He pinned me with a look. “I mean it, Belle, please, if you need anything at all. Anything. You have my number.”
I nodded because with the intensity in his eyes, it was all I could manage.
With a nod, he and Geoffrey turned and left.
I leaned back into the pillows again. The mattress swallowed the tension in my spine. The room was quiet.
I watched the storm roll in slowly and theatrically from the bed. I wished I were in the window seat tucked into the corner of this guest room just as the first line of gray swallowed the river below the bluff. From up here, I bet the view was spectacular.The wind picked up in waves, bending the tops of the trees before the rain followed.
I curled carefully into the pillows, stretching my bad leg out in front of me.
The house didn’t creak the way old places usually did. It absorbed the storm and held firm against it. I felt safe.
That word felt foreign in my chest. Safe. Not calculating where to park. Not worrying about someone knocking on the van window. Not bracing for the next invoice while trying to sleep.
The rain intensified, streaking down the glass in silver ribbons. The river churned now, but up here on the bluff, the house didn’t move. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t weathering the storm alone in a metal box.
I thought of Dad at Long Creek. He had his good days and bad ones. If I could just keep him somewhere steady . . . If I could just afford that consistently.
The knot in my chest loosened a fraction, because maybe with this I could.
I reached into the duffel Geoffrey had set by the dresser and pulled out the paperback I’d shoved in there weeks ago. Romance, of course. If I were going to enter a contractual marriage, I might as well read about one with imaginary stakes.
I cracked it open and let the words carry me. Outside, thunder rolled low and deep along the river. Inside, the room stayed warm.
A knock at the door startled me just slightly.
“Come in,” I called.
Raphael stepped inside, holding a wedge pillow and an ice pack in the other. “I researched, and it seems elevation and ice assist with swelling,” he said.
He crossed the room with a wedge pillow in hand.
“You didn’t have to,” I said quietly.
“Take it. It will help.”
I adjusted myself on the bed, and he positioned the pillow beneath my knee. Somehow, an unfamiliar spark of something was louder than the pain as his hand brushed along my leg when he slid the pillow underneath. The relief was immediate. I exhaled without meaning to. He noticed.
“You’re in significant discomfort,” he said with a deep crease between his brows.
“I’ve been worse.”
“That is not the metric.”
I smiled faintly.
“Thank you. For this,” I said, gesturing to the pillow. “Thank you for all of this.” There was so much more I wanted to say, but nothing would come out.
He hesitated, and I almost thought he was going to say something. Instead, he nodded once. “I’ll be in the study.”
When he left, the room felt softer, not emptier.
I arranged the wedge pillow again, settled back, and pulled the comforter over myself. The storm battered the windows as the wind howled across the bluff.
And I let myself be still.
Just for the night.
