“Will she be okay?” I asked Tate.
“Maybe not at first,” he answered honestly. “But she’s a strong woman. She’ll overcome this.”
He started the ignition but didn’t put the car in drive. He reached across my lap and took my right hand, squeezing. He pulled me toward him and tucked me into his arms, his chin on my head.
“Don’t-Don’t ever scare me like that again.” His voice broke from his emotions. “I’ve never been that scared in all my life.”
“At times I wanted to give up,” I confessed. “The thought of starving to death down in that basement nearly drove me mad, but thinking about you kept me sane. Want to know what I was thinking about?”
He nodded. “Tell me.”
When I told him, holding nothing back, he crushed me even tighter against him. “Yes. I say yes to all of that and more. So much more.”
And I believed him. This was only the beginning.