Twenty-six
Harlow
Six weeks later
Making progress was slow in a situation like this.
Much slower than I would have liked.
On some level, I think I’d convinced myself it’d be easy to get back to normal. To a degree, certain things had gotten there. My wounds had healed to the point I no longer needed to worry about changing dressings, bandages, or the like. I could shower like normal, too.
But my endurance was still not there. Working the way I used to just wasn’t an option, as I couldn’t stand for as many hours as I had used to before the whole incident.
Despite my frustration over the slow physical progress I was making, I knew I had to find a way to be grateful for any progress at all.
Because I was alive.
And the moment I reminded myself of that fact, and just how lucky I was to have survived, my mood would improve.
Psychological and emotional progress had been tough to measure. There was a part of me that could logically grasp what had happened and why. That part of me didn’t seem to feel compelled to believe that something like this would ever happen to me again, as it was clearly an isolated incident.
But there was another part of me that couldn’t ignore the fact I’d been targeted as a result of my relationship and shot twice. The first few weeks had been tougher than I’d expected.
I found myself thinking about that day more than I would have liked. And without being able to return to work immediately, there was certainly plenty of time to think.
Fortunately, Blaze had been right by my side through it all. Even after I’d been discharged from the hospital, he never left me alone. Every night, he was there, and when I had several sleepless nights with recurring nightmares, Blaze was there to comfort and reassure me.
The nightmares became fewer and fewer until they finally stopped. Or, at least, it seemed they had stopped, since I hadn’t had one in the last week and a half.
And finally, there was the legal situation. Laura Atlantico was in a boatload of trouble. She hadn’t expected to get caught, considering she’d planned to kill me and not have anyone be able to identify her. Obviously, her plan hadn’t worked, because she hadn’t been successful in her attempt to kill me.
She was facing attempted murder charges along with a whole host of others related to property damage that had been done by the men she’d hired to help her carry out her plan of retribution.
Many of those men had been caught as well, and some had been willing to assist the police in building the case against Laura in exchange for reduced sentences.
Since it was still so soon after the incident, Laura hadn’t been officially sentenced yet. But from the way things were going, it seemed she’d be following in her father’s footsteps and heading to prison for a more permanent stay.
All of that was out of my hands, so I tried not to dwell on the potential outcome.
Instead, I worked to focus my attention on the things that made me feel good. My family had been an absolute blessing in my life. My brothers reached out to my clients for me, my dad handled everything with the police and getting my salon cleaned up, and my mom dropped home-cooked meals off regularly.
Blaze was in the mix as well. He was doing anything and everything for me, his main priority being my physical and emotional well-being.
He’d been everything I could have ever hoped to have in a partner after suffering through something so traumatic.
And even though we’d discussed it before, even though I’d insisted he wasn’t responsible for what happened to me, I could see how much it bothered him that I had gotten caught up in this mess. So, as much as he did to try to see me through all the challenges I’d been facing with my recovery, I found it helped me to focus on the things I could do to help Blaze through it as well.
I wasn’t sure it was working, though.
For the last several days, he had seemed just a bit more on edge than usual. I had asked him about it last night, wondering if there was something that had popped up in the case that he hadn’t been expecting and perhaps was worried about. He insisted everything was fine on that front and promised nothing was wrong.
But I knew him.
Or, at least, I thought I did.
And if everything I believed to be true was the case, something was on his mind.
That’s why I was looking forward to today.
Whether he recognized I was catching on to whatever was happening inside his head and he didn’t want me to worry about it, or he genuinely wanted to do something special for the both of us, I didn’t know. But Blaze had decided that today was the day we’d be getting back to checking things off my list.
We were having an afternoon date today. Though he often liked to have the element of surprise when it came to our dates, I had a feeling he didn’t want me having any major shocks to the nervous system right now.
So, he had revealed he was taking me out for my first picnic ever. I thought it was the sweetest, most romantic thing we could do together, and I couldn’t wait.
I’d spent the last hour getting myself ready for our date. The weather was beautiful outside and would offer the perfect setting for a picnic. I was beyond excited.
As soon as I’d gotten myself ready, I descended the stairs and found Blaze waiting for me.
He smiled as his eyes raked over my body. “Hey, baby,” he said, taking steps in my direction. “You look beautiful.”
I’d chosen a floral maxi-dress for the occasion. Blaze clearly appreciated it. And when he slid his arm around my waist and kissed me senseless, the thoughts I’d had about him seeming distracted for the last few days had vanished.
There was no question he had a magical day of fun in store for me. I couldn’t wait.
When Blaze tore his mouth from mine, he asked, “Are you ready to go?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Then, to my utter amazement, Blaze took me by the hand, led me to the door, and bent to pick up the basket. He’d gone all out and gotten a picnic basket, and I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world.
I walked beside Blaze toward his truck, smiling from ear to ear. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized just how much this meant to me. While Blaze had spent every day with me since the shooting, nearly all our time had been spent inside at one of our homes.
The one exception to that had been the day we’d gone to his parents’ place to have dinner with them. Of course, that dinner had been rescheduled since I’d had the hospital stay and initial recovery time that would have made an occasion like that less than ideal. Fortunately, Blaze’s family was wonderful about it all, and I was thrilled that they seemed to like me at least as much as my family liked Blaze. That dinner was just one more thing Blaze had done to really lift my mood.
I’d appreciated his patience and willingness to do whatever was necessary to help me recover, but now that we were heading out on an actual date that would have us outdoors, I realized how much I’d missed it.
As soon as we were in his truck and Blaze had pulled out of the driveway, I said, “Thank you for deciding to do this today, boss. I already feel a million times better.”
Blaze had already been holding my hand, but he gave it a squeeze before he said, “I’m glad, Harlow. I know these last few weeks have been a lot to deal with, and I just thought you really needed to try to get back to normal. I figured this would be a nice way to ease into some fun things again.”
I smiled brightly at him. “It’s going to be wonderful. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.”
Blaze stroked his thumb over my knuckles. “It’s not luck, baby. You deserve to have it all.”
“Well, I think I’m lucky to have found a guy like you who believes that’s the truth,” I noted.
He let out a laugh. “Fair enough.”
By the time we arrived at the park, it was safe to say I was having the best day I’d had in weeks. Blaze led us to a spot where he spread out a blanket and sat down beside me under the shade of a tree.
There was a gentle breeze in the air. Looking at Blaze, I said, “This has got to be the most perfect day for a picnic.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
I nodded. “The weather is gorgeous.”
“It’s nothing compared to you, though.”
I smiled and leaned my shoulder into him. Blaze wrapped his arm around me as I said, “You’re so good to me, boss.”
“Well, I should probably feed you then, so you don’t change your mind about that,” he returned.
It blew my mind that he ever thought that would be possible.
Blaze opened the basket, pulled out a couple of plates and a wooden board. What followed was a baguette, cheese, grapes, summer fruits, crackers, spreads, mini croissant sandwiches, and a bottle of wine.
“You didn’t skimp on anything, did you?” I asked him.
Blaze grinned at me, reached back into the basket, and pulled out a bouquet. “I tried my best.”
I took the flowers from him and held them up to my nose to inhale. “These are beautiful, Blaze.”
He got to work on arranging the food on the board and asked, “Hey, can you grab the cheese spreader in the basket for me?”
Without thinking twice about it, I looked inside the basket for the cheese spreader and couldn’t find it. But that didn’t mean I didn’t find anything.
My hands gripped the handle of the basket as my eyes shot to Blaze. He had the sweetest, most adoring look on his face. “Can’t find it?”
“What… What is that?”
Blaze took the basket from my clutches, reached inside, and pulled out what had left me in such a state of shock.
This couldn’t be happening.
This couldn’t be real.
Holding the open ring box in one of his hands, he used the other to hold my hand. “You’re trembling,” he said.
“Is this really happening? Am I dreaming?”
My voice was strained and didn’t sound like my own. I was in a state of utter disbelief.
Blaze was the best thing that had ever happened to me. He was about to make my dreams come true. If I was honest, he already had.
“It’s real, baby,” he assured me, his voice so calm and gentle. “You’ve been worried the last few days about something being on my mind, but now you know what it is. It was this, Harlow. It was about me realizing just how close I was to this moment, to being able to have the opportunity to make you mine forever.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and my fingertips gripped Blaze’s hand firmly. “Blaze,” I breathed. “I hope you weren’t worried about what the outcome would be.”
He smiled at me. “I love you, Harlow. I love you more than I ever thought was possible to love another person. If there’s anything life has taught me recently, it’s that it’s never smart to wait to do the things that matter. So, I’m not waiting any longer to do something that I’ve wanted to do since not long after I met you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, baby. Will you marry me?”
I didn’t have to think twice about it.
Blaze was everything that I could have hoped for, and then some. I’d have been a fool to walk away from him.
“Yes, Blaze, I’ll marry you.”
He took the ring from the box, slid it on my finger, and didn’t hesitate to wrap me in his arms while he kissed me. From the very first kiss I had with Blaze in the rain, I knew just how easy it was to get lost in him. But there was not a single kiss that had me as lost as the one he was giving me now.
Maybe it was knowing that I’d gotten my wish. I would have Blaze forever, because he’d chosen me to be his. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, better than that.
Blaze brought his hands up to frame my face before tearing his mouth from mine. His eyes roamed over my face. “Do you know how much I love you? Do you know how much you’ve changed my life?”
I lifted my hands up to curl my fingers around his wrists. Slowly, I nodded as tears rolled down my cheeks. “You did the same for me, boss. I never knew it could be this good, but I’m so thankful every day to have met you.”
“Who would have thought the world’s worst date would have turned into this?” he teased.
I laughed. And following a beat of silence, I asked, “When do you want to get married?”
“I’d do it today.”
“I would, too. But I want our families and friends there. Maybe we can plan something small within a month,” I suggested.
“Eager?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never been married before, and it’s one of those things on my list I’d really like to cross off.”
Blaze pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “Whatever you want, baby, I’ll give it to you.”
“I love you, Blaze.”
“I love you, too.”
We kissed each other once more. Then we enjoyed the delicious food Blaze had packed and had the best picnic to have ever existed. Without a doubt, it was the best day of my life.
But I knew I didn’t need to worry that it would never be this good again.
With Blaze in my life, I was confident this was only the beginning, and there would be so much more to come.