Always Meant for You

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Mabel Muldowney is my best friend's little sister. Sky-blue eyes. The girl who chased us through fields in pink shoes and dreamed about leaving our small town for the city.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I'm the boy from the farm next door who wasn't supposed to fall for her.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I loved her anyway. Even when I shouldn't. Even when I swore I wouldn't. I buried it-every glance every urge.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>But I slipped-one time-when we were teenagers.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>It was raining. We were under a willow tree.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>She was ready to give me her heart but I couldn't be the guy who reached for his best friend's sister. So I pulled away and built a life rooted in discipline and distance.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Then my best friend died. And Mabel left for the city.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Now she's back with nothing but secrets and a suitcase. It's the second chance I've been praying for. But she doesn't want to stay and I can't leave. I'm held to the land by the promise I made to her brother as he took his final breath.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Mabel thinks I've spent my life ignoring her. What she doesn't know is she's all I've ever seen. I've got eight weeks to show her this town could be home again.</span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Eight weeks to prove my love. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I don't plan on wasting a second.</span></p><p></p>