Chapter 12
REID
Noah trembled in my arms until the nightmare began, inch by inch, to release him.
At first, nothing I said seemed able to reach him.
Every breath snagged halfway into his lungs and broke apart.
His right fist knotted in my shirt, twisting the cotton against my chest, while he hid his face beneath my chin as if seeing the bedroom might drag him back beneath the wreckage.
Marlowe pressed against his legs, whining each time another violent shudder moved through him.
I kept one hand curved around the back of Noah’s neck.
The other moved slowly between his shoulder blades.
No questions.
No explanations that required him to understand too much.
Only the solid things.
“The window is behind you,” I murmured. “The harbor is outside. Marlowe is touching your legs. The mattress is beneath us. My hand is on your neck. I’m here.”
His grip tightened painfully.
“The roof fell.”
“Not this one.”
“I couldn’t move.”
“You don’t need to move now.”
“The light went out.”
“It came back.”
His breath hitched.
I felt the nightmare reach for him again.
His entire body went rigid in my arms, every muscle locking as though steel were about to crash through the ceiling. I tightened my hold enough to give him pressure without restraining him.
“Aaron returned,” I said near his ear. “The rescue crew found you. They cut you free. They carried you out of the ravine. You survived the road. You survived the van. You survived every surgery.”
His breathing came in sharp, wounded bursts.
“You’re in our bed.”
The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Our.
I waited for him to recoil from the claim.
He didn’t.
His forehead pressed more firmly against my collarbone.
“Don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I’m staying.”
The promise reached him where reason had failed.
His breaths did not become normal. Not immediately. But the jagged pauses between them began to shorten. The desperate rise and fall of his chest eased by degrees.
Marlowe shoved his muzzle beneath Noah’s right hand.
Noah’s fingers released my shirt long enough to sink into the dog’s fur. He anchored himself between us, one hand tangled in Marlowe’s coat, his body held against mine.
Time lost its shape.
Minutes might have passed.
An hour might have.
I measured it only by the changing weight of Noah in my arms.
Eventually, the tension drained from him. His head slipped beneath my chin. His fist loosened against my chest, though he did not let go completely.
“I’m tired,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to dream again.”
“You don’t have to sleep yet.”
His voice grew smaller. “Will you stay awake?”
“Yes.”
“You need sleep.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“You always say that.”
“This time, I mean it.”
A weak breath shivered out of him.
“Lie down with me.”
I moved carefully.
Getting us against the pillows without jarring his injured hip or trapped arm required patience. His brace snagged on the blanket. Pain tightened his mouth as he shifted his pelvis. I stopped twice, waiting until the strain passed before moving again.
When he finally settled, he stayed turned toward me.
His head rested on my shoulder.
His right hand returned to my chest, covering my heart.
I pulled the blanket over both of us.
Marlowe circled three times at the foot of the bed, then collapsed with a groan so dramatic it would have been insulting if I had possessed the energy to be offended.
Noah’s mouth moved against my shirt.
“What did you say?”
“The lamp.”
I looked toward the green light spilling softly through the open doorway.
“Do you want me to switch it off?”
“No.”
“Brighter?”
“No. Leave it exactly like that.”
His fingertips shifted once against my chest.
“I dreamed something else before I woke.”
“The warm room?”
He nodded.
“What happened?”
“I heard a sound.”
“What kind?”
“I can’t tell.”
His brow furrowed against my shoulder.
“Three notes. Always the same.”
“Music?”
“No.”
“A bell?”
“Maybe.”
He shut his eye.
“It comes through fog. Two quick sounds, then one longer one.”
I listened.
The harbor was full of signals. Buoys. Fog bells. Ship horns. Dock alarms. The warning beep from the travel lift. Any one of them could have buried itself in his mind before the accident.
“What do you feel when you hear it?” I asked.
His fingers stopped.
“Not afraid.”
“Safe?”
“More than safe.”
Exhaustion blurred the edges of his voice.
“Like someone is waiting for me to answer.”
The words tightened something in my chest.
“Do you answer?”
“I don’t know how.”
“You don’t need to solve it tonight.”
“It matters.”
“I believe you.”
His breathing deepened.
“Ask me about it tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Don’t let me forget.”
“I won’t.”
He grew heavier against me.
I kept my eyes open.
For a long time, I watched the green light paint a dim reflection across the opposite wall. Rain began again, soft and persistent against the windows. Beneath us, the old building creaked with the tide and sighed as the temperature dropped.
Noah slept through all of it.
No sudden flinch.
No gasp.
His hand remained over my heart as if counting the beats.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under too.
When I woke, weak daylight had turned the bedroom gray.
Noah still lay against me.
The air beyond the blankets was cold, but his body warmed my side. His hair tickled my jaw. One knee had shifted close to mine, though even asleep he had protected his healing hip.
For several breaths, I did not move.
Once, mornings like this had been ordinary.
Noah curling into me when winter rain struck the windows. Noah stealing most of the blanket, then denying the evidence. Noah waking before me and complaining that my feet were cold while sliding his own between my calves to warm them.
I remembered too much.
Some days, memory felt like another injury—one no scan could show and no surgeon could repair.
The man in my arms did not know those mornings.
But he had asked me to stay through this one.
That belonged to now.
Noah stirred.
His hand flexed over my chest.
I prepared for panic.
Instead, his eye opened slowly and found my face.
“Morning,” he said, voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
He blinked, then looked down at his palm.
“You stayed.”
“I promised.”
A faint flush moved beneath his skin.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Four hours. Perhaps five.”
“Without waking?”
“Not that I noticed.”
He seemed to test the answer against the way his body felt.
“My head hurts.”
“Worse than usual?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“I’m lying down.”
“That has not prevented it before.”
His mouth curved.
I wanted to brush my thumb over that small smile.
I kept my hands where they were.
Noah’s gaze traveled over my face, then down the length of us as though he had only just understood how closely we were lying. His hand slid from my chest, but he did not pull away.
“Did I hold on to you all night?”
“Most of it.”
“Sorry.”
“No.”
He closed his eye. “Right. No apologies.”
“Exactly.”
“Marlowe?”
“At our feet.”
The dog opened his eyes at the sound of his name.
Noah lifted his head enough to see him.
Marlowe’s tail struck the mattress once.
“Useless animal,” Noah muttered. “You were supposed to guard me.”
Marlowe yawned.
“He subcontracted the work.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
Noah settled against my shoulder again.
For a moment, the room remained still.
Then he said, “I slept better.”
“So did I.”
“Even after the nightmare.”
“After it, yes.”
He looked toward the green lamp, pale now in the morning light.
“The other dream came back.”
“The three sounds?”
“Yes.”
“Anything new?”
His brow tightened.
“Two short. One long.”
He pursed his lips and tried to imitate it, but only a thin breath emerged.
“It isn’t a ship horn.”
“Maybe a whistle.”
“Maybe.”
Two fingers touched the center of his chest.
“When I hear it, I feel it here.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Frustration reached him quickly.
“I don’t know.”
I gave him silence.
He pressed his fingers harder against his sternum.
“It feels like I’m expected somewhere.”
The specificity of it quieted me.
Noah watched my face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You thought of something.”
“I’m not certain.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I considered the signals we used around the yard.
The workshop could become impossibly loud. Engines. Sanders. Impact drivers. The travel lift. Wind hammering the broad metal doors. Years earlier, after Noah worked through lunch because he had not heard me calling, I began whistling for him.
Two short notes.
One long.
A pattern sharp enough to carry through machinery and weather.
He had mocked me for summoning him like an animal.
Then, one afternoon at the far end of Bellweather Marina, he had whistled the same pattern back.
After that, it belonged to us.
A way to say, Find me.
A way to answer, I’m here.
I had not used it since the accident.
I had not consciously chosen to stop. Grief had stripped habits from me until I did not notice they were gone.
Noah’s pulse moved visibly at his throat.
“What?” he asked again.
“We had a signal.”
“What kind?”
“A whistle.”
His eye sharpened. “Do it.”
“I may be wrong.”
“Do it.”
I lifted two fingers toward my mouth, then stopped.
The moment felt too large for the bedroom.
Too easy to damage with hope.
“Noah.”
“You think that’s the sound.”
“I think it might be.”
“Then why are you afraid to try?”
“Because I don’t want to watch your face when it means nothing.”
The truth escaped before I could hide it.
Noah stared at me.
Pain moved through his expression.
Not pity.
Something quieter and more intimate.
“You can’t protect yourself from every answer,” he said.
“I know.”
“Do it.”
I took a breath.
Two short notes.
One long.
The whistle cut through the dim room.
Marlowe’s head came up instantly.
Noah went completely still.
The color left his face.
I stopped breathing.
His right hand returned to his chest.
“Again.”
I repeated the pattern.
Marlowe scrambled upright, looking between us.
Noah shut his eye.
His breathing changed.
“Is that the sound?” I asked.
He did not answer.
“Noah?”
His hand caught my shirt.
“Again.”
I gave the signal a third time.
A tear slipped from beneath his closed eyelid.
I turned carefully toward him.
“Tell me what’s happening.”