“This book is for my favorite boy. The boy who gave my life meaning and purpose. It’s for the boy who made me a mother, the one thing I aspired to be since before I could remember. It’s for the boy who surpassed my every expectation and grew to be a man I couldn’t be prouder of. Truly, my soul can hold no more pride as you’ve taken up every inch already, and I know you’ll only come to be even more astonishing.
This recipe book is for you, my sweet Noah, and inside, you will find me in memory. My heart is so full, as I hope your, one day, wife and children’s bellies will be as you turn the page and create for them all the meals I created for you. And just like that, you’ll find I’m forever with you, alive in aromas that shall one day fill your home as they filled ours.
My hope is that you’ll add to this someday, create more Riley family recipes with the woman who holds your heart in the palm of her hand, just as you hold hers.
With every bit of my love,
Mom.”
Tears fall from my eyes, and Noah’s thumbs come up to catch them, his own cloudy with emotion.
“On one of our visits with her, I asked her if she would be willing to help me make this for you, and of course, she said yes. I started calling her when the timing worked out, and I’d record while she spoke. Some days we’d only get through a half of a recipe, and others, she’d fly through two. I typed them all up and the people at the print company helped me get them all together.”
Noah’s throat bobs as he swallows, and he shakes his head. “This is…”
He’s speechless, but he doesn’t need to use words for me to understand what he’s feeling.
I just do.
His eyes cling to mine, and I’m overcome by the pure adoration within them.
This man loves me with all that he is… and more.
I’m not sure what I did in my life to deserve him, but he’s everything that I have ever hoped for, beyond so.
I spin in his lap, my legs coming around behind him, my hands gliding up his neck until my thumbs are sliding along his jaw, the tips of my other fingers grazing the edge of his fade. “I love you, Noah Riley.”
A broken breath escapes him, his eyes clenching closed. “Santa did so good.”
A laugh escapes me and a small smile curves his mouth.
Noah kisses me then, his hands sinking into my hair, as he has always done, but it’s now his new routine each time we leave, arrive, meet or part. His touch is never far. Ever. It’s as soothing as it is painful, but only because of how deep the reasons for it run.
Noah’s afraid. Afraid that, at any moment, something could come along and take me from him, but we won’t let that happen. Not again. Never again.
Beginning the night my memories came back, I laid in Noah’s arms and wrote down the night he and I met, the conversation we had, as well as the bonfire that followed. Every night after that, I did the same thing, telling our story in a journal with doodles and scribbles, and yes, colorful hearts. I’ve already filled two, having cracked open my third just yesterday.
“I can’t wait to add today to my journal.”
“You just started on our camping trip last night. You’ve got a long ways to go.”
“I know, but still.”
Noah’s lips graze mine, his eyes closing, his tone oh, so soft, as he says, “What if… you’re never caught up?” A small frown pulls at my brows, and Noah blindly curls a piece of my hair around his finger. “What if I keep giving you more to write about?”
The hand now tracing his tattoos pauses, and my eyes fly to his. He takes his time, watching as he releases the dark lock, and then pushes it from my shoulder when it falls. Only then do his eyes come to mine.
“What if every day that follows this one, I give you something else to write?”
“Noah.” My heart pounds wildly.
His lips curve into a small smirk, and he hooks his finger beneath my necklace, the gift he gave me the moment I woke up this morning, a silver heart dangling from it.
He said it will tarnish in time, the sterling unable to hold its shine, but said maybe when that time comes, he’ll be able to afford a real one to replace it.
“I told you my mom gave me something the day she died, something she and I found at the pier, but I never told you what it was.” He spins the heart until its clasp is in the front and he undoes it, holding it in his open palm. His eyes never leave mine. “I want you, Arianna Johnson, like no man has ever wanted a woman before. I’m sure of it. I want to give you the life you dreamed of, the one you shared with me. I want to give you a home on the ocean, one that will be ours, where the back deck faces the ocean, so we can sit outside at night while the sun sets, but only so we can watch the way the moon bounces off the water the way you love. I want to come home and cook for you while you sit back and watch, our little one in your arms.”