Letters Home by Rebecca Brooke Read Free Book Online Page A

the last time he made it.
    “How do you always get things exactly right?” I asked between bites.
    “Easy.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I pay attention. For example you love my chicken salad—you hint about me making it every time we have leftover chicken.”
    “Chicken salad plus a picnic? I love you, Nate Lewis.”
    He rested his hand on my knee. “The picnic was my way of getting you to take a break. Our wedding will be perfect, but you’re going to make yourself crazy spending all your time off doing wedding stuff. I figured the easiest way to get you away from it all was to get you out of the house, so here we are.”
    I finished my sandwich and wiped my hands on a napkin. Leaning down I placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “You’re right. I needed—”
    He cupped his hand around his ear. “Say that again.”
    I looked at him quizzically. “Say what again?”
    “The part about me being right. I’ve never heard that before.”
    I rolled my eyes. “That’s ’cause you’re not usually, but today you were. I needed to get away from it all, and just enjoy the day.”
    “I know.” He cupped my face, pressing his lips to mine. The taste of him was something so familiar. Craving more of him, I opened my mouth, letting his tongue slide against mine. I needed to touch him, to feel him. Sliding my hands around his waist, I pulled myself closer to him until I was near enough to feel the heat of his body radiating to mine. It was so easy to get lost in Nate that I almost forgot where we were. When a child’s yell pierced the fog of desire I was in I pulled away from his lips, both of us a little breathless.
    “Why’d you stop?” he asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.
    “Did you forget we are in a public park?”
    He looked around, as if trying to get his bearings, and the moment his eyes registered the kids on the playground, his face became slightly flushed. “It’s so easy to get lost in you.”
    “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
    He wrapped his arms around me. “What would I do without you?” He laughed burying his nose in my hair.
    “Probably lead a very boring life.”
    “Probably,” he agreed, chuckling as he went back to his lunch.
    When Nate finished his sandwich we cleaned up the trash and I lay down with my head on his lap. Nate took turns feeding us the cut up fruit pieces. Even with the feel of the summer heat on my face, it was easy to get to such a tranquil place and I felt myself dozing off. It wasn’t much later that I felt Nate brush the hair from my forehead.
    “Come on, sleeping beauty, let’s get you home.”
    I cracked an eye open to see Nate staring down at me with a smile on his face.
    “Okay,” I answered, my voice thick with sleep. “Thank you for planning this today. I needed it.”
    “Anything for you.”
    He helped me up into a sitting position, giving me time to stretch out my muscles before helping me to my feet so that we could fold up the blanket. After I picked it up, Nate took the basket with one hand and laced the fingers of his other hand through mine. I glanced down at our joined hands. Such a simple gesture, but little things like that always reminded me how much Nate cared about me. There was a part of me that wanted to stay here with him forever, to forget all of the stresses in life, but then my responsible self would show up and remind me that ,faster than I could blink, the weekend would be over and we’d both be back at work, waiting for another opportunity to spend some time together. It seemed as if we spent a lot of our time waiting. Waiting for the next day off, waiting to be with each other. That was the exact reason we needed to enjoy these moments together—to make every moment count. Unfortunately, as it always did, time flew, and soon enough it was time to head back into the real world.

Sometimes life throws a wrench into your plans. It’s your job to find a way around it.
    The yawn I’d been trying to stifle all