Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars #4) - A.L. Jackson Page 0,136
lost under covers
In my whispers
In my ear
Wishing on a star
Hoping on a heart
And then you were there
I think I heard you in my sleep
I think I found you in my dreams
I think I felt you in the daylight
Give me one minute, sweetheart
And I’ll ruin everything
Thought I was a stranger
A man without shelter
A wanderer
Until I heard you whisper
And I knew that I was home
I think I heard you in my sleep
I think I found you in my dreams
I think I felt you in the daylight
I’m terrified, sweetheart
That I’m gonna ruin everything
Let’s not pretend we’re make believe
Let’s just accept this destiny
You came and rearranged everything
This heart
This soul
This joy
Everything I’d thought I’d known
This man who’d forgotten to hope
I think you heard me in your sleep
I think you found me in your dreams
I think you felt me in the daylight
Now I’m going to give you everything
Oh, Sweet Thing, I’m gonna give you everything
Epilogues
Maggie
I blazed down the two-lane road in my truck. The windows were rolled down and Sweet Thing blared from the speakers. A half-moon hovered just above the horizon where the mountains met the star-spattered sky, and the cool wind whipped my hair into chaos while my husband’s voice whipped my heart into putty.
As he sang the love song he’d written for me when our lives had been in transition. As our crooked paths had intersected and brought us together.
Right where we belonged.
It was a song that had easily been added to their album that came out last year, although Rhys had put that hashtag to rest, anyway.
The man rewriting his story into what he wanted it to be.
I slowed as I came to the road to our property, turning right and slowly taking the dirt lane to our home where it sat in a valley in Rhys’ hometown.
I was struck with a crest of energy.
My heart forever bottled in beautiful bliss.
It was a rambling old house that would forever need work, and ten horses were in the stables out back.
We were hard at work on the whole five-kid thing.
And when I pulled up to the rounded gravel lot there wasn’t a cowboy in sight.
Just a stallion where he stood on the porch fronted by flowers waiting for me, all bristling, powerful muscle and that smirking smile where he leaned on the railing.
My spirit leapt.
Jumped and danced, and I was tossing open the door, smiling wide as I slid out of the driver’s seat and grabbed my bag as I went.
“Look at that, a goddess under the stars,” he called down to me.
It didn’t matter how much time had passed. It still rushed heat across my flesh and splashed redness on my cheeks, my teeth clamping down on my bottom lip as I swayed my way up the walk.
“You must have hit your head,” I teased him.
“If I did, no one better wake me.”
I climbed the three steps to the porch, and he was pulling me into the warmth of those massive arms. He swooped in and planted a fierce kiss to my mouth. Those blue, blue eyes glowed their sweet severity when he pulled back. “How was the meeting?”
Lily and I had started an advocacy group here in Dalton for women who’d been through trauma of any kind.
A safe place.
Small, but needed.
I was still earning my counseling degree. Slowly but surely. But I knew this was what I’d been called to do.
That where my circumstances had shaped me, I had something to offer from those folds. Maybe—just maybe—I might be able to envelop myself around someone else to help them shape their own future.
“It was good. Really good.”
His smile was adoring, and I couldn’t do anything but scratch my fingers into his beard. “I missed you. How was your night?”
A smirk kicked up at the corner of his delicious mouth. “Um…went to Mama’s for dinner. Couldn’t be bad, now, could it?”
He’d wanted to level his mama’s house and build something new. But after everything that had happened, she hadn’t wanted that. She wanted those walls that swam with the memories.
The good and bad.
Of course, we’d settled right down the road because we didn’t want to be far from her. She and Rhys were closer than ever, and we wanted to raise our family with her nearby.
We wanted her a staple in our lives. A fundamental piece.
It’s what I’d always wanted.
A place to offer all this love that had been burning inside me.
Rhys and the band were still traveling. Touring. Their stardom had hit stratospheric levels.