Only for You by Marquita Valentine Read Free Book Online

or the urge to rip the IV out of my arm and run from this
place. I fumble with the tubes, my fingers not working
right.
    “ Hey, hey… sweetheart.
It’s okay.” Suddenly, Cole appears, his gorgeous face filling my
vision. He places his hand over mine, stopping my frantic clawing.
“I’m here.”
    I cry out his name in
relief and he gathers me to him, his strong arms all I need. “I
want to go home. Take me home.”
    “ As soon as they let me,
Rae.” He smoothes my hair down and whispers in my ear. “I’ll take
you home with me, tuck you in bed, and hold you all night
long.”
    I nod, all my anger gone
from our earlier fight. “How did you… How did I get
here?”
    He lets me go, hooking a
chair with his leg, and pulling it beside the bed. Turning it
around, he sits, and rubs a spot over his ear, the sight familiar
and endearing. He’s nervous and upset.
    “ I came by to apologize
and heard a scream.”
    I feel the blood drain away
from my face. Cole knows everything but to actually see what
happened… it’s this strange mix of terrifying and humiliating. I’d
put myself in that situation.
    The text to the cab that
never came notwithstanding.
    “ You saw.”
    He nods, his face pale.
“I… I didn’t think I could love you more until that moment. You
were, you are , so
damn strong. There are not too many people that could live to tell
the tale of what happened.” His gaze goes to my head, and I gently
pat the knot there.
    “ I got sick from watching
it, my hands got sweaty, and I slipped, hit my head.”
    “ Yeah, I couldn’t find any
pills, and they didn’t find anything in your system, either,” he
says, his gaze skittering away.
    I want to be affronted by
his assumption, but from what I know about his mom, it couldn’t
have been easy to find me like that. “I’m sorry, Cole.”
    “ It’s not your fault.” He
rubs that spot over his ear again. “It’s a natural reaction for
me.” I reach out to take his hand, my fingers twining with his.
“Careful, baby.”
    “ I’m fine.” The bruise on
my head is the only thing wrong with me. My throat’s a little sore
and I could eat, but other than that—nothing. “Thank you for taking
such good care of me.”
    He peers up at me, through
black lashes. “I haven’t called your parents yet, because I wasn’t
sure with your mom and all.”
    “ That’s good,” I say
firmly. There’s no need to worry my parents over a nasty goose egg
on my head. Then it dawns on me, Cole’s with me, in a place they
usually reserve for family. “Cole,” I whisper, my eyes darting
around. A night nurse walks by, studying the chart in his hand.
“How did you get back here?”
    He grins, shy and sweet,
before ducking his head. “I might have said you were my
fiancée.”
    “ Oh!”
    His leg starts to shake,
another sign of his nerves. I love this boy so much I want to pull
him in bed with me. “Hope you didn’t mind, but I couldn’t have you
waking up alone, like you did… before. So, I lied.”
    Engaged. What would it be
like to wear his ring on my finger, to know that our lives would be
intertwined forever? “Maybe… maybe you weren’t lying.”
    His head jerks up, and he
gives me this look. “What?”
    I’ve known Cole for months
now, shared every deep, dark secret with him, and he with me. I
know we’re young at twenty and twenty-two, but both of us have had
to grow up fast, and we’d both be going into this with eyes wide
open.
    My parents dated only for
six weeks before they got married. So the idea of a marriage
lasting after a short dating period is not a foreign concept for
me. Besides, I’ll never be loved by a man like Cole
again.
    Miracles like him only
happen once in a lifetime.
    Taking a deep breath, I
say, “Marry me, Cole, and make an honest man out of
yourself.”
     
    *** *** ***
     
    Cole
    Marry her?
    Marry Violet Rae Givens aka
Violet Lynn, Country Music Princess? Not that the title matters to
me, it doesn’t. I fell in love