Fragile Hearts (Poplar Falls #4) - Amber Kelly Page 0,79
gets on, but I’m seconds too late. I stand and watch the elevator climb. I make note of the floors that it stops on. Three. It stops on three different floors.
This is where you prove how serious you are, Haralson.
I start at the eighth floor, and I knock on every single door. None of them are hers.
I board the elevator again, and this time, I go to the eleventh floor. I knock on twelve unsuccessful doors before I find her.
The thirteenth door opens, and she is standing there. She has showered and changed since I spotted her downstairs in the navy pantsuit.
Her hair is damp, and she has on lounge shorts and a tank.
Stunning.
She gasps when she sees me. “What are you doing here, Brandt?”
“I came for you.”
Her forehead wrinkles in confusion, and I have to fight the urge to kiss those lines away.
Once she’s processed my declaration, she frowns.
“Nothing’s changed,” she says.
“Everything has changed.”
Brandt
She protectively crosses her arms over her chest. “What do you want from me?”
“You got to say your piece the other night, but there is more I want to say,” I start.
“You came all the way here to finish your Dear John speech? Really, Doc?”
“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking for,” I beg.
She stands there, debating with herself.
“I’ll sleep here in this hallway if I have to, Bellamy.”
She raises an eyebrow and looks at me like she would love nothing more than for me to sleep on the cold, hard, filthy floor.
“I will.”
I’m a man with nothing to lose.
“Fine,” she huffs. “Five minutes, and I’m timing you.”
She turns and walks back into her room, leaving the door open for me to follow.
She sits on the end of the bed and clicks the television off.
Her expectant eyes look up at me, and she waits.
I take a deep breath and let it all out. “I was a prisoner when we met. Locked up in a cell of grief. I don’t know how I ended up there, but I couldn’t get myself out. It got comfortable in that cell. So much so that I didn’t even realize I was there. Until you came along. It was you. Falling in love was the key that unlocked the prison door. You set me free, Bellamy Wilson.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “You love me?”
“I do,” I whisper.
“How do you know? What changed in a couple of days?”
“I know I’m in love with you because, for the first time in a long time, I’d rather be awake than asleep. Because happiness is here with you and not held hostage in my dreams anymore. I didn’t think it was possible to feel anything so powerful again.”
I take a tentative step forward.
“I know you have your own dreams, and I know this job is important to you. And I support anything that makes you happy. So, if here is where you need to be right now, we’ll work it out. I’ll drive up every weekend. I’ll find a job and relocate to be closer to you.”
“What about the house?” she asks.
“It can sit there and rot again for all I care.”
Her mouth falls open.
“Or I’ll sell it. Or Mom can live there, and we can visit. I don’t care.”
“Don’t you dare sell the dream house,” she says.
“Your dream house?” I ask.
“Our dream house.”
“Do you love me?” I ask her.
“I turned the job down.”
“Then, why are you in Denver?” I ask her, confused.
“I was checking out the vet tech program at Bel-Rea. One of my professors from Chicago is teaching there now.”
“You want to be a vet tech?”
She shrugs. “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
“There’s a big demand for techs. I can put a good word in for you in the industry,” I tell her.
She grins. “Much obliged.”
“Do you love me?” I ask her again.
She nods.
That does it.
I walk toward her, and she throws herself in my arms. I’ve never felt relief like I do at this moment.
“Say it again,” she demands softly.
I’ll say it as many times as she needs me to.
“I love you. I love your hair. I love your teeth. I love that freckle behind your right ear. I love the scar on your hip. I love everything about you, Bellamy.”
I drop my forehead to hers.
“Come back. Build a practice, a home, a family … build a life with me. Please.”
“Okay.”
I find her mouth with mine, and I kiss her like a starved man as I back her up to the bed.