I pull back and leave her sitting on the bed.
“We either stop, or we’re gonna be late to this dinner,” I tell her.
She smiles. “We already are going to be late, Wyatt.”
I shrug. “Well, at least we’re going. Another two seconds watching you naked save a towel in a room that smells this much like our sex and we’d be missing it entirely,” I say going into my closet for a pair of sweats and one of my old Army T-shirts.
I slip the pants on and walk back to the bed and I pull the damp towel away from my babydoll’s plush sexy curves, absentmindedly focused on covering them with the tee, before I jump her again.
I smile when I see how big my shirt is on her, it goes well past her knees.
I’m about to turn my back to go grab my phone when I catch sight of Kenna’s tears, no longer trapped in her eyes, but rolling down her pink cheeks.
I immediately pull her in my arms. “What’s the matter? Why the tears, babydoll?”
She tries to talk, but can’t, her little body wracked with sobs that make my heart squeeze painfully in my chest and then jump in my throat.
“Kenna, you’re scaring me. What’s the matter? Are you hurt? Was I too rough?”
Damn my cock to hell and back if I’m causing these tears.
She shakes her head no, burrowing her tear-stained face in my chest. “No, no, love, I’m… okay, sorry. I’m just so emotional right now.”
I push her off from my torso so I can cup her face and brush her tears away. “No need to be sorry, babydoll. I’m all over the place myself, so I understand. Was it something I said?”
Kenna’s hands come up to my jaw, her fingers drawing circles in my beard. “It’s nothing really, just… the shirt.”
I frown.
She takes a full breath and it’s a few seconds before she speaks again. “I still have the one you gave me that night…”
Awww, damn.
“I really meant to move on, Wyatt, I’ve told you that. I needed to change my life, to forget. I tried… I really tried and then when I was finishing up my packing, the last thing I had to put away was that old Ranger tee. I was going to throw it away, love. I was… the box with the discard pile was open on my floor, but I just… I just couldn’t in the end. It was too painful to close the door completely. So I… I packed it. It’s in my luggage right now.”
“Oh, babydoll,” I hug her closer to me, my entire being smarting from the reminder of all the pain she went through for loving me as hard as she does and for as long as she has.
Kenna’s arms wrap around my neck, her lips on my skin. “All the way from Florida to Colorado, I felt like a loser, like I had failed myself because I couldn’t throw the damn shirt away and move on. I was mad at myself that I still had to cling so stubbornly to my belief that I had met the one…”
I wrap my body completely around hers as my vision blurs and my heart thunders away.
“You did.”
I kiss her all over: her face, her neck, the top of her sweet-smelling head, barely able to breathe as I listen to her.
She goes on: “But now… now I’m so glad I didn’t do it, love. So glad… I don’t care if it means I’m weak or that I failed at anything or—”
I pull away from her just enough that we can look into each other’s eyes, my hands still stroking her face as I interrupt her.
“You were never weak, Kenna… never… you are the strongest person I know, love. It takes a lot to hold on when all hope is gone and you did it. You were never failing yourself by holding onto us: you were championing us, you were keeping our promise because you knew there was no way I would have broken my own unless I was gone. Thank you for that, babydoll.”
She nods, smiling but her tears are still falling when our lips meet again for another soul-shattering kiss.
“I love you, babydoll. We are going to be so very happy, you will see. So very very happy,” I whisper on her mouth.
Kenna looks up into my eyes with the same trust and certainty I’m sure she can see in my own.
“I love you too, Wyatt. And I know we will.”
We have a long road ahead of us, our hearts need mending and we’re both a little fragile now, but it doesn’t really matter, not if we are together.
We are going to be okay.
We are going to be more than okay: we are going to be forever.
Chapter 9
KENNA
It’s barely nine a.m., we are standing in front of the cabin and the forest is quiet and peaceful around us. The only sounds are those of the birds singing and the leaves rustling in the crisp mountain air. The sun is high in the sky, its rays glinting golden off the snow-topped summit of Gleam Peak.
I’m wearing a silk glittery empire-waist strapless gown with a small trail that I still can’t believe we could find locally and in such a short notice, and my Wyatt is looking extra yummy and dapper in a fine dark blue suit with a silk tie that matches my dress.
I thought I would do my hair in a simple bun gathered at my nape, but Wyatt said he wanted me to wear it down, so I straightened my curls and styled them by myself in long tumbling waves that fall down my back.
It’s been three days since we found each other on that road and Wyatt’s been going crazy that we couldn’t marry sooner, but we couldn’t get a license over the weekend no matter how many people Mike and his wife bothered and so we had to wait until today.
Thank God, a Colorado issued marriage license doesn’t have a waiting period. It took us less than twenty minutes to get the ball rolling and we will be filing it later in the afternoon to make our marriage legal.
We used the weekend to look for wedding clothes and for a tripod for my camera and asked Livvie to help us throw a small party for tonight to share our joy with them, a few of Wyatt’s co-workers, Mr. Beck and a couple of childhood friends I spent the last few weeks before my move reconnecting with, but we wanted no one other than ourselves here today.
We lost so much, we wanted for this moment to belong to us only. There are no witnesses and no officiant, we decided that we wanted to be the ones to solemnize our own marriage and we wrote simple vows together while cuddling and kissing on the oversized hanging porch swing that Wyatt built himself on the cabin’s huge wraparound deck. The swing he built for me, for us to cuddle on, even if he didn’t remember why he felt like he needed to do it.
Now our hands are entwined and we’re looking in each other’s eyes, ready to start our perfect private ceremony and I’m so happy, my heart is like a little bird trapped in my throat.
Wyatt strokes his fingers over mine, clears his throat and smiles down at me.
“Kenna Davis, you were the part of my soul I didn’t know was lost and you are my everything now.
I’ve longed for you every day no matter what I remembered, no matter what I forgot, and I always will.
I choose you to be mine always. I choose to be your husband in every way, to love you, and to grow old with you,” he tells me, his deep voice heavy with emotion.