Page 79 of Artfully Wild
She looks at me expectantly, but I have no words. I had planned to ask her to move in with me, because she wouldn’t be able to stay in her loft, but this is beyond what I could have imagined.
“Jacob, say someth—”
I cut her off with a crushing kiss that feels like our souls melting together like the snow beneath us.
“I love you, Skylar.”
“I love you, too, Jacob,” she says against my lips. Our bubble of warmth grows as we lose ourselves in each other, not caring about the snow completely soaking through our clothes.
“Didn’t I tell you two to get a room?” Hudson’s voice calls from his front porch.
“Soon enough this will be our room!” Sky yells back.
“Oh, this should be fun,” he says before guiding Avery into their house and shutting the door.
Skylar looks into my eyes and then down at my lips. “This should be a lot of fun.”
EPILOGUE
SKYLAR
One year later
Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.
- The Secret Garden
Skylar,
Magic is a tricky thing. Most people don’t believe in it. I know you like to think that you don’t. You like to keep the facade that you’re the grump who doesn’t believe in fairies or miracles. But I like to think that you do. I like to think that you believe magic is real. Because how can you continue to live life without a little bit of magic. And what is love if it is not magic?
Never stop lookingfor the magic.
- Sarah
I tuck the book away carefully on the shelf, sandwiched betweenAlice in WonderlandandTreasure Island.Fran has made a fortune off of me over the last year. When we started plans with Elias, one thing I knew I wanted in the house was a library. My own little secret garden dedicated to Sarah. A place I can come and read my books, of all things. Once I finished reading through Sarah’s annotations and the book itself, I found I actually enjoyed reading. And it quickly became an addiction. To the classics. To the romances, the regencies. Everything. If it has words on a page, I am addicted to it. My shelves aren't quite full yet, but they will be. It’s something I get to share with Sarah, and with Ethan who stows away in my library sometimes more often than I do. It didn’t take him long to admit that the book Sarah left came from him. A couple of weeks after the auction, he saw me reading it and told me he and Elias found it recently among Sarah’s things and it was Ethan’s idea to hide it on Henry’s shelf at a time that I might find it.
“I should have guessed you’d be in here.” Jacob rounds the corner, dressed in a black tux with a deep red boutonniere sticking out from his coat pocket. One that Mary worked on meticulously to make sure it matched my bridal bouquet perfectly. The sounds of the reception just downstairs are muffled through the floor, but it is blissfully quiet in my secret garden.
“Just reading one of the notes she left for me. The one that felt right for today.”
“And which one is that?” he asks, reaching for my hand.
“To never stop looking for the magic.”
“And has my wife found it?”
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that title. “I found it a long time ago, dear husband.”
“I did too,” he agrees as he pulls out a flower from the inside of his jacket and holds it out to me. “A honeysuckle.”
I grab the stem just above his fingers, my pinky coming to rest on top of his hand. “And what does this one mean?”
His other hand comes to my waist and pulls me in close until there is virtually no space between us besides the flower encased in our fingertips.
“Everlasting love, sweetheart.”
And just like that, I have the happy ending I was so unsure I’d ever have, with my best friend by my side.
THE END
