grabbed the notepad, his back heaving as he leaned over to write.
You are my favorite. You are my everything. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.
Evan’s face was completely blanketed by the heartbreak written all over him, soaking wet with the tears that wouldn’t stop falling when he read what Kale had written.
I’d warned Kale what was on the line. Did he see it now? The kind of pure love my son had trusted him with?
Evan sat up on his knees and signed more, anger seeded in the emphatic movements.
OUR HOUSE IS L-O-V-E. YOU HAVE TO LOVE IF YOU LIVE THERE. THAT’S THE RULE.
Hardly able to see through the bleariness, I attempted to start to translate, but Kale lifted his own hands.
His motions were awkward and prolonged, off half the time, but there was no mistaking what he was trying to say.
THAT’S GOOD THEN. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, EVAN. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, AND I LOVE YOUR MOM. I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU. WITH HER. BE YOUR FAMILY. BECAUSE YOU ARE MY HEART.
He punctuated the last with a fist against the middle of his chest.
I nearly buckled, watching him sign to my son. That he’d taken the time to learn. That he’d listened. That he could hear.
Kale looked up at me from where he was still on his knees. “I love you, Hope. I love you so goddamned much, I can’t see. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.”
Slowly, he pushed to standing, his hand still fisted over his heart. “You warned me your life was complicated, that you didn’t have any room for anything else, and I pushed my way into it anyway. I wanted to save you. Save him. Be your knight or your hero or whatever you wanted me to be. But it turned out that you were the one who was complicating me. In the best of ways. Waking me up and making me feel, when I’d never thought I could possibly feel that way again. All along, you were the one who was saving me.”
I tucked my trembling bottom lip between my teeth, and Kale came closer. So close I could feel him everywhere. Racing across my flesh, sinking deeper into my heart.
“It kills me, Hope, kills me that I walked away from you that night when you needed me most. I was scared. Terrified. Filled with grief and guilt. But you awakened that dead place in me. That’s a gift . . . you and your son are a gift . . . and I don’t want to live my life without it.”
He took my face in both of his big hands. “I love you, with all of me, and I promise, if you can find a way to forgive me, I will live my life for you. For Evan. For us. There might be times when I’m afraid, when I fail, but I will never stop fighting for you. You set me on a path that I don’t want to stop walking. I will follow you anywhere.”
A soggy laugh jolted free, and I sniffled and reached up to scratch my nails across his jaw. “Cowboy.”
He gathered that hand in his, brushed his lips across my knuckles. “Princess.”
He stared at me for the longest time before he looked back at Evan who was staring up at us, sniffling and wiping the tears from his face. Kale knelt back down and did it for him. “Do you want me to stay?” he asked, his voice ripping from his throat. “With you? With your mom?”
Evan made that scraping, raw sound as he said, “Stay.”
I pressed my hands to my chest. Overcome. Overwhelmed.
Kale smiled at him. Tenderly. With so much love it nearly blew me over.
“Is it okay if I kiss your mom, little man?”
Evan turned back to his pad.
You’re supposed to kiss her if you’re her boyfriend. Lots of kisses. That’s the rule.
“Yeah? And what if I’m her husband?”
Evan was quick to write on his pad.
Then you have to give her a billion.
Kale shifted on his knee and turned his gaze on me, the blue brimming with a sea of promises.
Lust and love and devotion.
He dug in his pocket, and my hands flew to my mouth, a gasp flying free when he held out the little black box.
“What do you say, Hope? Can I give you a billion kisses and all my love, every single day, for the rest of our lives?”
I was frozen, shocked.
Wondering if it was all too much, too fast.
“He bought All. The. Lollipops.” I jerked to look to the side where Jenna was hanging halfway out the door and shouting at us. “Say yes, Harley Hope. Don’t you dare walk away and not say yes. You deserve this. More than anyone I know.”
There was my best friend. Grinning from ear to ear in all her brash, pushy encouragement.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word soggy, love sliding free.
Because it didn’t matter the circumstances. The path we’d taken to get here. This man had led me exactly where I was supposed to be.
“Yes,” I said again, this time laughing with the wave of joy that crashed over me.
He slid the ring on my finger. Diamond glimmering in the moonlight, the man stared down at it.
Awed.
Floored.
Finally, he pushed to standing.
The second he did, I threw myself in his arms.
Kale lifted me from the ground and spun me around.
Round and round.
His face buried in my neck while he clung to me.
He set me on my feet and took my face in his hands. He leaned down and captured my mouth in a dizzying kiss.
Soft and tender and slow.
A promise.
A passionate claiming.
And my unstable world . . . it no longer spun.
It danced.
Clapping went wild around us, and Kale dropped his forehead to mine, grinning against my lips. Redness flushing to my cheeks, I peeked out to the side to see Jenna jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
Dr. Krane and his wife were beside her.
His smile was slow.
Knowing.
Kale looked at Jenna. “You wouldn’t mind if I gave these two a ride home, would you?”
Jenna smirked. “Like I’d expect anything less from you, Sir Bryant.”
She turned her attention to me. “I just expect all the details tomorrow.”
Giggling, I rested the side of my head against Kale’s beautiful, bleeding heart. “Of course, she does.”
“She’s going to cause me all sorts of trouble, isn’t she?” he murmured down at me.
“Oh, I think you can count on that.”
I stretched my hand out, looking at the diamond glinting on my finger. Giddiness swept through me, head to toe. I peeked up at him, a playful smile taking to my mouth. “A ring, huh, Cowboy? Awful presumptuous of you.”
He let that cockiness ride to his lips. “Hey, can’t blame a man who knows what he wants.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmhmm . . .”
He kissed across my jaw and up to my ear. “Besides, I know my girl. If she knows something is right? Then she’s going to jump and trust she lands right where she’s supposed to.”
“With you.”
Kale gathered up Evan’s hand. “With us.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned in to kiss me on the temple. “Let’s go home, Shortcake.”
Home.
I couldn’t wait to make one with him.
Epilogue
Hope
Laughter ro
ared through the dim-lit space. Downstairs, a band played, the music vibrating through the floors adding to the carefree vibe of the private party happening upstairs.
“Are your eyes closed?” Jenna demanded from behind me. “No peeking, you greedy girl, or I’m not gonna let you have any.”
I pressed my hands tighter against my eyes and shook my head. A rush of heat lit me up everywhere. “Are you sure I even want to know what this surprise is?”
She’d basically had my skin the color of a tomato since the second I’d mounted the top step to the second floor, with the games we’d been playing and the drinks she’d been plying me with.
She’d said this celebration was for me, and I was damn well going to enjoy myself.
Funny how she didn’t have to coerce me into that anymore.
“Oh, I promise you, you’re gonna want this surprise,” she sing-songed as she leaned around my side and placed something on the table in front of me.
Whatever Jenna was up to was met with a bunch of giggles and laughed whispers rippling all around me.
Nikki nudged me in the side. “Oh yeah, you are definitely going to want this surprise. All of them. But I’m def taking one for myself. I am the orgasm fairy, after all. I totally earned one of those babies.”
“Oh God, now I really don’t know if I want to see.”
From across the table, I heard my mama’s distinct laughter.
Mortified.
Yeah. I was so going to be mortified. Still, I didn’t think I’d ever been happier about it in all my life.
“Open up!” Jenna shouted, and I was groaning and bracing myself and simultaneously grinning like a fool when I peeled my hands from my eyes.
Then I busted up laughing.
I was right.
Mortified.
Because there in front of me were at least forty cupcakes.
All of them speared with little stakes that boasted pictures of Kale’s face, the writing beneath claiming, “Sex on a stick.”
“You didn’t,” I scolded.
“Um . . . you know I did. With a little help from my new friends, of course,” she said, glancing at Nikki, Lillith, and Rynna, who kept busting up in fits of laughter.
Follow Me Back (A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel Book 2) Page 36
