Until Harry(104)

He was undoing me. “I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

He took my hands in his. “It’s the truth, darling. I’ve been waiting for you for the last five years. I’d have waited fifty if that’s what it took.”

“I feel like this is a dream,” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re telling me everything I have always wanted to hear.”

He smiled. “We can have everything we’ve always wanted together now.”

I began to tremble.

“We’re really doing this?” I asked as pure joy filled me. “We’re really going to be together?”

“Until my dying breath,” Kale vowed.

My heart didn’t know what to do; it was feeling something other than heartbreak for once and was close to shutting down. I pressed my forehead against his.

“The day you left, it took me all of two seconds to realise I’d die for you,” he murmured.

Oh.

With a shaky breath I said, “I’ve been dying slowly, waiting for you, and I mean this quite literally – I can’t live without you.”

“You won’t,” Kale swore, pressing his forehead against mine. “I’ll be with you until the day my heart thumps its last beat. You’re everything to me. Do you understand that? Every. Fucking. Thing.”

Tears seeped from my eyes and splashed onto my cheeks.

“I love you so much.”

Kale smiled wide. “I love you too, Laney Baby, and to think we have your uncle to thank for bringing us back together,” he said as he nuzzled his nose to mine.

I smiled warmly. “I miss him dearly.”

“I know you do, sweetheart, but we’ll see him again. We’ll see your Aunt Teresa, Lavender and Kaden too.” He nudged his nose into my neck. “We have a lot to look forward to as we grow old, darling.”

I was going to grow old with Kale.

My Kale.

I joyfully smiled. “We do.”

“Things would have been so different if you’d never come home,” he murmured, his arm tightening around me.

“I know,” I said, nodding against him. “Things would have never changed.”

“Until Harry?” Kale questioned, kissing my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I smiled warmly, closing my eyes as I bathed in the love my future husband freely gave to me. “Until Harry.”

We were silent as we basked in the touch of one another.

“You’re my soon-to-be Mrs Kale Hunt,” Kale murmured.

I didn’t know why, but I burst into laughter as I thought back to the times I’d scribbled those exact words all over my school journals and notebooks, wishing that one day those words would come true. Little did I know that day would come. Getting to it wouldn’t be easy, but it would come, and I would be happy. Nothing else, just really bloody happy.

And you know something? My Uncle Harry was right. I deserved it.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Day one of forever

Nanny?” I said when I walked up the pathway of York Cemetery later that blissful and life-changing day and found my grandmother standing in front of my aunt and uncle’s grave.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Hello, me darlin’.”

I put my arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze before standing by her side. “Are you okay?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I’m okay as I can be.”

I leaned in and kissed her temple before resting my head against hers. We stayed that way for a few minutes until my nanny spoke. “Lane,” she began. “I miss me son,” she said sorrowfully, “and I am sad that he is gone, but I’m also very happy that ye have come home ta us. I know Harry would have been over the moon with your decision, sweetheart.”

I gave her another squeeze. “I’m just so sorry that it took me so long. I don’t have everything figured out yet, but I’m getting there. I wish things didn’t take so long to come to pass, though. I’ll forever be regretful for that.”

My nanny turned me to face her. “Listen ta me, Lane Edwards: ye did what you needed ta do at the time for you. Ye aren’t a machine – you’re a human, and you’re no better at figurin’ life out than the rest of us are.” She reached for my hands and rubbed her thumbs over my knuckles, instantly relaxing me.

“I am so sorry for how we all reacted when ye broke your news about leavin’, and I wish we could take it back, but ye were meant ta leave, and we were meant ta fight ye over it. Everythin’ that has happened, the good, the bad, and the downright horrible, has led ta this moment. It was meant ta be, darlin’. Fate is a funny thing, and ye have no control over it. Ye can’t even explain it.”