Page 85 of I Love a Good Challenge

The tone of my voice is almost begging him to hear the layers of what I’m trying to say. I don’t mean to fight in a violent, unsavory way. I mean, I want him to fight with me like he shows up every time I see him with a fire in his eyes and an unbreakable composure that urges me to unravel him in the best way. When we struggle, I want my body to get a few degrees warmer and my heart to beat faster just from being near him.

“Why on earth would I want to do that?” His brow is furrowed, his breathing heavy. Graham isn’t messing around.

I know all my cards need to go on the table. It’s now or never. “Because when you fight with me, it feels like you’re fighting for me.”

He takes a short step forward, his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes sparking with a look I know will burn for a lifetime. “Lily,” he whispers, a cross between a plea and a prayer.

Already, my eyes are filling again with tears. He pulls one hand from his pocket and extends it toward me. It’s all there, just as when I wrestled myself to sleep. The watch wrapped around his wrist, the crinkle of his shirt where it’s rolled up to his forearms, the rise and fall of his chest as I wait for his response.

Tilting up my chin, I imagine what it might be like to feel Graham’s kiss again after the affection we’ve witnessed today. I want that affection to grace my life more than anything I’ve ever wanted. His long strides carry him to me, and Graham’s warm hands rise to cradle my face. My eyes close from the sensation.

“Open your eyes, love,” he says into the air between us.

I take a ragged breath and open them, staring into piercing blue eyes that never left my soul. Their rims are wet. Tenderly, I try to wipe his tears away with the edge of my hand. There’s a soft smile on his face, paired with a lingering look of disbelief.

“You called me ‘love,’” I whisper. “Still.”

“I did,” he says without hesitation.

“Even after all this time . . . you still look at me like I’m somehow made of magic.”

“Yes. I believe you are.”

“We’ve lost so much time,” I whisper. The weight of my words settles between us. “Are you sure there can be forgiveness for what I did to keep us apart? I couldn’t take it if you woke up one day and realized that you can’t get over it.”

“Lily, I’ll never get over it.”

My breath catches, his tortured blue eyes tearing me apart.

“Only because I’ve never gotten over you,” he continues. “The past is all part of our story now. We can’t change it. We won’t forget it, try as we might. There’s time lost that we won’t get back. But we can love each other with all we have now. We can choose to give grace to each other.”

Lifting my hand, I wrap my fingers around the back of his neck, caressing the ends of his hair. I feel it when he relaxes into our embrace. My investigative, protective angel finally trusts that I’m not going anywhere. I know I’ll reach for him for the rest of my life.

“At the altar, I . . . I wanted it to be us standing there.”

His eyes widen, searching my features. “Sweetheart, I—” he says, and I stop his words with another kiss.

The kiss is urgent, and it’s hungry, the weight of it wrapping through my spine like tendrils on a vine. It’s the fragrance of tulips in the spring and the creamy look of pastel-colored roses. It’s chamomile tea with extra honey. It’s the stuff that fairy tales are made of.

His lips move sweetly over mine, savoring, testing, asking me without words if I’m still the woman who remembers the bolt of lightning that struck us both. We have stories to remind ourselves of what’s possible. All the tales of old hold an element of universal truth—we want to be loved. We get caught up in our own humanity and stumble over obstacles of our own making. If we’re brave enough, we may be able to make it to the other side, holding onto something or someone who looks an awful lot like what we wanted all along.

Maybe I wasn’t born at the wrong time after all. My own love story is found not in the past but in the present.

I know this to be true: While Sparrow and Rafe are celebrating their love tonight, so are we.

We part. Graham’s fingers lightly caress my collarbone, his thumbs casually turning downward, creating a makeshift heart near my chest.

Finally and truly, our love is made new.

Chapter Thirty-One

Lily

The week following the wedding feels like a dream. While Sparrow and Rafe are away on their honeymoon in Paris, I move around town with a ridiculous smile on my face and hope in my heart that things are truly changing. The love of my life and I are headed toward a new season.

The moment when Rafe and Sparrow Durand—wow, that will take a moment to get used to—entered the white barn on their wedding night, the crowd erupted. The barn was transformed into a reception hall at Wicked Good Farms. The scene was chaos and joy and everything lovely. I don’t think I let go of Graham’s hand once after our confessions of love before the reception. It turns out that I may love those photos of us after all. Instead of hiding them in my bedside table, I’ll be able to hang them on my wall . . . well, maybe our wall.

Gladys stood in the corner, yelling something to a group of townspeople that sounded strangely like, “To the calendar!” I’m going to need to ask her about it, but she’s been cunningly avoiding me ever since. Not one person was sitting as the newlyweds entered. Everyone celebrated the couple, who may be (or feel like) orphans but who have found their family in this quiet little corner of the world.

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