Before You: Standalone Contemporary Romance (22 page)

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Authors: Eve Cates

BOOK: Before You: Standalone Contemporary Romance

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“Look at my hair. It's probably sticking up and looks weird.”

Each word grew clearer as my eyes moved to the different points and slowly, the tightness in my chest lessened. Slowly the sound returned. Slowly I could breathe.

“There she is.” Dave’s relieved face had a smile on his lips as his strong hands held tight to mine.

Milly ran her hand down the length of my hair. “You’re OK,” she assured me. “You got through it. You’re strong.”

I didn't feel strong.

“André,” I whispered.

Milly gently rubbed her head up and down my arm. “We're going to find out where he is. I promise you.”

“Don't panic, sis. Give me your cell. I’ll make a few calls and find out what is going on.”

I reached into my bag and pulled out my cell, hitting the home key to wake it up and enter my pass code. It wouldn’t switch on.

“I think I broke it,” I said, biting my lip and regretting throwing it in frustration earlier that day.

Milly pulled out hers. “Here. Use mine.”

Taking it, Dave punched in a number and put it to his ear. “He's probably stuck on base, unable to get a flight out of there until the changeover. He was inside the building. I’m sure he was safe.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I nodded my head, wanting so much to believe him while trying to squash the nagging doubt in my head that told me he would have found a way to call me if he was OK. He wouldn’t just sit there and not reach out. He would have found a way...

- 29 -

F
or four days we stayed in Fort Irwin, sleeping at the Landmark Inn and living on a diet of hospital food and Taco Bell. Dave had about as much luck finding out about André as we had. The production company knew nothing, and no one could get any information out of the army without proving their familial connections to him – that was, if they even had any information on him, which I was beginning to feel they had none.

Dave and Milly tried to reassure me constantly that he was going to be OK. All I could do was nod in return and try to keep listening to my heart – An-dré, An-dré – wanting it know things none of us could and convince me that he was safe.

I needed him to be safe.

I needed him to come back.

I needed him.

The whole way home I was trying to wrack my brains for the name of the person they would call as his next of kin. His parents were both dead, and he had no other family in the United States. But, he did have family in Germany, and I remembered him mentioning a grandmother – Oma, I think he called her.

It gave me hope that there was someone out there who knew something, and the moment we pulled into the drive, I jumped out of the car and ran into the house.

“Willa? What are you doing?” Dave called after me.

I ignored him and ran upstairs to André’s room – well, the room he used to store his things – and went straight for the cupboard. There had to be something in there.

The moment I flung the door open, I paused, my eyes drifting over all the photos he took of me. I was so happy in them. I reached out to touch them all lovingly. I wanted that back so much. I wanted him back even more.

Steeling myself against more tears, I turned and began to rifle through the shelves, pulling out stacks of paperwork and files, flipping through them, trying to find something – anything – that could give me contact details for his grandmother.

“What’s going on, Will?” Dave asked from the doorway, his voice sounding careful as he spoke. “What are you looking for?”

I kept flicking through papers, dropping things that were useless to me on the floor at my feet. “Something about his family. They keep saying we’re not family. I need to find someone who is.”

I paused and met his eyes. “Let me help you,” he said, moving over to the pile I’d already dropped on the ground. He knelt down and lifted some, flicking through them. “What you’re looking for is a folder containing all of his insurance information. We need to provide it for work, and on there, you’ll find contact information for his next of kin.”

“Willa!” I heard Milly’s voice yell out from downstairs.

“I’m up here,” I returned, not wanting to stop what I was doing.

“Willa!” She was insistent, and I looked at Dave, giving him an expression of exasperation.

“Go. I know what I'm searching for. See what she wants.”

Handing him the file I was holding, I carefully stepped over the papers on the floor and headed for the door.

“Willa!”

“I’m coming!” I yelled in return, feeling annoyed that she wouldn’t quit as I swung my way out of the room. “What's so damn important that you need to keep screeching at me?”

She was standing at the top of the stairs with a broad grin on her face.

“Because your heart was right,” she smiled, moving just enough so I could see the beautiful German man who was standing just inside my room.

“Leibling.”

Tears filled my eyes as my hands went to my mouth. “André,” I gasped, and for a moment I was frozen to the spot, unable to believe my eyes. Milly moved past me then gently pushed me into the room and closed the door to leave us alone. I just stood there staring.

“Willa.” He smiled. He was real. And he was standing in my room. My heart really was right.

He smiled, and it was like the sun and the moon were in the room all at once. I ran to him and flung myself at his body, throwing off his balance so we fell onto the bed, where I wrapped myself around him and cried against his chest.

Lifting my head, I began to kiss his face. “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried. So scared.” I peppered kisses everywhere I could. So glad. So happy.

“I’ve been fighting to get home to you,” he said, taking my face in his hands, stilling me as he looked into my eyes. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Willa. I don’t know what I was thinking by leaving you to go to that place. My happiness is wherever you are, and I’m so sorry for putting you through the fear of not knowing where I was.”

Then he kissed me, slow and deep, and my whole world came back together, held tight between us as our mouths moved and our eyes cried.

Between kisses, he explained to me how the whole base went into lockdown until they finished investigating the blast. Only emergency cases were airlifted out.

“Eventually it was found that there was a gas leak, and it was all an accident, so they debriefed us, put us on the next transport out of there. I’ve been trying to call you repeatedly for the last few days.”

“I broke my phone,” I told him. “I threw it when no one would tell me where you were.”

“I’m so sorry, my
leibling
. So incredibly sorry.”

I was too relieved to have him in my arms to feel anything but happiness. “You’re home now. And you’re safe. That's all that matters.”

We stared at each other intently for a moment, me on top of him, my hand stroking the side of his face gently as I looked down and convinced myself that this was really happening. André was safe.

“I need you,” I whispered, sitting back and lifting my shirt over my head.

“Willa,” he whispered in return, his voice a song that I hadn’t heard in so long.

“Keep saying my name.” I removed my bra, and his hands moved over my body as he sat up and took my nipple into his mouth.

“Willa.” He moved to my other breast, kissing and touching, repeating my name as his mouth moved over my skin and his hands became reunited with my flesh.

His mouth met mine, his tongue pushing inside, gliding with mine in a slow possession that liquefied my limbs. Slowly, he brought his body over mine, pulling his shirt over his head, pressing our naked torsos together as we removed the rest of our clothes, and he positioned himself between my legs.

“Willa.”

My insides ached for the sweet stretching of my walls, and I let out a low moan as he pushed inside, reuniting us, body and soul, heart and mind.

He looked into my eyes. “I love you so much, Willa,” he whispered, pressing his lips to mine and kissing me passionately.

“I love you too.”

My head spun as my body sang with each thrust into my depths.

A soft roll of the hips.

Wandering hands.

Fingers pressing.

Stroking.

“André,” I gasped, my body coiling tight before releasing, my body shaking around his as he continued to thrust, continued to whisper my name and call me his darling. The intensity of our union hurt my heart in the most exquisite way, and when he finally released inside me and stilled his movement, burying his face into my hair, I realized I was crying.

Beauty. Passion. Relief.

It was all there.

André had become so much a part of me that I didn’t feel complete without him near.

“I don’t want you to go again,” I whispered, knowing that I may not get my wish, but needing to say it anyway.

He held me tighter. “I never
want
to leave you again.”

“Then don’t,” I whispered, squeezing him tight in return. “Don’t go again. We’ll find a way to make this work. We have to. Life’s too hard without you.”

Rising up on his elbows, he looked down at me with a smile. “I had a lot of time to think while we were in lock down, and I think I may have come up with a way for us both to be happy. Are you willing to take a risk with me, Willa?”

I reached up and ran my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “Before you, I don’t think I would have risked anything. But now, you have my emphatic yes. I think I’d do anything as long as you were there with me.”

He grinned and stroked my hair. “Well then,
liebling,
get ready for an adventure.”

Epilogue

––––––––

C
ombining our skills and our resources, André and I started our own travel blog. We went everywhere together – on safari in Africa, cheese rolling in Gloucestershire, trekking through outback Australia, and seeking out an active volcano on Kilauea in Hawaii. The list was endless, and our hunger to see the world together and chronicle our adventures for the world to see was endless.

And it was also a great success. With my articles, and André’s stunning photos, we attracted the attention of adventure seekers far and wide. Travel agents were knocking down our door to advertise with us, and before long we were also contracted to create a series of coffee table books featuring the beautiful scenic shots that André took.

Somehow, we managed to find something that made both of us happy. No one had to give up their dreams. No one had to sleep alone.

For the first time since before we lost our parents, we had a family in each other, and it wasn’t long before we were seeking to add to that.

Three years into our relationship, during a stroll of the beach in Hawaii, André took a series of photographs of me at sunset then looked over his camera and said, “
Leibling?
”

With a smile, I tucked my hair behind my ear, holding it from blowing in the wind. “Yes, André?” I met his eyes, noted his serious expression and tilted my head. “What is it?”

The intensity of his gaze was beginning to make me nervous the longer he remained silent. “I want you to be my wife,” he said finally.

My chest filled to bursting as my smile grew broader. “Is that a proposal?”

He grinned. “I want you to have my children too. I want a daughter who looks just like you, and a son who looks like you too.”

I let out a laugh. “I don’t think you get to choose.”

“We can travel as a family – give them the most magnificent education of real life experiences.” He grew more animated as he continued to speak. “We can show them all that is beautiful and teach them nothing of fear.”

I giggled, loving his enthusiasm. “That sounds like a dream. A beautifully perfect dream.”

Moving to kneel before me, he reached out and took my hand. “But, will you accept, Willa? Will you be wife and mother? Will you marry me?”

Still smiling, I looked down at him as the wind whipped off the water and teased the messy length of his hair, and I nodded. “I’d like nothing more,” I told him, gasping when he produced a ring from his pocket and slid the glittering diamond onto my finger.

With my heart singing, I dropped to my knees and kissed him hard. The love I held for him in my chest was no less than it was in the very beginning of our journey. If anything, it was more intense and more true, and I felt sure with every passing day that we would never get each other out of our system.

André and I were forever. And the ring on my finger made it official.

THE END

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