Chapter Fifteen
Zoey tooka sharp curve at top speed. I grabbed the handle and held on forsafety.
“You sure about this?” Zoeyasked.
The road narrowed and twisted. “Stop up here. Pullover.”
Zoey steered her car into the grass field. “Once you do this, there’s no going back.” She shoved the car intopark.
“That’s just it, I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. I love Dylan. We had a rocky past and we clung to each other because of it, but that man who came into our town is an even better version of my childhood crush. He is strong, and this is the only way that I’ll convince him that he is not his father. What Sheriff Milton told him would have tortured him into believing I deserved better, but I don’t. We deserve each other. We both worked so hard to overcome our pasts. We did it on our own, the way it needed to be. To allow us to figure out our own lives. Now we can betogether.”
Zoey opened her door and followed me to the edge of the empty side road that was the only way to the main highway from his friend’s house. “What aboutschool?”
“School is your thing, not mine. I only went to prove to myself that I could do it. And you and Sadie were right… I did want to be better than Mom, to overcome my selfish nature.” The sound of a car echoed from around the bend in the road. This was it. I knew it had to be him. I gripped his sign tight and stepped out into theroad.
The frogs croaked their encouragement, but my sister gasped and yelled, “You’re crazy. Get backhere.”
“No. Last time I didn’t have a choice, even though Dylan and I both know deep down inside that I wouldn’t have left Magnolia Corners. I couldn’t leave my sisters. I couldn’t be my mother, but this time, I can be me. A girl wanting some adventure with the man she loves. That’s what our life will be together if I can get him to see that he’s worthy.” I stoodfirm.
Bugs buzzed around me, and the moonlight shone through sparse clouds. I only hoped it was enough for Dylan to see me before I was rundown.
“By getting yourselfkilled?”
“No, by showing Dylan it could happen any way at any time. That me being with him is no more dangerous than me being on myown.”
The car curved around the bend, and I held the sign over my head and only hoped the big bright letters caught his eye before I had to jump out of theway.
Tires squealed. The smell of rubber burning hitme.
“Avery!” Zoey screamed, but I stoodfirm.
The car slid sideways and stopped a few feet from my thighs. Dylan jumped out of the passenger seat while his friend shot curses atme.
“What are you doing? You could’ve been killed!” He was dressed in his full uniform except his hat. He looked dangerously handsome. My heart still beat like a machine gun in my chest but more from the sight of the love of my life in front of me than almost getting rundown.
“I’m stopping you from running again,” I said, my voiceshaking.
“By getting yourself killed?” Dylan threw his arms up in the air. “I just about died when I saw you. What if Kevin couldn’t havestopped?”
“Then I would be dead,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone that obviously shocked Dylan into silence. “I could die today or tomorrow in a car accident, on a plane, from some weird genetic condition. Who knows? But I know one thing for sure. I won’t die by your drinking. You are not yourfather.”
He shook his head. “What are you saying?” Dylan’s hard lines on his foreheadsoftened.
“I’m saying that I don’t want to let you go. That I don’t need any more time to know what I want. It’s obvious that I wantyou.”
Dylan walked toward me, eyeing the sign as if seeing it for the firsttime.
I cleared my throat and willed Dylan to hear me. “I know what Sheriff Milton told you, and I can only imagine how much that had to hurt, but don’t run. Not fromme.”
His gaze drifted to Zoey, then to his friend, and then back tome.
“You still have a week left of leave,” Isaid.
Dylan shook his head. “What can we say or do in a week to changethings?”
“Everything! A week is plenty of time for a honeymoon.” I handed him the sign, slid the ring out of my pocket, and got down on one knee. “Dylan Markham, will you marry me? Will you spend your life with me and trust me and yourself that we will be better than our parents? That we will live sober and happy and see the worldtogether?”
Tears streamed down my face, and although I was scared, I finally let go of the pain because there was only enough room left in my heart forlove.
