Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Julian
She fell asleep sometime after midnight, wrapped up in my arms, right where she belongs.
I held on to her long after she drifted off, and long after I finally had as well.
I wanted to tell her I’ll never leave her side, that she’s the easiest choice I’ve ever made, but that will have its time.
There’s a part of me that knew as soon as I saw her here in Rumor.
As I was strapped to a fucking chair, I knew that even if I wasn’t bound to it, I wasn’t going anywhere.
If anything had gone differently, if a single one of the tragic things that crossed our paths had been different, I wouldn’t be here.
Staring out the side windows, I catch movement in the river across the way.
I woke up this morning and watched the room turn from gray to gold, and it felt like I was exactly where I’m meant to be.
The sun still has some time to rise fully, but it’s light enough, and the river is low enough that I can see more slow movement along the banks.
Two, maybe three, alligators, like the ones Birdie was talking about, are right there, minding their own business and enjoying the same morning I am.
Rumor is a long way from the Pacific Northwest, but this view feels right and more like home than the beach views from my place in Oregon. A home, not just a home base.
My phone buzzes on the counter as Wyn stirs in her bed.
I fire off a text message, confirming the plans I started to put into motion.
I meant every word I said to her last night, and while I know that I’ll never stop missing my father, I woke up today feeling content about knowing what happened.
I feel proud that he was exactly who I thought.
That it wasn’t about the pieces of him I didn’t know, but that when it mattered, he was exactly the man who raised me.
“You’re going to file that thing down too thin. It’ll snap, I’m telling you,” he says, laughing.
“This entire series is supposed to show off the stones, not the metals,” I tell him as I turn on the polishing burr.
“Agree to disagree.” He studies the sapphire that he got from his collector. “Donovan might be a son of a bitch, but this is a beaut. Come take a look.”
I walk to his bench as he holds it up with tweezers, the magnifier and light showing off insanely intricate cuts that pick up the light in such a way that it looks more vibrant green.
“I met a woman, a long time ago, with the prettiest green eyes . . . Reminds me of her,” he says, longing in his tone I’m not used to hearing.
“Does this woman have a name?” I ask curiously.
He doesn’t answer, just starts whistling and gets lost back in his work.
“Are you making me coffee?” Wyn mumbles from across the wide space.
I smile, looking down at both the mug I’ve already drained and since refilled, and the ice-filled glass next to it.
“I am.” I pour the cooled coffee over it and a splash of milk.
Her sister said she liked it sweet and with a crunch, so I give it three heaping spoonfuls of sugar.
“Breakfast?” I ask, holding up a slice of the cake.
She sits up fast, the sheets moving to her waist, giving me a helluva view of her full and pretty tits.
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out right away as she looks at the cup and then back up to me.
“You, and this moment, feels like perfection,” she says, her voice raspy and groggy from sleep.
I had no idea coffee would get this kind of reaction.
I smile, draining what’s left of my second cup.
“Perfection is a better word for you in that bed right now, Crowne,” I say, looking at her beautiful tits again. Her eyes are still puffy from crying, but her hair is a wild mess of waves, and her lips look like I need to take my time and kiss the fuck out of them.
“Birdie texted me asking if you were alright and that your mother dropped off this blueberry butter cake.” I turn and hold up a plate with a slice on it.
“How do you feel about eating this?” I nod to the plate I hand her.
“Drinking that,” I say, putting her iced coffee down on her side table, before I sit and lie across the center of her bed.
“And then coming with me so I can show you something?”
She smiles wide after taking a bite, humming lightly at the taste.
“I feel great about that.” She looks at my chest and down at my jeans.
With a smile, she uses the fork and cuts another piece, holding it out for me.
I sit up and eat it as she takes a sip of her coffee and crunches the sugar that made it up through the straw.
“It was nice waking up with you this morning,” she says.
Last night was a lot. But right now, in the morning light, it feels less like a weight and more like just another part of our story.
I take in this exact moment with her. It isn’t that she’s beautiful and half naked in bed—though that doesn’t hurt—or the fact that she leans forward and kisses me before sharing her bite of cake again.
It’s having someone to ask the question.
Someone who’s been through more than I have any desire to imagine.
Reaching up, I brush a piece of her hair out of her face. My fingers graze down her cheek and to her jaw. I lean forward and kiss her lips lightly, deciding this is how I’ll wake up for the rest of my days, if she’ll let me.
“It was more than nice, baby.” I kiss her, this time taking the plate out of her hands while I do.
She reaches up and drapes her arms around my shoulders as she kisses me back, her lips parting for my tongue to glide against hers.
I pull her onto my lap as her fingers run up and into my hair.
It feels so fucking good every time. “Before I end up not wanting to leave this bed, there’s something I want to show you. ”
She smiles against my lips and moves back in for more. “Do I need to put pants on?” she asks playfully, moving her lips along my jaw.
I smile, looking up at the high ceiling as I glide my fingers up and down her back. “This might be the last time you hear this from me, but yes, Crowne. You need to put pants on, or shorts, or a skirt, whatever won’t get you arrested in public.”
I feel it in the center of my chest as she laughs right now.
Last night, I wanted to erase every awful thing that happened to her.
And she still asked me if I was okay. I breathe her in, coffee and the cake we’ve just shared.
Hearing her happy right now feels fucking good.
The things Wyn told me about my father, hearing what he did for her—there must have been plenty of favors he cashed in to locate a person who everyone else couldn’t find.
But for someone he loved, which is how I'm guessing he felt about Birdie, he wouldn’t have stopped looking until he found her.
The only reason the cleaning business stayed intact the way that it had wasn’t because of my grandfather.
It was my dad—the details and focus it took to make people and messes disappear is equal parts strategy and tenacity.
Thinking on our feet when cleaning agents weren’t cutting it and there needed to be a complete reconstruction of an area, he never flinched.
It doesn’t surprise me that he could have found her, that he was brave enough to help her.
The part that I don’t know if I’ll ever fully comprehend is how she ended up in my arms after all of it.
Loving my father was never the issue, it was finding out why he never came back . . . and now I have —and I have her.
There are plenty of vacant spaces along Rumor’s downtown.
Maybe it was once a bustling spot, but with the exception of Moonie’s train car at the end of the street, there aren’t too many places worth seeing.
The brick building has plenty of boarded-up windows and runs the expanse of this side of the street, but it’s an open floor plan loft with the potential to be a helluva gallery and workspace that called to me.
“This is Jo’s new studio,” Wyn says, hopping out of the Bronco.
I smile, knowing that while she’s right, it’s also mine.
“I thought before I signed any papers, I should get your approval on it,” I tell her as I walk past Jo’s entrance and toward the one next door.
When I key in the code from the realtor and open it, Wyn blinks, wide-eyed.
With a smile tugging at her lips, she asks, “This is what you wanted to show me?”
“It’s the legacy I’m most proud of, the one that I can show off to the world,” I say, walking through.
At the center of the dusty space is an old desk and chair that look like they’ve been long since forgotten.
Along the room’s edges are exposed brick and a spiral metal staircase that leads to a second level overlooking where we stand.
“I helped your sisters the other day and ended up coming back to take a look.” Holding her hand, I move toward the desk I had dragged to the center of the space.
“Jo mentioned the building was vacant, and I thought this could be a studio and a gallery. And it could be my new beginning.”
I wait for her reaction, but she simply says, “I always thought these buildings were so pretty—the brick and big windows. I kind of love that there would be art and jewelry and all the things you creative people are capable of doing in here.”