Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)(138)

Only now I’ve come to realize that maybe she’s not lost out here, but this is where she feels most found.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I say, my voice cracking the smallest bit. “Because we didn’t live in this house, didn’t grow up in Atlanta, but sometimes when I sit on this bench, I can feel him. Daddy, I mean.”

“Doesn’t sound crazy to me. I never met him, but I imagine that he’s here surrounded by ranunculus and this bench memorializing their love.”

I lay my head on his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Mav.”

“Matter of fact, the last time I was out here,” Maverick goes on, “I had a talk with him.”

I lift my head to peer at him in the shadows of the garden.

“Are you serious?” I ask, laughing a little.

“Yeah.” He nods in that decisive way he has that dares you to question even his most outrageous investment, his riskiest move. “For a while actually.”

“What’d you… Well, what’d you say?”

“I said I was sorry we never got the chance to meet.” Maverick clears his throat, his voice sounding tight with something close to uncharacteristic nervousness. “I thanked him for making someone so perfect for me. For raising you to be authentic and confident and kind.”

I swallow the heat gathering in my throat.

“I told him that I love you.” Maverick’s voice barely lifts above a whisper now. I have to lean in, to strain a little to catch the heartfelt words. “I promised him I’d be good to you. That I would take care of you and of your mother.”

A hot tear slides down my cheek at that. I don’t even bother to wipe it away. Maverick never complains when I have to cancel plans at the last minute because Mama’s having a bad day. He’s not freaked out when she melts down or loses the thread of this world and spirals into another. Fate or God or the universe—whatever formed us to fit—knew what, who, I needed.

“I told him that one day, I’d ask you, with his blessing, to be mine forever,” Maverick says, steadily running his thumb over the back of my hand like he didn’t just say something that caused an axial tilt. Everything goes still, and it feels like my blood stops flowing, my breath gets hung up in my chest and even the night around us suspends, awaiting his next words.

“And he couldn’t answer, of course,” Maverick says, studying the tangle of our fingers resting on his thigh. “But I felt like he was pleased. I felt like I had his blessing. And, of course, I asked your mother for hers. She said yes.”

He meets my eyes, searches my face. “So I guess that only leaves you.”

He slides off the bench and onto one knee. I don’t speak or even breathe, but sit as prone as the stone statues peppered throughout Mama’s garden. Awe and shock twisting through a storm of joy. I hazard a glance at him, and his eyes are so hot and tender in a face more sober than I’ve maybe ever seen it.

“I want a life with you, Gorgeous. I want to spoil you if you’ll let me.” He chuckles and shrugs. “I know you’ll let me because you deserve it.”

I still can’t speak, but manage a small breath of a laugh while I wait to see where he goes, what he says next.

“I want my love to be the most extravagant gift I ever give you,” he whispers, his voice deep and reverent. “I want it to be outrageously unconditional. I want it to overflow and spill into every crevice of your life, every corner of your heart because that’s what you do for me. You overwhelm me, Hendrix.”

Even seeing him on bended knee, hearing the love and devotion pouring from him, I was not prepared to hear those words. Logically, I knew where this was going, but my heart pounds and skips and hammers with the shocking reality of this amazing man asking me to spend the rest of our lives together.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Maverick continues, his eyes sure, but his voice shaking slightly, so far from the confident cadence I’m used to. “Things were complicated and awkward at first. Looking at how we met and how things started, of course they were, but there’s never been anything awkward about you for me. I’ve always felt, almost from the beginning, that I knew you. That I saw you and you saw me. That life up until the day we met had uniquely prepared my heart for yours.”

Tears slip over my cheeks unchecked and I taste salt at the corners of my mouth. I haven’t spoken a word, but every cell in my body is screaming. Every molecule alive and aloud; a rush of blood in my ears and the pelting thrum of my pulse. Erratic. Arrhythmic. And still I can’t make my voice come out. I stare at him, mute with wonder. Me—the loud one. The one who’s always got something to say—speechless with the possibility of this lifelong joy.

“There are some hard times ahead,” he goes on, undaunted by my silence. “Hard times I’ve lived through before, dark days I’ve negotiated with my own family. I’m ready to walk this path with you. I will face anything with you. I want to be by your side, and I’d be honored to have you at mine.”

A sob catches in my throat, and I cover my mouth with my hand. My eyes close for a second because the commitment, the unwavering devotion in his gaze, undoes me. I scrabble to find my composure, but it’s useless. Every defense is gone. Every wall has fallen for this man. I’m bare on this bench before him. Completely vulnerable, but with him, wholly protected and safe.