Devotion Book 4

Craig put Tiffany into his truck and headed for the other side of town. She could read tension in the set of his jaw and shoulders but she was afraid to ask him where they were going.

Instead, she stared out the window at the scenery moving past before deciding to keep the conversation on other topics. “Did you put in a bid for the Battle House job?”

“I did. I hear they are making their final selection in the next few days.”

“I want that job so badly,” she said fervently.

“Why?”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“The job?”

“No, all of it—why is what we do so important to you?”

“Because I hate the way everything is so disposable now. Things get made just to get thrown away, and I hate the wastefulness of it but what I really hate is the way things just do not last. Things should last, they should be around for more than just a generation before they cave in and fall down and get thrown out.”

“That is exactly why I love it. I feel like I am putting something good back into the world every time I fix a house that someone used to love. I feel like I am putting that love back into it, and adding to it. Here we are.”

The truck stopped outside a low brick building and Tiffany asked, “What is this?”

Craig’s heart beat so hard against his chest walls he was a little afraid it might leap out of his chest. “It is a meeting for veterans and their significant others.”

“I don’t understand,” she did not and she glanced at the people standing outside the building smoking.

“I have PTSD from being in battle. I recovered but I still come here because it gives me a chance to talk and to help other people who have not been as lucky as I have been. The woman you saw me kissing, an innocent kiss - by the way, was in the tank with me when the bomb went off. She has been having a hard time of it and she needed to talk.

“I should have told you but I was afraid to. I was afraid you would think I am weak.”

“Weak?” Tiffany stared at him, aghast at the suggestion. “Craig, you make me feel like I can…breathe and safe…you make me feel safe. There is nothing weak about you, and I never knew what it felt like to be with a man who was not weak, who made me feel safe until I met you ... I am sorry, that sounded like there is more between us than what we agreed on.”

“What did we agree on?”

“Well, we would just..” Her voice faltered.” I suppose there is no good reason to act as if all there is between us is sex, is there?”

“No. I know I want you, and I love you.”

A smile bloomed on her face and she whispered, “I love you too.”

He kissed her, a soft and sweet kiss that hinted at more to come later. When he ended the kiss he asked, “Will you come in with me?”

“I would love to.”

They approached the building and Sharon came out, Bobby in tow. Craig introduced them to Tiffany, who summed up their relationship quickly, and could have kicked herself for her suspicions. She had wasted precious time, and she regretted that greatly.

Sharon was nervous and tired, and the strain on the relationship between her and Bobby was obvious but it was also obvious that they loved each other very much. Tiffany and Bobby met up at the coffeepot for a few minutes and it was not long before they were talking.

“I am sorry if Sharon interrupted the date you two were on,” Bobby began by saying.

Tiffany had liked both women immediately and looking into Bobby’s lovely sherry-colored eyes she could see that she was worried. It was clear that Craig and Sharon shared something that had bonded them and Bobby was worried that it might interfere with Craig’s relationship with Tiffany.

Touched deeply by that concern she rushed to reassure Bobby. “I didn’t know what was going on so I got a little jealous and angry. That won’t happen again.”

“She had a bad few weeks, but hopefully things are pulling together. She got a job offer, and that has brought her spirits up a lot.”

What would Craig have been like if he had gone into a line of work that he disliked and felt trapped in? His work had helped him heal, that he had begun to rebuild his life even as he restored the houses he loved so much.

“Good luck to you both,” Tiffany said sincerely.

“You too, although you are luckier than you know. Craig is one of the best men I have ever met, and he has a serious love on for you.”

Tiffany actually blushed. “I think he is pretty great too.”

The meeting was called to order and before it was over Tiffany cried several times. If she had not known Craig was tough before then she would have known it that night. The horror he had been through could have broken another man but he had survived, and was thriving.

The meeting ended and they got back in the truck. Craig turned to her and asked, “What did you think?”

“I think you are an incredible man. I really regret not just packing up my stuff that instant the night you asked me to and I was wrong for not swallowing my pride and letting go of something that was merely material right then and there.” Tiffany said, “I moved in with my parents that night but by then I had seen you with Sharon and rather than just ask you I assumed something was going on.

“I know it was wrong to base my reactions on Steve’s behavior and I hope you will forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive. It was a hard decision, and I should not have expected you to make it on the spur of the moment. I went to your house when you would not answer my calls and your ex told me that you had moved out. He was fairly angry when he found out that you had quit your job.”

“I’ll bet. You should know what you’re getting with me—I have a divorce looming in my future, a crazy ex who wants me to pay him alimony, I have probably lost my home and I am in serious debt thanks to the ex-husband running up credit cards to live in the first week after he left me.”

“I have heard worse,” Craig said lightly.

“Did your ex-wife leave you over the PTSD?”

“It was partly that, but only part. She needed me to be exactly who she married. There was no room for growth or change in her book. To open the company meant leaving the military when I could have stayed in and come out with a higher percentage of retirement benefits. I did not want to work a civil service job either.

“Janice needed to have the same stability and security she had had since we wed, she needed to be the same person and her own lack of growth and her hatred of change made it impossible for her to accept it in me.”

“You’re not angry?”

“I was at first.”

“I am really pissed off,” Tiffany admitted. “And not just at Steve either, at myself. I was such a perfect idiot.”

“You are not an idiot, and give it time. You will get over being pissed off before you realize it.”

“I hope so. I hate him so very much and I do not like that, people should not hate the people they used to love.” It was so odd to be talking to him about Steve but it felt right too. He would be there for her and she knew it, and she knew she could trust him with her innermost feelings.

“When you stop hating him that will be the day you do not care at all.”

“I should not care now.” His fingers held her chin and forced her to look up at him, “People are more complicated than we often wish we were. It is not easy to turn off what we feel for people even when those people are no longer a part of our lives. You will get over it, give yourself a break, and let yourself feel what you have to feel, so you can heal.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Do you think this was fate?”

“Absolutely. If there is anything I do believe in it is fate.”

Before Tiffany could reply to that, her cell rang. She glanced at it and froze. “It is the committee from the Battle House reno.”

“Answer it.”

She thrust the phone at him, “No—you answer it. I might faint if they say yes.”

“I might faint if they say no,” Craig teased her but he took the phone.

He spoke and listened while Tiffany fidgeted and tried to read his expression. When he hung up he took a long breath and then blew it out slowly. “We are going to be very busy.”

Tiffany shrieked and tossed her arms around him, kissing him soundly. Craig kissed her back as a gentle rain began to fall onto the windshield. The lights went out in the building but neither of them noticed, just as they did not notice the last of the cars pulling away.

The street hung around them, deserted and silent. The sodium vapor bulbs cast a warm amber glow across their faces and the rain made a misting fog creep across the glass. Neither of them thought about it, they simply began to undress each other as they clambered out of the truck’s cab and into the bed of it.

The delicious thrill of doing something forbidden made Tiffany’s ardor rise higher, and it was matched by Craig’s passion. The fact that he was able to make her be so sexually adventurous turned her on like she had never been turned on before. Her nipples thrust against his hands and mouth, his hand slid down the sweep of her belly and then past the puff of auburn hair at the junction of her thighs to find her willing and incredibly wet.

Her face was exposed as her hair spread out below her shoulders and head, framing her lovely features and catching the light. He looked deeply into her eyes, watching as her pupils dilated and contracted as his fingers moved inside of her snug tunnel.

Her hips arched upward, the rain slid across her naked body, pooled between her breasts. Craig could not resist. He walked his knees up the sides of her body and placed his prick between her breasts, holding them close together as his organ slid between them.

He fucked her tits, watching them bounce as his distended head peeked out from between the mounds of pale flesh. It felt so good, he groaned and thrust harder and Tiffany lifted her head, her tongue coming out of her mouth to swipe at the tip of his member.

The added pleasure was almost too much for him to take, his dick twitched hard and his balls tightened almost painfully. He moved faster, her fingers clenched at her own breasts, holding them tightly around him so that he could fuck her.

The rain slicked their bodies and he moved down again, his mouth tugging at her nipples and his teeth nipping at her upper thighs. Her body arched involuntarily as pleasure made her slit tighten and her toes curl into the truck’s floor. Her bottom scraped along the bed of the truck, making her whimper with pain even as she eagerly accepted it.

Craig’s hands lifted her pelvis higher as his mouth sought out her clit; he licked and suckled at that hardened little bud. Heat and friction met to make Tiffany moan and shudder, his fingers slid between her labia again, pumping hard inside of her before he used the oils there to lube her asshole.

Tiffany writhed and moaned again as he pressed a finger inside that dark and taboo entrance. “Yes, please,” she cried out, spreading her legs wider so that he could get better access.

The head of his dick pressed against her labia. He sank into her slippery heat, bringing her to the brink of an orgasm as he thrust into her and withdrew slowly, inch by inch. Her juices coated his stiff shaft, ad he stayed inside of her, increasing the pleasure for both of them until they were both at the breaking point.

He pulled his heavy member from her dripping hole and the fluids glistened in the light as he used his hand to guide his prick to her asshole. He entered that tight hole slowly, allowing her to open for him then he moved all the way inside of her. Pain married pleasure, making a flush of heat breakout across her body. Her nipples, taut and stiff, pointed toward the sky as he moved inside her, his fingers tangling into her hair as he brought her mouth to his for a lingering and blazing kiss.

Craig waited a moment, allowing her body to adjust to the weight and length inside of her ass before he began to pump in and out of her. His teeth grazed her neck, bit at her nipples and his hands tangled even tighter into her long locks, holding her willingly captive.

“Play with your clit,” he instructed.

Tiffany could not breathe. The command took her by surprise but it also made a hot and juicy lust pulse through her. Her fingers moved down, touched her flesh and she swallowed convulsively as she began to circle it and press down simultaneously.

Craig watched her, and his cock. Seeing their flesh joining was so erotic it made his lower belly cramp with desire—a desire he had to hold back in order to keep from spilling his seed into her at that very moment.

Tiffany whimpered, her fingers moving faster as she began to reach climax. A red stain covered her cheeks and forehead and he sighed as she shuddered below him, her fingers and thighs tightening as waves of sweet sticky oils spilled from her body.

Unable to wait any longer he came as well, his body shuddering as he thrust hard into her, going as deep as possible then rocking his hips side-to-side to maximize the pleasure he felt as he came hard and long.

The rain began to fall harder, sluicing over them and washing away the residue of their passionate coupling. Craig allowed his weight to relax onto her body and she wrapped her legs tightly around him, savoring the slow ease that filled her as she came down from the heights of passion he had ignited within her.

“We should probably get out of here before we go to jail,” Craig said lazily, “Or drown.”

Tiffany laughed and stretched, her breasts rising and her legs lengthening as her muscles flexed and snapped. “Drowning would not be ideal I suppose.”

He buried his face in her shoulder and breathed in her scent, “I hope we never stop doing crazy shit like this.”

“Me neither. I never did stuff like this before and for some reason I cannot wait to do more of it.”

“Well, I will just have to see if I can oblige you on that score,” he grinned as his cock, already stiffening once more, nudged against the walls of her ass.

“Oh yes, let’s see,” Tiffany said, her legs once more wrapping about his middle.

**

Tiffany was up on a ladder when Steve appeared the next day. She did not see him at first, she was too involved with carefully applying the cleaning solution to the brocade paper on the walls, but when he spoke she looked down, startled.

“I knew it! That bastard lied to keep you from paying me!”

“What the hell?” She started to come down the ladder but he blocked the bottom rungs, leaning against it and looking up at her menacingly. “Why are you here?”

He snatched his phone out and snapped her picture, “I came to get proof that you do have a job!” His face was set in petulant lines and his whole body was hunched over with the tension that beset him. “You are not going to rob me of what you owe me!”

Tiffany knew that most of the other crew was at lunch and that Craig was out picking up supplies. She was alone in the house, and a cold coil of fear wrapped into her belly. In all the years that they had been together Steve had never been physically violent, contenting himself with being mentally and verbally abusive. But looking down at his face Tiffany understood something she had never understood before; he wanted to hurt her, and badly.

She had balked before, not wanting to give in to things he wanted but in the end, he had always won out, and she had always given in. That had been the only thing that had protected her from him.

The ladder wobbled under her feet and she grabbed at the top rung, attempting to hold on as he shook it angrily. “Stop it!” She had hoped to inject some authority in her voice but failed, her voice cracked with fear.

The ladder went out from under her feet and she fell, landing badly on her right leg. It gave off a long thin shriek of pain and she staggered, her ankle twisting under her as she sagged against the wall.

“It is all your fault!”

What was he talking about? He had been the one to shake the ladder after all. She opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. Steve’s anger had swelled up so suddenly that it had left his tan features a bleached out gray color. His lips were a hard thin line and his eyebrows had drawn down into straight slashes while his nostrils had flared out.

“You made me leave, and then when I came back because you would not give me what I needed to live away from you, you made me get rid of Caroline!”

The unfairness of his accusations rankled but fear kept her from speaking up in her own defense. She began to try to figure out an escape route. Steve was blocking the door and her ankle was painful and swelling fast. Hope bloomed and faded as she surveyed the room, considering and discarding her options.

“I got her back though, how do you like that? You were too busy fucking your boss to care about me or what I needed! I bet you were fucking your boss over there at Koehler too! You little slut, you were probably screwing every guy in town.”

That went beyond hurtful. Tiffany had never been unfaithful to him, he had been unfaithful to her and he could blame her all he wanted but none of what he considered to be her fault was actually her fault. Tears spurted into her eyes but they were tears of rage rather than pain.

“I should have known you were just a trashy slut! Everyone warned me about you!”

Tiffany knew that was not true. Steve would do anything, say anything to hurt her—he had done it before. The words did not have the effect he intended however. Instead, they stoked the fires of her anger.

She managed to stand, nursing her aching foot, and glared at him. “I always knew you were a liar and a weak, selfish man but it never occurred to me until you left how little love you ever gave me Steve.

“I am sorry that you feel like I wronged you and I wish you nothing but the best, I honestly do, but I am not going to stand here and let you try to break me. You did that shit the whole time we were married. Nothing was ever good enough for you: you needed more sex, more money, a bigger house, and then you needed other women and you blamed me for everything so you would feel okay about doing the things you were doing.

“You never praised a single thing I did—all you ever did was find fault with me and all I ever did was love you despite it all.

“I am done. I do not love you. I do not want you in my life and I will be damned if I am going to work my ass off so you can lay on yours anymore. Quit being a whining little jerk and go get a fucking job.”

His face darkened and she knew she had gone too far. She was prepared to defend herself though—she was tired of it all and him too. She did not have to worry about defending herself though.

Craig’s face appeared over Steve’s shoulder and he yanked the other man away from Tiffany. “What are you doing?” Craig demanded. He had gone icy cold and frighteningly calm, Tiffany knew that was his battle mode and Steve, blessed with a strong sense of self-preservation, knew it as well.

“Nothing! I came to talk to my wife!”

“You lost the right to talk to me when you walked out Steve.” It was true and Tiffany knew it. She also knew that she was safe in saying so. Steve was a bully, and he had deflated like a leaky balloon when Craig had entered the fray.

“Get out of here,” Craig gave Steve a not-so-gentle push toward the door. “Do not come back here either, or you will certainly know what it is like to piss me off.” He helped Steve out the door with a firm hand in his back and he did not move away from the door until Steve had gotten into the car driven by Caroline and left.

Craig rushed back to Tiffany, “I am sorry I had to leave you here, let me look at that.” His fingers probed delicately at her ankle and she winced but tried to hide the pain. “It is sprained and quite badly I think, let’s get you to the doctor.”

“I am sorry. I thought he would stop behaving like an idiot at some point.”

“I think he gets ramped up by his accomplice,” Craig said grimly. “There was a woman driving the car he got into.”

“Caroline was with him?” Tiffany uttered a humorless bark of laughter. “She was my best friend, can you imagine? I think that perhaps that is what bothers me the most; that our marriage ended so tritely, it was like every bad cliché ever written.”

Craig helped her to her feet, “It could have been worse. Just think, if you had a sister you could have wound up on the Jerry Springer show.”

And just like that he made it all better. Tiffany leaned against him, grateful for his strength and his humor. She limped along beside him until they got to the steep stairs leading to the sidewalk, where he picked her up and carried her.

Nestled within his arms Tiffany knew she had found the place she was supposed to have been in all along.

**

The sound of hammers rang through the air. Craig knelt in a long hallway, carefully assessing the floor. The once beautiful mosaic impressed into it had been ruined by sun and years of chemicals but the original design was intact.

“Can it be saved?”

He looked up at Tiffany as his cock stiffened and his heart leaped within his chest. It was warm outside and she wore a red tank top and denim shorts that clung to the swell of her hips, and showed the curves of her thighs and calves. Her shining hair was pulled back into a simple and low ponytail, and her sea-colored eyes held a twinkle in their depths.

“I think matching the original tiles and paint will be difficult and perhaps impossible but we can restore it to a certain degree.”

Tiffany stared at his bare chest, at the long muscles in his arms and the breadth of his shoulders. Her body ached for his, even though they had lingered long in bed that morning. It never ceased to amaze her, the depths of passion he found in her and within himself.

“Hey Craig, me and the guys are going to take it in for the night. I just wanted to know if we need to start measuring out those windows in the morning?”

They both looked over at the man who had broken into the conversation. In the last four years Hughes & Company had grown large enough that they traveled across the country and had a full time crew of five people.

The house they were currently in was an old plantation home in Louisiana, it had been discarded and renovated, abandoned and resold so often that it wore an air of perpetual dismay about it, which they were all determined to banish.

“Yes, please Thomas, and also I need the measurements for that skylight tomorrow.”

“No problem.”

They watched him walk away. When he was gone, Tiffany slid closer to Craig, close enough that he could smell the fresh clean aroma of her soap and shampoo. She wore heavy boots on her feet to protect her as she walked on the broken and sagging floors and she tapped one toe as she looked up at the walls.

“I cannot believe nobody ever saw the potential in this place before.”

Craig got up and dusted off his hands. “I know, it is a beauty, isn’t it?”

They looked around at the place, leaning against one another. They knew it would take a lot of rebuilding, but they had the time and patience for that. Their life together was a study in rebuilding.

Steve and Caroline had fought Tiffany tooth and nail. They had wound up with the house—and the hefty mortgage payments that went along with it—and unbelievably enough Tiffany had had to pay Steve a small amount of money every month for two years.

She had celebrated the day she wrote him his last check by dancing naked in the moonlit garden with Craig. Since she no longer cared enough about Steve to even hate him she took the news that he and Caroline had sold the house and ended up in a tiny crowded apartment where they remained until they were evicted for what it was—just news. She did not wish him ill simply because she had not the time or energy to waste doing so.

Things had not been a fairytale for her and Craig—but they were close enough. There were setbacks, both personal and professional but they had each other during those times and they had each other during their moments of victory, which were many.

This house was one of them. Every firm in the Southeast had tried for that job and they had won it—not based on their bid amount either as others had bid lower but based on their reputation and past work. Hughes & Co had an almost magical touch it was said and it was true, because its owners cared deeply about what they were doing, and they loved it as well.

“Let’s call it a day too. I don’t think we can get anything else done in here right now anyway,” Craig said.

Tiffany was happy to agree, the wiring had been undergoing extensive repair work so there was no air conditioning at present and the lights they were using were solar operated and not much good after full dark, which was creeping in fast.

They took the truck, driving slowly through the back roads of the small town. The bayou glinted and shone with a greasy black light and the cicadas buzzed loudly as they pulled into the parking lot of the tiny apartment they were renting while they were in town working.

When they stepped inside the small one bedroom place Craig told her not to worry about cooking and called for pizza, adding, “It’s too hot and you look like you are exhausted.”

He missed nothing; it was one of the things that she loved most about him but it was also one of the things that often frustrated her the most often. He was almost impossible to surprise and she wanted to surprise him this time. To keep him from asking any questions until she was ready to talk she struck a sultry pose and said, “I am all dirty and sweaty. I really need a shower, care to join me?”

Craig gave her a wolfish smile, “You might get dirtier and sweatier.”

“Now that sounds like fun.”

Craig leered at her and said, in his best lounge lizard voice, “Fun is just what it is.”

He followed her into the bathroom and watched her turn on the faucets so that warm water streamed down into the freestanding cube of a shower stall. Before she could do more than strip out of her clothes, he had her in his arms, his mouth went to hers, and she went limp below his rough kisses.

They got into the shower and she took up the washcloth, soaped it well, and began to wash his body. She started at his chest, making small circles around his nipples, traveling down to his belly and soaping the dark hair that furred his crotch. His cock grew with her teasing, coming to life and then growing rigid.

She squeezed him, soap squirting from her fingers and he took the washcloth from her hand, returning the favor. She rode his hand as it moved between her legs, gently grazing her skin there as he pressed down hard on her clit. Her toes curled and she whimpered, the heat rose between them and he continued to wash her, using his tongue to bathe her pink nipples while his fingers continued to wash her pussy.

Her hips rose as he forced her up on her toes. Her head went back against the wall, dropping between her shoulders. Her hair hung down to her waist, brushed the upper reaches of her ass cheeks and the middle of her back as his mouth moved lower, teasing at her center, causing fluids to drip from her.

He stood back up and his thigh slid between hers, his mouth fastened on her mouth and his fingers tangled up with hers, keeping her from touching him although she desperately wanted to.

Tiffany’s body tightened as she sought release, Craig held her captive against the wall, transporting her to a place where there was only his voice in her ear, only his will and commands. He told her to come and she did, unable to do anything except obey.

His member pressed against her lower belly. She moaned and shook as he let go of one of her hands and said, “I want you on your knees.”

She submitted to his desire, sliding down onto the floor so that her mouth was available to him. She opened her mouth, and he slid inside, going all the way down while her fingers stroked his testicles.

He pumped his hips, his firm flesh scraping the sides of her throat. Her breath took on a rhythm that made it easier for her to keep sucking him off without having to move away from him.

Craig’s fingers tightened in her hair, his nails leaving scratches on her scalp. The pain made her whimper even as her body reacted by sending another small orgasm through her body.

After she got to her feet, they cleaned each other off, that time more gently. When they finally stepped from the shower with their skins glowing from the heat and their faces wearing sated expressions Tiffany was drooping with tiredness.

They dried off and Tiffany touched his shoulder as he leaned across the sink to brush his teeth. “Are you happy?”

“Of course I am.” His toothpaste-framed smile was bright.

“I know you wanted a family. I know you wanted kids and that we have not been able to accomplish getting me pregnant…”

He cut her off and his gaze was serious and direct. “If it happens it will Tiffany but I love you, no matter what—never think I don’t. If we really want kids and cannot have them then we will simply adopt. You are more important to me than anything else and I do not want you thinking you failed me because you haven’t gotten pregnant yet.”

Tiffany’s hands wandered over her belly, feeling the slight plumpness of it—the growing weight there, not much weight, not yet—but soon. She was nine weeks pregnant according to her doctor and she was radiant with happiness. They had tried for a long time and had been on the verge of giving up.

Deciding that now was as good a time as any, and because she could not bear to wait any longer she pressed her naked body against his, leaching the heat from his body and smelling the scent of the soap and shampoo and, faint and below that, the smell of their lovemaking.

“I’m pregnant.” She had meant to state it in some fancy words, to tease him or make him guess her secret but the long wait and the years of dashed hopes would not let her do that.

Craig’s eyes went almost comically wide. His mouth opened and he stared down at her still flat belly then back into her eyes. He looked stunned and ecstatic all at once. “Are…are you sure?” The words were a whisper.

“The doctor seems to be.”

A single tear slid down his handsome face and he picked her up, swung her around, set her down, asking, “Oh shit, are you okay? Did I hurt you?” then enveloped her in a huge hug.

“I am fine you silly man,” she laughed through her own tears. “I am more than fine—I am perfectly happy and it is all because of you.”

The doorbell rang and Craig pulled away from her, still smiling, still fighting tears. “I think that’s our dinner. I should take you out, we will go somewhere quiet and dark and drink a lovely wine—no, wait, no wine for you…oh this is not the way we should be celebrating this! You deserve wine and roses and… ”

Tiffany put her finger to his lips to hush him. “This is exactly what I want. This and nothing else—it is perfect. Go get our pizza and meet me in bed.”

Craig hugged her tighter, his strong arms forming a circle around her that she knew would keep the hurt and harms of the world away from her and their baby. “I will meet you in bed.” He grinned, and started for the door.

“Honey?”

“Yes?” Craig asked, turning back around.

“Maybe you should put some pants on,” she gave him a roguish grin.

He paused, and then said, “If I spend the rest of my life making you smile like that I will die a happy man—and hopefully without my pants on.”

He snatched up a robe and slung it around him as he left the room and Tiffany crawled into bed, relaxing on cool sheets while her hand went back to her belly while she thought about how funny life could be.

She had given up a man she did not love and a house she had loved, and found her way to the man and home of her dreams.

*