God, God, God.
“At night, Travis would wake me up and we’d walk in the moonlight holding hands. No words. Just holding hands. He’d bring me here and make love to me in the sand, under the stars. Then he’d hold me and we’d whisper to each other about nothing. Then we’d walk back, silent, holding hands. I never slept so well. Those times, after we got home, I slept so well, Kia, safe in the arms of the man who loved me like that. Loved me so much he wanted nothing more than to walk holding hands in the moonlight to beauty, create beauty with me, then take me home and hold me while I slept.”
I squeezed her hand, inched closer and whispered, “Honey.”
Her eyes came to me and her sultry, gorgeous voice was dead when she said, “I’m never going to have that again.”
“Oh, Luci, sweetie, you don’t know.”
“Not with Travis.”
Well, she was right about that.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered because, honestly, there was nothing else to say and seriously, I was.
“I am too,” she whispered back, her eyes locked on mine and I watched them get bright as I watched her lip start to quiver, mine reciprocated and she kept whispering. “I am too. I am very, very sorry, Kia.”
I saw it and moved right into it when it happened. The sob tearing out of her throat, I wrapped my arms around her and she shoved her face in my neck, her body jerking against mine, wracked with tears.
I held her close, stroked her hair and said not a word as her tears wet my skin, so many of them they started to slide down my chest and wet my robe. Hearing them, feeling them, I struggled holding back my own. But she needed strength and understanding and I needed to give it to her.
Still, I couldn’t stop it, one escaped to slide down my cheek.
“I want that back,” she whispered against my neck.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, you can’t have it back,” I told her gently.
“I know. I know I can’t have it back with Travis. But I want it back.”
I wasn’t following.
She explained, pushing closer, shoving her face deeper in my neck, she said so quietly I barely heard her over the rushing waves, “I have to let Travis go so I can find it again.”
I closed my eyes and held her tighter.
There it was. Thank you, God, there it was.
She got there herself.
Thank. You. God.
“Yes, Luci, honey, that’s what you need to do,” I whispered.
She nodded but said no more nor did she move.
Not until I felt a presence right before I felt a hand on the small of my back. I twisted my neck and tipped back my head to see Sam standing there. I nodded to him then shifted Luci into his arms. She looked up at him in surprise then her face crumbled again and she did a face plant in his shirt. Sam’s arms went visibly tighter.
I leaned in and kissed the side of her head. Then I reached up and briefly cupped Sam’s jaw. I smiled sadly into his intense eyes then dropped my hand and moved away.
I walked down the beach, the wind beating my insanely expensive robe against my body. Celeste, Hap, Maris and Skip were standing at the trailhead. I stopped at their huddle.
“She’s worked it through on her own,” I announced. “She’s letting him go.”
Hap closed his eyes and dropped his head. Maris pressed her lips together and turned her face away. Celeste gave me a melancholy smile.
Skip looked me in the eyes and announced, “You’ll do.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Burned in My Brain
It was night, dark and Memphis and I were hanging on the deck. Memphis on my lap, breathing easy. Me in a chair sipping an Amaretto.
Luci’s realization changed our plans for the day. Sam took her back to her house and stayed with her. Skip went wherever Skip had to go. Hap went back to the base. Celeste and I drove Maris to the airport. Then we spent the rest of the day together.
When it got late and there was still no Sam, Celeste got in Luci’s Corvette and went to her house. Fifteen minutes later, Celeste texted me with, “All is well. They’re talking on the deck. Sam says he’ll be home soon.”
So I got my dog and my Amaretto with a cube of ice, hit Sam’s deck, settled in and waited for my man to come home.
Sitting with only Memphis for company, it didn’t take long for me to come to some realizations myself. The first being, sitting alone on the deck in the night, the house empty behind me, watching the moonlight on the waves, that since I met Sam, I had very little of this. Solitude. Time to think. Time to be with me.
And once I realized that I realized that was by Sam’s design. Except for him offering to give me space the next night after the first time we had sex, that offer was never repeated. In fact, neither Maris nor Sam suggested they have alone time before she went home. That was my idea.
Dad had said it but I didn’t process it then and I didn’t understand it now.
Sam and I were inseparable.