There Goes My Heart (The Sullivans #20) - Bella Andre Page 0,47

statement a guy who thought he could control the world would make. But helping Zara put her grief to rest—and the burden of guilt she’d carried around since she was fourteen—was surely an impossible task.

The ocean of tears she’d cried had drained her to the point where all she wanted was to keep her face buried against Rory’s broad chest and sleep. He must have read her mind, because the next thing she knew, he was picking her up and carrying her into the bedroom.

He laid her down on the bed, but she didn’t let go of him. “Stay.” Her eyes still closed, she breathed him in. “I need you.”

He brushed his lips across her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised.

A few minutes later, he had both of their clothes stripped away and the covers over them. Zara nestled into the crook of his arm, draped an arm and a leg over him, then dropped instantly to sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Zara was still sleeping when Rory woke on Monday morning. They were still holding tightly to each other.

And his heart was still breaking for her.

It absolutely gutted him to learn that she blamed herself for her mother’s death. When they’d first connected over the engagement party on Friday, he’d thought her biggest problem was her stepsister stealing her boyfriend. And when he’d told her his story about Chelsea, Zara had clearly wanted to help him get over his guilty conscience and forgive himself for his inadvertent role in his ex-girlfriend’s accident. Now, however, he realized that Zara was the one who truly needed to forgive herself. Losing her mom was a million times bigger than the problems he’d had with his ex.

At the party when she’d said she wanted one night where she knew how it felt to be wanted even if she didn’t deserve it, he hadn’t understood how she could possibly think she was undeserving. But where he’d struggled with his guilt for a year, Zara had struggled with it for half her life, to the point where she actually seemed to think she didn’t deserve to be wanted, to be adored. To be happy.

Not forty-eight hours ago, he’d been certain that he had nothing real to offer her in the long term. But after talking with his brothers last night—and then again after Zara had shared her painful past with him—he had begun to see how wrong he’d been.

Zara sparked feelings inside Rory that no one else ever had. And he wanted nothing more than to do whatever he could to help her heal.

He wanted to hold her and kiss her.

He wanted to laugh with her and challenge her.

He wanted to protect her and help her.

He wanted to support her and learn from her.

He wanted to be there for her for as long as she would have him.

If what he felt for Zara wasn’t magic, he didn’t know what was.

He pressed a kiss to her temple, and as he turned the problem of how to help her over inside his head, Flynn’s suggestion came back to him. Make her something tangible to show her what she means to you.

Suddenly, Rory knew exactly what to make. A new, strong, beautiful hope chest, made from a cedar log in his workshop, the same wood traditionally used for hope chests. This chest, however, would not only hold her memories of her mother and her mother’s hopes for Zara, but also all the new memories, hopes, and dreams that Zara would make in the future with people she loved…if only she could heal.

As soon as they got into the warehouse this morning, he would contact his current clients to let them know he would need a short extension on his deadlines. He wanted to build Zara’s hope chest immediately. It had to be ready by Saturday.

First, though, he would do his damnedest to bring her smile back this morning by returning to last night’s chocolate cake plan, which they hadn’t gotten around to.

Carefully sliding out from beneath Zara and the sheets, he went into the kitchen to brew coffee to drink with the cake. He was just pouring the fresh brew into mugs when he heard her footsteps.

“If I knew you would wake me up with coffee,” she said in a slightly husky voice, “I would have slept with you a long time ago.”

As upset as she’d been last night, he was glad she’d woken up her usual snarky self. Even if he now knew just how deep her river ran beneath