was so desperately in love with you that I realized you had the power to utterly destroy me. The only option I felt I had to survive was to separate myself completely from you.
“As time progressed, another deeper fear took hold of me. I was afraid that without you in my life I’d end up like my father, lost and bitter, angry at the world.”
“You could never be like your father.” That was beyond the scope of Annie’s imagination.
His hand tightened around hers until it was almost painful. She was convinced he didn’t realize how tight his grip had become.
“I love you, Annie, so much so that it feels like my heart is going to bust wide open.”
Annie bit into her lower lip. “I love you, too, so much I don’t know that I can leave you. Other than my aunt and Gabby, I don’t have any family left. You, Mellie, Teresa, and Preston are my family now. The only home I know is right here with you, and leaving you, leaving Oceanside, seems unimaginable. I…I don’t know that I can do it.”
Keaton bowed his head. “You’re my family, too, and as painful as this is to say, you should move back to Seattle and attend medical school. You need to become the doctor you were always meant to be.”
“I don’t know that I can make it through medical school without you, Keaton.”
“But you have me,” he assured her, his arm holding her closer to his side. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want me to come be with you every weekend, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t leave you.”
“Annie, no. You’re going to medical school. Please don’t fight me on this. It’s hard enough as it is to let you go. I’ll do everything within my power to help you. Everything and anything.”
“Anything?” She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes.
“Annie, of course. What do you need?”
She didn’t hesitate. “You.”
“You have me. Heart and soul. You’ve always had me.” He stretched his arm out and touched the medallion she wore around her neck, letting it slide between his thick fingers. “It’s fitting that you are the one to wear that, seeing that you carry my heart with you.”
Her hand wrapped around his.
A half-smile formed. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to give it back to me?”
Annie grinned. “I love you, Keaton. Your heart is safe with me. It always has been. It took losing those I loved most to wake me up to the fact that life is fragile. I’m not the same person I was back then. Their deaths taught me what’s most important. The answer is love. You’re important, Keaton. I’m making a new life for myself, giving and receiving love. You’re a huge part of this transformation because you taught me what it meant to give my heart to someone.
“You said you felt I was your destiny,” Annie continued. “What you don’t understand is that you’re mine as well. I came to Oceanside because I’d been happy here as a teenager. What I discovered by living here is that my happy place is with you, wherever you are. I can go back to medical school. I can leave, but only if you’re willing to come with me. Can you leave Oceanside? Can you do that for me?”
Taking her face in both of his hands, Keaton leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers in a searing kiss that left them both breathless, their hearts beating in unison.
His eyes delved into hers. “I can go anywhere as long as we’re together, Annie. That’s what is important.”
“You’re sure about that?” She couldn’t believe that he’d agree.
“More than sure.”
Life had taken Annie on this rugged path. It wasn’t one she would have voluntarily chosen, but it had led her to this point, and to these friends who had become her new family. She had found home, and it was with them.
She removed the medallion from around her neck and handed it to Keaton. “I think it’s time this goes back to where it belongs.”
He bent forward and bowed his head as she put it around his neck. Tucking his arms around her waist, Keaton lifted her feet from the ground and hugged her against his massive chest, holding her as gently as an orchid, his eyes closed, his heart beating solidly against her own.
Annie tilted back her head and looked toward the sky, and for just an instant she