Melody of the Heart (Runaway Train, #4)

The tight expression that had been on her face since I came in receded, and a genuine smile appeared. “You smell even better because you smell like the ocean.”


I then turned my attention to Giovanni. “Once again, my deepest apologies for being late.”

“It’s all right.”

Cocking my head at him, I asked, “Did my lovely wife give you the sad sap story as to why I’m not always with it?”

Giovanni grinned. “Yes, she did. And I have to say it was quite fascinating hearing about your head injury and how without it, you might not be where you are today.”

With a chuckle, I replied, “I would have to say that’s the truth because if it weren’t for the short-term memory issue shit, I would have been here a lot earlier.”

Waving his hand dismissively at my joke, Giovanni said, “I don’t think most of our readers or your fans know you didn’t grow up playing guitar or having the desire to be a rock star. That without the football related injury, you would have never taken up the guitar or written your first song.”

I shifted in my seat. Talking about my injury always made the hairs stand up on the back of my arms and neck. It was one of those life-altering moments that set me on an entirely different path I could never have imagined. At sixteen, my entire universe revolved around the emerald green grass of the field and the smell of pigskin in my hands. I had my eye on a college scholarship and maybe some time in the NFL. I was that good.

But life changes in an instant—a play you had executed flawlessly a hundred times before can go so very wrong. Instead of being carted off victoriously on the shoulders of your teammates, you leave in a neck brace laid out on a stretcher. A brain injury coupled with a cracked vertebrae that narrowly missed severing your spine brings the curtains down on your dream. But then you realize the life you thought was ending was truly just beginning.

The squeeze of Lily’s hand brought me out of the past and back to the present. I cleared my throat. “Yes, it is true that my life would be so very different and not for the better. But I don’t mean in the sense of not having the fortune or the fame.” I turned to gaze at Lily and smiled. “I might not have Lily by my side.”

She brought my hand to her lips and kissed it. “When I was seventeen, I told you I’d follow you anywhere and everywhere. If your life had taken you somewhere else, I would have been there.”

“Thank God,” I murmured.

“So was it love at first sight for you?” Giovanni asked, leaning in expectantly.

Lily tilted her head at me before giggling. “Not exactly.”

Giovanni’s dark brows knit together. “Oh?”

I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my face as the familiar memory played in my mind. “I owe my marriage to my lovely wife’s penchant for apple thievery.”

Lily sputtered with outrage. “I was not stealing apples. We had just moved in, and I wasn’t sure where our property ended and your grandparents’ began.”

After winking at her, I focused my gaze on Giovanni’s amused one. “The first time I ever laid eyes on Lily she was wearing a blue sundress with a satin ribbon in her hair. She could have had the face of an angel, but I wouldn’t have noticed because she had the hem of her dress flipped up to cradle the apples she was picking from my grandparents’ tree. All I could focus on were her long, tanned legs and the brief glimpse I got at what was between them.”

“Brayden Michael Vanderburg!” Lily exclaimed. Just hearing her call my full name caused warmth to enter my chest. I loved her voice, I loved her outrage, and I loved that a woman as amazing as she was actually loved me.

“I’m just answering the man’s question, sweetheart,” I replied. Leaning forward in my chair, I then began the story of the day that changed my life….





BRAYDEN


THE PAST


With my guitar resting on my lap, I closed my eyes and began strumming the familiar chords. The peace I often searched for through the music hummed throughout my fingers and then spread throughout my body. I focused only on the music while the rest of the world faded into the background—the heave and sigh of the porch swing, the shrieks of happy children, and the soft snores of my grandfather who slept in a rocking chair across from me. In moments like these, I was one with my instrument. It became an extension of myself—the best and purest parts.