Lovestruck Forever

Rachel Schurig

Copyright © 2014 Rachel Schurig

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

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ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may
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respecting the hard work of this author.

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination or used
fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
coincidental and not intended by the author.

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For Jill

Without whom Lizzie and Thomas may have never left London

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Epilogue

Thank
you to my editor, Shelley Holloway for all of your help. Your
dedication makes my books so much better!

http://hollowayhouse.me

Scarlett
Rugers, thanks for yet another beautiful cover, and congratulations
on your own nuptials!

www.chicklitbookcovers.com

Thomas
Harper, international movie star, was currently kneeling in my
mother’s living room, a feather boa wrapped around his neck, a
glittery plastic tiara on his head, and a squealing five-year-old
clinging to his shoulders, laughing her head off.

“Go
faster!” my niece, Sofia, shouted, smacking his shoulder.

“Sofia,”
I warned. “No hitting, or Thomas will stop playing with you.”

“So
I should pray for continued smacking?” Thomas muttered,
readjusting Sofia’s arms and moving across the carpet on his
knees. “Anything to end this torture.”

“I
told you that you were asking for it,” I reminded him, taking
another shirt from the basket to fold. “Never give in when
Sofia begs for pony rides. She can sense weakness. You’ll never
be free again.”

“I’m
beginning to think you’re right.”

I
placed the folded shirt on top of the pile and smiled at him. “You’re
pretty cute in pink, mister. Maybe we should get you a boa for the
wedding.”

He
crawled over to me on his knees and kissed me, Sofia squealing behind
him.

“Eww!”

“There’s
nothing eww about your Aunt Lizzie,” Thomas told her. “Your
Aunt Lizzie is beautiful.” The tiara was slipping from his
forehead, making him look even more adorable. I smirked, pulling out
my phone, and snapped a picture of him before he could react.

“What
was that for?”

I
kept my voice nonchalant as I reached for a pair of socks. “I’m
selling it to
People
magazine. Then I’ll be rich.”

“Oh
no you don’t.” He reached back to grab Sofia under her
knees, pulling her around to plop her on my lap. “Get her,
Sofia.”

My
sister Maria found us two minutes later, Thomas struggling to hold me
down while Sofia tickled me.

“I
hope you’re not getting too wild, mija,” she said.
“Thomas and Lizzie won’t want to babysit you again.”

“We’re
having fun, Mama!” Sofia cried, as Thomas straightened and
hurriedly removed the tiara and boa. I smirked at him, and he gave me
a mock glare.

“Don’t
change on my account,” Maria said drily. “It was a good
look on you.”

I
laughed as Thomas shook his head. “This is the thanks I get for
keeping her occupied all afternoon.”

“You’re
a very good fairy princess, babe.”

“Fairy
princess pony,” he corrected, standing and tousling Sofia’s
hair. “You finished with that?”

I
handed him the laundry basket, and he headed for the stairs to drop
it off in my parents’ room.

“Help
me with the groceries?” Maria asked, and I jumped off the couch
to join her in the kitchen as Sofia scrambled up the stairs after
Thomas.

“I
think she’s in love,” Maria said, pulling groceries from
the bags she’d left on the kitchen table.

“He’s
far too polite to refuse her requests,” I explained. “It’s
a British thing.”

“Well,
whatever it is, she’s crazy about him.” She frowned a
little. “But you should tell him not too indulge her so much. I
don’t want him thinking he has to be miserable to stay on my
good side or something.”

“Don’t
worry, Maria,” I told her, purposefully bumping her with my hip
as I brought an armful of non-perishables to the pantry. “He
knows you well enough now to know that you don’t have a good
side.”

“Ha
ha,” she muttered.

She
finished unloading the groceries, leaving a pile of veggies on the
counter to start prepping for dinner.

“Were
you able to finish all your errands?” I grabbed a head of
lettuce and brought it to the sink to wash.

“Just
about.” She set to work chopping celery and chilies. “Thanks
again for watching the little monster.”

“It
was no problem. It’s the least we can do with all the work
you’re putting in on this party.”

She
waved her knife dismissively. “We’re your family, Lizzie.
Of course we’re going to throw you an engagement party.”

It
was funny, even after two months of wearing Thomas’s ring on my
finger, I still got a little thrill in my chest at the word
engagement
.
Sometimes I still had a hard time believing it was actually real.

It
had been a whirlwind since Thomas had proposed on my bedroom floor.
Most of my energy had been taken up with my mother’s recovery
and helping my dad around the house while she was out of commission.
Thomas, on the other hand, had wrapped his movie in Los Angeles,
gotten our house there packed up, and moved into a rental house here
in the Detroit suburbs. Things had only recently calmed down enough
for us to take a breath and start thinking seriously about an
engagement party.

Engagement.
Thomas and I were getting married. After all of the distance, all the
stress of his movie career, the pressure from my family, the struggle
to find a way to make it all balance out, we were finally here. We
were going to be a family. Forever.

“I
think that lettuce is pretty clean, Lizzie,” Maria said,
bringing my attention back to the kitchen. She was smirking at me a
little, as if she knew exactly what I had been daydreaming about. To
her credit, though, she didn’t tease me about it.

Even
having this conversation with Maria was a victory. It had only been a
few months ago that she was refusing to talk to me, so angry with my
decision to go against the family and move to London, and then L.A.,
with Thomas. My mother’s illness had made us all realize how
stupid that was. It was still tense, sometimes—particularly
whenever the subject of Thomas and me living together, unmarried,
came up—but, for the most part, we were all getting along
better than we had in years.

I
shivered a little as I thought of the event that had brought us all
closer. My mother had suffered a burst aneurysm right here in this
kitchen. I was in L.A. when it happened, and it was the scariest
thing I’d ever experienced, being that far away while someone I
loved struggled to survive.

But
she had survived
, I
reminded myself. She had thrived, really. Even now, she was at her
rehabilitation session with my dad and her therapists, working hard
to regain the skills that had become difficult for her after the
aneurysm.

She
can walk again
, I told
myself firmly. A mere month ago, I couldn’t have guessed she’d
make so much progress. But she had been adamant that she would be
walking at our engagement party, and when my mother got something
into her head, there was just no dissuading her.

“Laundry’s
taken care of,” Thomas said, joining us in the kitchen. “What
can I do for dinner?”

As
I handed him some carrots to chop, Maria made a little clicking noise
with her tongue, but she didn’t comment. I ignored her—Maria,
like my parents and most of my extended family, was very old
fashioned when it came to gender roles. I doubted her husband had
ever once helped her to prepare dinner. Thomas’s smiling eyes
met mine over the cutting board, and I knew he had heard it, too.

“Is
Laura coming?” I asked Maria, hoping to get her mind off of the
fact that there was a man in the kitchen.

“She
said she was. Carlos and the twins, too. Oh, and I think Daddy said
Sofie and her parents would be here.”

Thomas
rolled his eyes so that only I could see, and I struggled not to
laugh. Family dinner in this house really did mean the whole family,
often times including aunts, uncles, and cousin. In the time that
he’d spent in Detroit, we’d only had a handful of meals
with less than five members of my immediate or extended family, and
tonight was no exception if we’d be joined by all of my
siblings, my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Sofie—not to be
confused with my niece Sofia We kind of had a tendency to overuse
family names. Both my cousin and my niece were named for my mother,
also a Sofia.

“Have
you talked to Sof?” Thomas asked me. “How’s it
going with the new boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?”
Maria asked, her voice sharp. “What boyfriend?”

I
had to hand it to Thomas—he had learned quickly the best way to
make nice with my oldest sister. Maria was a gossip hound, never
happier than when presented with some juicy morsel about a family
member.

“Lizzie
said she’s been dating a guy from work,” he said, his
voice innocent, as if he didn’t know he was throwing my
favorite cousin under the bus just to get on Maria’s good side.
I shook my head at him before telling my sister everything I knew
about the new guy. Poor Sof. She was going to kill me when she got
here.

We
were interrupted by the sound of the garage door opening. “That
should be Mama and Daddy,” Maria said, looking up at the clock.
Her expression immediately turned concerned, and I wondered if mine
did as well. Some days, Mama would come home from her therapy feeling
optimistic and encouraged. Other days, she would be tired, and try as
she might, her fake, plastered on smile just couldn’t hide the
pain she was clearly in. I hated those days.

“I’ll
go out and see if they need help,” Thomas said, setting down
his knife. I smiled at him gratefully. My mother hated using the
walker that the therapists had given her for when she was at home,
but it could be difficult for my dad to support her on his own,
depending on how tired she was.

A
moment later, she came in through the side door, her arm in Thomas’s.
She was smiling up at him, and I released a breath I hadn’t
realized I was holding. Her smile didn’t seem at all forced,
and he barely seemed to be supporting her.

“Hi,
Mama.” I pulled out a chair for her, and Thomas helped her to
sit as I kissed her cheek. “You look so good!”

“I
feel good,” she assured me, patting the side of my face. Her
voice was noticeably slower than it used to be, but she didn’t
slur her words anymore. I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she
seemed to be having a good day.

“I
didn’t know you would all be here,” she said as Maria
also kissed her in greeting.

“We
wanted to get dinner started,” Maria explained. “Thomas
and Lizzie watched Sofia for me while I ran some errands and picked
up the groceries.”

“That’s
sweet of you.” She smiled at Thomas, and I felt a little thrill
of happiness, as I often did when she interacted with him. My mother
had been our first ally in the family, supporting our relationship
long before the others came around. Now, months after first meeting
him, I could tell that she was truly crazy about him. Not that I
could blame her—he had that effect on women, regardless of age.

“You
missed it, Mama,” I told her. “Thomas let Sofia dress him
up in her princess costume.”

“There’s
nothing wrong with that,” my dad said in his gruff voice,
coming in with my mom’s things. “That girl has convinced
me to do any number of things that compromise my masculinity. She
turns those brown eyes on me and I’m a goner.”