Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
The smell of bacon and coffee as I exited my room the next morning melted any lingering frustration. And then the sight of Ramsey Stewart on one knee in the middle of our small kitchen, holding a diamond ring, melted me completely.
“It’s over,” he whispered. “We still have a long way to go, but I feel like the past might really be behind us. Last night, we argued. You slept in the bed. I slept on the couch. Neither of us disappeared. I didn’t freak out. As far as I know, you didn’t, either. I didn’t go back to prison. The world didn’t end. We were just two normal people fucked up and madly in love, arguing over meaningless bullshit. I want that forever, Sparrow.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth. It wasn’t at all the grand proposal women dreamed about, yet it was more romantic than anything I’d ever heard.
But Ramsey, being Ramsey, couldn’t leave it at that. “Your hair looks like a family of birds took up residence in it overnight and you’re not even wearing a tank top that shows your nipples, but I have never and will never in my entire life want to marry someone more.”
My heart was so full I didn’t even give him shit before diving into his arms and smothering him with kisses. Eventually, I said yes, and then we made love on the floor in our kitchen until the bacon burned and set off the smoke alarms. As we ran around the kitchen in various degrees of undress, laughing and opening the windows to air out the house, I realized just how right he was.
From the outside, no one would have guessed the heartbreak and drama that had tainted our lives. And for once, we didn’t feel the all-consuming repercussions of it, either.
And that was when I finally forgave Nora.
I would love to say that, when things had worked out with me and Ramsey, I’d been able to immediately mend my relationship with her. It would be a lie though. I struggled for months trying to figure out why the betrayal burned so much hotter with her.
But that day, with a diamond on my finger, while I watched my future husband run around in a cloud of bacon smoke as a symphony of smoke detectors screamed all around us, I realized I loved my life.
And with that kind of freedom, the coulda, shoulda, woulda game didn’t matter anymore.
It was hard to be bitter and angry when you had everything you ever wanted. And dammit, I wanted Nora to be a part of that. We did a lot of crying that first night on the phone. She apologized for not telling me the truth. I apologized for not being there when she’d needed someone. And Ramsey nervously paced, waiting to pick up the pieces.
She drove up the next day and spent the weekend with us. We did a lot of crying then too. Explaining, talking things through with and without Ramsey, and eventually burying it all in the past where it belonged.
Two weeks later, Ramsey got permission from his parole officer to drive back to Clovert. We’d sworn we wouldn’t go back until his parole had ended, but when it came to having a wedding, there was only one place we wanted to be.
With only my father at my side and Nora at Ramsey’s, we vowed forever in an intimate ceremony under our old tree. I wore a beautiful white dress and hired a photographer to document the occasion. But nothing made me happier than when we returned to the safety and security of our home the very next day.
We lived the next two years of our lives like most newlyweds. We made love. We watched movies and grilled out. We argued over more stupid crap. But unlike other couples, we woke up every morning marking off days on a calendar that counted down until our lives could truly begin again.
The day Ramsey was released from parole, it felt like we’d both been freed. We spent weeks moving all of our belongings into a storage unit so we could drive straight to the airport and buy two tickets on the next flight to Las Vegas as soon as we got the final paperwork. From there, we went to California and Arizona before hopping across the ocean to spend a week in Hawaii.
That was where Ramsey got his first tattoo. He’d been talking about it for years. I had to admit, being as fond as I was of his naked body, I was hesitant at first. But after the way his face lit when he showed me sketches of his ideas, there was no way I ever would have argued.
He’d chosen an Old Norse Valkyrie with her wings spread wide to cover the majority of his back. Her right side was young and angelic. There was no mistaking the playful tip of Nora’s lips or the willowy shape of her body, but it was the left side of that tattoo that stole my breath. She was covered in armor with a sword at her side. Her flowing, brown hair was mine. Her eyes too. And a sparrow sat proudly upon her shoulder.