His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia Read online

  “But you’ll never be whole,” his father said, tears floating in his eyes. “And that’s all my fault.”

  Sawyer shook his head. “Dad, if I’d stayed ‘whole’ as you call it, I never would have met Willa again—at least not in any kind of way that counted. I might have gone my whole life without knowing Trevor.”

  Sawyer thought of the baby growing inside of Willa’s womb and said, “And there’s a whole lot more happiness coming for me down the line. So thanks, Dad. Thanks for making sure I got put on that rescue mission, because it gave me a life I would have never thought possible.”

  Tears weren’t just shining in his father’s eyes in that moment, they spilled as he grabbed his son up in a powerful hug. Erasing years of tension between them with just one action.

  “Now you go tell Grace exactly what I just told you. And make sure she still comes to work next Tuesday, because Trevor’s going to be real sick of my omelets by then. She might have to teach me how to make a few more dishes if I’m going to do this dad thing right.”

  “I’ll do that, Son.” His father let him go with a weak chuckle, and it felt like Sawyer was escorting a new man when he walked him to the door. One he’d be able to get along much better with in the future.

  One he’d easily be able to call “Dad” instead of “The Admiral.”

  But after he was gone, the question remained…

  He looked back toward the dark front room.

  What was he going to call the woman sleeping on his couch when she finally woke up?

  22

  When Willa woke up she was no longer in the passenger seat, but on a couch in a dimly lit room.

  Tucked beneath a thin quilt. She sat up with a gasp, looking around. Where was she? Where was Trevor?

  “You fell asleep in the car.”

  She looked across the dark room, and found Sawyer. Sitting in a nearby wingback chair, his face illuminated by the glow of his smartphone. “Figured you’d be more comfortable in here.”

  “What time is it?” she asked. “Where’s Trevor?”

  He glanced down at his phone. “Around eight,” he answered. “And as for Trevor, he already ate dinner and went back to sleep upstairs.”

  “Oh…” she said, feeling a little like Rip Van Winkle. Sleeping away while the world passed her by.

  Sawyer clicked on a nearby lamp, casting the room in a faint orange glow. “He told me earlier I didn’t have to read him a bedtime story, because he’d already told my mom she could.”

  “Yeah, Kate’s really excited about having a grandson,” she answered, scrubbing a hand over her face as she sat all the way up, her bare feet finding the oriental carpet.

  He looked away from her then. Jaw clenching, as if it was a struggle just to listen to her.

  And she threw him a sympathetic look as she said, “You know, that’s not going stop. Even if you take him from me. I’m only half-ghost, but he’s even more than that, because of how he was conceived. One-fourth my father, One-fourth my mother and a whole lot of spirit. Thel and I have been doing what we can to train him out of getting committed at an early age. But he’s always going to be really strange, Sawyer. And he’s never going to be the kind of boy you can take out with you on the campaign trail.”

  Sawyer let out a harsh sound. Half-laugh. Half-scoff. “You don’t have to worry about me trying to campaign with him. That plan’s done. That’s what my father came to the hospital to talk about. He’s going to run Josh for his old seat instead of me.”

  Willa’s heart sank, but she couldn’t say she was surprised to hear this. Josh might not have as sympathetic a back story, but he also didn’t have an illegitimate son with a crazy black woman.

  Or another one on the way. She spread a hand across her flat stomach. “I’m sorry. I guess we’ve ruined a lot of stuff for you.”

  Sawyer shook his head, his face dull with resignation. “I don’t care about that. I didn’t want it.”

  She knew that. Remembered his words about the completely planned out life he didn’t necessarily want like it was yesterday, but she kept her mouth closed. After the day they’d had, the last thing Sawyer needed was yet another reminder of the strange set of circumstances that had brought Trevor into this world.

  Instead she said, “Well, I’m glad you’re not too upset, then.”

  He kept shaking his head. “I never wanted any of it. Plus, I got a law degree now, and plenty of Greenlee money in my trust. I can do good things with that money without running for office. I don’t need or want to live the life my dad planned out for me.”

  “No, you don’t,” she agreed. Glad to hear he’d finally figured that out for himself.

  “All I need. All I want right now is you…” he said. “You and Trevor, and this baby we’ve got coming.”

  She shook her head afraid to believe. “But you think I’m crazy. You’ve probably got Josh drawing up commitment papers as we speak.”

  A half-smile flit across his lips. “Yeah, I’m not going to deny I thought about it. Especially when you took me around to look for Trevor. But then I realized something. When we were behind your house, it felt cold. Under the tree, too. It’s a feeling I recognized. After my mom passed, I sometimes would wake up and the room would feel…it’s hard to explain. Not quite cold—but you know the feeling you get when you’re standing next to something really cold. A few nights, it felt like there was a huge piece of ice in the room that I couldn’t see. That’s how I used to feel a lot after my mom died. And that’s how I felt behind your house and under that tree. And a bunch of times today with Trevor.”

  His eyes found hers then, scanning her as if he was really seeing her for the first time. “She’s here, isn’t she? My mom’s still ghosting around this house.”

  Willa answered with a single nod. Letting the truth go unspoken between them.

  “And the cold underneath the tree—that really was your father?”

  “Yes…” Willa retold him her father’s tragic story then, as well as the ones of the River Boys and the Well Girls, and about her grandpa who plain didn’t want to go, because after working himself to the bone for fifty-eight years as an illiterate farmer, he didn’t really start living until he died.

  Sawyer listened to every story she told him quietly. And when she finished, his eyes were soft with understanding.

  “Wow, no wonder you kept to yourself in high school,” he said, sitting forward with his hands folded. “That had to be a weird way to grow up. Old as this county is, there must be all kinds of ghosts running around.”

  “Yes, yes, it was a weird way to grow up,” she agreed with a wry chuckle. “I couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

  “But when you tried to run away, you met me.”

  She sobered at that memory. “Yes, but you weren’t a ghost. You were what my mom calls ‘an undecided spirit.’”

  “An undecided spirit.” His mouth twisted as if he didn’t quite like the taste of those words on his lips. “What does that mean?”

  “You were still trying to decide if you wanted to live or die, so you were stuck somewhere in-between.”

  He considered her story, with a somewhat surprising lack of shock in his expression. “And how did I come to eventually make the decision to live?”

  Now Willa’s cheeks heated. “You didn’t exactly make an official decision. We, ah…had relations.”

  He threw her a sharp frown. “So you’re saying we actually had consensual sex. Was it…” he shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe he was asking this question. “I’ve had this recurring dream about us…did we hook up in some sort of gym, on top of a blue table?”

  She ducked her head, the embarrassed heat now spreading over her entire face. “Yes, actually it was a physical therapy bed. And I can’t tell you how unprofessional that was on my part.”

  “All right, Willa, I get it,” he answered, dismissing her ethical concerns with a raise of his eyes to the ceiling. “Go on with the rest of your story.”r />
  She hesitated, hating that he kept calling it a story, but figuring he was owed the truth. So she told him, “Like I said, we had relations and then I guess that put you in such a happy place, you made the decision to stick around in this life. A portal appeared and you swore you’d find me before it pulled you through. But that was the last I ever saw of you. Until you moved back to Greenlee.”

  Sawyer’s chin tilted, his eyes crinkling with bemusement. “So what you’re trying to say is that sex with you brought me back to life?”

  “N-no,” Willa stammered, feeling the old stutter want to come back big time. “I-I’m not bragging about it or anything. I’m just s-saying, y-you w-weren’t so s-sad after we…”

  “Because making love to you made me want to live.” He regarded her then with a teasing gaze. “Strange, I’m finding most of this hard to wrap my head around. But that…”

  He shook his head.

  “I know this all sounds crazy. I know it’s impossible to believe.”

  “Let me finish, Willa.”

  He stood and crossed over to the couch, taking a seat beside her. “I was going to say that’s the one thing I have absolutely no problem believing.”

  And then she had to smile, her heart warming with tentative hope. “Really?”

  “Baby, if you had any idea what I’ve been going through since moving back here. After I finished with the SEALs, my life became dull and grey. Law school, life in D.C.—it felt like I was just going through the motions. But when it came time to run for my dad’s old seat, for some reason I felt compelled to come back to this house. It was the first real desire I’d felt in years. So I followed it. Came back here. Then I saw you in that dealership and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Wanting you. Missing you, even though I hadn’t said word one to you in nearly thirteen years. I thought I was going crazy.”

  He shrugged then. “Me falling for you in a ghost form is a hell of a better explanation than what I was thinking might be going on in my head. You don’t know how much of a relief this is to me.”

  Actually, she did. “What you’ve been going through is what I’ve been going through for six years. Except I couldn’t tell anyone how much I loved you, how much I missed you. Not even you. But some way you found me again… somehow you came back to me, just like you promised—”

  His lips took hers before she could finish the thought. Mouth devouring hers as his strong weight pushed her back down on the couch and he covered her body with his.

  “I believe you…I don’t care if I can’t really remember anything but what I’ve seen in my dreams. I believe you about all of it now…” he whispered between kisses. Her pants were soon lost in the same desperate scramble that had her pulling his t-shirt up and off his body.

  Tearing his lips away from hers, he said, “Hell, Willa, you don’t how bad I’ve been missing you all these years without even knowing it. Like an ache in my soul. Tell me that again. Tell me you love me.”

  “I love you,” she answered breathlessly.

  Then she gasped when he reared back and buried his face in her core. Tongue driving down deep, mouth swallowing her clit whole.

  Good…his mouth felt so good. Too good she soon discovered. She could feel an orgasm already building. Impossibly fast. Too fast. But she didn’t want to come like this. With him down there and her up here.

  “Sawyer, please…” she said, gritting her teeth against the coming storm.

  He seemed to understand. And her heart sang out with relief when he came stalking back up her body.

  He kissed her again, once again possessing her mouth. And then his mouth pressed even harder into hers when he buried himself inside her hot core, sinking into her tight space as if he belonged there.

  And he did… He did belong there. Nothing in her life had ever felt as natural as the way the two of them began to move together in the next moment. Lovers reunited as one.

  “No more running away. You and Trevor are moving in with me,” he snarled into her lips. “I’ll send Grace over to look after your mother, but you two belong with me. I lost you once, Willa, and I’m never letting you go again. From now on, you stay with me. Forever.”

  Willa didn’t argue with him. Didn’t want to argue with him. Especially about this.

  “Forever,” she agreed with tears spearing her eyes. “Sawyer, thank you. Thank you for believing me…for loving me. Thank you, Sawyer for coming back to me.”

  “How could I not come back to you, baby?” His strokes sped up, pounding her into the couch as he declared, “You’re my home. Even when I didn’t know it. You’re with me now, baby. We’re finally together. I found you!”

  She was a girl who’d been running away from ghosts her entire life, but having this one claim her as his own broke her. She came undone. Body tremoring as her core sucked him in even deeper, begging him without words to join her as one.

  “Fuck Willa! Willa!” he shouted. He exploded into her womb, a geyser of semen flooding her insides, as the orgasm crested over them both. Blanketing them in pleasure…and love. Most of all, love.

  “I’m never letting you go again, baby,” he whispered as they floated down from the clouds. “Never again.”

  She laughed sleepily. “Good, because I never want to be let go again. If you’re okay with being with someone who can see and talk to ghosts, then I’m okay with staying with you forever.”

  “Good,” he said with a laugh, “Because I’m not letting you go forever.”

  He let that statement sink in for a few beats of blissful silence. “Though, now that I think of it, we will have to hand over this house to Josh soon, since Richmond isn’t in his district. Maybe we should think about moving somewhere a little less…ghosty.”

  That suggestion brought Willa up on one forearm. “Oh my God, yes!” she agreed with a huge smile on her face. “Let’s get a brand new house, in one of those cookie-cutter developments that used to be woods but are now neighborhoods with HOAs.”

  She sighed happily at just the thought of such a thing. “We’d have to come back regularly to visit Grandpa, Dad, and my mom, and your mom, but living somewhere like that would be a dream come true.”

  He leaned into her, snickering against her neck. “Willa, baby, you have a very interesting definition of “dream come true.” But you’re my dream come true, so if that’s what you want, I’m going to make it happen for you. One totally new four-bedroom house in a brand new development that used to be a bunch of woods, coming right up.”

  This time Willa kissed him, lowering her head to claim the now fully alive man she loved more than any other in this world. Her ghost. Her patient. The father of her children. And now her everlasting love.

  No, she definitely would not mind never being let go by Sawyer Grant. Being lost once was enough for one lifetime. No more running away, she agreed to herself. She was happy to stay permanently found for the rest of their lives.

  Epilogue

  They got married beneath her father’s willow tree the following fall.

  Just like Marian said they would. After her mother’s leg healed. After Trevor started kindergarten officially on record as the son of Sawyer Grant. And after her sister unexpectedly returned home for the wedding. Thinner and tremulous with more missing months she refused to talk about.

  But Thel threw herself into serving as Willa’s maid of honor. Making all the arrangements, and even volunteering to babysit Trevor—though Grace and The Admiral quickly squashed that notion.

  They’d just returned from their own unexpected honeymoon, after deciding to elope while they were on vacation. And according to The Admiral, he and his new wife were owed a week or two with their grandson.

  So same old Admiral. But not really. Willa noticed he’d become gentler since his big conversation with Sawyer. He’d even been better about guiding Josh through the more than year-long process of campaigning to become a Congressman. Less demanding than he’d been of Sawyer, and more of a mentor.

  He’
d been nothing but a wonderful and loving grandpa to Trevor, and had told her personally he couldn’t wait to be the same for little Eve.

  Eve. This was the name they’d given to the little girl growing inside her. The consummation of their love in the spirit world and here in the real one. The first woman in the Bible, whose name meant life.

  So nearly everyone they loved was present when Willa and Sawyer spoke lifelong vows to each other under the willow tree. And by the time the ceremony was through, both their visible and invisible guests were crying happy tears.

  “I wish Other Grandma could have been here,” Trevor said afterwards, wiping his eyes underneath his glasses.

  The little boy was still grieving for Kate. A portal had opened behind his ghost grandma at what turned out to be the very moment Grace and The Admiral decided to elope. Sucking her into a new life that would no longer include reading her grandson to sleep every night.

  It was a good time to move, Willa thought to herself at their picnic reception as she watched Trevor and Thel sitting together on one of the blankets they’d laid out for their guests. They were both picking at their food forlornly. But for very different reasons.

  Only one of which she knew.

  But just a few minutes later, Thel shocked the stuffing out of just about everybody by going to stand with the five-piece wedding band they’d hired to play instrumentals for the reception. Then without any announcement whatsoever, she burst into a set of romantic standards, clearly just trusting that the band would keep up.

  They did, and soon the guests were all on their feet, the living and the dead jigging it up as Thel sang song after song.

  “Any idea what’s going on with your sister?” Sawyer asked when Thel finally took her foot off the upbeat peddle and launched into “Endless Love.”