“Hudson will always be the marker of how long ago that party was.”
I smiled on a breath. “Yes.”
“I loved you so fiercely that night, Annalia. I want you to know that. I know the way things happened after that was mostly awful. But we created that little boy in love. When I look at him, with your eyes and my face, that’s what I think. He’s the beauty that came from the ashes.”
“I feel the same way,” I said softly.
We sat in the barn for a while longer, musing about life and love and our little boy. When I left, though the sky was dark, it only made it easier to see the stars.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Preston
The next day dawned clear and bright, the spring sky a bowl of startling blue. After a year of rising before the sun, I was now working a more regular schedule, and waking with the light outside my window was a pleasure I’d missed and vowed never to take for granted.
My heart felt lighter and the day went by quickly. The conversation Lia and I had had was long overdue and inside, I knew it had opened a doorway in our relationship. We were learning to trust each other, learning to communicate—honestly—and realizing how good it felt to have another person to open up to. Or at least, that’s how it felt for me. And by the peaceful expression on Lia’s face when I’d kissed her goodbye the night before, I believed she felt the same way.
I thought it had been a good choice to begin slowly and hold off sexually because so many parts of our relationship had never developed naturally and now we were allowing them to. How much deeper and more satisfying was sex going to be once we knew each other—and loved each other—on an even deeper level? A shiver ran down my back and I hardened slightly at the consideration alone.
Still, I wouldn’t keep my hands off her entirely, whether we were taking things slowly or not. Oh God, she made me weak in the knees.
My father had warned me not to love a woman just because she made me weak in the knees. But that wasn’t the only reason I loved Annalia. She was precious to me because she was tender and kind and so deeply sensitive it gripped my heart. She was smart and funny and she kept secrets, not because she was secretive, but because she didn’t think anyone would hold safe the private musings of her heart.
The pain had come, not from the fact that Annalia made me weak in the knees, but from the belief that she didn’t love me back the same way I loved her.
But she did. She did. And I vowed to do things right this time. I vowed to prove to her that her secrets—the tender places inside her—were safe with me. And I promised myself I’d trust her with my tender places, too.
As I worked, I thought more about our conversation and how it had also brought some understanding where Cole was concerned. It was a deep, open wound inside me that we’d never gotten a chance to hash things out regarding Annalia—never had a true, honest conversation. And yet talking to her had allowed me to see the situation in a clearer light.
He cared about you, though, Lia.
Yes, he did care about me, but like a sister.
I remembered the way he’d been so enraged about me possibly disrespecting her—the way he’d tried to protect her virtue, but yet had had no interest in staying true to her. He’d had the opportunity to spend more time with her than he had, but he never took it. If I had been the one who won that race, and found out she wanted me, I’d have staked my claim the very next day. He hadn’t. Perhaps he’d thought the deep protectiveness he felt for her and no one else meant he loved her. And it did, but if Lia was right and there was no passion there, then her belief that he loved her as a sister felt like the truth.
It didn’t heal the loss I’d always carry inside. But it shed some light—some healing—where none had been before, and for that I was grateful. I spent a quiet hour talking to my brother in my head as I worked and somehow felt certain he heard me. It felt as though there was forgiveness between us. A restoration of sorts.
I went in around noon, and Lia and I spent a laughter-filled hour watching Hudson walk from one of us to the other, clapping for himself and squealing over his new accomplishment. By the time we went into the kitchen to eat, the kid was a pro. When he took to something, he really took to it.
Over lunch, as Lia fed Hudson, I asked, “Are you free tonight?”
“What do you have in mind?” Lia brought her hair over her shoulder as she began braiding it quickly. My eyes were glued to the feminine movements, the way her slim, delicate fingers moved deftly through her hair, and the way she arched her neck to accomplish the task. How was it women just seemed to naturally know how to do those types of things? And did they realize how much watching it affected a man? My mouth felt suddenly dry. I took a sip of iced tea as I tried to remember what she’d asked me. What do you have in mind?
“Dinner,” I said distractedly. “At Dairy Queen. And then maybe we could drive to the top of Heron’s Park.”
She raised one brow, studying me. “Isn’t that where teens go to make out?”
“Yeah,” I said, and my voice sounded slightly lazy, even in my own ears.
She laughed. “Is this all part of going back to the beginning?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All right.” She looked at Hudson. “Your mom and dad are going to pretend they’re teenagers tonight. What do you think about that, little walker?” Hudson laughed, smooshing a handful of blueberries into his cheek. “That’s what I think, too,” Lia said, but the smile on her face was bright and happy.
**********
The park was dark and slightly foggy as my truck crept slowly up the mild incline of the road that wound through the trees and dead-ended at the top of a low cliff overlooking the town of Linmoor.
I’d never been up here when I was a teenager—but Cole had and from what I knew, kids still used it as a place to park and make out. But when we crested the hill, there weren’t any other cars parked anywhere. We had the entire place to ourselves, whether that was because it wasn’t as popular a place to hang out as it once had been, or because it was a Thursday night, I didn’t know. Didn’t care, either.
I pulled into a spot right at the guardrail and turned off the ignition, looking out at the lights of Linmoor. From up here it looked like such a dinky town, dwarfed by the acres and acres of the sprawling farmland that surrounded it, farmland that was now merely dark emptiness from where we sat.