AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vinh followed the direction of my finger and scooped up the object, his back turned to me and his head down as he studied the object. “Bree?” he asked, turning toward me and holding up the gold Fortuna-branded Zippo lighter. “Does your grandmother smoke?”
I frowned deeply, and my ears began ringing. “No.” I met his gaze, finding it locked on mine, as I desperately tried to remember Grandmother ever owning a lighter, but I knew. “Never.”
I held my hand out, and Vinh placed the ornate, matte-finished lighter in my hand. I turned it over and ran my thumb over the embossed profile of the goddess Fortuna, blindfolded and serene.
It was just another tangle in the knot.
I handed it back to Vinh and settled back into the wheelchair. “I think there is supposed to be a report from the fire department available today. Can we go find out if they could salvage anything?”
I kept my gaze cast down as I asked, trying my best to keep my thoughts grounded in the present. Vinh’s boots came into view moments before he crouched down and slowly, reverently caressed the side of my face. I met his dark gaze, happy to live exclusively in their depths for as long as possible.
He smiled softly and continued lightly stroking my jaw. “That sounds good. And then we can see about getting out of here.” He leaned forward and sealed the promise with a kiss and resting his forehead against mine. We breathed in each other for several long moments before I found his hand and squeezed.
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
EPILOGUE
BREE
Life at our little cottage in Bay Springs, MS, would be a dream.
One day.
But for now, it was… real.
Healing was difficult and tiring, and with all three of the cottage's inhabitants actively trying to do that while also worrying about one another, it would have been dishonest to describe it any other way.
We were a family, and we were coping. Together. We tried our best to be honest and patient with one another during our bad moments, like when the doctor recommended that Grandmother be moved to a long-term care facility after her condition remained unchanged for weeks—the symptoms of her massive stroke likely to never reverse. And when Vinh had a panic attack the first time Liem set off the smoke detector baking cookies.
Once he was on the other side of it, we’d discussed methods for talking him through one.
And after that phone call with Grandmother’s doctor, I’d cried for hours as Vinh held me through it, promising to always be there.
It’d been the first time I’d let myself sit in the horror of what had happened, and once the racking sobs had turned to quiet hiccups, Vinh got me a glass of water and positioned me across his chest, still careful of my back and legs even though they were mostly healed now.
It was my heart and mind that were still in pain, and probably would be for a long time.
I slept for hours afterward, waking up feeling almost like a brand-new person. One who was done with a few things—Liem’s moping being at the top of the list.
I’d tried multiple times to assure Liem that the accident wasn’t his fault. Short of tackling me, there wasn’t anything that he could’ve done to stop me from checking the house for my grandmother.
He disagreed and was of the opinion that he should’ve actually taken me to the ground.
Vinh had spoken to him, too, which seemed to help some, but the final straw had been the day that Liem had announced that he was moving back in with his parents to “give us space.”
I wasn’t proud of the way I’d practically exploded on him, but the way that Vinh watched it all with an amused smile on his face made me feel a bit better about it.
“Holy crap, Princess,” Liem had said when I was done. “I think I wet myself.”
The laughter we’d shared after that had been almost more healing than any of the medicine or creams the doctor had prescribed.
Once we’d settled down, I extended an olive branch by asking him if he could start drawing up some tattoo ideas for the back of my right leg, where the scarring would be most obvious. He’d briefly frowned at the reminder, but with one sharp look from Vinh, he cleared his face. “I’m thinking magnolias, Princess.”
Cody visited every chance he got, crashing on our couch and distracting us with stories from the cruise ship.
The one that I suspected he had quit, but every time I asked about specifics, he got cagey and said he needed to “focus on me.”
The little liar.
