Spiral of Bliss 03 Awaken (37 page)

“Hi,” I breathe, my whole being flooded with both pleasure and astonishment. “This is beautiful.”

“So are you.” Dean brushes a kiss across my lips before extending his arm to me.

I slip my hand into the crook of his arm as we walk along the broken flagstones to the porch.

“You fixed the steps,” I remark, pausing to look at the repairs he’s completed. “And the balustrade. It looks wonderful.”

“It’s just a temporary fix,” Dean says. “They’ll have to be replaced eventually.”

I let my gaze follow the roof of the porch to the tower where Dean once took pictures of me before things got downright hot. A little shiver runs through me at the memory.

“What did you ever do with those pictures?” I ask.

“I printed out the ones of you fully clothed,” he says. “I have a couple of them in my wallet and one in my office. I deleted the others.”

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t need prints of them.” He pulls me closer, his eyes darkening with heat as he taps his temple with his forefinger. “I’ve got every one of those pictures locked up here where only I can see them.”

A wave of pleasure surges beneath my heart as I lean toward my husband like a flower stem bending to the wind.

“I think we have the same idea about this house,” I whisper.

“What idea is that?” He slides his hands around to the small of my back.

“The one about buying it.”

“Buying it?”

I ease back to look at him, realizing suddenly that he has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Isn’t that why you asked me to meet you here?” I ask. “Didn’t you talk to Florence Wickham?”

“I haven’t talked to Florence since last week.” A faint confusion furrows his brow. “Why?”

“She told me that developers are starting to ask about the property again,” I explain. “Once they found out the Historical Society couldn’t raise the funds to save it, they realized they could swoop right in. Of course they’d just raze the house and make it a commercial site.”

“That would be a damn shame.”

“That’s why I was wondering…” I take a breath and rest my hand on the swell of my belly. “What do you think of us buying the house?”

“Us?” Dean repeats. “You and me?”

I smile. “Last I heard,
us
is definitely you and me.”

“Why do you want us to buy it?”

“I thought we could renovate it and eventually live here.” I look up at the house again, all the lights twinkling around it. “The location is amazing, and with the right care and attention, the house could be beautiful again. I know it’ll take a ton of work and money, but saving and restoring an old house… it feels like something we should do.”

And I know to the center of my heart that Dean and I were meant to bring this place back to its original glory.

“You’re the perfect person to make sure the details are all historically accurate, and to preserve the integrity of the original building,” I continue. “And I’d love to find out about the furniture and decorating. We could stay in the apartment with the baby for the next year or so until we get it all done.”

Dean is still quiet, his gaze traveling over the front of the house. I can almost see the thoughts and assessments shifting through his mind.

“We’d just have to make a plan,” I tell him. “Preferably a
Professor Dean West plan.
”

Dean turns to smile at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and my heart gives a leap of pure happiness.

“It’s a great idea, Liv,” he says. “I’d love to restore this house and live here with you.”

“I’d love it too.” I twine my arms around his neck and stand on tiptoe to kiss him. “When I saw your note, I thought you had the exact same idea.”

“I do now.” He rubs his nose against mine. “But I actually asked you here for another reason. Do you remember what day it is?”

“July… oh my God.” I press my hands to my cheeks, shock diluting my pleasure. “I did not forget our anniversary.”

“I think you did.”

“Oh, Dean. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He gently tugs a lock of my hair. “We’ve had a lot going on, and I was kind of hoping you’d forget anyway. I wanted to surprise you.”

He takes my arm and guides me up the steps to the porch where white lights fall around us like a curtain of stars. The sun is a halo of reddish-gold behind the mountains, and the town lights shine through the dusk.

Dean tightens his hand on mine, his dark eyes fixing on me with that singular intensity that shuts the rest of the world out. My heart flutters with anticipation.

“Liv, I think…” Dean pauses and clears his throat. “I think you know everything there is to know. You know that I fell hard for you the first time I saw you. You know that nothing on earth could have kept me from following you that day, and that I had to struggle not to touch you when we stood there on the sidewalk. You know you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. That you always will be. You know I went to Jitter Beans every morning in the hopes of seeing you again.

“You know I looked up the university rules before I asked you out, and that I spent hours coming up with the idea of seducing you with library call numbers. You know you’re the sweetest, sexiest woman in history.”

My entire body warms with love, and I smile through the tears blurring my eyes.

“You know I’ll always fight for you,” Dean continues. “That I’ll always protect you and always want to give you everything. You know you’re the one who showed me the meaning of bravery. You know you make my heart pound every time I see you, and that you drive me crazy with your insistence that I put the cereal boxes back in alphabetical order.”

I laugh, thinking it’s to his credit that he actually makes an effort to do that.

“And,” Dean says, his deep voice washing over me like the sun, “you know you’ll always be my beauty.”

I fumble for a tissue from my purse to swipe my eyes. I do know all that. I’ve known since the day we met, like a tiny seed was planted right in the center of my heart and has blossomed over the years into a thousand flowers.

“But there are a few things you don’t know.” Dean reaches up with his other hand to brush a tear off my cheek. “You don’t know that I never dared to believe a woman like you existed in the world, much less that you’d ever love me or let me love you. You don’t know that you fulfilled a million secret wishes I didn’t even realize I had.

“You don’t know that I started believing in impossible things after I met you. Maybe a person could slide down a rainbow or taste the clouds or count to infinity. Why not, if there was Liv in the world? The stars shone brighter, the colors of the world became more vivid, everything was clearer, happier,
better.
All because of you.”

“You’d better stop, professor.” I scrub my eyes again and disentangle my hand from his so I can press my palm against his chest. “I’m a pregnant woman who is about to end up on the floor from sheer excess of emotion.”

Dean smiles and then, to my surprise, he goes down on one knee in front of me. I wipe away my tears again.

“Olivia West,” Dean says. “My best friend, my wife, my girl, my key to everything good, my beauty. Will you marry me?”

“Will I…” I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “You… you’re proposing to me?”

“I’m proposing to you.”

“This is why you asked me to meet you here?”

“This is why.”

“But—”

“I never asked you to marry me,” Dean says.

I blink. “What?”

“When we were at that antique shop.” Dean rises to his feet and settles his hands on my shoulders. “I bought you the cameo ring, but I never asked you to marry me.”

“You didn’t?”

He shakes his head.

I think back to that day when I’d stood at the counter as Dean pulled out his wallet and said he hadn’t bought me an engagement ring yet. I remember being a little confused by his disbelief when I’d said I would love to be his wife, but I’d been so flooded with exhilaration and love that I hadn’t even noticed he didn’t actually ask the question.

“Well,” I finally say, “it’s a good thing I read between the lines then, isn’t it?”

“A very good thing,” Dean agrees, amusement lighting his eyes. “But you deserve a real proposal, so I’m asking you now. Will you marry me?”

“Oh!” I realize I haven’t even responded yet. I clutch Dean’s hands as an immense happiness and excitement course through me. “Of course, love of my life. I’ll marry you over and over again, until the end of time. Yes.
Yes.
”

A smile breaks over Dean’s face as he hauls me against him in one of those enveloping, tight hugs that secures the world beneath us and presses our heartbeats together.

“Give me a kiss, beauty,” he murmurs.

He cups the back of my head as I reach up to press my lips against his. My soul sprouts wings that lift me through the air, twirling and spinning.

When we ease away from each other, Dean reaches into his pocket. I wipe the lingering tears from my cheeks as he extends a small box. Inside is a silver band engraved with two keys and the words
Liv and Dean.

Dean takes the ring from me and slips it onto my finger alongside my wedding band. I look from the ring to him, overwhelmed by the immensity of the love between us and its power to banish our fear.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I say. “That we found each other and
flew
in love. How strong we are together, how much more we’ve become because we know how to love each other. How so much has changed…”

Dean is looking at me as if I’m the answer to all the questions in the world.

“Some things will never change, Liv,” he says. “We’ll always fall asleep and wake up together. I’ll always make you coffee in the morning and tease you about your bathrobe. We’ll always love each other to distraction, argue, hold hands, and kiss an awful lot. And I promise you that no matter what, we’ll always have
us.
”

I smile at him. I know this to the center of my soul. Like milk and cookies, pencil and paper, the moon and stars, please and thank you, movies and popcorn… Dean and I belong together.

We lift our left hands at the same time and place our palms together. Our wedding bands click softly as we entwine our fingers.

“You and me, professor.”

“You and me, beauty.”

He gathers me into his arms, strong as steel and warm as sunlight. I press my face against his chest, filled with a lovely sensation of coming home to the man whose heart I will keep forever safe. The man who understands all my strengths and flaws, who warms me from the inside out, who knows how to silence the noise of the world so all we can hear is us.

My husband and I will always be two people living one life of perfect imperfection. We’ll always live here, in the place of Liv and Dean, where problems are solved and locks are opened. A place of infinite love, persistence, tenderness, passion, acceptance, and forgiveness. A place where wishes are granted, dreams come true, and stories have happy endings—not because of fate or magic, but because we love each other so hard and so well.

EPILOGUE

ink and red hearts, adhesive cupcakes, and smiling snowmen plaster the windows of the shops lining Avalon Street. Our curtains frame a view of white-capped mountains and skaters gliding across the ice-covered surface of the lake. Children walk with their parents along the street, stopping to play in the snow piled at the curbs. University students trundle past with backpacks slung over their shoulders and paper cups of coffee clutched in their hands.

Dean comes out of his office, looking deliciously rumpled in faded jeans and a King’s University sweatshirt, his hair all disheveled and his jaw covered with that day-old stubble that I always find so sexy.

His eyes warm with affection as he approaches me. He kisses my forehead as his hand comes to rest gently on the five-day-old baby sleeping in my arms.

“Want me to put him in the bassinet?” Dean whispers.

Since I need to use the bathroom, I nod and shift Nicholas’s weight, soft and cuddly as a bird in a nest of cotton. Dean moves to take Nicholas from me, cradling the bundle of blankets and baby close to his chest.

My heart fills with a wild tenderness as I look at them, my husband and our son, both dark-haired and dark-eyed, already knowing that they are the best of friends. A now-familiar expression of wonder crosses Dean’s face as he looks at Nicholas, then he returns to his office where the baby’s bassinet is set up right beside his desk.

After using the bathroom, I head into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

“Go sit down.” Dean comes up behind me, giving me a gentle pat on the rear. “I’ll get it.”

I return to my overstuffed chair beside the window, and Dean soon comes in with the tea and a plate of the Wonderland Café’s popular
Home, Heart,
and
Courage
cookies, which he sets on a table beside me.

“Anything else you need?” he asks.

I reach up to squeeze his hand. “Just you.”

“You always have me.” He rests one hand along the back of my chair and bends to press his mouth against mine. I lean in for a longer kiss, feeling that melted-honey sensation slide through my blood.

“I picked something up for you earlier.” Dean moves away from me, his palm lingering against my cheek.

He goes into the bedroom and returns with a big, white box topped with a red bow. He places the box on my lap and sits on the coffee table across from me.

I tug the lid off the box and separate the red tissue paper inside. I run my hand over a swath of thick material. As Dean takes the cloth out and unfolds it, my breath catches in my throat.

“A quilt?” I ask. “You got me a new quilt?”

“The Wickham sisters and I have been conspiring about it for months,” he tells me. “Florence’s sister Ruth is a quilt-maker, and when I told her what I wanted, she got right to work. She just finished it this morning. She said it’s called an heirloom memory quilt.”

I can only stare at the quilt. Each square is beautifully sewn with images and words that encompass my life.

The Wonderland Café sign, the University of Wisconsin logo, library call numbers, a book stitched with the title
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
Alice in Wonderland, the yellow brick road. A hot-air balloon, the Jitter Beans coffeehouse sign, a peace lily, apple pie, the Eiffel Tower, a patch from Dean’s old San Francisco Giants T-shirt, a baby wearing a blue cap, ruby slippers, a cameo silhouette, the Butterfly House, a knight on horseback. And around the border, twelve squares stitched with twelve oak trees.

“Oh, Dean.”

“Not bad, huh?” He looks pleased.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, Liv.” He slides his hand through my hair, tucking a lock behind my ear. “More than anything. More than life.”

He’s a blur through my tears, but when I wipe my eyes, I see him watching me with a depth of emotion I can’t even begin to fathom. I know because I feel it too, a million colors that fill my heart to overflowing.

I gesture for Dean to sit in the chair with me. He does, gently lifting me onto his lap. I press my face to his chest and sink into the warmth of him. He tightens his arms around me, surrounding me with his ever-present strength and devotion that will see us through anything.

Happy.
That’s what all the colors distill into. I am so happy.

Even though the unknowns are as innumerable as seashells scattered on a beach, the knowns are clear as glass and infinitely more powerful. Now, finally, I feel like Dean and I have reached the shore at the end of a long ocean voyage.

After exploring distant lands, battling unforeseen threats, learning how to navigate rough waters and emerge from storms, we have both come safely home together, fatigued but exhilarated.

I settle against my husband’s chest, into his arms, as he pulls the quilt over my legs and we watch the bustle of Avalon Street outside the window.

We’re here again. We’ve always been here, in our own private world, the space that belongs only to us. We’ve never left.

I run my hand over the quilt, knowing that one day our son will learn about this patchwork history that has shaped my life, all the people and places who have made me the woman I am now.

One day I’ll tell our son about my own mother and father. I’ll tell him about the grandmother I never knew who unknowingly helped me find my own path. I’ll tell him about the warmhearted people who lived on a California commune, about the boy who taught me how to ride a bike, about beaches and the Grand Canyon at sunrise. I’ll tell our son that sometimes people aren’t kind but most of the time they are, and you should give them a chance to prove themselves.

I’ll tell him about the day his father came to my rescue at the university, the day Allie jumped out at me in a scary apple-tree costume, the day I won Kelsey over with a hug and a plate of crepes. I’ll tell him about the aunt who took me in when I needed her help, and a man named Northern Star who reminded me that living takes courage.

I’ll tell our son to be the type of man his father is—a man of intelligence and talent, yes, but more importantly a man of deep kindness, loyalty, strength, and integrity. A man who slays monsters for the woman he loves and stands by her side when she needs to slay them by herself. A man who doesn’t give up, who believes in chivalry and codes of honor. A man who knows what it means to both love and be loved.

There are so many important lessons I’ve learned in my journey to
now.
Trust your instincts, follow your bliss, make plans, work hard, learn to let things go. Don’t be late. Remember that fortune favors the brave.
Live.
If you need to run, try and run toward something. Study for tests. Laugh at silly cartoons. Be organized. If you fall seven times, get up eight. Always carry an extra pen. Believe you can do everything. Find your key.

And the most valuable lesson I’ve learned will forever live in my heart, right beside my husband. Love the one who proves to you that
happily ever after
is only the beginning.