Until I'm Found Page 18

  “Amy?” the pained voice said again.

  My heart was beating rapidly and I swallowed hard. It took everything I had to face it—to face what I couldn’t see, but could only feel.

  “I’m here,” I said. “I’m still here.”

  EPILOGUE

  THREE YEARS LATER

  “Jeremy, move. You’re in my way,” I exclaimed playfully as I swept empty beer bottles and plastic cups into the dish bin I was using to clean off the tables.

  “Wow, tell me how you really feel, princess,” he joked, feigning hurt as he transferred the garbage bag he was holding to one hand and placed his other over his heart.

  I smiled at him, moving to the other side of the table. “Oh, please,” I retorted. “That’s why you love me. My charm. My wit.”

  “You’re confused, darlin’,” he mocked. “Those are the reasons you love me. You just forgot to add in my irresistibility and unbelievably good looks.”

  I sighed, shaking my head as I hauled my full dish bin onto the bar and began to place the empty bottles back into cardboard cases. “You are unbelievable, you got that part right anyway.”

  Jeremy brought the garbage bag around the back of the bar and set it down. Then he reached for the belt loops of my jeans and pulled me to him, kissing me softly. “Damn right I am, princess.”

  I pushed him away gently. Jeremy was still so much like the man I’d met more than three years ago, yet so much had changed. So much had happened to him. To me. To us.

  He had been my friend first, someone I relied on to make me smile even when I tried to pretend I didn’t care for him. His cocky ways and persistent playfulness helped to tear down walls I’d built around me that I thought could never come down. Until Jeremy, I didn’t even know it was possible to be friends with a man. First and foremost, he would always be my friend.

  And he’d saved my life when Ethan had tried to kill me.

  After that, Jeremy became my confidante. As much as neither of us liked it, we both knew there were things we couldn’t tell Cole about the night Ethan died. And, once Cole came home from the hospital after his rehabilitation, Jeremy had been there by his side, by my side, to help us in any way he could. He took on Cole’s wounds like they were his own, and the fervor with which he aided him in restoring his life back to some level of normalcy was clear in the eyes of whomever saw them together.

  Then, a little more than six months after that night with Ethan, Jeremy became something I hoped he would never have to endure. He became my equal.

  On the night I dropped Cole off at Rustic’s for his guys’ night out, on the night he’d proposed to me, Jeremy called me in the dead of the night and did the only thing he could. He told me the truth.

  His voice cracked, grew almost inaudible, and he’d finally lost his composure as he wept.

  He’s gone, he’d said. He repeated again and again as though he was confirming it for himself as well as for me. It took what seemed like ages for Jeremy to string the words together that explained how Jack, the elderly man who always attended Rustic’s, had finally done what others had seen coming for years.

  Cole was intent on getting home to his new fiancé, and he and Jeremy had left the bar together. After the typical goodbyes and promises to talk tomorrow, Cole headed across the parking lot to the cab he’d called, not wanting to wake me up. Jeremy headed toward his own truck, intent on getting the cash he kept tucked in his truck so he could buy a few more drinks.

  Neither had seen it coming.

  Jeremy heard the truck pull in and registered that he was obviously going faster than he should be in a parking lot, but he’d been so absorbed in sifting through the contents of his glove box that he didn’t even look up.

  Cole had been facing the cab driver, sorting through a couple of bills in his hand. It wasn’t until Jeremy heard Cole yell that he glanced up. Through the passenger window of his own truck, Jeremy watched as his best friend was hit by a pick-up truck and killed.

  He died at the scene.

  Though countless others including Ryan offered to inform me of the tragedy, Jeremy was adamant. He said he knew the words had to come from him and that he had to be the one to tell me. After he called me from the hospital, a volunteer drove him to my place, where we cried, hugged, and sat at the kitchen table wondering how in the world life could possibly go on without Cole.

  Jeremy became my equal that night because, not so unlike me on the night Ethan died, I thought I’d lost Cole. I was convinced I was going to lose him, and that loss had rendered me unable to care about anything else, let alone my own life. Jeremy now knew what it was to have his heart shattered by the loss of a true friend, and because of that, my heart ached for him, too.

  Four days after Cole’s death, the day after the funeral, I found the note he had shoved in the mailbox in anticipation of leaving for the week for his construction gig. The sight of his unique handwriting caused my throat to constrict and my heart to ache even more.

  It took me a total of three days, three days of running my thumb over the ink that formed my name on the envelope, and three days of clutching that envelope against my chest as I cried myself to sleep, before I finally opened it. Tears streamed from my eyes as I read his words, my heart aching for one more touch by the hand that had written them.

  Ames,

  I’m here without you, but know that I’m okay, just as I pray you are, and know that I count the minutes until I see you again.

  Love Always,

  Cole

  P.S. Look after Jere, will you? Take care of him. He tends to get into trouble when I’m not around. Again, I love you, Ames.

  It’s been three long years since we lost Cole. I not only lost my beloved fiancé, the man I would have given my life for, but Jeremy also lost his best friend, a man he was also willing to risk everything for.

  While I cannot believe that anyone ever really gets over such a heartbreaking loss, I do believe in the power of friendship and the necessity of having someone to lean on in times as hard as these. Out of the ashes of anger, sadness, and confusion comes a closeness between those involved that cannot be explained. To go through such emotional upheaval and have your soul stripped to raw shreds by such pain in front of someone else creates a bond in its truest form. Because of this, Jeremy and I have that bond.

  It wasn’t until after the Second Annual Cole Ceden Memorial Pool Tournament we held at Rustic’s that Jeremy and I realized we’d become inseparable. With Ryan’s permission and blessing, Jeremy and I had planned a pool tournament that raised money for the community of Park’s Peak in Cole’s name. It had been his home, after all. We had only planned to hold one event on the first anniversary of Cole’s death so as to make this day more bearable for his close friends and family. But when the community’s response to it was surprisingly overwhelming and raised well over six thousand dollars, we listened when folks around town suggested we turn the event into an annual memorial for Cole.

  For the next year, Jeremy and I plotted, schemed, and did everything we could to make our memorial event an even bigger success. Perhaps we were driven by our desire to hold onto any reminder we could of Cole, and perhaps we needed something to keep what little sense of normalcy we had left.

  Either way, the Second Annual Cole Ceden Memorial Pool Tournament raised in excess of ten thousand dollars, and Ryan had already joked that we were going to need to spend the money on more pool tables for next year’s tournament if the trend kept up.

  It was during the clean-up after the second event last year when Jeremy awkwardly suggested we spend more time together. Gone were the days of Jeremy’s cockiness; he hadn’t even dated anyone since Cole died.

  “Maybe we could…go out.”

  “Where?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. I could take you out for dinner. Or coffee, I guess.”

  I’d stared at him in contemplation. “You want to go out. Like, on a date?”

  “It doesn’t have to be, princess. It’s just a
thought.”

  An awkward silence fell between us as I thought about how to answer.

  “I think he’d be okay with that, Jeremy,” I admitted finally.

  “Me too, princess. Me too.”

  He’d known exactly what I’d meant, and I was pretty sure he’d been thinking the same thing when he’d asked me only moments before.

  There were no fireworks or uncontrollable desires between Jeremy and me. My love for Cole and my love for Jeremy were two very different entities. Cole had been a reserved man, but intense and undeniable. The foundation of our love for each other grew slowly, built up steadily by intense emotions and an undeniable attraction. Jeremy, on the other hand, was someone who, although so loud and boisterous in his mannerisms, my love blossomed for slowly and quietly.

  The foundation of our relationship was tragedy and loss, but we’d built it up with comfort and a renewed connection two people could only have after facing such emotional demolition. In the beginning, we remained very low key and casual, content to sit at home at nights and watch movies or talk about our day over a drink or two, and Jeremy never made a suggestion to stay overnight.

  However, slowly, we eased into a comfortable existence together, coming to terms with the fact that what we were becoming wasn’t wrong, no matter how tumultuous the terrain had been to get here. The awkwardness between us slowly subsided, and eventually we came to terms with the fact that small town folks were going to talk.

  Some saw our relationship as betrayal to Cole’s memory; others viewed it as a saddening way for us to cling hopelessly to him. Only a few people, Ryan included, understood the true reasoning. We loved each other, it was just a different kind of love.

  Even after three years, I still wore the ring Cole gave me on the night he died. I also carried numerous notes from him in my purse, faded and aggressively creased from being folded and refolded again. Jeremy was okay with that. He knew I still wasn’t over what had happened, and that I may never be. Perhaps Jeremy wouldn’t be, either.

  I’d like to think that Cole would be happy for Jeremy and me, that he’d understand how much we needed each other in the wake of his death and that we may be the only two people on earth save for his immediate family who truly understood what the other was going through.

  Cole showed me what it was to truly love. He made me realize there were things in this life worth living for, that there was life after someone like Ethan.

  Jeremy, however, proved to me that there was still life after someone like Cole, too. The difference was that Cole lived on in our hearts because he belonged there. Cole’s love for me ultimately led me to Jeremy, and for that I would be forever grateful to him.

  I heard Jeremy rustling with the last of the garbage bins as he finished cleaning up after tonight’s Third Annual Cole Ceden Memorial Pool Tournament, then I heard him hiss a curse word as a clatter sounded which I could only guess was one of the bins falling over.

  Sending a glance upward, I whispered a silent prayer to Cole in thanks for his love, his devotion, and for showing me how to truly live. Then I thanked him for Jeremy. Like I said, I think he’d understand.

  I rounded the corner to find Jeremy putting the last lid on one of the bins.

  “Ready to go home?” I asked.

  He pulled his keys from the bar and held out a hand to me.

  “I’m ready, princess,” he replied with a smile.

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, thank you to my Dad and my Mom, my biggest fans. There are no words to express how much you both have done for me.

  Thank you to my husband, Dennis. You are my best friend and the one who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. I love you, babe!

  A big thank you goes out to all my friends and family who’ve been so supportive. I originally was going to list as many names as I could, but there are so many people I’d need to thank that the list would be six feet long. Also, it’s inevitable that I would forget someone in that list because my memory always seems to fail me when under even the slightest of pressure. Therefore, I will take the safest route and just scream it from the rooftops to all of you. Thank you, everyone!

  Last but certainly not least, thank you to the good folks at Limitless Publishing for taking a chance on me. Since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of seeing one of my stories in print. You’ve allowed me that opportunity. For that, I am more grateful than you know. Thank you to the entire Limitless family for welcoming me in with open arms. You’re all fantastic!

  About the Author

  M. Lynne Cunning has always wanted to be an author, but it wasn’t until she discovered National Novel Writing Month and all the insanity that goes along with it that she began to truly realize her love for writing stories. While she doesn’t limit herself to writing only specific genres, her first published novel is a New Adult/Romance. She also doesn’t believe that the traditional typical “happily ever after” is always the way to go. You’ve been forewarned.

  She is almost always reading or writing, but also enjoys spending time and traveling with her husband/best friend, Dennis, and is the proud dog-mom of a brindle boxer. She’s also a too-far-gone coffee addict and a lifelong country music fan.

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  Goodreads:

  http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/18945147-m-lynne-cunning