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Authors: Nadene Seiters

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BOOK: Trouble
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“What took you so long?”
She asks with a glimmer in her eyes.

“Just trying to be patient,” I tell her quietly.

“Caleb, I feel like I should have a speech for you, but I guess that’s not how it usually goes. I’m supposed to just say yes, right?” I’m starting to pop out in a cold sweat. Is she going to say the word or is she going to make me wait here for an eternity? I feel like it’s an eternity.

“You could say hell yes, or something even less appropriate,” I tell her in a soft voice. As I’m speaking she gets closer and closer to my lips until hers are crushing down on mine, and I have my answer.
My mother has tears shimmering in her eyes, whether they’re from the fear of me getting the wrong answer or because she’s just so happy, I’m sure she’ll never tell.

As I’m slipping the ring onto her finger, I hear the sound of a motorcycle in the distance. I’m not sure if anyone else hears it, but when I glance up at Mrs. Needle she has a tiny smile on her lips. A single tear drops down her face, and I’m sure it’s not because I just proposed to my girlfriend. It’s because we’re both hoping that Ronnie is out there somewhere witnessing this milestone in my life.

Epilogue

Daisy

A year ago, if someone asked me what I would be doing with my life, this is not what I would have imagined. Mrs. Jacobs pulls my hair up into a loose bun at the back of my head and curls the strands that pull loose. There is a reason that Caleb’s mother is doing my hair and not a professional, although I would choose her over any professional today. Her hands are steady and methodic as she makes me look like some kind of billowing angel.

“Are you scared?”
She asks me with her soft voice. We’ve had months to get to know one another now that we’re living closer together. Caleb still works at the tattoo shop, but he only goes in three days a week. The rest of the week, he’s been working on the new house with me.

“More scared than if I were facing an entire army,” I admit to her. I look at her in the mirror
and she meets my gaze. “Is that normal?” At my soft question, she laughs. I can’t help it, I grin right along with her and look at my face in the mirror. In a few more minutes she will be putting on my makeup, and then she will help me into my dress. I wish my own mother were here to help me with this. But it’s been so long since I’ve seen my parents, I don’t think they know I’m alive.

I have a perfectly good family here.

“You ladies better hurry it up, we’ve got half an hour before the bride needs to be walking down that aisle!” Tom pokes his head through the door of the master bathroom in his own home, and he looks down at his watch as he speaks.

Caleb discussed grand wedding plans that involved a church, a reception hall, and numerous other expenses I felt were unnecessary. After he
started talking about hiring a famous wedding cake designer, I had to shut him up with a very long kiss. After that kiss, I told him how much I would appreciate a simple wedding in someone’s back yard with just some friends and family. Then I showed him how much I would appreciate it.

He still insisted we have an excellent wedding cake and flowers, and when I argued he told me that it was for our guests. I relented at that. The guests do deserve
great cake and beautiful flowers to distract them while I’m being primped and pampered into looking like something I feel like I’m not. Before Caleb, my life was sketchy and unsavory at best. I feel like I should be wearing any color but white right now.

As I’m thinking about what I should and should not be wearing, Mrs. Jacobs lightly dabs on some makeup. She fixes my veil over my face, and then helps me into my dress. She insisted upon buying the dress, and she insisted that it be stark white. I have to admit
, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s something that only an angel would dare to wear.

“Don’t be afraid,” my mother in law
tells me gently as she starts to lead me from the room. She reaches over and grabs a bouquet of white and red roses draped with white lace.

“What if-” she puts a finger to my lips and smiles at
me.

“I’ll tell you what will happen. You’re going to go downstairs with me where Carl is waiting to walk you down the aisle. He will lead you down that aisle to my son, who is probably more nervous than you right now. You two will exchange vows, rings, and one heated kiss that will make the entire mass of people out there jealous. Then there will be dancing, cake, and you two will enjoy your honeymoon together. The rest of your lives will involve tough decisions, compromise,
and if I’m a very lucky woman, children. But most of all, it will involve unconditional love.” By the time she’s done her speech, I’m sniffling.

I would be outright bawling if it weren’t for the fact that I cannot ruin the makeup she so meticulously put on my face. I pull her in close for a hug and manage to keep myself together as she goes down the stairs towards Carl. Just before she breaks away from me to find her seat, I take her hand in mine. “Thank you,” I tell her firmly. I needed that speech more than she
could ever know.

When the doors open, the love of my existence is standing at the end of that long aisle. He’s wearing a very striking, black tux with a black shirt and white tie. As soon as our eyes meet, my knees stop shaking and suddenly the tempo of the music is not fast enough. Carl has to keep me from jogging down the aisle.

“What are you so excited about, the cake?” I try not to snicker at his banter, and give him a gentle kiss on the cheek just as we get to the end.

While I’m standing there in my white dress with my hands interlaced with Caleb’s, everything from my past seems to fall away. A warm feeling spreads throughout me, and I understand why I’m wearing white today. For me, it’s not to signify that I’m untouched.
It’s to signify that for Caleb, I am pure. In this moment, my life is starting anew.

Acknowledgements

This book was really inspired by my father. When I was a child he rode a motorcycle, and he always told me about being responsible while being on a bike, being smart. Growing up listening to him talk about bikes really made me want to create a character that rode, and telling a story about what happens when you’re not riding responsibly.

As always, a firm shout out to my fans who have stuck around this far, and the new ones! It’s you who make the writer into an author!

I started listening to the playlist that I had created for Sarah and Liam when I began this adventure that turned into a book. Then I added a few more songs to my list, and eventually created a new playlist. One of the songs I listened to the most was Sail by AWOLNATION. This song spoke to me in a way that has put a mark on my soul. It really reminds me of how Caleb feels inside: wounded, unsure, and conflicted.

BOOK: Trouble
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