Finding Fate (20 page)
At exactly three, Anna comes walking in. She’s always on time. She’s just out of high school and something about her reminds her of me. She’s a writer though and while she has the knack for baking, she prefers writing. I asked to read some stuff and she won’t let me.
I take the package Colt gave me and carry it to my car. When I get in the car I sit there for a few seconds, letting the day run off my shoulders. There’s something amazing about leaving when the place is still open. I’m able to go in, bake what needs to get done, and still have a life. Colt and I talk business, plans, expansion, everything. It’s really something special. I almost feel like I don’t deserve it. But I can’t say that around Colt, he’ll get pissed. And his version of pissed is grabbing me and kissing me. So I guess you can say I like getting him pissed.
Home is Colt’s apartment which he lovingly allowed me to turn into our place. Not that I’m a picky girl, but I make sure there’s a female presence in the place. As I sit in the parking lot I look to my left at the box. I know Colt. I know how he does these flirty, romance things.
He wants me to open the box in the car. I sense it.
I slide my finger under the tape and pull. Cardboard tears with tape but I don’t care. I open the flaps and find bubble wrap waiting for me. I pinch a few because you have to. It’s a law written somewhere.
When I move the bubble wrap I’m staring at the back of a frame.
A frame?
I pick it up and turn it around.
My breath is stolen.
I want to say something, even though I’m alone, and it comes out as a whimper. A hopeless whimper.
It’s a photograph of my grandparents.
Actually, it’s
the
photograph. The one from the bakery.
I tear into the box and all the pictures are there. The ones I wanted. The ones Colt told me to leave.
He got them.
Somehow.
I put the pictures back into the box and rush from my car, carrying the box. I’m crying, something I find easy to do around Colt because he’s found a way to open my heart that nobody has ever tried nor succeeded.
I open the door to the apartment and Colt is standing there with his hands in his pockets.
“You like?” he asks, knowing I opened the box in the car.
I put the box down and dive at him. He catches me and spins, quickly carrying me towards the bedroom. I guess the box isn’t the only present I’m getting today.
“I love it,” I say and kiss him.
We kiss deep for a few seconds but I have to know.
“How did you do it?”
“I bought them from your aunt,” he says.
“You bought them?”
“Yeah. She had no idea what they were. Told her I was an old customer and needed them.”
“She sold pictures of her parents...”
“Oh well. Her lose, your gain.”
I kiss him again and then say, “Our gain.”
“I like that.”
“Like what?”
“Our. The way it sounds.”
Colt smiles and gently places me on the bed.
I’m sitting and he’s kneeling. Our eyes are battling each other. We battle for love, time, and memory. Every second with Colt is a new memory.
“Colt, you have no idea...”
“Oh, I have an idea or two.”
He reaches for the nightstand and opens the top drawer. That’s when I realize Colt isn’t on his knees anymore. He’s just on one knee.
One knee.
My eyes see a small black box as he takes it from the drawer.
I gasp for air again, my heart racing.
I know the answer to anything Colt would ever ask me... tonight and forever.
If it’s a chance with Colt, it’s a chance I’ll take. Again and again.
Acknowledgements
Here’s a little story. There once was a person, sitting alone, in their room, with a pen touching a piece of paper. Something was happening, something special. All the books that had been read were coming to life in that mind, ready to create something.
And so it began with…
‘Once upon a time…’
Sure, I may have started my writing career born out of cliché, but I was nine years old. What was that story about? Trust me, you don’t want to know. Just know this, from that moment on, I read and I wrote. It was my life, then and now. I acknowledge this because reading and writing kept me going through good times and bad.
I love Isabella and Colt. It pained me to finish their story and it pains me right now to write this. They were such an important part of my life… and I hope yours.
Thank you to my close friends who read this book and loved it. Thank you to my beta readers who took the book and tore it to shreds. I’m thankful you were nice enough to wrap it lovingly when you returned it to me in pieces. It turned out much better this way.
Thank you to family and friends. To bloggers and reviewers.
Most of all though, thank you to the readers. Whether you read my books or not – and whether you like my books or not – you are the life of books. It’s not the authors, it’s the readers. Because of your appetite for our ideas, we can continue having them.
Follow me @ArielEllens
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First electronic edition February 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Ariel Ellens
Published by Hundred to Home Publishing
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part of any form.