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I couldn’t repeat the sentiment, even though that’s exactly what I felt. Despite the way my orange juice had just hydrated me, my throat went dry. “Thank you,” I blurted. “Thank you for…for breakfast, and letting me stay over, and standing up for me last night, and…and all of it.”
He eased another centimeter forward. “No, it was nothing.”
My gaze probed his. “Maybe not to you,” I closed that last inch between us and rose up onto my tiptoes, “but it was everything to me.”
Closing my eyes, I tilted my face and pursed my lips. A warm mouth met mine. Ryder’s fingers grazed the side of my cheek and slid into my hair until he cupped my head.
I felt lifted up, weightless and free while every pore in my body exploded with excitement, buzzing out prickles of joyous sensation to all my extremities until, oh yeah, my bare toes curled. Literally.
Nothing had ever been so sweet yet exhilarating and completely satisfying. When I finally stepped back, I felt changed. Brand new and sparkly.
Opening my eyes, I found Ryder looking as dazed as I felt. Then he blinked and began to beam.
I beamed back.
Licking my lips and relishing the taste of orange juice and Ryder, I said, “I hope we can still keep in touch after I’m gone.”
Ryder’s grin was pure ornery. “Well, I think we better. After all, we still have to name our first kid Absolutely.”
Then he swooped in and kissed me again…until he bumped his cut lip against mine. Wrenching back, he muttered, “Ouch.”
We grinned at each other until we started laughing.
* * * *
Barry only tried to cause a little trouble. For a few days after the big showdown in the Yates’ living room, he kept phoning Mom, trying to get her to believe him and take him back. But a cop friend of Mrs. Yates’s paid him a little visit, threatening a restraining order, which would’ve endangered his dentistry. And we never heard from Dr. Struder again.
Which was just fine with me. I was more than ready to put the last month of my life behind me.
Most of it, anyway.
On the evening before I transferred back to Hillsburg, after I’d survived my last day at Southeast, Mom and I visited the Osage courthouse where my art project hung on display along with three dozen other students’ masterpieces.
For a minute, we simply wandered around, studying each display we came across until I spotted mine.
“There.” I pointed.
But someone was already standing in front of it, studying both prints. I could tell he was Ryder even before he turned. When he saw me, he smiled and moved toward us.
Taking both my hands, he kissed my cheek and breathed, “It’s perfect.”
I didn’t think anything was as perfect as he was—black eye and all—but I appreciated his praise, flattered enough to squeeze his fingers and blush.
Together, we stared at my pair of photographs hanging on the wall. After a little digital touchup, I’d turned them into black and white shots, only putting red in the picture of the glove lying alone in the snow and red in the picture of my dad’s lumber jacket hanging on a hook in front of a nice warm, lit fireplace. I had titled one photograph Lost and the other Found, but I doubt I need to explain which I had named which.
Next to me, Mom gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, Grace,” she breathed. “Your father’s coat.” Tears sparkled in her lashes as she grinned at the framed picture.
Even happier I’d managed to please her, I reached out and grasped her hand.
The three of us stood there longer than necessary, simply studying my work. After a while, my mom excused herself, moving off toward the restrooms as she sniffed and dug a tissue from her purse.
Ryder stepped closer and kissed my hair. “Want to lo
ok at anyone else’s art projects?”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “Sure.”
We cruised the marble floors, staring at different projects: paintings, sketches, sculptures. We’d just stopped in front of a watercolor of birds when a familiar male voice greeted us from behind.
