Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
JOSEPHINE
Shimmers of gold pierce the cave. I stir in warm arms.
Ash’s turquoise eyes slide to mine, warmth pooling. But hesitation threads his breath and tightens his face.
“Wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want me.”
The bond still hums through me, hand coming up to cup his cheek. “Too late now, Starman.”
His face relaxes, the corners of his mouth lifting. “Earthman. Never set foot anywhere else.”
I nod, the strangeness of his predicament still settling in. “Can’t pick what planet you’re born on,” I whisper, fingertips rustling against stubble, thumb dropping to his kissable bottom lip.
He snarls and mock-bites my finger. I giggle, enjoying how we can be like this now without danger looming.
“Wouldn’t want to be born anywhere else.”
“And we already went over the spaceship thing. Geez, you’re the most boring alien I’ve ever met.”
He shakes his head, laughing bitterly. “Nope. Never been to Area Fifty-One. Never seen little gray men, or guys dressed in black, either.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I tease.
“Wasn’t fun,” he grumbles, head descending to kiss my neck and shoulder. “Before you.”
His hand comes up, carefully tracing my arm. Awakening my flesh with gentle caresses. He shifts and grimaces.
“You okay?”
“May have broken a couple of ribs.”
It flashes through me again, the way he shielded my body from rock and signal. “What about…” I pause. “The nifty trick you did in the barn with the healed skin?”
“Last night took too much from me,” he says. “Have to heal the old way. Use some of your Grandma’s salve.”
“Grandma’s salve.” Harvested from local bushes. Haven’t thought about it since I was a kid. But I can smell the strange mixture of herbs even now.
He eyes me with a bashful grin. “In this light, every part of you glows, golden like the high desert when the sun hits its zenith. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
His words thrum through me like a pulse, mind relaxing, letting me seep back into him. Emotions bleed. Fierce love. Fiercer devotion. Deep-rooted fear… not for himself but for me, for our future.
“Your grandparents… They gave me acceptance, peace,” the thought drifts, aching. “I wasn’t supposed to take it away by wanting you.”
My breath catches. “You didn’t take anything away,” I whisper. “You brought it back.”
His eyes lift to mine, and the guilt that’s lived there finally breaks open.
“I’m sorry, Josephine,” he whispers, voice raw and haunted.
“Sorry for what?”
“For needing you more than I could bear. For not being able to let you go when I should have.”
My heart sinks at the sound of his pain. I stir in his arms, turning to straddle him, palming his square-cut cheeks. I force him to look at me, my gaze defiant, unmoving. “There is no you or me anymore—just us. You never had a choice. Neither did I.”
Sunshine snickers a distance away. Winnie’s tail flicks as she steps forward to drink from the cool stream.
“But even if I did,” he says, eyes overflowing. “I would still wait for you, Josephine. Still choose you. Whether right or wrong.”
“That’s why you left the brown Carhartt on the porch rail?”
The corners of his mouth turn up. “Left that for you, just in case.”
“A test?”
“To see how much rebel flows through those veins of yours.”
“Satisfied?” I ask.
“Satisfied.” His turquoise eyes burn into me.
“But where do we go from here?”
“You stay with me. We make a life together.”
His words rush through me like warmth, the first rays of sunlight piercing through dark storm clouds. His big hands slide down my waist, gripping the tops of my hips.
My throat tightens.
“You keep studying the petroglyphs… and we start sharing secrets.”
My breath hitches.
His head drops to my shoulder, feathering slow kisses up my neck.
“Need you,” he whispers, leaning close.
“But your ribs—”
“They’ll hold.”
His kiss is wild and unapologetic, stealing the air from my lungs. His big hands grind me over him, thick length reminding me of last night’s bliss.
“You know, it was too much,” I whisper, tasting his mouth, tongue mating with his.
“Too much you need again,” he answers darkly.
“Do you know how to make clothes vanish?” I joke.
Ash chuckles, untying my blouse, unbuttoning my jeans. The zipper whirs, and my need throbs, heart catching in my throat.
“Some things are best done the old-fashioned way,” he murmurs, fingers sliding beneath the waistband of my panties and into my slick heat.
I gasp, the connection burning between us. Feeling all at once the pleasure of his touch and the anticipation humming across his flesh with the slide of his fingers. “Need more of that starlight,” he whispers as his mouth descends to my breasts, casting wet warmth through the lace of my bra.
“But what happened between us yesterday. Will it draw… the bad guys again?” I whisper.
“Our resonance has stabilized now. Don’t you feel it? Easier to keep between us.” His lips trace my neck. “This cave helps, too.” His fingers tangle with mine. “I don’t have all the answers, but we’ll learn together.”
The world narrows to heat, breath, and heartbeat until there’s nothing left but the sound of us—two notes of the same chord.
When the echo fades, I press my face to his throat, breathing the scent of smoke and pine and safety. The mountain hums softly beneath us, no longer warning, only remembering.
Outside, dawn waits, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like home.
The ride back feels surreal.
The sky burns pale with dawn, the wind a cool hush through the pines. The air still hums faintly with what we did—what we became.
Every heartbeat feels shared. Every breath echoes two.
When the ranch comes into view, I almost sob. Smoke curls from the chimney. The smell of coffee and pine pitch drifts through the air. Home.
Grandma stands on the porch, her wool shawl pulled tight. Grandpa’s at her side, eyes narrowed toward the rising sun. Behind them, the sky ripples faintly—strange lights flickering along the ridge, fading like spent auroras.
They saw it. They felt it.
“Ash,” Grandma says when we dismount, her tone both relief and warning. “Thank God.”
“Sorry, Miranda, Martin. Would’ve called, but we had no signal.”
“That wasn’t just weather last night,” she says quietly.
Ash tips his hat respectfully.
Grandpa studies him for a long moment, then nods once—the kind of nod men give when they’ve lived long enough to stop asking for explanations. “The land keeps its bargains,” he murmurs, then turns toward the barn to tend the stock like nothing’s happened.
Inside, warmth wraps around us—wood smoke, cedar, bread baking. I wash the dirt off my hands. When I look up, Ash watches me, his eyes softer than I’ve ever seen.
“You think they’ll come back?” I ask quietly. “The ones that hunted us?”
“They’ll try.” His hand grazes mine. “But not here.”
“Why not?”
He glances toward the window, where mist coils over the fields like breath. “The ore, the hum—it’s alive. Out there, you’d be easy to find. But here, under this sky, on this ground…” His voice lowers. “The land remembers its own.”
My pulse stutters, wanting to believe.
Grandma smiles, reassuring.
A warmth spreads through me, the kind that feels like roots reaching down to touch other roots.
“Those stones in the hills,” I say slowly.
“They weren’t just warnings. They were records.”
“Of what?” Ash asks.
“Of us.”
The mountain wind brushes over us, carrying the scent of snowmelt and pine sap. The hum slips lower, settling deep in the stone, into bone, into blood.
Grandma looks toward the ridge. “More will feel that song.”
Ash nods. “Yeah. They will.”
Outside, dawn waits—and for the first time in a long time, it feels like home.