There Goes My Heart (The Sullivans #20) - Bella Andre Page 0,85

he had his hands threaded into her hair and was kissing her.

She remembered the way she’d felt that day. As though she’d been riding on a wave of bliss so sweet she’d been sure she would never come down.

No fall had ever been more brutal.

So brutal that she had barely been able to function hours ago when he’d come to find out why she had freaked out at his parents’ house.

She had seen how alarmed he’d been by her calm, matter-of-fact responses to his questions. If only he knew that she’d had to shut down absolutely every bit of her feelings. Otherwise, she would have crumbled completely. Crumbled into so many pieces that no one, and nothing, would ever be able to put her together.

Yet again, Zara wished she could talk to her mom. Because she’d never needed her help more.

A bright flash of lightning lit up the room. Having grown up in Maine, Zara had seen plenty of storms. But none had ever seemed as fierce as this one. Almost as though the heavens were directly connected to the dark storm of her emotions.

It wasn’t until a second bolt of lightning flashed that she finally saw it: The hope chest Rory had made for her was sitting on the coffee table.

Zara’s heart beat unsteadily as she walked across the open-plan room to pick it up. My God. It was a thing of beauty, with stunning inlay forming a lighthouse on top and a hand-hammered latch.

But there was more. Rory had also carved a phrase into the side: Tá mo chroí istigh ionat.

Zara felt like her heart was about to leap out of her chest as she typed the Gaelic phrase into her web browser. The translation sent a sob breaking free from her chest.

My heart is in you.

As she brushed aside her tears to read further, she learned that Tá mo chroí istigh ionat was not only a way to say I love you in a romantic sense, but that it could also be used to encapsulate a parent’s love for their child.

Trust Rory to know exactly what her hope chest meant to her—that it wasn’t only about her mother’s love, but that Zara’s own heart was in it too. And still, there was more. Because hours ago, when he’d tried to give the chest to her, he’d said, Your mom isn’t the only one who wanted all of your hopes and dreams to come true—I want that too.

He’d been trying to tell her that his heart was in the chest too, but she hadn’t been able to hear him.

She ran her fingers over the carving. My heart is in you.

Her mother would have loved that. And she would have loved Rory for understanding Zara better, almost, than she knew herself.

She went to the closet and brought out the old, cracked hope chest she’d treasured for so many years. But it wasn’t the cheap wooden box that had mattered, it was everything inside. And as she went through the silly photos, the sweet postcards with inspirational sayings, the delicious recipes, the small watercolors they’d painted together, and an old, well-worn copy of The Forgiving Tree—Zara finally understood that everything Rory had said to her the night she’d told him the story of her mother’s accident was right.

Zara’s mother had wanted only happiness, joy, hope, and optimism for her daughter. She wouldn’t have wanted her to beat herself up for fifteen minutes, let alone fifteen years.

Carefully laying the book in her new hope chest, along with all the other memories, Zara closed and latched the top. Inside the chest was room for more hopes, more dreams, more love—if only she could be brave enough to let herself have them. If only she could finally push herself out of the self-imposed exile from happiness where she’d lived for so many years.

Finally ready to break the chains she’d locked herself in at fourteen, Zara was tempted to rush through the storm to Rory’s lighthouse to beg him to keep showing her the way.

But now that she was finally being honest with herself, she knew it wasn’t that easy. There was something she needed to do first—someone she needed to talk to—before she could be ready to ask him to give her another chance.

Picking up her new hope chest, she brought it into bed with her. And even as she fell asleep, her hand remained over the lighthouse inlay.

* * *

By six thirty Saturday morning, the rain was coming down even harder than