Always(Time for Love Book 4)(53)

“You know I always look forward to your cooking, honey,” Brenna said. “But I’m not leaving this garage until I find it, whatever it is. And because you haven’t told me exactly what I’m supposed to be looking for, I’m checking each content thoroughly—even if it’s only a pencil case or a box of paper clips—to see if it’s special enough to be the mystery item. It’s taking forever!”

He laughed, knowing full well that Brenna was enjoying herself with this search.

He went to open a new box and was delighted to see it full of his old CDs. They included those he’d bought when he was still in his early teens. He started checking them, putting aside the ones with the songs he wanted to download to his devices later.

He was playing a tune in his head when he heard a sniff. He glanced at Brenna and saw her holding a piece of paper in one hand and dabbing a tear from the corner of her eye with the other.

His heart pounded. She’d found it.

Silently, he looked over her shoulder. The file he’d marked Important Medical Documents and had secured with a rubber band was open in front of her. The loose sheets which were inside it were all there for her to see. He was glad that Brenna was thorough and nosy enough to open that file and check it.

“You found it,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

Brenna swung around and threw her arms around him, sobbing softly.

He held her tight, kissing her hair repeatedly. When her sniffing had eased, he leaned back and wiped her face with his shirt.

“You’ve been writing poems for me since I was eighteen?” she asked.

He smiled. “I meant for them to be songs. I was big into listening to music then. But of course, I know nothing about creating melodies. So yeah, I guess you can call them poems instead.”

“There are several of them there,” she said, looking back at the open folder.

“Uh-huh. You probably haven’t gone through the ones at the bottom yet—I have them in date order. But the later ones are love letters. I’d become so busy with work that my brain simply couldn’t come up with nice rhymes. So I wrote you letters instead.”

“You’ve never shown them to me,” she said, tears returning.

He shook his head. “You know why, Bren. And since I couldn’t tell you how I felt in person, I found that writing about my feelings helped me cope with them. They’re the reason why I wouldn’t let anyone touch those boxes. I didn’t know where that file was. And I also hadn’t wanted to come across it myself.”

Brenna went back to check the sheets. “The last one is dated almost four years ago,” she observed.

He took a deep breath. “You were on one of your breaks with Darren. It was leading up to Christmas, and you were so devastated. So I took you to a Renoir exhibit at the Art Gallery to help you take your mind off things. We were looking at one of the paintings when you said out of the blue how much it sucked when someone you love didn’t appreciate you fully. I said that you need to move on from Darren, and that I appreciated you fully. And you said...”

“I said I was lucky to have you. That you were the best big brother anyone could ever have,” Brenna murmured, her lip trembling.

He nodded. “I said to myself then that it was time for me to find someone who’d love me back. It was nothing but sheer stupidity to be hanging on to the hope that you’d see me as a love interest. So I made a commitment to myself to move on. As you can tell, I wasn’t very good at keeping that commitment.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t,” Brenna said, hugging him fiercely. Then she lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I love you, Ash. So much. I might have been late in realising that, but now I can’t imagine loving anyone else but you. I’ve never felt this way before with anyone, not even Darren.”

His brows rose.

“It’s true,” Brenna said quietly. “It’s different with you. I find myself being swept away rather than feeling like I’m pushing uphill, which is what I felt with Darren most of the time. Darren and I cared for each other, and I think that’s why we tried our hardest. But the real magic just wasn’t there for us. But with you... the moment I opened my eyes to the thought of you and me as a couple, I felt like I was being pulled by some force I can’t define. You’re like my black hole, Ash Payne. You sucked me in and I can’t escape. And I don’t want to escape. You’re the only one I want to be with.”

“Oh, baby,” he murmured, his eyes stinging and his heart expanding so much it almost hurt.

He kissed her softly, tenderly, his spirit soaring as it flew hand in hand with Brenna far beyond the stratosphere.

“The next time you get mad at me,” he said against her lips, “remember I’m a black hole, not an *.”

They laughed together, and he knew his life would be full of love and laughter, as long as Brenna was there to share it with him.

Now he needed to figure out how he would ask her to spend the rest of their lives together.





CHAPTER TWENTY


December 22nd...

Brenna’s eyes lit up when she saw a stretch Hummer parked outside the Ballina Byron Gateway Airport on the north coast of New South Wales. When the driver approached Magda and the Carmichael brothers, she knew this would be their transport to the Carmichaels’ countryside resort in the area.