Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Around seven, I got a text from the limo driver saying they were close, and I directed him to drive straight to this cabin. When she arrived, I saw her disappear inside. After a few minutes, she sent me a text me asking where I was. I responded telling her to look at the lake.
Her face appeared in the kitchen window, and I saw her beaming when she saw me, barefoot in the sand, surrounded by tiki torches to combat the slowly dying light. She opened the back door, and I marveled at her beauty for what must have been the thousandth time, and yet never got old. She had changed out of her work clothes and into the dress that I had laid out on the bed for her with the note to put it on. It was white and flowy and sheer, and I could see the delicate shape of her body through the fabric. Had it been bright daytime, it would be almost completely see-through, but in the darkness of the night, alone in this private part of the lake, it was just a taste, a hint of what was hidden beneath.
Enough to rile me up even more.
She kicked off her sandals and walked slowly down the aisle that I had created with the Christmas lights on either side, strung from the trees and ending right at the beach. It was a preview of what I hoped I would see when this moment was fulfilled, when the question and the answer were in the past and the actual day had arrived. The day I would make her my wife.
Melanie had tears in the corners of her eyes, and as she reached me, I wiped them away with my thumbs before embracing her. She was soft and warm in my arms, and when I pressed a kiss to her lips, it was like drinking from the cup of life itself. This day had been planned to be one of the most monumental of my life and the most special of hers, and it was living up to it. Every second, every stolen breath from the angels themselves were precious.
“It’s the cabin,” she said. “How did you know?”
“I have my ways,” I said, glossing over the agony of the research in an effort to spoil her. She never had to know the effort that went into just the most basic part of this evening. I didn’t need her to. She just needed to feel special.
“This is amazing,” she said.
I nodded.
“You described it very well,” I said. “Will you take a walk with me? Just down to the next property and back? I feel like walking.”
“Sure,” she said, slipping her arm into mine. “Let’s go.”
Our steps were rhythmic, side by side and in step with one another, which was indicative of everything else about us. We were together, but we were more than that. We were one.
“While I was gone, I had a lot that I had to do and it brought up a lot of bad memories,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she replied.
“No, you don’t have to be. It’s good that those memories came. Because I was able to follow them with new memories. Memories of you. Plans that I had for you. Things that I was excited for and wanted to focus on. Every time something popped into my mind that made me angry or sad about how my life there had been, I was always able to follow it with the thought, ‘Yes, but it is so much better now.’”
“I like that,” she said.
“So do I,” I responded. “Over the first few days, the stress was pretty high, and there was lots to do. But your face, your voice, it kept me going. Knowing I could speak to you on the phone kept me focused. Knowing I could come back home to you kept me motivated. I thought about this day, about this moment, all the time. I thought about you all the time. By the end of the first week, you were all I could think about.”
“I missed you too,” she said, curling into my arm and squeezing.
“It was more than missing you,” I said, grinning. “I’ve never missed someone the way I felt for you while I was gone. As a matter of fact, I’ve never felt for anyone anything resembling what I feel for you all the time. You are the center of my thoughts, my most primary concern, all the time. And happily so. There is no one else that I would want to think about, no other subject I would rather delve into. No one has captured my heart or my mind the way you have. No one has ever churned the feelings of love in my heart the way you have. Not even in the best of times has anyone even come close to making me so delighted, so damn giddy to spend the rest of my life admiring them. Loving them. Worshipping them. Only you. Ever.”