The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(92)

My nipples tighten under the borrowed t-shirt.

I raise my eyes to his. “I’m a pretty sure thing right now.”

He lifts me up so quickly I gasp, pulling my legs around his hips as he starts walking toward the bed. He grins. “You’re not getting out of surfing. But I guess it can wait.”

An hour later we arrive at the beach. The sun is fully up now, the sky striped pink and blue. Aside from a few surfers in the water and an old guy with a metal detector, we’ve got the place to ourselves.

He tows me out until we reach the break. Even with a wetsuit on, the water’s cold as hell, but the sun’s out and Luke’s smile is as young and untroubled as it was seven years ago.

With his help, after several failed attempts, I manage to catch a wave.

The last time I did this was in Malibu, and now, just like then, he’s smiling, but there’s something

deeper in his gaze. Something serious.

I start paddling toward him, but for some reason, he’s paddling toward me as well. He reaches me and grabs the front of my board, tugging it so our faces are close.

“Marry me,” he says.

This time, he’ll get no argument. If I’m willing to brave cold water and huge waves to stay near Luke Taylor, I’m sure not going to complain about this. “Name the date. And we’ll need to buy a hammock.”

He leans over my board and presses his lips to mine for a long moment. “As soon as possible.

And I ordered the hammock yesterday.”

We’re getting our happy ending after all. I’d have waited for it forever, but I’m so glad I didn’t have to.





EPILOGUE

I t’s summer, and the sun is starting to rise. I wake, feeling guilty that I’ve slept in, though a year ago I’d have considered dawn bedtime, not an indulgent night’s sleep.

No one would fault me for sleeping in, my husband least of all, but I am still superstitious. When he leaves to surf in the mornings, I like to remind him to be careful, though the warning is probably unnecessary now. The waves on Oahu’s North Shore are daunting year-round, but ever since we found out I was pregnant, he takes fewer risks.

I brush my teeth and splash water on my face, reading a text from Libby as I move toward the back deck.

She’s sent a picture of George, her son—his face absolutely covered in purple yogurt.





LIBBY


Just preparing you for what you’ll be facing in a couple months I laugh. It’s possible her life has changed even more than mine: she’s a single mother now—Grady left the state entirely after he was removed from his position—and she now oversees Danny’s House, which looks poised to go national.

In the end, the article in The New York Times was simply a glowing story about triumph in the face of tragedy, which might have been related to the sheer number of publicists and agents—mine, Drew’s, and Luke’s—who called to complain about the reporter’s bias.

I reach the deck and peer into the distance, surveying the guys in the water. It’s impossible to tell which one is my husband until the moment I see him drop into the wave, gliding down its face effortlessly. He carves along the surface and then enters the barrel, disappearing for a moment. My breath holds, and doesn’t release, until he reappears. This is the price for loving Luke—the fear, these moments of waiting. After so many years apart, I pay them gladly.

Who would we have turned out to be, in another life? If we’d followed the paths others would have chosen for us? He might have taken that business degree and gone into marketing or sales. I might be a pastor’s wife, hiding every true part of myself, or a music teacher hitting the snooze button repeatedly every morning because she didn’t want to go into work.

Instead, Luke fills his day with the things he loves, and I’m doing my best to follow suit. We put a recording studio in the house, and the album I’m writing now is better and more personal than anything I’ve ever done. I’d begun to think I was empty, depleted, that there was nothing I cared about enough to put it to music, when really I’d just buried it so deep I’d nearly forgotten it was there.

I wish Donna would be around to hear it, but at least she lived long enough for other things. She saw us get married—on the beach, at sunset, with only a handful of guests—and she saw Danny’s House operating at full capacity.

The end came shortly after their first Christmas, which we were there for. She told me, on the day before she died, that she wasn’t scared. “I’m about to see Danny again,” she said. “What’s there to be scared of?”

I hope, for her sake, she was right.

Luke drops into another wave, then starts paddling toward the shore. He’s not even smiling, but I know what I see on his face is unadulterated joy.

He unzips the wetsuit, letting it hang off his lean hips as he shakes out his hair. All day, every day, I am surrounded by men with virtually no body fat and muscles most guys don’t have, and yet it’s only Luke’s beauty that still takes me by surprise, that I can’t quite get used to. He starts toward me while I head down the steps from the deck to bring him a towel.

“Babe,” he growls, “I thought we talked about you walking onto the beach in your pajamas.”

I laugh. “I’m eight months pregnant and this is hardly sexy. All I’m going to do is scare these guys away from marriage."