Page 230 of Hold Me Until Morning

What he’d done to my mother.

We’d discovered evidence in the diary that Lolly kept that my father had also been responsible for my mother’s death, the car crash orchestrated when he’d found out that she’d had plans of leaving with me.

It bore such sick similarities to my situation that I still couldn’t fully process it.

He was currently awaiting trial for a multitude of sins. Sins that would put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Pruitt was dead, as was Brent.

God, it was all so much, and I could spiral in it if I allowed myself to, but my grandmother didn’t give us her very last moment for me to dwell on that. On the loss. She gave us this chance, so I refused to squander even a minute of it.

Cody weaved the truck through a thicket of trees before it broke open to a clearing.

A vast clearing of five acres.

Rolling fields covered in high grasses and wildflowers.

Time River ran through the far side of the land before the mountains rose up behind it. So gorgeous I was losing my breath all over again.

“This is it?” Maddie screeched.

Cody slowed his truck to a standstill and put it into park. “Yup, this is it.”

“We’re home!” she shouted, her little hands moving in a frenzy as she pushed the button to release herself from her booster and scrambled out the back door.

“Someone’s excited.” Cody rumbled his amusement.

“Can you blame her?”

“Nope, not one bit. I’m excited, too.” He leaned over the console and pecked a playful kiss to my nose. “How can I not be when I think of all the fun we’re going to have here?”

A seductive tease wound into his voice, and he didn’t give me time to respond before he grabbed the cardboard tube where he’d had it tucked next to his seat and opened his door. “Come on, darlin’.”

He stepped out, and Maddie took his hand, and she bounced backward as she dragged him farther out into the meadow.

Purple wildflowers grew up around them, the mountain behind, the green foliage and the beauty of the trees.

Breathtaking.

Simply because it was the two of them at the center of the picture-perfect scene.

She beamed up at the man who’d changed everything.

The one who cherished.

The one who adored.

The one who teased.

He looked back at me with that smirk on his face and hollered, “Get that cute butt out here, Shortcake.”

“Yeah, get your cute butt out here, Mommy!” Maddie parroted.

A short giggle rolled out, and I stepped from the truck and slowly wandered in their direction.

My life.

My everything.

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