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And when she settled, her limbs loose and her jaw slack, I pulled her to me. She pressed her cheek to my chest and gasped for air, stroking her fingers over myskinand listening to the beat of my heart as it slammed against my rib cage. Every thump anotherpromiseto belong to her for as long as it could pump the blood through my veins and forever after that.
“You know”—I stroked my fingers through her hair and down her shoulder—“I think what makes me the saddest about my mom is that she never knew what this felt like.”
Ray held her breath as she asked, “Whatwhatfeels like?”
“To love someone as completely and thoroughly as I love you,” I replied, closing myeyesand gliding my fingertips over the ridges of her spine. The slopes of her sides. The curve of her breasts. Everything. All of it. Every inch I could reach.
“You don’t know that she didn’t. Maybe she loved your dad like that.”
“No.” I shook my head against the pillow. “She didn’t even love herself, Ray. There’s no way she loved my dad—and sure as hell not the way I love you. But …” I pulled in a deep breath, expanding my chest and letting it out fully, allowing my lips to smile on my exhale. Even as the tears filled my eyes. “I like to think she would be happy to know I have this, you know? She knew all I wanted was to get out, and I did. And that was her doing because if she had let me come home, I would’ve stayed. I would’ve hung around, and who the fuck knows what would’ve happened from there? Hell, I’d probably be back in prison by now, for all I know. But she … she’s the one who told me to leave, so I did, and how crazy is that? That I wouldn’t have been here—I wouldn’t have been withyou—had she just let me stay.”
The tears slipped from my eyes and onto the pillow beneath my head, but still, I smiled. Because after everything, after all I’d done for that woman to protect her, thinking it was all for nothing, it had taken her death for me to realize that she had done the same for me.
She had saved me.
“Because she loved you, Soldier,” Ray replied, and I realized she was crying too. “Maybe she didn’t know how to show it, or maybe she just couldn’t, but … she did. I don’t need to have met her to know that. You were her sunshine.”
I nodded, the pain in my chest coalescing with all the love I felt for the woman in my arms and the woman no longer here. “Yeah”—I kissed the top of her head—“and now, you’re mine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
FINAL SHOWDOWN
Ray had fallen asleep beside me, lulled by the pelting rain and booming thunder, while I could only lie awake, staring at the ceiling. Every now and then, the dark room was illuminated by a strobe of flickering lightning, only to be followed by another crash from overhead.
How she could sleep through God’s wicked wrath, I had no idea. But it wasn’t the storm that kept me awake.
The incessant tugging in my gut was entirely to blame for that. The little something whispering in my ear, the nagging derived from somewhere deep within my soul. It was relentless, and I could only spend so long tossing and turning before I just had to give up altogether.
I carefully climbed out of bed and made a successful escape without waking the woman who held my heart. Quietly, I left the room, only to be greeted by a gentletap, tap, tap, tappingcoming from the direction of the living room. Every hair on my body stood on end as I froze just outside my bedroom door. The adrenalinestampededthrough my veins in a powerful rush, and I steadied my nerves as I slowly, stealthily made my way down the hall.
But when I reached the living room, my lungs emptied instantly at the sight of Noah, sitting on the couch with his Nintendo Switch in hand. He jumped at the sight of me, then relaxed with a nervous burst of laughter.
“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” I asked, crossing the room to drop onto the couch beside him.
He shook his head. “I don’t like the thunder.”
“I didn’t know you were scared of thunderstorms.”
“I’m notscared,” he grumbled defensively, not tearing his eyes from the screen. “I just don’t like them.”
I nodded understandingly. “Yeah, I get that. I used to hate the snow‘causeit reminded me of the night my friend died. It didn’t scare me or anything. It just … you know, brought back bad memories.”
Noah glanced at me for a brief second. “Thunder makes me think of yelling.”
I lifted one side of my mouth in a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, I can understand that.”
He didn’t bother returning the smile as he looked back to his game just as another roll of thunder cracked directly above the house. Noah flinched, leaning closer to mysideand shivering through the anxiety and fear. He quickly moved away, not wanting his pride to be more wounded than it already was. I wished I could’ve told him to curl up beside me if it made him feel better. I didn’t care if he was thirteen or agrowingboy or what. The kid was scared, and primal instinct told me to protect him, to make it better. But I didn’t.
Instead, I asked, “What are you playing?”
“Mario Kart.”
I lifted my hands in an exasperated shrug. “And you didn’t ask if I wanted to play? What the hell, man?!”
He reluctantly grinned and got up to grab the other controller, then connected the console to the TV.
We played for a while, making sure to be quiet when we cheered and goaded each other so as not to wake his mother. But the fun and distraction helped calm his nerves, even as the storm rolled over our little town, and that, in turn, made me feel better. Even the horrible nagging in my gut had started to dull a little.
