I was nervous as we pulled up. I expected the door to be flung wide open and the whole house pillaged through by Stephano’s goons. But when we got there, it was still locked up and nothing looked out of place at all. I didn’t want to be nervous. I hated that Stephano was occupying any of my mental space, but I couldn’t keep him out of my thoughts.
“See, nothing to worry about,” Nate said as we walked into the house.
At first I felt like it was a trap of some sort and we were going to get shot at. I felt an overwhelming feeling of dread, but I couldn’t decide if that feeling was remembered from when I was there last or if it was a new feeling. All I knew was there was no way I was sleeping alone at all. I would be wrapped up in Nate’s arms and feeling his protection every night we were there.
; “Do you think I was wrong?” I asked as the thought crossed my mind.
“No,” he answered quickly.
“How can you be sure? Maybe I just imagined all those pictures and what had been in that cabin.”
The thought had haunted me a lot over the recent days. My mind played so many tricks on me when I was scared. I couldn’t be sure what I had seen was even real. And I certainly didn’t know if it was Stephano who had sent whoever was in that cabin.
“It was real, Ana. You described the scene in color. You knew what the curtains looked like in color. If it had been a hallucination, you wouldn’t have known the colors.”
Nate’s certainty made me feel better. If he believed me, then I had to believe myself. I had never really had a man around who trusted me and supported me. It was an amazing feeling to have him there by my side and saying that he believed me.
Everything about having Nate with me was like a dream and I didn’t want to wake up from it. I wanted to keep Nate there with me forever and wished I could come up with the words to talk to him about our future together.
“What are we going to do about it?” I asked.
“How about you trust me now? I’m getting it taken care of.”
I did trust Nate; that was one hundred percent real. I knew that he would never do anything to harm me and would always be on the lookout for anything that was dangerous. I knew that if Nate said he was taking care of the situation, then he was taking care of it. I thought he might be having Stephano killed or something like that, but even that didn’t bother me. Because Stephano was a horrible person and he didn’t deserve to live. I could care less if he was murdered, but I did want to know the truth. I didn’t want to be sheltered from the truth because Nate thought I couldn’t handle it.
“Okay, but promise me you’ll tell me what is going on as soon you know. I don’t care what it is. I want to know the truth.”
“I will always tell you the truth,” Nate said as he pulled me close to him.
His body next to mine felt like home and I didn’t want to let go of him. I never wanted to let go of him. My whole life I had wondered when or how I would know that I had found my perfect match. But as I sat wrapped up in his arms, I just felt it. I just knew it deep in my soul that he was my match and I was his. There wasn’t a big way of telling for sure and I actually had a hard time explaining the feeling even to myself. But I knew it.
“I’d like you to stay living here with me,” Nate said softly as he looked down at me.
I smiled at the thought. We hadn’t specifically talked about staying there with him, but it did make me happy that he had been thinking about it and brought up the topic. My heart was full as I stood there with Nate. Nothing else in the world mattered if I had him by my side. I knew we would take on the world together and no one would dare get in our way. With Nate and I working as a team, Stephano wouldn’t bother us. I couldn’t want to move into the next phase of us, whatever it was.
It didn’t matter what the next phase was. The only thing that mattered was that we would be stepping into that great unknown together. We were a couple now and together we were going to live the life that made us happy. Not the life that others wanted us to live, but the life that we wanted for ourselves; that was all that mattered. Nate and I were all that mattered besides our families and loved ones.
“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”
“Then stay forever.”
Epilogue
“George, where’s your wife?” Jordan asked as we all boarded the plane.
Ana and I were the first ones at the airport, probably because we were the most excited to get out to Los Angeles and see Jeremiah. George had showed up just after us, but I hadn’t thought to ask him where Cindy was. When Jordan and Chase got on the plane, the very first thing she said to him was about Cindy.
George and Cindy had two teenage children, ages 17 and 18. Their relationship had been strained for at least half of the children’s lives. Things never seemed to be getting better for them; instead, they actually seemed to get much worse for them throughout the years. But they were married and had two beautiful children, that was a pretty damn big accomplishment.
“We are getting a divorce,” George said as he looked at Jordan and then out the window of the plane. “And I don’t really feel like talking about it much.”
That was the end of that. If George didn’t want to talk about something, he just didn’t talk at all. We had all grown up with him as our older brother and dealing with his mood swings was sometimes a bit much for us, even as teenagers. But his marriage had been pretty rocky for a few years and we all knew that every time we saw him.
“I’m glad I got to meet you,” Ana said as she reached her hand out to shake George’s hand.
“Yeah, me too.”