Page 1 of That Rush

Prologue

Aiden

A small knee presses into my thigh, pulling me out of the first real sleep I’ve had in three days.

I open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and a warm little body curled tightly against my side. For one disoriented breath, I can’t remember where I am or why my daughter is sleeping beside me.

Then the memory hits—my throat tightening around nothing, my hands suddenly useless at my sides.

Krista is dead.

My pulse hammers in my throat, thick and insistent. The guest room tilts, and I grip the edge of the mattress until my fingers ache. This happens every time I drift off. Waking means remembering, and my body rebels, trying to claw its way back to the dream where none of this is true.

Beside me, Josie shifts and makes a soft sound in her sleep.

I pull air through my nose and release it slowly. She needs to wake up beside her father, not watch me come apart.

My body has other ideas. My pulse races, and cold sweat gathers beneath the T-shirt I’ve worn since yesterday. Guilt crowds in beside the grief. Krista was on that road for a reason. The thought has circled my mind since I got the call, a vulture waiting.

I press my palm against Josie’s back and feel it rise beneath her pajamas.

She’s here. She’s breathing. She survived.

The relief is a fresh agony, a sharp breath that scrapes my lungs on its way in.

Josie’s eyelashes flutter before her eyes open. She stares at the room, confused, then reaches for my shirt and curls her fist into the fabric.

“You’re here,” she whispers.

“I’m here.”

Her voice is rough from sleep. “I couldn’t find you in my dream.”

My jaw aches with the words I can’t say. “You found me now.”

She studies my face with the serious concentration only a six-year-old can manage first thing in the morning. “Your heart is going really fast.”

“Bad dream,” I tell her.

“About Mommy?”

There’s no answer that protects either of us.

“Yeah, baby.”

Her fingers tighten around my shirt. “Is she still dead?”

My vision blurs, and I blink until I can see her clearly again. Three days isn’t enough time for her to understand that death remains true every morning. I’m thirty-five. It has to be a mistake. Someone is going to walk in and tell me it was all a mistake.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “She is.”

Josie’s lower lip trembles. “Forever?”

I slide my arm beneath her and pull her onto my chest. She comes without hesitation, pressing her face against my neck.

“Yes.”

She starts crying, the sound swallowed by my shirt. Her tears soak through the collar of my shirt while I rub my hand over her back. I want to promise her something impossible. I want to tell her Krista is coming back, that we can undo the last three days, that she’ll wake up tomorrow in her own bed with her mother in the next room.