Page 30 of Write Me For You
When Jesse pulled back a fraction, breaking the kiss, I brushed my hand against his cheek. No words were spoken, and we both bathed in this newfound closeness, until he whispered, “Write me for you.”
“What?” I whispered back in confusion.
Jesse met my eyes, keeping just an inch from me as he searched them. “Write me for you. In your great love story. Fall for me.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Allow me to fall for you. Write me for you.”
My pulse raced, as did my breathing. Jesse saying those words… He couldn’t… He didn’t…
“You would want that?” I asked, dumbfounded. Jesse was beautiful inside and out. He was funny and loved by everyone who met him. And he wanted me?
Jesse smiled, and if there had been anything left within me that could have gotten faster, it would have joined the fray. “Junebug, I’m not sure if I’ve made it obvious, but you’ve kind of knocked me off my feet.”
I smiled too.
“I’m kinda obsessed with you.” He held his hands up defensively. “In the most non-stalkerish and non-creepy way possible.”
I laughed loudly, the sound causing birds in the surrounding trees to scatter to the dawn skies. Jesse laughed too as our sweet moment was disturbed by a chorus of shocked avian squawks.When the birds flew away and peace had been restored, I said, “I’m kinda obsessed with you too.”
Jesse’s smile was blinding. He kissed me again, then held up his fist. “Group two for the win,” he said.
“Group two for the win,” I echoed and laid my head against his chest.
Jesse wrapped his arm around me, and I was lost to pure contentment. As I stared at the sun, now high in the sky, the beginning of our love story came to my mind…
When I arrived at Harmony Ranch, I knew it would change my life, just not in the way I expected. I expected to be healed, or I expected to die. What I didn’t expect was to meet a country boy who would utterly change my life…
CHAPTER 9
Jesse
Several days later…
Itapped my foot on the floor as I waited for the truck tocome up the driveway. I checked my watch just as the familiar, red, beat-up Chevy came into view.
I pushed myself to my feet. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded—I was exhausted and every part of me ached—but nothing was gonna stop me from greeting my family. I went and opened the ranch’s main doors and made it to the porch just in time for my mom and sisters to reach me. Emily’s and Lucy’s eyes fixed right on me, and like a double tornado, they ran, slamming into my legs and almost knocking me off my feet with the force. I gritted my teeth from the twinge of pain they caused in my hip but hugged them back.
They squeezed me tightly, only for Lucy to tip her head back to see my face and say, “Jesse, you don’t look too good.”
I laughed at her forever-honest reviews of my health. Emily slapped Lucy on the arm, then hugged me more gently. “I’ve missed you,” Emily whispered.
I kissed her on her head. “I missed you too, baby girl.”
I stepped back as my mom walked up. “Sunshine,” she greeted and wrapped her arms around me. The past couple of weeks had been so hard. I’d held it together the best I could, but a hug from my mom had me fighting back tears. She rubbed my back, then pulled back to scan me with her eyes. I could tell she thought I looked awful by her worried expression.
“I’m doing good, I promise, even though it might not look it,” I said. “We get assessed again at the end of the month. Dr. Duncan said there should be markers in our blood already indicating how we’re responding to the treatment.”
“It’s too intense,” Mom said, worrying her lip.
“It is intense, but I can handle it,” I said nonchalantly, and waved them into the ranch to change the discourse. She didn’t need to know about the deep pangs of sadness that hit me more and more each day or about the nights I worried I couldn’t do the treatment anymore. I needed to be strong for my family. They’d been through enough.
Besides, today was about fun. The day was already getting warm, and we had a cookout later. It was family weekend at the ranch. My mom had managed to get the weekend off work to attend. I couldn’t be more thankful.
I walked them through the hallway and to my suite. I passed June’s room, but she was at the stables, grooming Ginger with Emma. It was one of their BFF activities. And I knew how much June adored spending time with Emma.
I must have been staring at June’s room a few seconds too long as Mom raised her eyebrow, and I shook my head, laughing. We entered my suite, and my mom moved straight to the growing amount of drawings on my wall. There were many showing the rural view from the back porch, the horses in the field, Emma and Chris sitting together on the movie room’s recliners—somehow, I’d managed to catch their incessant mockery of one another in the art. There were several angles ofthe nurses’ hands as they changed the IVs and handed me my meds, Dr. Duncan as he studied his notes at the side of my bed, Susan as she brought me in water…then one of June, looking off into the distance, her notebook in her hands, the tail of her headscarf blowing in the mild Texas wind.
Mom stopped to look at that picture the longest while my sisters broke out of the back doors and ran out to see the horses in the paddock.
“She’s beautiful,” Mom said, knowing exactly who the picture showed.
