Page 65 of Love’s Silver Bullet

I already do.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“As long as our hearts are aligned with God’s … therein is the safest place to be …”

Maggie’s words haunted as Sheridan sniffed, balling up the soggy handkerchief before she laid it on her nightstand.

Right next to the other two.

“Then why doesn’t it feel like it, God?” she whispered, voice nasal from weeping. Casting a worried glance at the alarm clock, Sheridan tugged a clean handkerchief from her drawer, well aware midnight was far too late to be up when she, Maggie, and Aunt Libby had to board a train first thing in the morning. She’d always thought “the safest place to be” had meant marrying Jake because he’d made her feel so very safe from little on.

Until this summer.

Flopping back on her pillow, she stared at the ceiling through sodden eyes. Apparently “safe” didn’t necessarily mean “happy,” she decided because Jake didn’t want her.

But Clay certainly did.

Pushing the wetness from her eyes, she reflected on her last moments with Clay in Kathy Jean’s backyard. No, he wasn’t Jake, but he might be the very one to help her let Jake go.

Against her will, more tears welled, and with a frail heave, she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes once again.

Tap. Tap.

Sheridan shot up, hoping against hope it was Maggie so she could unburden her soul.

“Maggie?” she whispered.

“It’s Blaze.”

Blaze? Sheridan blinked, jumping up to snatch her robe from the closet just as his second whisper leaked through the door.

“Sher—wake up!”

She grunted as she wrestled into her robe, tying the sash with a jerk. As if I could sleep! Hurrying to the door, she opened it quietly, robe clutched to her neck. “Blaze, what’s wrong?”

“Jake needs to see you—in the barn—now,” he whispered, chest heaving as if he’d run all the way.

Her heart stopped. “What?”

Finger to his lips, he nodded to her closet. “Go on, get your slippers on.”

Still in a daze, she put on her slippers, and he tugged her out of her room, all but dragging her down the stairs till he clutched her shoulders in the foyer. “He wants to say goodbye, Sher, without the rest of the family around.”

“What??” She blinked, hardly able to believe what she’d heard. Jake? Wanted to be alone with her? In the dead of night? To say goodbye? Her heart kicked back in like a mule buck to the head, making her dizzy.

Blaze wasted no time prodding her to the door. Silently opening it up, he pressed a kiss to her head. “Just go, Half-Pint—he’s waiting for you.”

Jake is waiting for me? She just stood there until Blaze nudged her down the steps with a hand to the small of her back. “Go! Do you want to see him or not?”

She started to hyperventilate as she stumbled down the last step, hardly able to believe Jake was waiting for her. Her! Breaking into a run, she sprinted across the moonlit lawn, heart seizing all over again when she skidded to a stop in front of Midnight’s stall. Goose bumps popped at the sight of his broad back as he leaned over the fence, the light from a single oil lamp defining taut muscles strained with his weight. “Jake?” He turned slowly, and heat instantly pooled in her belly so strong, she swayed on her feet. “Did you … want to see me?”

“Yeah.” A lump bobbed in his throat as he moved toward her like a man on a mission, those blue eyes penetrating her with an unwavering stare. Halting a foot away, he huffed out a heavy blast of air while he buried his hands deep in his pockets. “I … uh, wanted to say goodbye.”

“Is that all?” she whispered, picking at her nails as she watched him with a vulnerable chew of her lip.

“No.” He gave a gruff clear of his throat as if girding himself for what he was about to say. His pale blue eyes were guarded as he shifted from one leg to the other, a bronzed chest peeking through a half-buttoned shirt.

Sheridan could barely breathe, drinking in the man she had loved from childhood.