A broken breath escapes him, his eyes clenching closed. “Santa did so good.”
A laugh escapes me and a small smile curves his mouth.
Noah kisses me then, his hands sinking into my hair, as he has always done, but it’s now his new routine each time we leave, arrive, meet or part. His touch is never far. Ever. It’s as soothing as it is painful, but only because of how deep the reasons for it run.
Noah’s afraid. Afraid that, at any moment, something could come along and take me from him, but we won’t let that happen. Not again. Never again.
Beginning the night my memories came back, I laid in Noah’s arms and wrote down the night he and I met, the conversation we had, as well as the bonfire that followed. Every night after that, I did the same thing, telling our story in a journal with doodles and scribbles, and yes, colorful hearts. I’ve already filled two, having cracked open my third just yesterday.
“I can’t wait to add today to my journal.”
“You just started on our camping trip last night. You’ve got a long ways to go.”
“I know, but still.”
Noah’s lips graze mine, his eyes closing, his tone oh, so soft, as he says, “What if… you’re never caught up?” A small frown pulls at my brows, and Noah blindly curls a piece of my hair around his finger. “What if I keep giving you more to write about?”
The hand now tracing his tattoos pauses, and my eyes fly to his. He takes his time, watching as he releases the dark lock, and then pushes it from my shoulder when it falls. Only then do his eyes come to mine.
“What if every day that follows this one, I give you something else to write?”
“Noah.” My heart pounds wildly.
His lips curve into a small smirk, and he hooks his finger beneath my necklace, the gift he gave me the moment I woke up this morning, a silver heart dangling from it.
He said it will tarnish in time, the sterling unable to hold its shine, but said maybe when that time comes, he’ll be able to afford a real one to replace it.
“I told you my mom gave me something the day she died, something she and I found at the pier, but I never told you what it was.” He spins the heart until its clasp is in the front and he undoes it, holding it in his open palm. His eyes never leave mine. “I want you, Arianna Johnson, like no man has ever wanted a woman before. I’m sure of it. I want to give you the life you dreamed of, the one you shared with me. I want to give you a home on the ocean, one that will be ours, where the back deck faces the ocean, so we can sit outside at night while the sun sets, but only so we can watch the way the moon bounces off the water the way you love. I want to come home and cook for you while you sit back and watch, our little one in your arms.”
My tears fall in heavy streaks down my cheeks, but I don’t even want to blink. I don’t want to miss a single expression on his face.
“I want to give you everything you could ever want, and then I want to give you even more. But first.” He opens his palm, and then that heart that was around my neck is opened, and a small, silver band falls out, right into my hands.
I gasp, having had no idea it was a locket. “Noah…”
“First,” he repeats, his knuckles lifting my chin, calling my eyes to his. “First, I want to marry you.”
A cry slips past my lips, my hand coming to cover my mouth.
“Marry me, Juliet. We can wait until you’re done with school, or we can drive to a chapel right now, I don’t care. Marry me.”
I’m nodding before he’s even done speaking, my lips smashing with his as I pull him as close as I can get him, and it’s not close enough.
It will never be close enough.
But forever is a damn good start.
“You will?” he rasps.
“Of course I will.”
His palms shake as he grips my cheeks, his eyes piercing mine. “Say you swear?”
Placing my palm over his tattoo, I recite its meaning.
“Fear not the fall, but the life that comes from having never leaped at all.” I smile through my tears. “I’ll always leap if the jump leads me to you, Noah Riley. Always.”
“And forever.”
“I swear.”
He kisses me, and I get lost in the man before me.
My Romeo.
My fiancé.
My everything.
Note from the author
You made it to the end!!! How are you feeling?! LOL
Man, I have no idea how to express what the completion of this book has done to me. This baby is 5 years in the making! It’s the book that got me started in writing, but the fear was real with this one. I didn’t think I could tell the story as the characters intended, but I cannot tell you how proud I am of how it came together.