by J. R. Rogue
EPILOGUE
Hunter
My oldest was wary of her at first. It was expected. Not my youngest, though. She’s the most like me, so of course, she loves Sonnet.
Next to Sonnet in the living room of our Nashville home, Harper flips through Netflix. It’s been one year since Sonnet and I decided to be together, no matter where it was.
My oldest is in the kitchen with me as I start making a second batch of cookie dough. It’s Christmas again, Sonnet’s favorite time of year, and we’ve spared no expense. Our house looks like the North Pole threw up in it.
“Do you want to marry her?” Savannah asks me this question in a low tone, and I know the two in the living area can’t hear it over the Netflix movie previews as they click through them.
“Yeah, if she’s up for it,” I say, stirring. Sonnet and I both said we didn’t care if we ever got married again, but my feelings on the subject change every damn day I’m with her.
“Does she know that?”
“I think she does. I hope she does.” I don’t know if Sonnet knows I’ve been wondering how Sonnet Hart would sound, for months now. Even though I know her and I know she won’t take my last name. I really don’t give a shit about all that, but it’s fun to imagine.
“Women can’t read minds, Dad.” Savannah opens the fridge for the eggnog, pulling out two mugs.
The batch of cookies in the oven is almost done. The one before it is cooling on the rack behind us.
It’s sure as shit too many cookies for me, but I have three girls here who love sweets. I enjoyed my home when it was empty—when the girls were gone, and I could take off the dad hat. I enjoyed it when it was full, when they were fighting and laughing and crying. Now my home is never empty, because I share it with the woman I love, just outside the city we both love.
As if reading my mind, my oldest sighs. “I can’t believe Grammy and Grandpa are selling their place.”
“Your Grandma and Grandpa have been wanting to travel for ages. They’re finally at a place where they can.”
“I just worry about them. On the open road with a big camper?”
“No one is a better driver than your grandfather.” I roll my eyes.
“Don’t old people have a hard time driving at night?”
“I don’t think they’re going to be making a lot of overnight trips. You know Grandpa likes to be in bed by nine.”
“Yeah, true,” Savannah mumbles. She’s just like her mother—mothering.
“Don’t worry about them.”
“That’s like you telling me not to worry about you,” she counters.
“Why do you worry about me?”
“You’re my dad. I always will.”
I feel those words in my chest. “Well, take that feeling and multiply it times a million. That’s how I felt when you went off to college.”
“I know. I bet you won’t worry as much about Harper,” she says, looking into the living room at her younger sister. She’s laughing at something Sonnet said.
She’s right. Her younger sister is the one I should worry about the most. But I worry about my oldest the most. She’s so book smart, straight A’s and all of that. Her little sister is street smart, works with her hands. Can change a tire and break a horse.
They both make me proud, and impress me.
“I worry about you both. Every day. It’s part of the job.”
“That’s the deal with love, huh?” she asks, staring into the living room.
“Yep.”
“I like her, you know. And I’m happy for you.”
I walk around the kitchen island, pulling my daughter in for a big hug. She’s never too big for them. She stopped being my little girl a long time ago in her mind, but she’ll always be that in mine.
“Tell me what you love,” I say into Sonnet’s hair later that night, after the girls have gone to the movie theater.
She has on the biggest sweater I’ve ever seen as she leans back against our headboard, her legs are covered to mid-thigh by it. Under it, I know she has black panties on, and her hair is in that messy bun she likes to wear.
“Snow. Rain. Nutcrackers. Cilantro. Fuzzy socks. Sundaes. Sundays, too.” She smiles at me from her laptop, where I know she’s working on her latest novel.
“More.” I’m scribbling in my worn songbook next to her as she talks. My other hand is on her thigh, absentmindedly rubbing.
“Your voice. Not your singing voice, that’s all right.” She smirks behind her laptop. “Just the way you talk. Your hands. Edgar’s paws. Seven’s big brown eyes. Cherries. Blueberry pancakes. When your daughters text me. Hearing you sing goodnight to me. Knowing you’re in all my novels.”
I’m smiling, and I know she sees it, because she isn’t typing anymore. She’s egging me on.
And I don’t care. “More.”
She sighs. “Your laugh. The way you throw your head back when you find something amusing. The way you look in a nice button-up shirt with pearl snaps.”
I roll my eyes. I have one shirt like that, and I hate it. My dad gave it to me, and I can’t throw it away. I wore it once with her because she begged me to.
“The way you hold my hand on planes. The way you grab my knee under the table. You,” she finally says. “Your tongue.”
I stop scribbling, pull the notebook away from my lap. “You’re going to get it if you say more things like that.”
“Why do you think I said it?” She moves the laptop.
There’s nothing between us but flimsy restraint and the heat of our bedroom in Tennessee.
“This isn’t what you imagined life would be, is it?” she asks, reaching for me.
“No,” I admit. “It’s what I wanted it to be, though.”
We write, and we spend time with Chace and Sera and Andrew and Kat. We walk our dogs, and we make love with the window open to the southern air.
The house has two rooms for the girls when they visit, an office for each of us, and a large kitchen, where we spend most of our family time.
“I wrote this. I wrote us married. Tons of acres. I wrote us downtown. I wrote us so many ways,” Sonnet hushes, crawling to me, settling in my lap.
I feel my heart stutter at the word. She wrote us married. “How does this compare?”
“Oh, it’s better.” She kisses my neck, presses into me, into the box in my pocket.
I push the woman I love away from me, brushing away the stray hairs that have fallen out of her bun. “How much better?”
I reach into my pocket, pulling out the box. I know what her old wedding ring looked like. I’d seen her wear it, and I didn’t try to compete with that. I just tried to write our story the way it’s meant to be written.
She’s understated, dark, beautiful in ways that sometimes scare the shit out of me.
But right now? Nothing about her face scares me as she looks at the dainty piece of jewelry shining in our bedroom.
“How much better?” I ask, again.
She pulls her hands from her face, slowly reaching for the ring, looking me in the eye. “Better than Christmas, Hunter Hart.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading Blind Melody. This book was never supposed to be about Sonnet and Hunter. I had other characters lined up, but art doesn’t give a shit about your plans. I hope anyone who has found love after divorce connected to their journey. I hope anyone who has had any sort of second—or hell, seventh—chance at love fell for these two characters.
Thank you to my readers who have been here from the beginning with Sera and Chace. I hope you enjoyed seeing them again, as well as Kat and Andrew. If you’re here, then you’ve seen me grow, and I can’t thank you enough for sticking with me through it all.
Thank you so much to my alpha and beta readers—Talon, Chastity, Sarah—who gave me invaluable input for this story.
Thank you, Brooke, for allowing me to use your personality for Brooklyn. I can’t wait for everyone to read her story.
Th
ank you, Kat Savage. Man, we know how to pile some work on ourselves, huh? I’m so glad we’ve been together since the beginning, riding every frantic and elated and heartbreaking wave. We got this. I know it seems like we don’t, but we do.
Thank you to my brilliant editor and friend, Christina Hart. I love that you made this story the best it can be, and I’m so sorry for the heartbreak it caused. You know I’ll never be able to write light and happy things, right?
Thank you to every blogger who shares my covers and takes the time to review for me. You make my heart swell.
Thank you to my reader group, Rogue’s Rebels, for always being so excited about my work.
And lastly, thank you to every muse who has ever let me steal a part of their heart.
J.R. Rogue first put pen to paper at the age of fifteen after developing an unrequited high school crush & has never stopped writing about heartache. She has published multiple volumes of poetry and novels.
Three of her poetry collections, La Douleur Exquise, Exits, Desires, & Slow Fires, & I’m Not Your Paper Princess have been Goodreads Choice Awards Nominees.
To keep up with everything she’s working on join her facebook group, Rogue’s Rebels.
www.jrrogue.com
[email protected]
Also by J. R. Rogue
NOVELS
MUSE & MUSIC SERIES
BURNING MUSES
BACKGROUND MUSIC
BLIND MELODY
SOMETHING LIKE LOVE SERIES
I LIKE YOU, I LOVE HER
I LOVE YOU, I NEED HIM
I LIKE YOU, I HATE HER
I LOVE YOU, I LOATHE HIM
I LIKE YOU, I WANT HER
I LOVE YOU, I HAUNT HIM
THE REBOUND
KISS ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT
TEACH ME
POETRY
LA DOULEUR EXQUISE
TELL ME WHERE IT HURTS
ROUGE
AN OPEN SUITCASE & NEW BLUE TEARS
LE CHANT DES SIRÈNES
APUS
EXITS, DESIRES, & SLOW FIRES
BREAKUP POEMS: VOL 1
I’M NOT YOUR PAPER PRINCESS
VIRAL
LETTERS TO THE UNIVERSE
POEMS FOR THE MOON: VOL 1
POEMS FOR THE MOON: VOL 2
POEMS FOR THE STARS: VOL 1
POEMS FOR THE STARS: VOL 2
POEMS FOR THE DAWN: VOL 1
POEMS FOR THE DAWN: VOL 2
