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Snow had crept up the porch from the night’s storm, leaving a peaceful, pristine setting, except for one set of boot prints that led right up to the man standing in front of her.
“James,” she whispered raggedly, the words like water over rocks in her throat.
He looked the same, but different. He had a full beard now, his head of normally short hair was a little longer, and his shoulders looked a bit wider than she remembered.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
His voice.
God, his voice.
For too long, she had only dreamed about that voice.
Prayed that she would someday get to hear it again.
She blinked, wondering if she was still dreaming, but when she opened her eyes, he was still there.
Her James.
That was when she lost it.
Throwing herself forward, violent sobs that she had been trying to hold back for weeks came rushing forward. Deep, healing, soulful sobs wracking her body as her knees collapsed under her and then she was in his arms.
“You’re here!” she sobbed out, her arms clenching around his neck and shoulders. The feeling of him, of his skin pressed against her, the hair at the back of his neck twisted in her fingers, was like nothing else.
She was never letting go.
CHAPTER9
JAMES
Pulling up to his house, the soft blanket of snow covering all the fields and trees was the best sight he had seen in nine long months.
That was, until she opened that door.
It was early, only four in the morning, but the sight of her in her pajamas, her face bare of makeup, justher, he almost couldn’t speak.
She started to say something as she flung open the door, a look of anger and hurt on her face, but the words died as her eyes widened and her mouth slid open as she blinked.
“James.”
God, her voice.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured, and he got to watch that wash over her before she leapt forward, her body slamming into his right before she started sobbing.
God, he missed her in his arms.
He tightened his arms around her and breathed her in, her familiar scent of vanilla andhomefilling him and making everything that had happened in the last two weeks worth it.
“You’re here.” There was a wealth of pain in her voice in those two simple words, and it cut him to the quick. He knew that not being able to call would have been hard on her, it had been hard on him too, but that pain—that was something else.
“It’s okay.” He said the only thing he could think of and knew it fell flat when she pulled back and cupped his cheek, looking up at him in amazement and yearning, the tears on her lashes glistening in the morning light.
“I thought you were dead,” she choked out as something flashed in her eyes.
That made him pause.
Dead?
