The paths we choose in life don’t always lead us where we want them to. But, sometimes those paths lead us where we need to go. Sometimes those paths are labeled—like the trail at Desert Canyon Park that day; which was the Flora Trail according to the glass-framed map I’d read. Flora was my mother’s name, so I knew my father would purposely choose that trail to lead Alex down toward his demise, for no other reason than because he was sick and twisted like that.

Some paths we consciously take and purposely go down, even if we don’t know where it leads or what the outcome will be. But sometimes, we’re not even aware we’ve taken that path until we’ve been on it so long, lost and alone, that we can’t see it until we turn around and look back from the direction we’ve come, seeing only our own footprints in an overgrown field of confusion and aimlessness.

There are times when we have to veer off the path we’re on, because we find out too late that nothing good can come from staying on it. At other times, we have to turn around altogether and go back the way we came, to start over. And, there are some times when we know we can’t go back, and there’s only forward, right or wrong, good or bad.

Alexander Brett is my path that I can never go back on. The path that led me to him was one I never expected to find, and I certainly thought about veering off of it and going around him in the beginning. Alex, however, would never allow for that, and looking back on it now, I’m glad. I’m more than glad. I’m relieved, content, and grateful to him for making me stay on this path with him, even when I didn’t want to.

Because I love him, and he loves me just as wholeheartedly. And just like he let me know the day he was shot in my honor—that’s what we call it, because it’s more polite and romantic than calling it the day my father was killed after trying to kill him—in front of all those paramedics and police officers while lying in the desert before me, Alex tells me he loves me every chance he gets. Mostly, I think, because we know too well that we don’t know when the next chance will be, or if it’ll even come to pass.

After everything, I’m content with what we’ve become together. Letting someone in, utterly and completely, will do that to you. And though I’ve never flat-out asked him, I think Alex feels the same way.

No regrets.

Well, mostly.

Maybe not today, though. Because, right now, Alex has complained more about my insistence that he wear a suit to this event than I’ve ever heard him complain in my life. Hell, he complained less during the physiotherapy needed to get the range of motion back in his injured shoulder.

“Hailey,” he whined, pulling the dress shirt and jacket out of his closet. He stared at it with disgust. “Seriously, I despise suits.”

He stood there in his dress pants, naked from the waist up. I found the whining amusing, if only because it was accompanied by the butterflies I got from seeing him like that, bare, in all his tattooed glory, while he refused to put on the rest of the ensemble.

I was only half dressed myself, still barefoot and my dress not yet zipped up. “You know what I despise?” I asked, closing the gap between us to put my arms around his waist from behind. “My grown, magnificent man whining like a six-year-old who just got his G.I. Joe doll taken away from him.”

“It’s not a doll, it’s an action figure.” He grinned, hanging the suit jacket and shirt back up. He turned in my arms, putting his own arms around me. “But it’s not every night my beautiful lady gets adored by the masses for her creativity—even though you should,” he said, kissing my forehead. “So, I’ll wear the damn suit and be on my best behavior. Until we get back home, at least.” He pressed his body against me, lowering his head to kiss my neck.

“Mmm,” I groaned. “Someone’s wearing that godforsaken, enticing cologne.” The scent of it hit me like a storm of desire, my knees immediately weakening, right along with my resolve.

“Guilty as charged,” he teased, letting his teeth nip at my earlobe. “A man’s got to make sure he pulls out all the stops on a night like this.”

The night in question was a local art gallery’s exhibition featuring my sketches and paintings. One in particular was being featured, as it’d been the piece that caught the eye of the curator. Some pieces were for sale tonight, others purely on display.

All of it was because of Alex and his support. It was his idea to put together a portfolio to show a friend of a friend, who happened to know the gallery’s curator personally.

The rest is history. It’s one thing to sell your artwork at a local coffee shop for a few hundred dollars here and there, but it’s another thing altogether to have people come out to an exhibit purely with the intent of scrutinizing, ogling, and possibly purchasing your work at the curator’s listed prices. Trust me, the prices listed on those paintings were what I’d sell small islands for, not artwork. But still, it’s nerve-wracking as hell.

“Are you telling me that you don’t think your chances are good that I’ll want you tonight?” I let my hands graze over his chest and up to his collarbone, gently letting my fingertips pass over the pinkish scars of his shoulder.

The two scars from six months ago were glaringly obvious, and had tragically destroyed the tattoo in that area, but they had healed well, leaving only residual weakness and intermittent aching that bothered him from time to time. They also seemed to sandwich in the previous gunshot scar Alex had from four years prior, on either side, now making a tilted, jagged line of uneven skin. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed the scarred area gently.

Alex’s breath caught, and I knew the area must still be sensitive to touch. “Like I said, I’m just covering all my bases.”

I inhaled him, letting the heat that emanated from his body lure me into a moment of raw need. “I need you to zip up my dress,” I said softly, very obviously not meaning it.

“I’m much better at getting you out of it than helping you put it on.” His tone matched mine, words said on a sigh.

“We can’t be late,” I admonished. “You know that.” His fingers dragged up my spine, and I knew he wasn’t hearing me. “Alex, please…we can’t.”

Alex’s hands grazed back down my back. He didn’t move away, but neither did I. He surprised me when his fingers deftly pulled the back of my dress into place and zipped it up. He pressed his forehead to mine. “Tonight, Hail,” he whispered. A promise. “I mean it, I’m pulling out all the stops.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” I murmured, grinning. “Now, go put that shirt and jacket on, and stop trying to seduce me.”

* * *

Cars lined both sides of the downtown street, and the art gallery was lit up with clear lights and vintage light bulbs hanging from elaborately constructed chandeliers on the awning that stretched out over the sidewalk in front of it.

We pulled up, and I could barely contain my excitement at the sight of seeing my name on their Featured Artist board outside. I was trembling at the thought of going in there, not only because my personal artwork was publicly displayed for everyone to see, but because I was in a beautiful red lace dress cut just above the knee, with a man who looked like he could be on the cover of a magazine. Not to mention, that man was looking over at me with hunger in his eyes, unable to hide the fact that his plans for me had nothing to do with the people who surrounded the vehicle.

“I don’t want to get out of this car,” I confessed, staring out the tinted windows at the gallery’s glass doors, propped open to the public on the sidewalk.

“You don’t have to be scared.” Alex reached across and gave me an encouraging squeeze on the knee.

“I’m not scared. I just don’t want to get out of this limo. I’ve never been in one, and I kind of like it.” My eyes scanned the spacious interior, and it was interesting to sit in a car where the other passenger could sit across from me, instead of beside. “I still can’t believe you rented a freaking limo.”

He leaned forward. “I told you, I’m pulling out all the stops tonight.”

The look in his eye, and the coy way he spoke; it was all just more suggestive innuendo that had me believing I could have more fun in this car with him alone than I’d ever have surrounded by all the people in that gallery that I’d never met before. “You’re doing that on purpose,” I scolded him.

“What?”

“Making me want you.”

“Oh, believe me, Hailey,” he said with a satisfied smirk. “You’re damn right I’m doing it on purpose. Now, keep that in mind, will you, while we go schmooze with the bigwigs when we could be in this car, where I could unzip that—”

“Alex!”

He laughed, putting his hand on the door handle. He leaned forward, kissed me, hard, and winked. “This limo and the champagne in the fridge will still be there when we’re done celebrating you and your talent. Let’s go, beautiful.”

It was difficult to get out of a car gracefully when I was wearing a dress I felt was fancy enough that everyone must surely have known I was a fraud just by seeing me in it, paired with silver heels I was deathly afraid of falling on my face in, and using up all my energy just to breathe normally and not freak the hell out.

But I managed it, and was met at the doorway, first by a curt doorman who leaned forward in a bow to me before relieving Alex and I of our jackets, then by an exuberant woman in a shining silver dress that left little to the imagination from the waist up.

“Darling! You must be Mrs. Spencer! I’m Delilah, dear. Delilah Mulder.”

If I wasn’t sure before, I could’ve confirmed my hunch that it was her as soon as she opened her mouth. There was no denying the loud, eccentric force that was Delilah, the curator of the West Boulder Art Gallery. I’d only spoken to her on the phone up until now, but, I had to admit, her in-your-face outfit and expressive hand gestures fit the image I’d had in my head. She may have been in her sixties, but there was no way anyone would not notice her. Which, I think, was just how Delilah Mulder wanted it.

“Yes, of course.” I held out my hand to shake hers, but she pulled me in for a tight hug. “But it’s just Miss, not Mrs.” Immediately, I feel foolish for correcting her. “Better yet, just call me Hailey. And this is Alexan—”

She let go of me just as quickly before diving toward Alex. “You’re the muse!” she exclaimed with delight. “I recognized you and that beautiful profile of yours the moment you walked in!” She pulled him in for a hug, too, plastering herself against him. For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder if she was intoxicated, or just overly affectionate.

“Yes,” Alex agreed. “I suppose I am.” He cleared his throat, side-eyeing me. “Officer Alexander Brett. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Mulder.”

“Officer?” Delilah’s eyes flared wide. “Oh, you look like this, and you wear a uniform? Good heavens, it will be difficult to keep my hands off you.” Her hand was clasped around Alex’s in a heartbeat, tugging him toward the convention room. “I must introduce you to some of the—”

Alex’s brows had drawn down, and seeing as I’d tried to be so careful of his shoulder over the last few months, I noticed immediately that the arm she was pulling on was his injured one, and I raised a hand to stop her.

“Ms. Mulder—”

“Delilah, dear. Please call me Delilah.” She didn’t even look at me.

“Of course,” I said, my voice strained. “Delilah. Please, just, umm…please give us a second to collect ourselves. It’s been a whirlwind to get here. I apologize.”

My hand was still linked in Alex’s other one, and he gripped it tightly, refusing to let go. But my other hand came up onto his forearm of the arm she held, and I locked eyes with the woman.

Whatever she read in my stare, it made her own expression grow stony. “Of course, darling.” Her exaggerated flamboyance disappeared. “Your work is on display just inside those doors.” She pointed toward large double doors at the other end of the foyer. “I shall give you a moment to prepare yourself,” she smirked, letting her heavily made-up eyes travel back over to Alex, starting at his feet and working their way up to his clenched jaw. “And I will see you again soon.”

Without another word, Delilah’s obnoxious visage returned and she disappeared into the crowds of people milling about, her arms immediately draping across the shoulders and chest of another man she obviously knew.

I turned my back on the woman, blocking Alex’s view of her, too. “Someone has an admirer.”

“Shit, I thought saying I was an officer would get her to take a step back, not practically throw herself in my lap.”

Every few moments, he looked past me, wary.

“Are you waiting for her to come back?” I gave him a wry grin.

Alex frowned at me. “What? No. Not so much waiting for her, as…expecting her.”

I watched him. I knew he didn’t like the attention, and he was definitely keyed up about it, but I found it funnier than perhaps I should have. “God, I just can’t take you out anywhere, can I?”

One eyebrow arched. “A woman dressed as a disco ball, who’s old enough to be my mother, throws herself at me in front of you, and you think this is funny?”

That made me laugh openly, shaking my head. “Oh God. First, I’m far from worried about it. And second…” I leaned in close, pretending I was about to kiss him. Instead, I whispered, “It only proves my point that you’re just too damn magnificent for your own good.” I pulled away just before our lips touched, but Alex’s hands had encircled my waist.

“Come on,” he said, more at ease. “Let’s go see this artwork display of yours.”

“Is that code for let’s go hide from Delilah?”

“It’s definitely code for that.”

I was still chuckling as we made our way into the convention hall, and my breath caught in my throat, just inside the doors, at the sight before me. Pedestals were set up throughout the room, with small easels on top of each one holding canvases of various sizes. The bigger ones were hung on the walls on both sides of the room. People milled about between them, perusing and scrutinizing and interpreting the works I’d spent hours and sweat and tears over.

And, to my surprise, they looked impressed.

“Someone has some admirers.” Alex’s mouth was suddenly against my ear. “Plural.”

I turned to face him, and he was so close to me I could feel his breath against my lips. “You think this is funny?” I mocked in my best Alex Brett imitation.

“No, I think it’s fucking fantastic.” He kissed me. “About time the rest of the world gets to see that you’re as amazing as I think you are.”

“Are you trying to score brownie points with me?” I smiled.

“Oh, absolutely.” His trademark smirk flickered again. “But I’m also madly, ridiculously in love with you, if that helps my cause at all.”

I couldn’t help it. I grinned like a fool. “It helps, trust me.” This time, I initiated the kiss. “Because I’m very much ridiculously in love with you, too.”

He playfully pushed me away. “Oh, stop trying to seduce me,” he said in his best Hailey Spencer imitation. “Show me the painting Delilah recognized me from. That’s freaking me out a little.”

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. It was the piece that got me this exhibition, and I’d taken a chance by selling it without showing it to him first. It was of him, after all. “Okay, but don’t be mad.”

“Yeah, that makes me feel so much better,” he quipped. “Lead the way.”

I could barely see the oversized canvas at the front of the room, obscured by a large crowd of attendees that were assessing it with a seriousness that didn’t make me feel much better, either. I held my breath as I clung to Alex’s hand, pulling him along with me until we made it to the front of the crowd. I held my breath, and waited.

The buzz of murmurs around us faded into the background, and the only thing I could concentrate on was the silence and stillness of Alex beside me as he took in the canvas before us.

It wasn’t a painting at all. Instead, a charcoal sketch of Alex sat perched on the easel. It was only his upper body depicted in the drawing, and he was turned so that the contours of his back were the focal point of the image, but he was turned just enough to show the angles of his jaw and cheekbones, and the intensity of his eyes, which looked away toward the left side of the picture.

Every design on his shoulders, back, and abdomen was intricately displayed, but the viewer’s attention was brought up to the model’s shoulder where a series of imperfections marred the sketch, seeming to show through the man’s shoulder to the stark whiteness of the canvas.

Holes.

Through the model. And from these holes, more designs seemed to flow out of them, a series of miniscule images—things that meant nothing to the objective eye of these attendees, but everything to me.

I stole a glance at Alex. His jaw was clenched, but not from anger. His lip trembled, only for a moment, before he clenched it tighter to make it stop.

Those images meant everything to him, too.

From the wounds in the sketch, a flood of images poured. An ice skate, a coffee mug, a black cologne bottle, among other things, all drawn with whimsical, airy properties, making them dreamlike and translucent. Looking closer, words could be found between the images—Guilty, faith, scars, trust…and love. It was entitled A Dream Within A Dream.

“Jesus.” The word fell from Alex’s lips, but I couldn’t read the expression that went along with it. His arm, however, snaked slowly around me, pulling me into him.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Hailey.” His gaze was still fixed on the portrait in front of him, unblinking.

“Yeah?”

He finally pulled his gaze away from it, and he looked at me so intently that it was like he was looking at me for the first time. “That’s absolutely amazing, Hailey Spencer. I mean that.”

“But?” There was something in his tone, and it had to do with more than the emotion glinting in his eyes.

He leaned down, kissed my temple, and whispered, “But there’s no way I look that good naked.”

I burst out laughing, much to the dismay of the attendees around us. I brought my hand up to stifle my amusement, composing myself. “I feel like it’s too personal to be here,” I whispered.

He turned, kissing my forehead. “It’s like our own little secret.” He grinned. “The truths of that portrait, I mean.”

“You’re okay with it? That you’re on display like that?”

“If I look that good naked, Hail, you’re damn right I’m okay with it.”

“Unbelievable.” I shook my head.

He just shrugged. Then, his eyes honed in on a spot past my shoulder, and I followed his gaze.

On another pedestal, about fifteen feet away, another portrait displayed atop it. Alex took my hand and led me to it.

“I see I’m in good company tonight,” he said softly.

My mother, Flora Spencer, stared back at me in hues of black and grey. “I debated whether I should share this one tonight or not.”

“It’s the sketch that made me love you, so I think it should definitely be here.”

I turned to him, surprised. “Made you…what do you mean?”

His gaze never faltered from the sketch as he spoke. “I’ll admit, there was something about you from the moment I laid eyes on you in that coffee shop, Hailey. But it wasn’t until I stood in that little apartment of yours, staring at you as you stared at this sketch that I realized it went beyond professional interest. That was the moment I realized it wasn’t just stubbornness that drove you, but passion.” He turned to me. “Passion for everything you do, but also passion to keep her memory alive. She’d be so proud of you, Hail. I hope you know that.”

Alex’s hands cupped mine within them, and I tried—and failed—to swallow down the swell of emotion rising in my throat.

Finally, I nodded. “She would have loved you,” I choked out. “I hope you know that.”

He kissed me, a soft and tender touch of the lips. “Hailey, I—”

“Welcome to West Boulder, everyone! It’s marvelous to have you all here tonight to celebrate a bright rising star in the art world!” Delilah’s voice was loud enough that she didn’t need a microphone, but the use of one made us both cringe, turning to see her and her glitzy dress sashaying across the middle of the room.

Applause followed, only egging her on. “Look around, darlings! Tell me one thing: Isn’t Ms. Hailey Spencer absolutely superb?”

More applause. I blushed like a fiend, but Alex nudged me lightly. He removed his arm from my waist, clapping his hands together as well.

“So much beauty! So much talent! And her significant officer—er, I mean, other!—isn’t hard on the eyes, either!” Delilah beamed over at Alex, winking.

Being so close to him, I heard him groan slightly, but the crowd of onlookers seemed to find humor in it, so he kept his expression as neutral as possible. He did stop clapping, though.

“Ms. Spencer, won’t you and your lovely muse come up and say a few words?” In her own flamboyant way, Delilah’s hands waved as she glided a few steps across the floor, holding the microphone out with a delighted glint in her eye.

My cheeks flamed now, but Alex stepped forward, holding me to him as he went, ultimately guiding me toward the center of the room.

Delilah pushed the microphone at me exuberantly, and I held it with two hands, hoping my trembling fingers weren’t noticeable to the audience. “I-I…I’m very grateful that you all have come out tonight,” I said shakily into the microphone. “It’s definitely a dream come true to have my artwork displayed here. I’m just a little awestruck, I think.”

A series of chuckling followed, a wave of muffled amusement drifting through the crowd.

“I want…I want to thank you for being here. Just, thank you.” I gave a stiff nod of my head, holding out the microphone toward Delilah.

Alex reached across in front of me and circled his fingers around the microphone handle before Delilah had the chance to take it back. I let him take it from me.

“What are—” I tried to whisper under my breath, but his mischievous expression cut me off.

“Speaking of awestruck,” he said, holding the microphone close to lips. “I actually wouldn’t mind saying a few words myself. About the woman who leaves me awestruck every day.”

A series of oohs and ahs erupted, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone else but Alex, whose gaze was firmly fixed on me as well.

“You’re right, Ms. Mulder. Hailey Spencer is extremely talented, and beautiful, and even just a little bit bashful.” He winked at me, only making me blush more. “But, she’s so much more than that. Hailey is passionate and fearless. She’s also a force to be reckoned with, so you all better keep that in mind.”

A couple hoots of admiration came from some of the ladies toward the back of the room, and muted laughter erupted again, making Alex smile wider.

“Those things about you are what make me adore you, Hailey. But there’s something else that you are that means more to me than you’ll ever know. Something else that you chose to be. You may be the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, and the best friend I’ve ever had, but you’re also mine, Hailey Spencer, and I’ll be forever grateful that you chose to let me have you.”

I thought I was going to faint right then and there. My pulse suddenly pounded so loud in my ears, I wasn’t sure if enough oxygen was getting to my brain.

“Now, I’ve tried twice tonight to broach this subject, and I’ve been cut off both times, so desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Alex switched the microphone into his other hand and pulled a little box from the depths of his jacket pocket.

Gasps sounded all around us, and my eyes widened at the sight of it. “Alex…”

It was then that I realized his hand was shaking, too. Everything we’d been through, and all that he’d put on the line—not once had I ever seen Alexander Brett show a hint of nervousness.

“Hailey Spencer,” he said into the microphone. He paused, then seemed to make a silent decision. He glanced down at the microphone, pushing the little button on the side to turn it off. He lowered himself onto one knee and set the microphone on the floor. Whatever he was about to say, those words were for me, and no one else.

“Hailey Spencer,” he repeated, looking up at me. He cleared his throat. “You’re my everything; there’s no other way to say it. My absolute everything. Many go through the good and bad together, but we started out going through what I hope is the worst. Because if that was the worst, that means only good remains. And we are good, Hailey. You’re good for me, and I hope I’m good for you, too. We’re damn good together.”

The sly glint in his eyes made me choke out a laugh, and my hands covered my mouth.

“You’re the one thing that’s most precious to me. And I want to spend the rest of our lives proving that to you. Hailey Spencer, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Alex’s shaky hands opened the box, revealing a princess-cut solitaire diamond in a white gold setting. It was absolutely breathtaking—well, from what I could see of it through the cascade of tears streaming down my face.

I gasped at the sight of it, but I was already nodding my head. “Yes,” I exclaimed through my tears. Swallowing the sob in my throat, this time I managed to get it out louder and clearer. “Yes.”

Alex’s arms surrounded me and I was sobbing into his chest before I even realized that cheering and applause echoed off the walls around us, with the odd whistle and holler from the more exuberant guests.

“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, pressing his lips to the side of my head.

I didn’t even know why I was chuckling as I pulled away, cupping his face in my hands, but I was. “God, I love you, too.”

A huge smile was plastered across his face as he took my left hand in his and slid the ring onto it. “Well, I’m not God, but I could see how you’d confuse me for him.”

I rolled my eyes, despite still laughing, and still crying. “Unbelievable.”

“Perhaps,” he smirked, his own eyes rimmed with redness. “But yours, Hailey.”

Mine.

I pulled him to me again, hugging him against me. My gaze fell across the room, where the crowd around us had parted to reveal the charcoal sketch I’d done of my mother, which now sat on the pedestal, facing me head on. I felt the significance of the moment like a heavy weight on my chest, and her eyes stared at me, a softness and acceptance I’d longed for since she’d been taken from me.

Somehow, I knew then that she wasn’t gone. She was there, with me, just as the sketch was.

And she was happy for me. For us.

It was a moment where I should have felt pain, thinking of her so intimately and wishing for her comfort as I had so many times before. Instead, only the beauty of the moment remained. And no amount of past pain, heartache, or tragedy could take that away from me.

Because that’s the thing about love. Just like pain, it demands to be felt, too.