Page 156 of Just One Kiss

“Let me say this, Carly, please.” His hands slid down to her shoulders, then rested on her arms. “I won’t lie. I thought about leaving. I wanted to run. After I found out the truth about my brother—after I realized what my parents had done—I packed a bag and I sat there, trying to go.”

She exhaled a slow breath. “What stopped you?”

He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “Do you really need to ask?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I couldn’t leave you again,” he said. “I kept thinking about you—about Jaden. I kept thinking about that kiss, the night you came over to the cabin. That one kiss wrecked me—made it clear that there was still so much between us.”

Her eyes misted as she struggled to wrap her mind around the words he spoke.

He fixed his gaze intently on her, looking for a moment like he was holding his breath. Slowly, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it and sliding the faded sheet of notebook paper out.

He knelt down in front of her. “Carly Raeanne Collins—” He unfolded the sheet of paper.

“Josh—”

He smiled up at her, then glanced down at the page. “I promise to love you the way I loved you the first time I ever saw you when we were kids. To remember the way my heart jumped the first time we held hands. To reinvent ways to kiss you like it was the first time we ever kissed. I promise to be faithful to you, to protect you, to listen to your advice and sometimes even take it.”

A soft laugh escaped and she swiped a tear from her cheek.

“I promise to cherish you. To take care of you. To do what’s best for you and to always put your happiness before my own. I promise that in all things you will forever be myalways.”

The words brought her to tears the way they had the first time she’d heard them. For the briefest moment, they were those same two kids who loved each other beyond reason, the pain of the past a distant memory.

He reached into his pocket again and pulled out a small box, opened it and held it out to her. “Carly, I know you feel like you and I are a risk, but we’re a risk worth taking, I promise. I’m going to love you every day for the rest of my life if you’ll let me.”

She sniffed. “I’ll let you.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “If you’ll let me love you back.”

He stood, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her toward him. He studied her face, as if memorizing every line, each one a moment he’d missed and needed to make up for. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

She inched up on her tiptoes, drawing him closer, and her kiss became a promise to love and honor and cherish him in return.

His lips searched hers with all the familiarity of the years they’d been together and the curiosity of the years they’d been apart. She didn’t have guarantees—nobody did.

But this—she and Josh together—it was right.

And whatever came, they’d face it together. Carly, Josh and Jaden. A real family.

He pulled away, his breath short. “Man, I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

“’Bout time you made an honest woman of me,” she said with a grin.

He smoothed her hair away from her face and kissed her softly. “Do you want to see the rest of the house?”

She nodded and followed him to the top of the stairs. “We might have to wait until after Quinn’s wedding. I don’t want to steal any of her thunder.”

“We could elope?”

“My sister would kill me.”

“Then we’ll do it up big—anything you want.”

She tugged his hand and he faced her. “I don’t want anything but you, Josh. You and Jaden are really all I need.”

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