In Love With You

In Love With You Faye Darling Copyright © 2023 by Faye Darling Beach Cottage Publishing LLC All rights reserved. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-960626-04-2 ISBN Ebook: 978-1-960626-05-9 For everyone who prefers to live in the fantasies they create in their head rather than the real world Author's Note Be Advised : This book is a spicy, open-door romance, which means the characters' sexual encounters are depicted on-page. Because of this, IN LOVE WITH YOU is intended for a mature audience only. Trigger Warnings: My personal story often plays a large role in my writing, but this time it played a larger role than usual. I share this so my readers understand that what is depicted in the novel comes from a place of catharsis and nothing else. With that said, please be advised there are on-page depictions of a parent suffering from cancer, mentions of the death of a parent, and episodes of grief. While this is catharsis for me, it may not be for everyone else, so please be kind to yourself and make sure you are in a steady mental/emotional place before you read the book. Other trigger warnings include: off-page domestic abuse, on-page violence, and allusion to suicide. Contents 1. One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four 5. Five 6. Six 7. Seven 8. Eight 9. Nine 10. Ten 11. Eleven 12. Twelve 13. Thirteen 14. Fourteen 15. Fifteen 16. Sixteen 17. Seventeen 18. Eighteen 19. Nineteen 20. Twenty 21. Twenty-One 22. Twenty-Two 23. Twenty-Three 24. Twenty-Four 25. Twenty-Five 26. Twenty-Six 27. Twenty-Seven 28. Twenty-Eight 29. Twenty-Nine 30. Thirty 31. Thirty-One 32. Thirty-Two 33. Thirty-Three 34. Thirty-Four 35. Thirty-Five 36. Thirty-Six 37. Thirty-Seven 38. Thirty-Eight 39. Thirty-Nine 40. Forty 41. Forty-One 42. Forty-Two 43. Forty-Three 44. Forty-Four 45. Forty-Five 46. Forty-Six 47. Forty-Seven 48. Forty-Eight 49. Chapter 49 50. One: August Acknowledgments About Author One Ryder W ell, hello there. Aren’t you a mysterious little thing? Appearing in my life as if from nowhere. Maybe you opened this book expecting to pass invisibly through its pages the way you’re used to doing. Perhaps reading has always felt like an adventure to you. An escape. A heart-tilting journey through the eyes of someone else. And you take in chapter after chapter until that final sentence, when you are forced to hold your breath for one second, two, then let go of everything and everyone you’ve come to know over the course of all those pages. And those people? Those characters? They never even knew you existed. But you’re not invisible this time. You’re not just passing through, unnoticed. Not if I have anything to say about it. Not on my watch. Not with this story. My story. Do you want to know a secret? I can feel you here. Phantom tickles on my sea-roughed skin. Your warmth, your curiosity twisting through me, breathing me back to life. And I like it. I like it a lot. A little too much, probably. And I know—I’ve got this feeling curling up in the center of my chest—I’m going to like you, too. Whoever you are. Wherever you are. Because you’ve taken the time to join me. Here. Right here, where I currently bob on my surfboard in the lineup, dawn summoning pinks and peaches and violets to life, mixing all those soft, sensual colors into the dark stew of my beloved Pacific. Evergreen-slathered hills rising at my back above the white sand beach. Sheer cliffs extending out into the sea like protective arms on either side of this one-mile-stretch of coastline. Sheltered. Safe. Culling the silkiest waves from the cold, wild ocean in the beating heart of Oregon’s North Coast. I close my eyes, the whisper of a smile on my lips at the thought of the sea. At the thought of you. This is my church, my sanctuary. This is where I find my peace. I want to know, though, where it is you find yours? Maybe you could write it in the margins of this book for me, or in a letter. Maybe, somehow, it’ll reach me. Maybe, somehow, I’ll just know your answer. “Outside,” Mark, my best friend since grade school, bellows, a mischievous cackle breaking on the tail-end of the word. There’s only a handful of us here today. Wednesday morning. Late October sucking in its dying breath. The tourists are all but gone, the Portland contingent trapped in their little valley, in their urban wilderness I’ve never had an urge to explore. So, it’s just us locals left to surf the waves, a few unfamiliar faces keeping to the fringes. I’m the closest one to the peak of the approaching wave Mark points out. As it shivers up and up, I lay my long body flat against my board and paddle, driving my wide palms through the icy chill of the water. Salt in my nose. Anticipation on my tongue. When I’m exactly where I need to be to catch the wave, I sit up, swivel my legs, grab the nose of my board, and drive hard toward shore. Hammer down, son. I hear my dad’s voice echo in my head the way I always do when I’m trying to catch a wave. My old man taught me to surf when I was a kid. Somedays, when I roll out of bed well before the sunrise, pack myself into the cold, damp passenger seat of Mark’s truck, and rumble up the twisty highway to this little cove, I tell myself I do it just for me. For the ocean to kiss my soul in greeting one more time. But really, I think most days I