Chapter 29
Beau kneels on a sleeping bag and pulls me inside the tent before closing out the world, and I reach for him as my eyes adjust to the light filtered through the nylon.
I slide his glasses off, folding them carefully and placing them on top of his duffel bag before tracing the lines of his cheekbones with my fingertips and his lips with my thumbs.
He closes his eyes and hums before settling his gaze on my face.
“Can you still see me?” I ask.
“If you stay close.”
And it’s like that, inches apart, that we undress.
His shirt first, and I abandon my restraint and drink him in as I’ve been desperate to.
I touch the raised crescent scar on his rib cage—the gash he earned when following me over a chain-link fence—a remnant of me he’s been hiding under his clothes for twenty years.
I duck to kiss it, whispering “I’m sorry” into his skin—for all the marks I left behind, scars and hurts both physical and emotional.
He tangles his fist in my hair, holding me against him with a trembling palm.
I drag my lips over his chest, his clavicle, his neck.
His skin is hot, but goose bumps rise to greet every grazing kiss, and he releases small puffs of breath as if holding himself back.
When I find his mouth again, he deepens the kiss, pulling me closer, making my body warm with anticipation and need, all my nerve endings crackling to life under his touch.
He works to free me from my clothes, and we laugh as the garments catch on my head, my elbow, my belt loop.
But with each layer of clothing peeled away, he discards another veil; with every touch, he unleashes another truth, until I’m nothing but a raw heart, beating unprotected as I kneel in front of him, finally bare.
If last night was like jumping headfirst into dark water, tonight is like slipping into a warm bath—impulsivity giving way to intention.
He drags rough palms from my thighs to my waist, thumbs pressing into the dip between navel and hip bone, his focus traveling over me like a promise, before he pulls me against him.
My body aches with the memory of him—battling between wanting to pull him onto me, into me, and craving to savor this newfound patience.
He’s still in his jeans, and I scramble to undo his belt, release the button fly, and push them down his thighs with his boxers.
I shiver when he pulls back to shove off his boots and kick his pants into the corner before returning to me with a slow-growing grin.
“Come here.” He wraps a hand around my lower back and lowers me to the sleeping bags, hovering over me so that there’s a hint of contact—a brush of skin on skin that makes me arch to get closer.
“I don’t know whether I want to look or touch.
” He drags his gaze down my chest, his hands following, ghosting fingerprints over my sternum, my breasts, my navel.
“Well, I’m freezing. So I vote touch.”
He laughs and nips at my mouth, pressing warm lips to mine, tasting me until I dissolve under his kiss and the weight of his body. I forget about the cold and my fears and my insecurities and wonder if Beau has been the right answer to every decision I’ve ever been afraid to make.
Beau covers us in blankets, and we create a nest under the canopy and take our time.
I pay attention to his gasps, to the way his fingertips tighten on my skin, to how his mouth goes slack when he slides inside me.
I notice how he shivers when I press my mouth to his neck, I listen to the sound of his groan as I drag my teeth over his collarbone, and I feel the desperate grip of his hands when I say his name over and over and over as I come apart.
“Still okay?” he asks when we’re spent and sated. I curl against him, my head on his shoulder and our limbs intertwined.
“I’m perfect and ready for all the intimacy,” I whisper.
He laughs and kisses my forehead, dragging fingertips along my spine in a soothing rhythm. But it turns out we’re too tired for any of that, and I fall asleep cradled in his arms.
It’s a slate-gray monochromatic morning, and the scattered cloud cover provides a gentle wake-up call.
Beau is still sleeping when I stir, my limbs draped over him like I’m clinging to a life raft.
His face is placid—all the worry lines ironed out like crisp cotton.
His mouth is soft, and I marvel at the slope of his brow and the curl of his lashes—all the vivid parts of him usually hidden behind his lenses and permanent scowl.
I’m getting a peek behind his mask. And I love the view.
I check in with myself for panic but find none.
We cuddled. We talked. We survived the night—and I wouldn’t mind an encore. Or a hundred.
“Hey.” A low rumble slips from Beau’s mouth before his eyes open. I stay close so he can see me. “Where are we on the freak-out meter?” he asks.
“Zero. But it might escalate if I have to face the morning without coffee.”
He chuckles, and that sound—along with his scratchy cheek tickling my neck—tempts me to straddle him. But frankly, I’m sore, hungry, and interested in whether we can manage the morning after without disaster this time.
“Can’t have that. Give me a minute.”
I nuzzle closer and drag my hand down his chest. He laughs again and halts my progress with a firm grip around my wrist. “But you can’t do that if you expect me to get out of bed anytime soon.”
I get up first, aware of his eyes on me as I prepare for the brisk morning by layering his sweatshirt over my clothes.
He follows me out to start the fire and sets the kettle over the grill grate, because he is a saint who thought to bring coffee.
Within a few minutes, I’m caffeinated and ready to start the morning.
The clouds part to reveal a horizon painted with a pastel palette—carnations, violets, and daffodils bloom across the sky while the river wriggles under the sun’s touch.
The landscape looks alive, gentle, kissed by the same optimism that pulses through me.
I hear Beau’s shuffle step behind me before his arms are around my waist, his chin perched on my head.
“I’m going to try Mary’s address in La Pine after our interview today.
” I’m ready to face more demons. Admittedly it’s easier to look for a demon where you’re unlikely to find it.
My mother won’t be there—according to the records, she lived nearby over fifteen years ago, even before Fort Bragg.
But the small town of La Pine borders Bend; her old home is only twenty minutes from here.
I may as well check to see if someone knew her.
There might be a clue. “I really want to keep going—even if I can’t find her.
I need to see this through.” Perhaps Beau is helping me be brave.
“Good,” he says.
I turn in his arms. The sun lights him up, the morning playing on his face like hope. It’s still novel to touch him like this, as if we’re sneaking out to his tree house for our first kiss. It’s somehow forbidden and a given.
We pack up the campsite with an efficiency we’ve developed over the last few weeks, moving in and out like a traveling circus.
Melancholy washes over me as we drive away from the river and the honesty it brought us.
But Beau reaches over and squeezes my thigh, a small tether, a reminder that we don’t have to lose whatever we found here.
Our interview takes us to Sunriver, a resort town close to the campsite, where Jefferson Riley awaits us in his mountain home.
We’re in and out in less than an hour. Jefferson is a man of few words, so once he confesses that he faked a law degree and was a partner at a prominent firm for four decades, he had little else to say.
My notes on the conversation are spare, but I capture a detailed description of the gourmet kitchen and fourteen-foot ceilings his deception bought him, as Beau tries to gather information corroborating his claim.
Jefferson’s lack of affect makes me skeptical. It sounds very Catch Me If You Can .
“At least he didn’t pretend to be a surgeon,” Beau says under his breath as we slip back into the car.
I climb in after him and nod. “I concur.”
Beau chuckles and leans in for a kiss. I cup his cheek with my palm and pull back, grinning.
“You find me funnier now that I’ve let you into my pants,” I say.
We grab sandwiches to eat at a park and watch a young family fly a rainbow kite while dragonflies dance over the river.
Afterward, we stretch out on a picnic blanket and bask in the golden rays of the warm afternoon.
Beau trails a palm along my hip, an instinctive gesture that winds me up while soothing me.
He falls asleep, his long body curved toward me with his arm tucked under his head.
I lay awake, cocooned under him while I consider my next steps—and the potential consequences.
I imagine scenarios. The things that could have led to my mother’s abandonment.
What must have happened? I would have remembered abuse . .. right?
What do I make of my splintered memories that stick to me like glitter—unseen until they glimmer in the light and steal my breath?
The time she picked me up from preschool early to catch sand crabs on the beach.
Our kitchen dance parties to the Footloose soundtrack.
Teaching me to make chocolate chip cookies.
The time she turned our living room into an underwater seascape to watch The Little Mermaid .
The morning she woke me before sunrise to grab doughnuts as the shop opened.
I still hear her full, throaty laugh on the first bite of a glazed doughnut.
I slip my pendant back and forth over the gold chain. I’m prepared for this to end badly. To never find her. To find a woman so dissimilar from my memory that she blows away the glitter with a careless exhale. Or worse, to find a woman who erases my dad with her version of events.
I can’t lose him twice.
The shock of Dad’s death is wearing off. And reality is flooding in.
I let Beau in and opened the dam on all my emotions.
Beau shifts and reaches for me—like a reflex. I cuddle closer and allow the rhythm of his breathing to settle my heart rate. Because as scared as I am, I now have someone to hold my hand as I step into the unknown.