Chapter 34 #2
On the porch, Emily finishes her call and slips the phone into her back pocket. She leans against the railing, face tilted toward the afternoon sun, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Nathaniel said to call him when you’re ready,” Grady says, pulling my attention back. “It sounded like he wants to give you a raise.”
“I will.”
After a few more details, we end the call.
I sit at the small breakfast table, phone in hand, the kitchen quiet except for the tick of the wall clock and the sound of bird song through the open window. The enormity of what’s happened washes over me in waves.
Emily comes back inside, the screen door closing behind her. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Grady called.” A strange stillness settles over me. “The police cleared me for the dock incident. Completely.”
Her worry clears, and she grins, the lines around her eyes crinkling. “That’s wonderful news. What happened?”
I explain everything Grady had just told me, still not believing it.
Emily crosses to me, her hand finding my shoulder. “I never doubted you’d be cleared.”
“I did.” The admission costs me, but it’s true. “I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop since I got here.”
Her thumb traces small circles on my collarbone. “And now?”
Through the window, I can see the garden and the workshop. For the first time since arriving here, broken and kicked out of my hotel, I let myself truly see this place not as a temporary refuge, but as a possible home. A place where I might put down roots that won’t be yanked up by the next storm.
“Now I think maybe I could stay,” I say, the words unfurling like sails catching wind. “Here with you?”
Emily’s hand slides from my shoulder to the nape of my neck, fingers threading through my hair. Her touch sends warmth cascading down my spine, settling in my chest where it blooms like embers coaxed to flame. “I’d like that.”
I shift in the chair, allowing myself to see the future that might be waiting, filled with mornings waking beside her, days working on the island, evenings on this porch watching the sunset.
“So,” Emily says, playing with the short strands of hair at my nape, “a clean record, a secure job, and the town no longer thinks you’re a menace. Not bad.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Guess I’m respectable now. Who’d have thought?”
Emily tilts her head toward me, her gray eyes warm. “I did.”
A slow heat curls in my hips as I lean in. “You know, my ribs are healed enough.”
As I slide a hand around her waist, she raises an amused eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Mm-hm,” I murmur, tugging her down to brush my lips over hers.
She cups my jaw, her palms cool on my warming skin, fingers tracing the faded yellow bruises before sliding into my hair.
The kiss deepens slowly, unhurried and more certain now that she won’t push me away. Her mouth opens beneath mine, and the coffee-and-cinnamon warmth of her floods my senses.
My hand splays across her lower back, drawing her closer until she shifts to straddle my lap. “Okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer, my hands finding her hips, steadying her above me.
Her weight settles, warm and solid, her thighs aligning with mine. I slip my hands beneath the hem of her shirt, palms smoothing over the curve of her waist, and her muscles tighten in response.
A breeze sweeps in from the garden, carrying the scent of early August flowers, a scent I’ll forever associate with Emily, as familiar as my own heartbeat.
Her hands drop to the buttons of my shirt, fingers working each one free.
When her knuckles graze my collarbone, I suck in a breath, the contact electric on my skin.
She pauses. “Still hurt?”
I capture her hand, flattening her palm over my hammering heart. “Not the way you think.”
Catching on to my meaning, she leans forward until our foreheads touch, breathing the same air. Her thumb strokes back and forth across my sternum, a gentle rhythm that matches the pulse in my veins.
My hands tighten on her hips, drawing her closer as I capture her mouth again, pouring everything I can’t yet put into words into the kiss.
The gratitude for her taking me in when I had nowhere else to go.
The wonder at finding her strength matched with such tenderness.
The terrifying hope that this might be the beginning rather than another ending.
Her fingers thread through mine, and she searches my face. “Come to bed with me.”
My pulse leaps, and before she can change her mind, I slide my hands beneath her thighs and stand.
“Put me down,” she protests, hands finding my shoulders for balance. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Don’t care.” I pull back enough to meet her gaze.
“I care,” she murmurs, tracing the fading yellow bruise along my jaw with her fingertips. “You’re still healing.”
“You’re worth a little pain.” My hands tighten on her thighs, fighting the desire to rock her over my hardening length. “Put your legs around me, Em.”
Her pupils blow wide, her pulse quickening in her throat. My mouth finds hers again, and the kiss deepens, turning hungry and desperate, like we’ve been starving for each other.
And when her legs wrap around my waist, the ache in my ribs fades to a distant memory, replaced by a different kind of hunger.