Watching Lacey after weeks of not seeing her is practically painful. That dress she’s wearing almost caused me to swallow my tongue, and I wanted to beat any man I saw watching her, but she’s not mine—something I had to remind myself of all night.

As childish as it may sound, I refuse to run to her no matter how desperately I want her by my side.

When I left New York last, the same pain I remember feeling after my dad passed away started to consume me. I might’ve only been eight, but when my dad died, I funneled all my pain into playing football, but where Lacey is concerned, I’ve yet to find a way to move forward. Without her permission, I gave her a piece of my heart, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back. I guess I finally understand how she feels about her ex.

Instead of returning to San Diego, I flew home to Phoenix. I knew my mom would grill me if she knew things with Lacey blew up in my face. As much as I love and respect my mom, I didn’t want to hear her tell me to fight, because I quickly learned you can’t fight for someone who doesn’t want you to.

“Hey,” I hear Lacey’s shaky voice come from behind me.

“Hello,” I reply, but I make no attempt to look at her. Slowly, almost hesitantly, she walks around me and sits down in the sand.

A soft breeze blows against our faces, but neither of us say a word for the longest time. I have to fight the urge to reach out and touch her when her clean, almost sweet scent invades my nose.

“I’ve had a good life,” she says before taking a deep breath. “Minus a few bad days, I’ve been dealt a pretty good hand at life. I think for me, I locked those bad days up and wore them as a shield. I wanted to make sure I didn’t repeat my mistakes to the point I ended up preventing myself from ever being happy.”

I turn to face her, only to find her staring out at the ocean.

“I’ve told myself countless times that if I ever wanted to get married, I needed to find a boring man. Someone I liked enough to spend time with, but not someone who could hurt me.” She blows out a frustrated breath of air before finally turning her attention to me. “You could most definitely hurt me, but living a boring life that doesn’t mean a damn will hurt me more.” Her blue eyes shimmer with unleashed tears. “You tried to get through to me, but I wasn’t ready to listen. I was still living with doubt, with fear, and with the memories of my past.”

I painfully close my eyes, hating that he’s a part of this conversation.

“I’m ready to shut the door on my past and open one to my future, a future that will hopefully include you, but I can’t do that unless you know everything.” A tear falls down her cheek.

“Tell me.”

She shakes her head. “Not here. This is their weekend, and as their friends, we need to be there for them. I can’t simultaneously face my past and be emotionally available for Jordan.”

She reaches out and squeezes my hand, sending a jolt of energy through me. “Will you come back home with me? I’ll tell you about my past, and after that, if you still want me…then I’m yours.”

“Lacey, I’m in love with you. Anything you have to tell me isn’t going to change that.”

She chews on her lip before brushing another tear away. “You need to know who I really am, or I’ll always doubt what we have.”

I pull her tightly against my chest as I rub my hand up and down her back. “I’ll change my flight and go home with you.”

“Thank you,” she mumbles. I’m not ready to let go of her, but all too soon, she pulls out of my arms. “I need to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With a shy smile, she turns around and walks back inside the hotel.

I haven’t attended many weddings, but Chase and Jordan’s is one I’ll never forget.

Standing next to my best friend as he pledged his love to his soul mate, all the while my eyes were glued to the woman I love, is something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.

I was actually jealous—I wanted to be the one who said “I do.” I only hope after she tells or shows me whatever has kept her from moving forward with her life, she’ll be ready for the next step, because after this weekend, I know I am.

When we landed at JFK, I expected her to take me to her apartment, but instead, she purchased two bus tickets to Wakeford, Connecticut.

“You’re taking me to see your parents?”

“No,” is all she says as she climbs aboard the bus, leaving me to follow. She takes a seat in the back and stares out the window. Fear, anxiety, and maybe even dread are already taking over her beautiful features.

I shove our suitcases into the luggage carrier and take the seat next to her. “You want to clue me in on why you’re taking me to your hometown?”

She doesn’t say a word as the bus pulls away. In the dim light, I can just barely make out her face, but it’s clear she’s not in the mood to talk.

More than an hour passes while we sit in silence. My eyes are about to close when I hear her voice, and I perk up immediately, ready to hear anything she’s going to tell me.

“My sister Jena started dating Chris Winters her freshman year of high school. The two of them made the ideal couple. Perfect in every way. My parents loved him, as did everyone in town. He is two years older than Jena, and after two years of dating, he left Wakeford for Cambridge. Jena was only sixteen at the time, so he didn’t propose before he left, but he promised her that one day, they’d be married. Our parents became good friends with the Winters and while Chris was gone, we regularly had dinner with them and their youngest son, Bryan.”

She blows out a frustrated breath before continuing. “Bryan was good looking, popular, and on track for a football scholarship. Unlike his brother, he was known at our school for dating around—for breaking hearts. He also happens to be the same age as Jena. I first became awestruck for Bryan when he was at our house studying for a test with my sister. I remember the way he smiled at me…it was the first time a boy caused flutters in my stomach.

“He asked me to the homecoming dance a few weeks later, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes. We went and the night seemed perfect. Bryan started coming over all the time to see me. A couple of months later, we had sex, and I foolishly thought everything was perfect.” She quickly wipes her eyes, continuing to stare out the window.

“I started hearing rumors around school that he was sleeping with other girls, but I chose to ignore them. I never asked Bryan if they were true, because I feared he’d tell me they were. He treated me so well when we were together. He was always at my house, and I decided the rumors were nothing more than jealous females attempting to split us up. Then…then I heard a rumor that he was infatuated with Jena. That he was only dating me because I looked like my sister and because it gave him an excuse to be at our house all the time. Apparently, Chris heard about the amount of time his brother was spending with his girlfriend and wasn’t very happy. After that, Jena stopped studying with Bryan. She clearly didn’t like him that way and she wasn’t about to ruin her own relationship over it.” She shakes her head, looking disgusted with herself. “After that, whenever we were together, Bryan always insisted we hang out at my house.”

She sniffles and pauses for a long moment. I reach out and squeeze her hand, hoping to give her strength to go on.

“Bryan and I had been dating for over a year when he accidently called me Jena.” She sighs. “During sex.”

I feel a sharp pain in my chest and hope like hell her story is almost over.

“I pretended I didn’t hear him, and to be honest, I don’t think he knew he said it out loud, but the rumors continued. They became harder to ignore when Bryan would constantly go out of his way to talk to Jena at school, but other than when he wanted to have sex, he barely spent any time with me. But I loved him. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe he didn’t feel the same way because there were moments I could feel how much he cared about me. Even in my crazy head, I know on some level he cared about me.” She blinks back more tears, trying her hardest to act like the brave Lacey Davis the world knows, and with every word she says, my heart breaks for her.

“Then my world completely shifted. My junior year, just a month before my seventeenth birthday, I found out I was pregnant.”

Holy shit…

My body goes tense as acid forms in my stomach.

“Bryan flipped out. He accused me of trying to trap him into a life he didn’t want. Our families went off the deep end. I had already earned a scholarship to NYU, and Bryan had already signed with Penn State. He was a couple of months from graduation, while I still had a whole year of high school left.”

I take a quick glance at her, only to see full tears dripping down her cheeks.

“My parents, along with the Winters—and even Bryan for that matter—wanted me to have an abortion, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I was ready to give up my future for the baby growing inside me, because I foolishly believed I could make life work.”

I’m almost afraid for her to continue her story, and to be honest, with as upset as she is, I’m not sure it’s the best thing for either of us. She moves her head off the window and places it softly on my shoulder.

The bus continues to ride us through the dark night until about thirty minutes later when we arrive in Wakeford.

Once we get off the bus, I pick up our bags and follow Lacey down the street.

“After a couple of months of refusing to talk to anyone who told me an abortion was my best option, people started to come around to the idea that, like it or not, I was pregnant and going to have a baby. Even Bryan—the two of us hadn’t spoken in almost two months. All he would do when he saw me was demand I get an abortion. But one day, he showed up out of the clear blue asking to see me.”

I glance around our surroundings, trying like hell to figure out where we’re going, but instead of telling me, Lacey keeps talking while we walk through town.

“Bryan bought a little onesie with a football player on it. He told me it was for our kid. I instantly believed everything was going to be okay. We started talking, we even discussed what we’d do to make it all work out while being teenage parents. I decided to forget about NYU and follow him to Pennsylvania once I graduated high school. He never asked me to marry him, but I figured it would happen sooner or later…after all, we were having a baby. But life blew up in my face a few weeks later when Jena and Bryan graduated.” Her hand moves over her stomach before she painfully closes her eyes.

“There was a huge graduation party. I had planned to go with Bryan, but I felt like shit that day so I decided against it, until Jena called me and told me that Bryan was drunk and needed a ride home. I arrived shortly after she called, but I couldn’t find Jena or Bryan anywhere. Someone told me they were upstairs in a bedroom together…I didn’t think anything of it until I found them.”

The air leaves my lungs. “Oh shit, Lacey.”

“Jena heard the rumors that Bryan was hung up on her, and he never really wanted to be with me. She claims she didn’t want me to throw my life away on a boy who didn’t really want me. When she found Bryan drunk off his ass, he did or said something that gave her the impression she’d be able to show me that I was nothing more than a substitute.”

“What did she do?”

Lacey huffs in sadness. “She got Bryan to confess his love for her. I walked in on him telling her how much he loves her and not the hand-me-down version he was stuck with. He begged her to leave his brother for him.”

She continues to march down the sidewalk, determined to take me somewhere. “Bryan’s confession surprised even Jena, but when she looked up and saw me, regret filled her eyes, although nothing changed the hurt I was feeling. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I was ready to throw up, so I took off as fast as I could. I tripped, or someone tripped me—I’m not positive what happened—but I fell down the stairs and hit my head. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in a hospital bed.”

She stops walking when we get to a cemetery.

“The fall ruptured the placenta, causing it to detach. I was only twenty-five weeks along; there was nothing they could do. By the time I woke up, my baby had already died.”

Lacey slowly walks into the cemetery until she stops in front of a small flat headstone bearing only her last name and a date.

“I was having a boy. A little boy who never got the chance to find out what the world had to offer. A little boy who died because I allowed myself to get upset and not think about him. If I had only—”

“Hey, don’t do that.” I turn her around and pull her into my arms.

“This is the person who still owns my heart. This is the person I haven’t let go…not Bryan.”

Sadness washes over me. I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, but I know how I feel about Bridgett, and if that’s even a fraction of what Lacey’s feeling, then I can’t begin to imagine.

“It was an accident, Lacey. You have to forgive yourself.”

Her voice cracks, “He died because of me.”

“You could’ve done what everyone else wanted you to do and have an abortion, but you didn’t. Instead, you fought for him, you loved him, and now it’s time you forgave yourself for what happened.”

Tears continued to streak down her face, but she doesn’t pull away.

I rub my hand up and down her back. “This is why Cassie was so important to you, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t answer me, but she doesn’t have to.

“You couldn’t save your baby so you tried to save someone else’s?”

Again, she doesn’t answer, but suddenly, the way Lacey Davis acts makes perfect sense. Before she was even a legal adult, she was a mother who had to bury her own child. A child she had with an arrogant football player who never wanted her in the first place. A man who had her changing her entire life, her entire dreams for someone who never even loved her.

She pulls out my arms and looks up at me, and fuck, I’d give anything to remove the pain pooling in her eyes.

“My parents thought giving him a final resting place would give me some peace, but it didn’t. I completely shut down. It felt like everyone blamed me. Chris and Jena broke up. He couldn’t get past the idea that Jena went into that bedroom with his drunk brother. He was convinced there was really something going on between the two of them. The Winters family fell apart. Our family fell apart. I hadn’t pulled my scholarship to NYU, so I finished high school, moved, and now I rarely come home. Everything in this damn town reminds me of what I lost, reminds me of a girl I never want to be again. Most of the time, I can force myself to forget, but when I heard that Jena and Chris were back together, it jarred loose memories I’ve spent years bottling up. I think the same might hold true for Bryan, seeing as he sent me a picture from the one and only sonogram I had. He wanted to make sure I knew he hadn’t forgotten.” She shakes her head in disgust.

How I’m even standing with her right now is a mystery. From the second she met me, I reminded her of the worst time in her life.

“I’m not sure if I can even have children. The doctor didn’t say it was impossible, but being as young as I was when the accident happened, I was told there was a possibility I wouldn’t be able to carry to full term. Only time would tell, but I can’t go through that again.” Tears stream down her face. “I fell in love with a little boy I never got to meet, and when we buried him, I buried a piece of my heart that I’ll never get back.”

I reach out for her hands, needing the connection. “I think that’s normal, Lace. I don’t believe for a second that time heals all wounds, but you can’t continue to carry this guilt and heartache around, using what happened as a shield, preventing yourself from being happy.”

She gives me a weak smile. “You’re right. I’m not sure I was ready to meet you—I’m not sure I was ever ready to meet the Jake Girard.” She laughs. “But somehow you managed to make me fall in love with you.”

I stand in front of her, frozen, my heart racing while I wait for her say something else. I’d like nothing more than to sweep her up into my arms and beg her to always be mine, but I’m afraid I’ll ruin the moment, that I’ll cause her to retreat back into her own head by taking more than she’s ready to offer.

“I’m done allowing fear to control my life. I have no idea what the future holds, but I’m ready to figure that out…with you…if you still want me.”

I stare at her tear-stained face knowing I’ve never seen a woman look more beautiful than she does right now. “Marry me.”

Her eyes go wide in shock, and maybe even fear, but instead of answering me, she swallows several times.

“I know you think it’s too soon, and we have a lot of shit to work out—I won’t deny that for a second—but I love you. I’ve never loved another woman the way I love you. You don’t have to quit your job or even move. I’m not sure of all the details, but I know together we can make anything work.”

“I don’t even have a job at the moment,” she mumbles before giving me a huge smile. “Love, acceptance, and forgiveness will deliver happiness. I know I love you, I’m ready to accept you exactly the way you are, and I’m ready to forgive myself for what happened.” She fixes me with a stare as she raises her chin and smiles. “I’m ready to find my happiness…with you.”

My heart jumps into my throat as her words play through my head. “Are you saying…?”

She nods. “Yes. I’m saying yes to everything, as long as it includes you.”

I wrap my arms around her waist as I pick her up and swing her around. “You have no idea how happy you just made me.”

“I think I finally have an idea,” she says with a smile, one I’ll spend the rest of my life ensuring she always has on her face.