On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."

Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

I'm guilty of turning on an album and leaving it on repeat for days.  Months, even.  My husband hates this about me because he and I tend to have very opposite tastes in music (him:  Anything Country.  Me:  Florence + the Machine, which is totally a genre, by the way!).  Though it's not working at the moment, we had an iPod jack in our room where we could plug in our iPods or phones and play our music over speakers in the ceiling or on the porch.

At some point while Moe was sick, I turned on Right Away, Great Captain and left it on.  I remember walking away from  his still-warm but lifeless body on the grass and wandering back to the house wondering what could possibly be left without him.  The only thing to do was crawl into bed in the middle of a sunny day and cry.  Right Away, Great Captain crooned me to sleep on that horrible, beautiful day.  I let it play on in the days to follow because it held Moe and I together, this thread of mournful music.

Tonight I'm getting ready to say good-bye to one of my characters and I don't want to because it's like letting my boy slip through my fingers again.  My heart hurts and it feels right to play Right Away, Great Captain! again to pull myself back into the grief.   

It's no more than two lines into the first song before I can see him stumbling and feel his slick neck against my cheek.  The curl of dread tightens in my belly as I watch the vet check his pupils and slowed breathing over and over and over until he is satisfied and I know it's done.  I'm broken, with pieces that will never go back together quite right.

Sixteen months and it surprises me how sharp the pain still is and how little it takes to bring me back to that good-bye.  That is the power and wonder of art. 

Oh.  How will I ever do this? 

The young couple doesn't see it coming, their convertible top down and wrapped up in the warmth of the day.  My family and I see it, though. 

We're waiting in a line of cars at a stoplight when half a dozen guys pile out of a car ahead of us, and it's clear they're up to no good.  Some of the men have wrapped their knuckles with thick chains, and others clutch empty beer bottles by their necks.  They're stalking towards the cute couple who haven't noticed them yet, and my stomach twists with realization.

My son-in-law, Bert, jumps out of the car before we can stop him.  My daughter claws at his shirt and tries to scream some sense in to his brain, but it's no use.  Bert's always had a strong sense of justice.  Either that or he doesn't put much value on his own life.

The light changes and the convertible speeds off before the thugs reach them, but their group is still looking for a target and they set their sights on the most likely target:  Bert.  It happens in slow motion, but it still happens.  One of the guys smashes his bottle over Bert's head and blood trickles in his face.

I don't want to fight.  There's three times as many of them as there are of us.  I'm not much of a gambler, but those odds aren't good, even with a firecracker like Bert on your side.  Like it or not, though, I can't leave him out there alone.  They'll kill him.  With a backward glance at my wife, daughter, and young son, I bolt from the car and into the battle.  I still don't want to fight.

Two-to-one.  If we survive this, I might kill Bert myself. 

I don't see the guy until he's clocked me in the side of the head and I'm sprawled on the ground.  He brings the pointed toes of his boots to my face and kicks me over and over, sending spikes of pain through my jaw and behind my eyelids.  It's not enough to him that I am on the ground, that I didn't want this fight.  It's obvious that he won't stop until he's made his point clear.  As far as I'm concerned, the point of his shoe has done quite enough talking.

Elise flies from the car and launches herself on the back of my attacker.  On her way out of the car, she grabbed the closest thing in reach, a can of oil, which she now uses to hammer away at his thick skull.  She stuns him long enough to give me a chance to stagger to my feet, but I can't stop him from wrenching her free and kicking her in the face with those horrible, awful boots.

I didn't want to fight.

We drive ourselves, licking our wounds, to General Hospital.  Bert needs stitches, and I'm not sure what Elise and I need.  A uniformed officer comes to arrest us for beating up a group of men, but his mouth and the charges drop when he surveys our assortment of injuries.  

A couple days later our friend Benny takes in Elise's cuts and bruises and asks us to name names.  "You'll never hear from those guys again," he vows.  I don't doubt Benny one bit, and I appreciate the gesture, but I don't tell him anything.

Our bruises haven't healed up before one of the smaller thugs struts into the store.  He's alone and looking for another fight.  The tips of Bert's ears flame as he orders him off the property.  I keep an eye on the man as he slinks away toward the restaurant next door.  A wave of rage courses through me and I think how easy it would be to get my revenge on just one man, the runt of the bunch.  With a shake of my head, I turn away from the window where I have a clear view of him glaring over at us.

I don't want to fight.

I expect him to pass her by. 

He doesn't, and I should have seen it comin'.  My older brother, Joe, never missed an opportunity to tease me.  Then again, he didn't pass up a chance to flirt with a pretty girl, either.

"Cut it out, Joe!"  I growl through gritted teeth.  Heat creeps up from my neck to my cheeks, and the sprinkling of freckles there fade into red.  There's only so far I can shimmy down in the Model A's bench seat to hide myself from her sight.  I'd like very much to slug my brother for his fooling. 

"Hey, Toots!"  He calls out the open window to the dark-haired girl walking behind our car.  "Want a ride?"

She doesn't even give him the satisfaction of looking our direction, which, in a way, makes his grin broaden.  Instead, she trains her deep brown eyes on the gravel immediately before her own two feet.  We all know that even if she wanted to ride with a troublemaker like my brother or mortified me, she'd have to pass it by her daddy.  Besides, she's nearly reached her destination and doesn't need our kind of help, if you could call it that. 

I steal a peek in the mirror and watch her curls bob in time with her determined march.  If I wasn't so mad at Joe, I'd thank him for giving me more time with her.  Not that we ever really spent time together.  My brothers and I watched her walk past our house on her way to her job at the golf course all the time.  They watched, maybe, but I salivated.   Someday I'd work up the nerve to ask her on a proper date, but today wasn't going to be that day, thanks to my obnoxious brother.