Page 95 of Loved By You

I place the remaining letters back in the box and slowly open the letter addressed to me.

A tear hits the letter and smudges the ink on Jack's name.He loved me, wanted me, the same way I wanted him.

My chest feels heavy, my heart thumping so loudly it fills the room.

My brain is a tangled mess of thoughts. Every look, every touch, every smile, every kiss, flashes through my head like a photo book.Were the signs there? Were we just naïve to what was in front of us all along?

If we had both been brave enough to say something, our lives could have been so different, but maybe this is how it was meant to be. We had to fight our battles separately to find our way back to one another and eventually heal.

“Ri… you okay?” Jack's voice echoes from downstairs, but I can’t respond. I’m trying to process all this. I rise to my feet, my hands still clutching the paper.

“Ri, did you find the—” He freezes in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room.

"You wrote me a letter," I choke out, barely above a whisper, but I know he heard me.

He looks down at the paper I’m holding and the look that flashes in his eyes he knows I’m not just holding a letter, I’m holdingtheletter; the one every soldier writes in case they don’t make it home. Jack chose to write one for me.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice quiet.

“And you kept the letters I wrote you?” I glance at the box of letters and then back to him. “Why?”

He takes slow, steady steps towards me, taking the letter from my hand and settling it down on top of the still-open box.

“You really wanna know why?” My eyes meet his.

He strokes my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs and I see his throat bob as he swallows like he is preparing to say something.

“Because I have been in love with you from the first day I met you. I'm so in love with you. I was just too scared to admitit. You were Noah’s sister, and I didn’t want to ruin anything, and maybe I was a little scared how you would react.” He sighs, regret shining in his eyes.

“And then you met Alex, and I thought he was the better choice for you, that he was going to give you the life you deserved, but I wrote that letter because if I didn't find my way to you…” His voice cracks, my heart somersaulting behind my ribs. I reach up and stroke his face.

“...and it was my time to go, I couldn't have you go through life believing that you didn't mean anything to me, that I didn't love you.”

He moves even closer. Our lips are almost touching. I can't imagine what he went through emotionally, writing that letter.

“Because, sweetheart, you were and still are everything to me.”

My chest expands to its fullest. He loves me. He's always loved me. My lips tip upward into a smile as I stare at him, his eyes searching my face for something, anything. I kiss his lips briefly. "I love you too," I whisper.

He blinks with surprise. "You do?"

I nod. "You make me feel like I'm worth loving, and Jack, you are everything to me. I never want to lose you."

“God, Ri, I love you,” he says in a whisper and then he crashes his lips to mine, and I kiss him back like he’s the only thing keeping me alive. I have dreamed of being loved by Jack Lawson for as long as I can remember, and it is more than I ever could have imagined.

Chapter Forty-Three

Ria

“Lex, maybe put that one there,” Jack suggests, pointing to a tree branch that doesn’t have a Christmas ornament on it.

“Nope, I want it on this one,” Lexi argues, completely ignoring Jack's suggestion, and I bite my bottom lip to stop a laugh escaping. Jack twitches and then scrunches his nose up at Lexi’s decorating skills, while Elle bounces on his lap waving around an ornament she got out of the box.

We've been decorating the Christmas tree at my house and Jack has stayed every night since we got back from the lake house last month and I have no intentions of suggesting we spend a night apart. I like having him here. No, I love having him here and so do the girls. It’s a welcome change to have help and support. We share the cooking and putting the girls to bed, and when they are sleeping, we play Scrabble, watch trash TV or sitand talk about our days. This is foreign to me. Spending so many years doing it alone and begging for help, Jack entered my life, and not once have I had to ask or beg for anything from him. He’s just here, doing it, being here for me, for my girls. In all the ways we didn't know we needed him.

I stack the remaining empty Christmas decoration boxes in my hall closet as Jack tiptoes down the staircase above me. An empty pink baby bottle in one hand, and Lexi’s Elsa doll in the other, gray sweats and a black t-shirt, his tanned tattooed arm flexing as he tucks the Elsa doll under his arm as he bends to pick up a baby blanket he’s dropped on the floor, that familiar fluttery feeling in my chest whenever I look at him hits me.

“This daddy vibe you got going on suits you,” I say, waving my hand in front of him.

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