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“Yeah he is.”
“And I like Josh for you, he’s light to your dark.”
I side eyed my friend. “The fuck?”
Ryder shrugged. “I can be deep.”
I snorted a laugh. “As a puddle.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know there are a ton of very deep puddles out there.”
We laughed together, and that lightness I’d felt when I crossed into Tennessee became something more like anticipation.
“It’s good to have you back, Cap,” Ryder murmured. “Alive I mean.”
“It’s good tobeback.”
We arrived in Ellery, driving onto the farm road that took us above the small town and into trees and fields, and at last we turned that last corner and ended up outside the main house. The entire place was quiet as I stepped out of the SUV.
Ryder checked his watch. “Right now, you’ll find him in the barn with the kids.”
I went straight over, glimpsing a classroom layout through the window, some kids who I assumed were from the case, and then I saw him. Josh was standing at the front gesticulating at a board and then back at the kids who all laughed as one, so loud I could hear it through the walls. Was Josh teaching them something? Given his accountancy background I assume it was math, but there again he was so damn clever it could have been astrophysics.
What I heard when I opened the door, was the man I loved butchering Spanish. Maybe my sexy brilliant man who was everything to me, was crap at something after all.
He turned with a smile to see who was at the door and then his eyes widened, his mouth fell open and the book he was holding fell to the floor.
“Ethan!” he exclaimed and was frozen in place. The smile had fallen—if anything he looked shocked. “Ethan?” He questioned me, and I nodded. Maybe he thought he was seeing things.
“Hi,” I murmured.
He blinked at me and then turned away to face the class of kids who were staring past him and at me in curiosity. Maybe some of them recognized me from that night, and it hit me that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea—maybe they would be scared of me? I took a step back toward the door, but Josh held up a hand.
Josh cleared his throat. “Este es Ethan,” he began, with the most awful Spanish accent. “Es el hombre… hmmm… que amo. Amor.” He waved his hands and made the shape of a heart.
The class giggled as one—as if they found Josh and his accent funny. Hell, I found it funny.
“Hola a todos, soy Ethan,” I said to the kids, in what I hope was better-accented Spanish but probably still wrong. “Trabajo para Santuario. Josh es mi novio y lo amo.” A couple of the kids snickered, and one or two went all moon-eyed and sighed.
“What did you tell them?” Josh asked, as he took a step toward me.
I shrugged. “Told them you were my boyfriend and that I loved you.”
He reached me, no more than a few inches separated us and then he cradled my face, and our gazes locked, and a million messages passed between us.I love you. I need you. I want you to be safe. Forever.
And then he laced his hands behind my head and pulled me in for a gentle kiss.
And it was the sweetest kiss I’d ever tasted.
ChapterThirty-Two
Josh
Everyone wanted a piece of Ethan.
The kids swarmed him, asking questions about the night he’d liberated them, hugging him, and he answered all of them in a steady flow of reassuring Spanish I had no hope of keeping up with. It helped that he held my hand, and also it gave me time to stare at him without anyone commenting. He was tired, scratches and bruises on his face and neck, but other than that he was alive, and he was here.
I wasn’t letting him go.
