The day my parents got married was the happiest day of my life. I was six years old, and the ceremony was held in an old barn on my family’s ranch in Big Sur, California. There were flowers hanging from the rafters, bales of hay for the younger guests to climb on, and a fancy white dress for me that matched my mother’s. My parents got rings, and I got the charm bracelet that still dangles from my wrist. It has the charms my mother put on it when she was growing up, and now it has others I’ve added. My very favorite, though, is the baby rattle she added the day I was born. I didn’t see her again for years after that, but she wore the bracelet every day and looked at that rattle because, in her heart, she never left me.

A lot of people ask how I have such a close relationship with my mom since she wasn’t around those first five years of my life. They think she abandoned me and wonder how I could ever forgive her for that. But before she came back, my dad used to tell me she loved me so much, she gave me to the best dad in the world while she went to make things better. And he was right. Over the years, she’s talked to me a lot about what she went through when she was a kid, why it was so hard for her at twenty-two to take on the task of raising an infant. My mom grew up without love in her life, and she had to learn to love herself before she could really love anyone else. But once she did, she was the best at loving us anyone could ever be.

Even at the age of five, I knew I had two choices when it came to my mom. I could be mad at her for leaving in the first place and never get a mother, or I could forgive her and take the opportunity the universe was handing me for something I’d wanted as long as I could remember. I took the opportunity, and I never once regretted forgiving her and having her join our lives.

The day she married my dad was the day that made it official for all of us, and it was a day to remember for those of us who were old enough to be there. My cousin Deacon, whose dad is my uncle Cade, was only a baby, so he doesn’t remember it, and his younger brother Rex wasn’t even conceived yet. My twin cousins, Ben and Chase, who are my uncle Vaughn’s sons, were still cooking in my aunt T.J.’s tummy so, they like to say they were there, but it’s really stretching the definition.

But the one person who should have been there and wasn’t was my little brother, Jax. He didn’t come along for a few more years, and while I was sometimes envious he got our mom from day one, I always had the wedding, so it all evened out.

The only problem with having been at my parents’ wedding was it sealed a vision in my mind of what true love ought to look like. Watching the look on my dad’s face when my mom walked down that aisle is something I’ll never forget. He’d looked at me with utter devotion for the entire six years of my life, but I’d never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at Mom that day.

The vows they wrote together still hang in a frame on the wall of their ranch house.

I, Ty, promise to always be your port in any storm, hold your hand even when you don’t need me to, and love you with every piece of me for the rest of my life.

I, Jodi, promise to always hold our family in my heart, be present even when you don’t need me to, and love you with every piece of me for the rest of my life.

They kissed, and all my aunts said it was the most beautiful ceremony they’d ever seen. My uncles tried to act like it was no big deal, but I saw the way Uncle Cade’s eyes glossed over when he watched my dad. There wasn’t a dry eye in that barn. What my parents had been through to get their happily ever after was special, it always has been.

The problem is, when you grow up in the midst of Big Sur’s greatest romance, you tend to have high expectations in that department. I’ve spent my whole life thinking I’d grow up, meet someone, and they’d look at me like Dad looked at Mom that day.

Stupid, stupid girl. I’ve seen a lot of different men look at me a lot of different ways, but not one has ever looked at me like that. Only problem is, I can’t settle for less. Which makes me think I’m doomed to be single forever. My mother says I’m being a drama queen, which is kind of fair since I am an actress. But she doesn’t seem to understand how special she and Dad are. Most men in my life are industry types—producers, directors, other actors. Their idea of true love involves a blow job in the back of a limo and a contract stipulating royalties, commissions, or union-wage-scale pay. Hollywood, the place that peddles visions of romance twenty-four seven, is entirely without romance of any sort.

So, I’ve decided not to expect what my parents have. I won’t ever have someone look at me the way Dad looked at Mom all those years ago. And that’s okay. I have a career to manage and a ladder to climb. Straight to my little gold man, Oscar. Because he’ll look at me any way I want him to, and once he’s mine he won’t ever leave.

WAIT! Have you read Selena’s standalone hockey romance The Czar? Turn the page for an excerpt!