Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling Book 2), page 24
I lean up, catching her collarbone between my teeth. “Even my dreams couldn’t come up with this, sweetheart,” I say into her skin.
Her smile widens, her eyes bracketed by lines I love to trace with my fingers.
Then I’m losing myself, whispering words that are muffled by her neck, the delicate slope of her collarbones, the curve of her chest. I’m tracing the faint stretch marks on her hips and stomach with the pads of my thumbs, trying to hold myself together, trying to make this good for her.
I’m so gone I barely register the knock on the door, but Finley stops moving, her body going rigid, her eyes flying to the door. We’re both quiet for a long moment, waiting to see if it was a phantom noise or if the person on the other side will decide they don’t need us right this second.
“Mommy?” the voice, diffused by the wooden door, asks, and Finley hangs her head, blond hair falling over her shoulders. But her eyes catch mine, and she smiles in that long-suffering way she does every time this happens.
“Yes, Poppy?” Finley pitches her voice loud enough to be heard through the door, absentmindedly touching the poppy tattoo over my ribs. I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it.
“I’m hungry.” Her little voice makes my lips twitch, and my heart tugs painfully against my breastbone.
“We’ll be out in a second,” Finley says, moving in a way that has me holding a groan. Her hand lands on my lips, stifling the sound. “Shh.”
“You can’t expect me to stay quiet,” I pant. “When you’re doing—”
“I’m coming in,” Poppy says.
We both yell no when the doorknob starts to turn, our eyes flying toward the entrance to our room.
It immediately halts, and I can practically envision our daughter, pert nose scrunched in a pout, brows pinched over pale blue eyes. “Why not?”
Finley bites her kiss-swollen lip, staring down at me. Although we both know this is going to have to wait, she doesn’t look too upset about it. In fact, she looks radiant. Happy in a way that’s hard to express. Her heavy blond hair hangs down over her shoulders, illuminated by the sun arcing through the windows behind her, making her look like an angel sent from heaven to answer all my prayers, make all my dreams come true.
I lift her left hand to my lips, press a kiss right on the wedding band, the exact one I saw in all my dreams, and her smile stretches.
“Because I need you to go see if your brother is awake yet,” Finley responds, eyes never veering from mine.
“Oh,” I hear Poppy say, followed by the stomp of her tiny feet running down the hall.
I’m tempted to keep going, but we both know we have approximately sixty seconds before both of our children are rushing into the room, throwing themselves at us until we all end up in a heap on the bed, tangled in sheets.
I surge up, snatching Finley’s lips in a quick, breathtaking kiss, and then lift her off me as we both scramble to find our clothes, discarded sometime in the middle of the night when she woke me up with kisses trailing down my chest and stomach.
I groan at the thought, and she flashes me a grin that promises later, tugging on a pair of sweatpants. Backward. We’ve just launched ourselves back into the bed when the door springs open and two adorably chubby toddlers burst through it.
Poppy appears over the edge of the bed first as Finley reaches down to help Charlie up. It only takes a second for Poppy to climb into my lap, grabbing my face with both hands and pressing a kiss right to my lips. She giggles as she does and holds her hands out. “Tickles,” she tells me, like she does every time she touches the scruff on my cheeks.
And like every time, I nuzzle into her neck, making her cackle in a way that fills me up like champagne bubbling over the rim of a bottle.
“I want tickles!” Charlie yells, his stubby arms reaching out for me, nose scrunched just like Finley’s when he smiles.
I gather him into my lap too and scratch my beard all over his neck. His high-pitched laughter fills our room and my heart until I’m full to bursting.
My eyes catch on Finley. She’s looking at me in that way, like I can’t believe we made these two perfect humans. They both have her blond hair and my blue eyes. Though Poppy’s hair is starting to darken, Charlie’s seems to get lighter every day. Sometimes I still look at them, at Finley, and have to convince myself they’re real, that this isn’t some elaborate dream a very lonely past me made up. That they’re not the product of the imagination of a boy in a quiet beige house, wishing for laughter and love and home. They’re real, and they’re mine.
Finley’s gaze softens, like she’s reading my mind, and she leans forward. Her lips brush against the shell of my ear as she says, “You’re not dreaming, Grey. We’re real.”
I don’t need to dream anymore. These days, my sleep is dreamless, Finley’s heart beating against mine in the dark. And every time I wake up, she’s right there, whispering those same words into my ear. You’re not dreaming.
My mouth finds her temple, pressing a kiss there. “All my dreams came true, Finley.”
Sixteen days after the release of Off the Beaten Path, I miscarried during my first pregnancy.
The entire time I was writing this book, I was unsure if I was going to share this, but every book has pieces of my heart and my story in it, and I wanted you to know a little bit of why this book was so important to me.
Since we found out I was pregnant, when the baby was just the size of a poppy seed, my husband and I called the baby Poppy. When we lost it, I planted poppies in my yard, and I felt like I saw them everywhere. Poppies were my symbol of hope.
I had a lot of plans for Only in Your Dreams. In fact, it had an entirely different title originally, but the book I had planned to write didn't feel right anymore. I took some time off, grieved, and eventually, when I felt ready, I sat down to write Grey and Finley's story with a fresh perspective.
This book is not about miscarriage. It's not about fertility or pregnancy or anything directly related to what I was going through when I was writing it, but it was a fictional world that felt like magic that I could slip away to when the real world was hard. Finley and Grey felt like real friends. Fontana Ridge felt like a haven.
My hope is that this story and these characters and this town will be the same for anyone else who is grieving right now. I pray that this book finds you when you most need it.
And specifically, for the mamas out there who never got to hold their babies, I hope this book touches you and is your safe place the way it was mine.
As I mentioned in the author's note, I wasn't in the best place when I first sat down to write this book. In fact, I was in one of the darkest places of my life, but I had a VILLAGE of people that were there for me and helped me—both to get to a place where I could write again and also to help me write this book.
Firstly, I need to thank my real life community. They were there for me every step of the way and made me feel so loved in the weeks and months following my miscarriage, Then, I have to thank all of you who rallied behind Off the Beaten Path and made it my most successful book by far. You didn't know it at the time, but the way that you loved on my book and championed it allowed me to take the time I needed to heal mentally and physically. I'm sorry for the way I dropped off the face of the planet for a few months and for the all the ways I dropped the ball in communicating and staying on top of things. I hope you know how much your support meant, and I hope that I'll be able to show up for all of you the way that you have showed up for me the past year.
Now, I have many people to actually thank for this book. As always, Kelsey, Juliana, and Jamie—I couldn't write books without you. Thank you for helping me every step of the way and for making never feel alone on this very solitary writing journey. You three are my very best friends, and I hate so much that you live so far away. I'd like to remind you that I have three guest rooms and that Nashville is very fun.
To my behind-the-scenes team—THANK YOU. My editors, Melanie and Beth, are a magic duo and I seriously could not imagine writing without them. Melanie, thank you for listening to my ten-minute-long voice messages that I send while at public playgrounds. I'm sure I make no sense and I am very annoying, but you always answer me without fail and help me make sense of all the ideas in my brain. Beth, thank you for never getting mad at me for not choosing the correct blond(e). I still don't know which one I'm supposed to use. As always, I will sing the praises of Sam for making magic out of my cover ideas. I literally squealed when I saw your request on Instagram for someone to let you design a cover with poppies AS I WAS FILLING OUT MY FORM REQUESTING POPPIES. It felt serendipitous, but every encounter with you does. Melissa, thank you for beta reading my drafts and sending me texts and leaving me comments about how much you love certain parts. For much of the editing process, I'm staring at a screen full of things that aren't working and need to be overhauled, so seeing your feedback of happy thoughts always makes me feel giddy.
To my readers, I would actually be nowhere without you. I'll never be able to adequately express how much it means to me that you read my words and like them. Thank you for recommending my books to your friends and family and followers. Thank you for sending me DMs and tagging me in your edits and reviews. When I first started writing, it was only for myself. I had no idea what you all would want, and there were no expectations of me. It's equal parts terrifying and thrilling to now have that. I'm still writing for myself, but I also hope that you also love what I'm writing too. I hope this one is as special to you as it is to me. I hope it's your safe and happy place.
Most importantly, I have to thank my husband. We've been through so much the last year, and he's always been my comfort. I wouldn't wish to repeat the things we've dealt with, but I'm grateful for how close they've brought us. Thank you for always taking care of me and for encouraging me to keep going even when I feel like I can't. I couldn't do life without you.
Lastly, I have to thank my Savior. Thank you for keeping my baby safe until I can get to them, and thank you for helping me find this little piece of magic to cling to here on earth.
Madison Wright is a hopeless romantic living her own happily ever after in Nashville, TN. After falling in love with reading at a young age, she always dreamed of becoming an author. She writes romances that feel cozy and always feature a happily-ever-after.
She's a big fan of sunshine, pastries, and any book with a love story. When she's not reading or writing, she can be found exploring her city with her husband and dog.
To keep up to date, follow on socials @authormadisonwright, join her newsletter, or go to her website authormadisonwright.com.
Madison Wright, Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling Book 2)
