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“Where are you?” I whisper to him. My hand slides to his muscled back. “Don’t pull away from me. Please.”
Flinching, he turns, tucking me carefully into his arms. “Never.”
I shift to look up at him. “Then talk to me.”
He blows out a breath. “I can’t unsee it, Ruby.” His chest collapses, giving in. Letting me tug the truth out of him, even if it hurts. He points to a spot on the pasture. “I see you there.” His handsome face twists. “You were dead, baby. It wrecked me, always will.”
“I know,” I whisper to him. “I feel it too.”
Strange words, but Charlie nods like he understands.
That’s my fate and Charlie’s heartbreak.
To live it. To remember.
It’s fitting. Resurrection. Sometimes I feel like I can still remember the way it felt. To die. To come back. Charlie’s mouth on mine, his fingers tangled in my hair, his tears on my cheek.
I can’t, really. But I feel like I can.
Immortal because Charlie will never let me go.
My cowboy restarted my heart and brought me back to life.
I’m the person I wanted to be, the heart I had to find in this big world, the voice of my mother. That night is a part of me and it will never let either of us loose.
Which means I have to live now. Every second Charlie and I have together is precious. And we plan to live every one of those seconds like it’s our last.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “I’m here. Alive. Still yours, Charlie.” I reach up to cup his cheek, running my hand over his beard. His blue eyes meet mine. An overwhelming amount of love shines in them. So much love. “You just feel my heart, and I’ll feel yours, and we’ll know where the other’s going.”
Charlie doesn’t say anything. He just kisses me, his breath filling my body, his lips heating every inch of my skin. Our hearts beat a steady rhythm, powered up and pumping.
My lips rise into a smile against his and Charlie’s lips do the same.
Matching me.
I break away from his kiss. I’m still smiling. “There”—I press up on tiptoes to poke his stern smile—“is my Cowboy. The man I love.”
Charlie steals my fingers, brings them to his lips and kisses each fingertip. Then my wrist. My heartbeat.
Tears flood my eyes.
This man. He leaves me breathless.
“There,” he rasps and points at the spot where I died. “That’s where we put our garden. Right there, baby. And the first thing we plant ...”
“What’s that?”
He grins. “Sunflowers.”
THREE MONTHS LATER
“I’m going in, Charlie,” Ruby tells me as she dances in the surf. She wiggles her eyebrows. “Naked.”
“Don’t you dare,” I growl. I walk across the beach and come to a stop, my boots at the edge of the ocean. The November sun drops in the sky, a golden glow rising out of the waves. “Baby, that water’s cold as hell.”
“Too late, Cowboy,” she teases playfully, a gorgeous smile overtaking her face. And then she splashes into the water, squealing and laughing.
“Look at me!” she shouts, arms to the pink sky. “I’m alive!”
