Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
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.
In a moment like this, I expected to feel elation, of course. The love and the passion and the joy of a proposal. All those things, yes. But this peace that washes over me? It’s unexpected. Knowing I won’t face the dark days alone? That this man, this remarkable man, who loves me so outrageously, will walk with me through storms? Will shelter me when life leaves me vulnerable and exposed? That gives me peace. Seated on a bench that bears my parents’ initials, surrounded by the flowers that symbolize their lifelong love, I’m reminded that I wasn’t sure I could ever have that. That I’d ever find a man I could trust with my heart, with my goals and dreams; whom I could respect with the assurance that he respects me in return. Maybe I’d subconsciously resigned myself to a life alone, or if I found someone, to a shadow of the love I’ve seen in those closest to me, but this isn’t a shadow of anything. This is blinding light. This is the heat and passion of a thousand suns.
God, this is love.
So when that man I hadn’t dared to dream of reaches up to cup my face, looks into my tearful gaze and says…
“Marry me, Hendrix.”
There is no hesitation. No reservation. The answer booms loud in my heart. It comes soft in the hand I lay over his. It comes sure when I nod my head, my reply a mere whisper in Mama’s garden.
“Yes.”