Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Theo
We dropped Alex at Esther’s car, which he agreed to leave parked in the plaza where his plow truck was waiting for him.
Before he slipped out of the truck, however, Esther caught his hand in a tight squeeze.
I was ashamed of myself all over again for overreacting to their friendship, but Alex caught sight of my face and shook his head.
“Forgiven, brother. All of it. We’re moving forward now.”
I inclined my head in appreciation as Esther released his hand and nestled back into my side. “Thank you. For everything, Alex,” I said, my throat tight with emotion.
He flashed us his standard grin, lifting a hand in farewell, and folded himself in half to fit in Esther’s front seat before he was able to slide it backward.
Esther leaned across me to call to him, “There are two dozen cupcakes in the backseat. They’re all yours! Payment for saving the day, and safe to share with Isabella and Dominic, to boot.”
“You just made my night,” he called back, then waved again and closed the car door.
We had to pull away so he could turn the car around, but I caught Esther watching the side mirror until the headlights appeared behind us. For the first time since we climbed into the truck, she relaxed, the remaining tension finally flowing out of her limbs.
I laced my fingers through hers and brought her knuckles to my lips.
Soon, I would find out which home she wanted to go to—I wasn’t willing to make any assumptions—but for now, I just wanted her to stop shaking like a leaf.
The cab of the truck was warm and toasty, but her fingers were still cold against mine.
Half a mile from home, her teeth started chattering again.
I wrapped my arm around her, driving one-handed down the familiar side streets until I finally had to release her to shift the truck into park.
When the engine went off, the resulting silence enveloped us in a breathless moment of indecision.
Esther looked shaken and miserable, but I wanted this to be her choice. After a moment, she looked up at me, vulnerability written in every line of her beautiful face, and asked, “Can I stay with you tonight?”
Relief flooded my chest. “Of course. Let’s get you inside.”
In the mudroom, I helped her out of her boots, rubbing her hands again to try to warm her up. Aside from the chill that seemed to have taken residence in her veins, there was something else dimming the brightness in her eyes, something that lodged like a boulder in my chest.
Our half-cooked meal sat in a casserole dish on the stove, the counter strewn with the vegetables I’d been about to start preparing when I called Esther to ask if coconut was okay. Thank fuck I had, otherwise I wouldn’t have known she was in any danger, nor had any idea where to find her.
Before making it another step, I turned and pulled her into my arms. A violent shiver raced down her spine as her hands twisted in the back of my shirt. It took only another heartbeat for the sobs to work their way out of her chest with jarring intensity.
I held her, absorbing the impact as much as possible while I whispered reassurances against the top of her head.
“You’re safe now, I promise. I’m right here with you.” I shuddered and tightened my arms around her softness as the reality of how close I’d come to losing her sank in. “God, Esther, I love you.”
With a hiccuping sob, she tipped her tear-stained face up to look at me in shock. I laughed a little as I tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes glimmered like peridot in the kitchen light, searching my face like she needed to confirm the words were true.
“I love you,” I said again. No going back now. “I had a whole lot of things to say to you tonight over dinner, and I’ll say them when you’re ready, but I want you to know that. Life is too short to miss the opportunity to tell you how I feel.”
She buried her face against my chest, so I cradled the back of her head while my other hand rubbed soothing circles across her back. It was only when Toni strolled into the kitchen and started winding herself through our legs that I realized how late it had gotten.
“I’m afraid dinner is a bust, but I can throw something together if you’re hungry,” I offered.
Esther finally released her grip on my shirt and scrubbed at her face with both hands. “I don’t think I can eat right now. I made a lemon cake for dessert, you know,” she said, then another stray tear tumbled down her cheek. “I had a nice outfit picked out and everything.”
I didn’t want to laugh, but I couldn’t hold back the chuckle that rumbled through my chest as I swiped my thumb across her cheekbone. “We’ll just reschedule our fancy meal for tomorrow, then. Or I’ll run over and get the cake. We can have it for breakfast.”
Her own laugh was watery, but given that I’d been afraid I would never see her beautiful smile again when I walked into that cottage, I’d take it as a win.
In the aftermath of the adrenaline, my empty stomach jumped for joy at the thought of the cake, but Esther looked about ten seconds from collapsing.
“If you’re sure you don’t want to eat something, why don’t you go up and get into bed. I’ll put this stuff away and be right up,” I suggested, stroking my hand gently down the side of her face as though I could erase the memory of that bastard’s knife.
She’d been precious to me before, but now? I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go.
Weaving slightly on her feet, Esther nodded. “I’ll meet you upstairs,” she said wearily, then turned to go up to the bedroom.
I waited until I heard her footsteps fade before moving to the stove to throw out the half-cooked dish that sat out all afternoon.
Once I’d packed away all the vegetables on the counter, I fed the cat her dinner, threw together a small bowl of fresh fruit, checked ingredients on a package of crackers, and brought the selection of snacks up to the bedroom.
The overhead light was still on, but Esther was tucked up under the blankets, curled into a ball on her side.
I’d planned to follow her lead as far as sleeping in our clothes or stripping down, so I waited until she shifted enough to reveal the bare skin of her shoulder and the upper swell of one breast before tugging off my clothes.
I flipped off the light and crawled under the covers, meeting her in the middle of the bed.
Just as I reached for her, she turned into my embrace and pressed her face to the pulse in my throat.
Though she’d stopped shaking, there was still a faint tremble in her fingers where they curled against my chest.
For a long time, we lay there in the dark.
She’s safe, some helpful part of my brain kept repeating, but it didn’t feel quite real yet.
There were too many alternate scenarios playing inside my head, ones where we didn’t reach her in time, where my dead girlfriend’s baby brother started slicing into Esther’s beautiful body, where I ended up covered in the blood of the woman I loved.
With enormous effort, I forced it all away.
Instead, I focused on the rise and fall of her chest and the tiny breaths that brushed over my throat.
I ran my hands through her hair and over her soft skin.
The shared heat of our bodies created a cocoon of warmth under the comforter, seeping its way back through my veins to replace the icy terror.
A long time later, well after I thought she’d fallen asleep, Esther whispered, “I’m so afraid.”
“We’re safe,” I murmured against her temple, but she shook her head.
“I’m so afraid of loving you.”
My muscles tensed, caught between the joy of this almost-admission and the pain of knowing I’d put her into this position. With a long exhale, I said, “You don’t have to be afraid. Never, I promise you. Esther…I’m staying. Moving back to Spruce Hill.”
Her head tipped up. “You’re staying?”
“My partner is going to buy my half of the business. I’ll have to wait for this Wylie project to be completed before the transfer, because of the contract, so I may need to go back and forth a few more times. I got an apartment over the Davies Soap Emporium.”
“You got an apartment,” she repeated. I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her eyelashes brushing over my skin as she blinked, presumably processing that information. “You’re moving back to Spruce Hill.”
“Yes. I’m very much in love with you, Esther, but you’re not responsible for choosing my future or finding my happiness.
I wanted to prove to you I wasn’t putting any of that on you or using this as some way to pressure you into forgiving me.
Christ, I don’t know if that makes any sense.
I just wanted to show you I’m serious about this, all of it. ”
Silence fell again, stretching until I was sure this was the end of things.
My heart clenched painfully in my chest and I tangled my fingers in her hair, certain it would be the last time she let me this close to her.
Then, when I opened my mouth to speak, her nose nuzzled the hollow at the base of my throat, followed by the soft press of her lips.
“I didn’t want to love you,” she said quietly. “But tonight, all I could think about was wasting these last few days, losing that time with you.”
I scooted down slightly in order to meet her eyes, glowing like silver discs in the darkness. “My days are yours. And my nights. All of them, from here on out.”
“I’m sorry I freaked out on you.”
“No,” I replied, my tone firm, and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry I freaked you out. I had a lot of shit to work through with my brother, but I think…I think we’re on our way to fixing things between us. I am so, so sorry, Esther, that I let that hurt you.”
“I do love you, you know,” she whispered.
With a shuddering sigh, she relaxed completely, her body melting into mine as though the confession had been a final wall that crumbled between us. I kissed the top of her head, tightened my arms around her, and held her until she finally fell asleep.